 with Kevin Fallon Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.
This Week:
Well, Adele Really Delivered. (On Breaking Us Into Pieces.) It's odd branding that crying to Adele has become a Super Bowl event.
Adding to the bizarre emotional bloodsport in this case is the source of the anticipation: The singer, one of the most astute translators of the complex tangle of pain that knots around heartbreak and love, has gone through a divorce since her last album.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that anyone felt that they were owed Adele's singing filtered through the unspeakable trauma of such a devastating event in a person's life. But articulating the unspeakable through soaring ballads is Adele's special talent.
So when her new album 30 was announced, fans started commissioning construction-grade excavators and basically dug nuclear bunkers, bracing for the ensuing atomic holocaust of sadness. Only they weren't fearful of it; they were desperate for it. Couldn't wait. Event of the year, this musical devastation. Bring on the tears! Psh… no one was half as excited to hear about my breakup.
The lead single off of 30, "Easy on Me," was released Thursday evening. The hours beforehand were rife with that emotional doomsday prep. "Here are the notable .GIFs of people crying you'll want on hand to post." "Friendly reminder not to text your ex after listening." "Does anyone know what wine pairs best with weeping while Adele sings?" (Useless question. At this point we're all experts.)
Yet for all my mocking of the macabre hype, at 7:01 pm ET, when "Easy on Me" appeared on my Spotify, I found myself nervous to press play. It turns out, maybe it was for good reason. The song lived up to that wild build-up… but not for the reasons I think any of us were expecting. The thing that both surprised and wrecked me about Adele's "Easy on Me" is that I was expecting a song about diabolical sadness—or, in the grand tradition of divorce music, scorched-earth rage. Instead, it's a tender plea for empathy rooted in shared love and shared past.
How mature. How unexpected. How incredibly relatable. And how utterly painful to hear.
It's not about a shitty husband, a revenge mission, or a woman wronged. (For that, might I point you to The Chicks' Gaslighter and encourage you to go for a jog in a rocket-blast of fury; you may never come back.) It's about a great love that ended. That experience, especially when set to music—it's as if someone was shredding a heart like a piece of looseleaf paper. It's that excruciating, that difficult, that unforgettable for both people involved.
Her voice sounds healthier and more nimble than it has, perhaps, ever. The runs seem more effortless. The trills go up at the end of phrases as if it's the natural way to punctuate human speech. She calibrates her cannon-ball belt during choruses in such a way that they still boom directly into your psyche and your feelings, but is so controlled that she's able to, with that voice, contort you through not just her entire relationship story, but, dear God, all of yours, too.
You can feel everything in her singing. One vocal run speaks shattered guilt. The next one is empowerment, confidence in the right decision. One chorus seems just sad, depressed. Another triumphant.
I want you to know that I feel like an absolute crazy person when I write things like that. "One chorus seems…" What utter nonsense! But I am not kidding you. The song, and her voice, is wrangling something so nuanced, and somehow giving acknowledgment to each part.
The accompanying music video is an important part of all this.
It depicts her leaving a cabin in a gorgeous wooded area not unlike the one depicted in "Hello," fumbling with her phone in a similar fashion. (We've graduated from flip to iPhone in this go-round.) She's driving away from the house and, seemingly, her past life. In another truck is a chair and some sheet music that's following along. In a flashback that sees her sitting in the chair and belting while the papers fly around her, we can't help but think of the video for "Rolling in the Deep."
So, Adele is driving away from her past, but it's not that simple. She's also driving down memory lane. They're sweet memories. The kinds of memories that make the decision all the more upsetting. The memories that you wonder if you could possibly ever make again, or if you're tarnishing by leaving them now.
But "Easy on Me" isn't a song about leaving. It's a song about savoring. Remembering. Preserving.
The memories don't go just because the relationship does. Neither does the love. The thing she's asking for in the chorus, for her ex to "go easy on her," is to come to that place, too. Yet, can anyone make it through the hurt to get to the point where that's the new truth?
The song is a ballad. A huge one. But at the same time, it's rather muted, especially in comparison to lead singles like "Hello" or "Rolling in the Deep." (I think that makes it more interesting.) We're used to the major explosions in those songs. But with "Easy on Me," she's almost like a whirlpool.  Yes, of course her vocals are big and powerful. But they're drawing us in to herself and what she might be feeling about what she's gone through—asking to be seen, understood, and perhaps even forgiven. In doing so, she's reflecting the dare back at us: What if you really confronted your regrets, your mistakes, or the choices you've made, even if those decisions were for yourself and didn't make the people you loved feel good?
Of course, it's about forgiveness, one of humanity's most terrifying acts. Bitterness, resentment, and anger is easy, and in some ways comforting. But what happens on the other side of that door? Navigating that reality, the one where the pain exists and has to be really, truly felt so that maybe you can feel whole again is a monstrous task; living with the missing pieces of yourself is almost easier.
But that doesn't just apply to the other party in this situation. It's yourself. Can you forgive yourself for those times you misbehaved? You weren't accepting? You refused to grow? The grudge you held instead of giving grace? When you didn't show the love that you felt? "Easy on Me" is so clever—maybe brilliant, even—in that it's a dialogue. In the context of the song and what we now publicly know about Adele's divorce (doing simultaneous Vogue covers on both sides of the Atlantic reveals a lot of information), we can assume she's singing about her decision to end a relationship and asking for understanding from her former spouse.
But in the ways in which she chronicles who she was then and the ways she was meant to grow, experience, or even thrive, she's attempting to forgive herself—or at least asking to afford herself the same empathy she hopes for from the love she left. It's perhaps the healthiest song about heartbreak and the dissolution of a relationship I've ever heard. Listening to it as a collective population, we've all just been to therapy.
So when people on social media are posting histrionically about how devastating, soul-crushing, slide-down-the-shower-door-sobbing drained "Easy on Me" has made them feel, it's remarkably not in the ways any of us expected. Nonetheless, hand me the Chardonnay and ice cream.
Are You Kidding Me With This Chappelle Stuff? The content of Dave Chappelle's controversial stand-up special The Closer—the dangerous transphobia, the gaslighting, the false equivalence of marginalized communities, the erasure of intersectionality—wasn't shocking so much as it was pedestrian, the most basic, unenlightened kind of "humor" about the LGBTQ community. (Read more about it here, here, and here.)
 What is shocking, however, is Netflix's response to the outcry over the special, which repeats language about the transgender community that has often been linked to anti-trans violence. In the initial aftermath, the streamer's co-CEO Ted Sarandos essentially argued that controversy is good for the brand, as Chappelle's specials rank among the service's "stickiest," aka most popular, offerings.
There have been demands for Netflix to take the special down. I don't think that's useful; I can't think of anything worse than giving Chappelle and his fans "censorship" as ammunition, and I think there is value in letting this remain to expose the comedian for who he really is and how he really thinks. But that initial statement didn't condemn any of the content, which is, in my opinion, necessary. Sarandos saw the complaints and then he saw the dollar signs, and he simply shrugged.
The brain-melting recent development, however, came late Wednesday night when a memo from Sarandos to his staff was released addressing how managers might react to employees distressed about The Closer. Nearly every sentence triggers another landmine of disbelief—he can't really be saying this?—but it all boils down to this sentence: "While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm."
Not only is he refusing to denounce anything in the special. Not only is he actually defending the special. He is mounting a full-on, rah-rah Free Speech manifesto around it. (You can read the full memo here.)
Taking a page from the Chappelle playbook, he is insinuating that, if you have a problem with this, it's your problem. He's spinning it into a sensitivity thing, a hurt-feelings thing, just as Chappelle does. But it's not offense. It's anger. Anger out of fear. A fear that is rooted in lifetimes of othering, oppression, violence, and shame. Those are facts, not feelings.
It seems that Sarandos has not bothered to watch the documentary Disclosure, a critically praised, award-winning film that makes the indisputable argument that the way the trans community is depicted and talked about on screen and in pop culture DIRECTLY TRANSLATES TO REAL-WORLD HARM. (Here's just one clip you can watch as proof.) Where could Sarandos have watched this film? Oh, ON NETFLIX!!!
There's also grotesque hypocrisy at play here. Obviously a cultural critic (ahem, hi) is going to argue that entertainment content matters in shaping society's attitudes, ideas, and progress. But Sarandos himself argued just that about Chappelle's special, too. In the same memo, he champions stand-up comedy because "the art by nature is highly provocative."
This is a global juggernaut of content that basks in the accolades showered on it for its diversity, and pats itself on the back with internal divisions and social teams devoted to spotlighting marginalized communities, like "Most" and "Strong Black Lead." But you can't make the case that your content matters and is capable of doing good in the world while refuting the idea that it is also capable of doing harm.
How did this statement get out in this form? Was it Take Your Kindergartener to Work Day, and Netflix's head of PR took the spirit of the occasion seriously? It boggles the mind that someone in the position of Sarandos felt he could get away, amidst all this controversy, with such blatant doublespeak and verbal sleight of hand.  Why has Netflix screwed this up so badly, suspended employees who have spoken out about it, refused to denounce the content, and is now releasing this egregious memo? Money. Like Chappelle, the refusal to take responsibility is a tactic.
Much of Chappelle's output in recent years doubles as a panic attack that he and his celebrity friends are going to be canceled. (Meanwhile, the tens of millions he's earning from these specials might outnumber the GDPs of small countries.)
Netflix doesn't want to distract from its dominance. It has all the content you'll ever need and all of it is perfect. This pesky little controversy is worrying you? Well, look over here: We have 70,000 other titles that might make you feel better, so stop complaining about this one and let us rake in the money it's generating, OK?
The Movie Title of the Century All credit is given to writer and performer Jenny Yang for this, who brought it to my attention on social media. "Shh," she wrote on Twitter, "(puts a soft finger on your lips) just watch this movie trailer without knowing the title and let the feeling move you." The key, however, is to watch the video in a "Quote Tweet" (nevermind if you don't know what that is… just watch it here), otherwise it gets spoiled for you.  I must warn you, though: Nothing will be the same once you do this.
There are only two timelines, two eras, two existences: The one before you watched this trailer for a film that stars Leslie Odom Jr., Cynthia Erivo, Orlando Bloom, and Freida Pinto and involves time-traveling romance, and the one after. I am a changed person. There have been formative events in my life: My birth. Going to college. Coming out. Falling in love. Heartbreak. Meeting Meryl Streep. And now, When I Learned What the Title of This Orlando Bloom Movie Was.
I know it might seem like I am exaggerating about this. I promise you I am not.
It's a good trailer. You will be moved. You will think, "I would like to see this film." You will be so rapt, so emotionally fixated on the video playing before you that, when the movie title pops up at the end, you might actually scream and jump with such volcanic force that you'll knock the chair you're sitting on over—not unlike one of those chain-letter pranks where a shrieking ghost pops up on the screen that have taken anywhere between seven and 23 years off my life in the past.
I would like to take this moment to apologize as well to the entire human race. I squealed so intensely at such a high pitch when the title was revealed that the sound wave pierced the space-time continuum, as has been detected by aliens in another dimension. Thanks to this film trailer and this movie title, I have completely blown up our spot. Now the aliens are coming, and for that I am sorry.
Breaking: Man in Tights Is Queer The new Superman in the DC Comics series will be gay, or perhaps bisexual, Tom Taylor, the writer of the series, said this week. The announcement coincided with National Coming Out Day, as well as an insidious campaign on behalf of Big Pharma's blood pressure medication companies targeting conservative commentators and those who DVR Fox News, all of whom are reported to have developed instantaneous hypertension at the revelation.
The son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Jon, who is the new Superman, will enter a romantic relationship with a male friend. It is a welcome gesture of diversity and, you know, dose of reality in this year 2021.
What great news, thought I, a person who has never and will never read these comics. What an abomination, a disgrace to a hallowed cultural icon, and evidence of the devilish gay agenda coming to pervert all aspects of American life, thought many commenters, most of whom have never and will never read these comics. Funny how that works!
Look at These Guys!  This photo of season two of Peacock's Saved By the Bell reboot (a surprisingly perfect show) arrived this week, a treat to delight you—Look! Lark Voorhies/Lisa Turtle is there, too!—and also to remind you that you are very old.
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Adele’s New Song Is Even More Devastating Than We Thought
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