Newsletters: The Awful Early 2000s Are Back and I Am Horrified

The Awful Early 2000s Are Back and I Am Horrified

with Kevin Fallon

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This week:

Y2K culture is back, which is horrifying.
Are film franchises dying? (No. But maybe!)
Actors can be really stupid. But so can we!
A little fun thing for Severance fans to look at.
A little fun thing for me to look at.

Please Stop Reminiscing About the Early 2000s

Yes, I obviously—and immediately—signed up for the bizarre Jennifer Lopez fansite newsletter she forced people to subscribe to in order to see a photo of her engagement ring from Ben Affleck.

The whole engagement news is so surreal. I'm only mostly—not all the way—embarrassed to admit that it's exciting, too—so exciting that I willingly requested for more email to be sent to my inbox.

It was 20 years ago that the couple first got engaged and, depending on how you look at it, ushered in a singular moment of celebrity obsession or opened up the next circle of cultural hell.

It was a moment in time in which everyone lost their minds, in ways that, two decades later, we're only just starting to heal from.

"Bennifer" wasn't just a cute portmanteau memorializing the unlikely union of the world's biggest famouses, at a time when reality TV was—critics feared—threatening the moral fiber of society and we needed our classic, glamorous famouses the most. "Bennifer" was our lifeboat. It was also our curse.

When "Bennifer" was being splashed across magazine covers and dominated 95 percent of an episode of Access Hollywood, we were a destabilized, confused post-9/11 society. Some of us were just coming of age, and some of us were having to come of age again in a world we didn't recognize. We didn't know what we wanted or needed from culture or entertainment anymore, but we at least knew how this worked.

The impossibly attractive major star who we took grotesque delight in objectifying and the chiseled-jaw actor representing the Everyman got together. They were ours to adulate. They were ours to dissect. They were ours to criticize, to photograph, to chase, to place our hopes and dreams on, and to make demands of. They were ours.

Now that Ben and Jen are back together, we reminisce about their romance. But we forget what we've learned over these last years—that the cravenness with which we seized their engagement for ourselves, stripping them of privacy and dignity, is what ruined things. "Bennifer" was the horrifying turning point of a vulture-like, rapacious hunt for celebrity scandal and the willful complicity in causing tragedy and trauma that would define much of these last 20 years, until a reckoning that has only been very recent.

So it's been interesting to see the warm smile the engagement news has been met with. Not that I'm not happy for them. Congrats to these two Hot as Hell people whom I've never met. It's that it's bizarre to see it accompanied by a yearning for a return to those early-millennium, Y2K years—years that, nostalgia be damned, were rather terrible!

The return of the early aughts seems to be everywhere. Britney Spears is pregnant again. Lindsay Lohan is working with Vogue and being incredibly charming—and just signed a two-picture deal. A new Legally Blonde movie is coming. Sandra Bullock and J. Lo brought back the studio rom-com. Everyone is talking about Shrek. The cultural landscape is eerily familiar. And that's not to mention the clothes. People are having fun with it!

I am, too. It can be a hoot to be reminded of the pop culture that was formative at a certain point in your past.

Tiffany "New York" Pollard, reality TV's Molotov cocktail of looney genius, currently has a fabulous fashion spread in Interview magazine. A cherished moment in queerbaiting TV history—Jake Gyllenhaal performing a song from Dreamgirls while dressed in drag on SNL—was revisited as Gyllenhaal sang a Céline Dion ballad, a phrase I might have previously typed in the search bar of a porn site, on the sketch show last weekend.

And so much of this centers around redemption for mistreated public figures who fell victim to our misogyny, racism, or lack of empathy. Not just Bennifer, Britney or Lindsay. There's finally #JusticeForJanet. Amanda Bynes' conservatorship ended. Paris Hilton is being taken seriously.

These are obviously things to champion. But shouldn't these comebacks actually underline how much those years were so very, truly not a good time?

It's not just that I shudder at the thought of wide-leg jeans and frosted tips making a return to fashion. (We've been through enough these last months. Must we also weather that, too?) It's that these comeback stories have been such a stark reminder of the cultural ugliness of 20 years ago.

Whatever you have to say about the bombshell news that Britney Spears is pregnant again months after her conservatorship ended—and the best thing to say about it, for the love of God, is absolutely nothing—the reaction to it is inextricable from the medium on which she chose to reveal it.

Spears' Instagram has, at times, made people uncomfortable for its candor. But for all the unease over how unhinged her captions can be, they've been remarkable diaries about how the horrific way she was treated by a Hollywood system, a lecherous family, and a villainizing press continues to affect her and her life decisions. What's struck me about the news in her personal life is how great of an opportunity this is not to revisit, but to restart.

I thought about this recently when the trailer for the new season of The Real World Homecoming, the series that reunites former casts of the MTV show to continue the conversations they started all those years ago, was released featuring the cast of The Real World: New Orleans.

Every millennial and member of Gen Z has *their* Real World season, the one that mattered the most to them and changed how they thought about TV and pop culture. New Orleans was that for me. I've never stopped thinking about Julie and Melissa. My first AOL IM screen name was woowoo1987, in honor of David's signature catchphrase.

And then there was Danny.

I was in love with Danny without knowing that I was in love with Danny. It's only looking back now as an adult that I realize just how absolutely, hopelessly infatuated with him I was. Danny was openly gay. He was lovely, kind, cute, and generous in talking about that with his housemates. Famously, his boyfriend, who was in the military, came to visit, and had to have his face blurred the entire time he was on screen because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

That has stayed with me, even though I didn't always know why.

I obviously can't wait to devour the Homecoming reunion and hear more about what that time was like and how he feels about it now. And even just now typing about my Dear Sweet Pretend Husband Danny—not to mention the show—I'm smiling ear to ear remembering what fun it was to watch it for the first time. While those are nice memories, I'd in no way want to return to that time or have to revisit what it felt like to feel so conflicted and tortured because of that era's cultural mores and attitudes.

Maybe all of this Y2K nostalgia is because of a nationwide guilt complex, especially as we watch in horror while similar mistakes made out of moral panic, privilege, entitlement, and fear are beginning to happen again. We want to embrace the return of these cultural touchstones from 20 years ago because we can maybe do better this time.

But if I see one person in a puka-shell necklace and popped-collar polo, that's it.

My Big Straight Weekend at the Movies

We're all tired of them. Even if the social-media chatter doesn't reflect it. Even if the box-office dollars don't necessarily say it. Even if the Oscars are giving out bogus awards to moments from them featuring problematic actors. We're tired of the film franchises. You can admit it.

Yes, Spider-Man: No Way Home was the biggest movie in years, a total blast, and a perfect outlet for any and all people looking to accelerate their crush on Andrew Garfield. And The Batman sparked enough interest that many people willingly sat through its three-hour runtime for it to become a similar box-office success. But it is with only the slightest of flutters in my heart and smallest of giddy grins on my face that I report that the Hollywood franchise seems to be in crisis.

Jared Leto's Morbius just earned the distinction of having the largest second-weekend drop-off in ticket sales in comic book and superhero-movie history. Because of his arrest and history of alleged misconduct, Ezra Miller has played into Warner Brothers' decision to delay the release of The Flash and put on "pause" any future projects with the actor. Miller also, of course, stars in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, a once surefire Hollywood franchise money-minting machine that has now been mired in so much controversy—Rowling, Depp and Miller, oh my!—that its upcoming release this weekend is being met with deafening silence.

That's all well and good because I recently had one of the most fun movie-going weekends of my life attending screenings not of the quirky indie movies, musicals, or the rom-com fare I typically champion, but action-packed, adrenaline-filled, grab-a-bucket-of-popcorn-and-toss-it-in-the-air films that merit so much more excitement than we usually only reserve for franchise flicks.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is a blast. People on social media are histrionically talking about it like some sort of cinematic savior because it really does feel that way: something so fresh and daring, but which taps into everything that traditionally delights us about the experience of going to a theater and seeing something on the big screen.

Then there's Ambulance. I do not know why you all have not seen Ambulance, perhaps even several times. It is, in my mind, the quintessential Michael Bay movie. Couldn't get enough of it. Jake Gyllenhaal could run me over with his emergency vehicle, and I wouldn't mind.

It's refreshing to have these movies as alternatives to the franchise nonsense at a micro moment in time when those films seem to be struggling (they'll be back), but also great to have them as proof that there are really, truly better options out there.

We've All Been Enabling Jared Leto

While talking with British GQ this week about the new Fantastic Beasts movie (as mentioned: cursed), Mads Mikkelsen gave the first quote about method acting and an artist's process that finally made sense. Sorry not sorry, Jared Leto.

And, rightfully, he places equal blame on the press as he does pretentious actors: "The media goes, 'Oh my god, he took it so seriously, therefore he must be fantastic; let's give him an award.' Then that's the talk, and everybody knows about it, and it becomes a thing."

Severance Is Even More Brilliant Than We Already Thought

Severance has been the TV surprise of the year, as far as I'm concerned. The first season, which recently finished, is so good, and so ripe for gushing about and analyzing that, for your own health, I highly recommend you ensure that you have someone to watch and talk through it with.

If you've seen the series, you might delight in this tidbit that a keen-eyed fan noticed. (If you haven't, it's not a spoiler but just a very cool detail that shows how meticulous the attention to detail is on this show.)

Baseball Officially Has My Attention

Well this happened, and now I can't believe that I have no choice but to love sports.

Russian Doll: A solid Season 2 for a great show, what a concept. (Wed. on Netflix)

The Flight Attendant: A solid Season 2 for a great… well, see above. (Thurs. on HBO Max)

Outer Range: Is it a Yellowstone copycat? Sure. Does that matter? Nope! (Fri. on Amazon)

Better Call Saul: Turns out this show is pretty good. (Mon. on AMC)

The First Lady: Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson… and yet not good? (Sun. on Showtime)

Father Stu: Maybe don't go see the weird Christian film with Mel Gibson in it. (Now in theaters)

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore: And let's put this franchise out of its misery, too. (Fri. in theaters)

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The Awful Early 2000s Are Back and I Am Horrified

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