Mailbag for June 7, 2024
Sabrina and Barry are kinky, Taylor vs Billie (?), Bridgerton interviews and breaking furniture, under-radar vampires, friends of Kevin Spacey, on RM’s 'Right Place, Wrong Person' and more
Dear Squawkers,
I WAS trying not to have OPINIONS on Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan, but last night, Sabrina dropped a video for her new single, “Please Please Please”, starring herself and Barry in a lovers-on-the-run concept video and they have FORCED MY HAND. I am a sucker for lovers-on-the-run music videos (“Telephone Pt. 2” where are you?!), and as much as I am trying not to have opinions…I now have the opinion that Sabrina and Barry are kinky. Check it out:
First of all, it’s a solid song. I like this better than “Espresso”, personally. It has the same playfulness, which to me defines Sabrina’s sound, I just like the beat and lyrics better. And the STYLE. The 80s were horny for the 50s the way we’re horny for the 80s now, and Sabrina mashes that nostalgia up with a Zoomer sensibility I find incredibly fun and cool. It’s not as all-out circus freak as Chappell Roan’s elaborate getups and style—which feels like the Zoomer extension of Lady Gaga’s art-punk style—but Sabrina has a distinctive flair which I super dig. She takes all the best parts of genre exploitation, rockabilly, and 80s pop and puts it together in fun ways.
But back to Barry and Sabrina. The thing that gets me about them is that this video isn’t trying hard to be sexy. If anything, it’s aiming for humor, not lust. It’s just that they are hot individually and hotter together. This is what’s missing from Dua Lipa and Callum Turner for me. Dua, yes, she’s hot. But I don’t feel Callum the way, say, Lainey does. So as a couple, I am unmoved. But Barry and Sabrina? Please don’t break up any time soon, let your freak flags fly and keep making good shit together like this video.
Billie Eilish also dropped a new video yesterday:
Which got me thinking about the absolute car crash of pop albums coming out this year, and the top pop girlies apparently fighting. Aja Romano at Vox dubbed the fight over Billboard rankings “stanufactured drama” and ponders if the Taylor Swift/Billie Eilish feud is even real, or a trick of fans’ fevered imaginations. It seems to some degree rooted in reality, Billie was fairly pointed in her comments about three-hour concerts and bonus album editions, and Taylor’s bonus edition releases seemed deliberately timed to take shine off Billie’s new album dropping.
But it does bring the “sportification” of entertainment into music. Film fandom has been virtually ruined by box office scorekeeping—box office is only interesting as a lens through which to view larger industry and cultural patterns, not as a stick to beat other fandoms with. And now music fandom is infected with a similar “how many units did my fave sell” mindset. It’s human nature to want your particular favorite to be recognized and appreciated at large, but I’m wondering if this is a knot we can even untangle. Do people even WANT to untangle it?
And what does it say about us that we’ve made fandom a sport? Fandom is supposed to be a community united by common love of a person or cultural object, not unlike fans of a sports team, but in sports, competition is part of the deal. Competition is not inherently part of being a fan of a particular musician or book or movie. And yet we’re having competition forced on us by constantly measuring metrics. I talk about box office, I know I’m part of the problem, but I do try to keep that conversation centered on larger issues affecting the film industry, and not equating money earned with quality. It’s just sort of a bummer that so many cool and good musicians are releasing new music right now, and instead of celebrating the summer of pop, fans are fighting about fucking Billboard ranks like music can be reduced to bean counting.
Anyway. Onto the questions!
Question from Krista: Show your work request! Lainey - how did you come up with (and decide to use) this A+ question for the Bridgerton red carpet?
Lainey’s Answer:
Thanks for asking about this because Monday this week was all Bridgerton, a 14-hour lift with different elements each requiring a different level of preparation.
A few weeks ago, Netflix asked me to host an advance screening of part two of S3 of Bridgerton at the Winter Garden Theatre. I would be responsible for communicating Netflix’s key messaging about the release date of the back half of the season and then introducing Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton to the audience for brief remarks before the episode started playing. Following the screening there was an exclusive cocktail reception and I’d once again introduce Nicola and Luke to the party guests before their toast.
Before the screening, though, Nicola and Luke were participating in select press, including ETALK. I was also assigned to do that interview, 10 minutes, and then interview them again on the red carpet at the theatre later in the day. Which means talking to them on four separate occasions – it’s a lot and there are advantages and risks to these kinds of situations.
The advantage, of course, is that you get more familiar with your subjects and they with you, so the rapport is better, in theory. The risk is that they get tired of you and don’t understand why the same person might be asking the same questions over and over again. My first priority then was making sure it was clearly communicated to Nicola and Luke that they’d be seeing me at various stops throughout the day and to explain to them that there was a different audience for each meeting. I told my publicist to make it a point of going back to their team to convey this to the talent. Because I also know that, sometimes, they don’t like to bother the talent with too much information, and I get it. In this case, though, because it had an impact on my interactions with them, it was critical (in my opinion at least) to ensure that they had a sense of how their day would go and who they would be seeing, repeatedly.
Once they arrived on set, I also made a joke about how I would be all up in their faces while they were in Toronto. They were well aware and that was the groundwork to allow the good vibes to flow into our first interview: 10-15 minutes at ETALK. Here is where I asked them the more serious questions about Bridgerton and their characters. That’s not to say that we didn’t have fun because of course we talked about their chemistry and the romance factor, but we also had the time for them to get deeper about what Bridgerton means to them, and how they feel like they’re carrying the Bridgerton baton in season three. This is the kind of content we can use for broadcast on the show, with quick edits to put up on social media.
The red carpet interview, which is where that clip comes from that you referenced above, is a totally different energy. Here is where you don’t want long answers because you don’t have all that much time. The red carpet energy is supposed to be fun and breezy. For this part of the overall assignment, I was produced by the ETALK social media team, because they would be taking the footage and cutting it into quick social media clips ASAP, to fully capitalise on having this much access to the talent on our various platforms.
I worked with our social media manager, Chloe, on the question you’re asking about: the furniture. Chloe told me that Bridgerton fans online have been really jacked up about the furniture breaking. In a previous interview, Nicola and Luke had talked about filming a certain love scene that got so heated they damaged some set pieces. But Chloe also said that both, in subsequent interviews, seemed hesitant to elaborate. So my challenge was to ask the question in a way that they’d both want to answer. Chloe, as the producer, provided me with the information and the backstory and as the host, I had to work the question in a way that was respectful of what they did and did not want to reveal, but still get the goods. And without being gross about it either, because you can’t be all like, oh hey, so you fake-fucked so hard, you broke the furniture, what position were you in?
Framing it around what the fans wanted to know was the key, because then it wasn’t about me being a perv and trying to get them to talk about jackhammering but also it allowed them to give enough of a tease and encourage people to watch, while confirming that whatever the viewers have been imagining would be worth it. I’m happy with how it went, and I appreciate that you could see that there was skill involved in getting there.
Question from Jennifer Niccolai: This is not so much a question but a request. Interview with the Vampire on AMC is lowkey one of the best shows on TV right now. I almost didn't watch it because I was exhausted by vampire shows but it is unlike anything else, along with some very interesting takes on race and queerness. I would love to know if Sarah has seen it and why it has flown under the radar (I may have answered my own question based on vampire fatigue). Please don't sleep on this show!
Sarah’s answer:
THERE IS TOO MUCH TV. Seriously, Interview with the Vampire is on my “to watch” list, but so is a lot of other stuff. Like WAAAAY more stuff than I will ever actually watch or review. If I can get a stretch of days with nothing to do, I can maybe catch up and hop on the hype train, but I sometimes don’t know if I’ll have time to review a TV show until a couple days before I’m doing it. TV takes more time—I need 15 hours to catch up on Vampire—and that can be hard to come by.
As for why it’s flying under the radar, it isn’t? I see it talked about consistently on social media, I know people in the real world who watch it, I’m under the impression this is a show doing pretty well in the fractured TV landscape. (It airs on AMC and streams on AMC+ for the vampire curious.) If you mean Emmy attention, well, they have a genre bias. But it did get a couple nominations at the Gotham Awards last November, as well as a couple TCA and Saturn Awards nominations, so people are definitely noticing it.
Question from Gillian: Is it too late to add a question? What is going on with the recent celebs trying to bring back Kevin Spacey? Am I missing something? There have been public statements from a diverse group and I’m kinda gobsmacked… Sharon Stone, Liam Neeson and, more niche but still big in some circles, Peter Attia. Would love some LG perspective on this.
Sarah’s answer:
Interesting you bring up Kevin Spacey, because he was just talking about how there’s no “path” for redemption in Hollywood. As for why some famous people are defending him, maybe they think they’re standing up for a friend or peer who has been wrongly accused. Spacey keeps getting taken to court, but he also keeps getting acquitted. And while acquittal does not equal “innocent”, it is hard to admit when someone you love/respect/admire did something bad, and I find people will often take the first out they see to dismiss any negativity and leave their beliefs and opinions unchallenged.
Acquittal, dropped charges, charges that are never even pressed—all of it allows a person, if they want to, to dismiss any accusation and stop wondering if this person did this bad thing. They couldn’t have, the jury said so! They couldn’t have, the charges were dropped! They couldn’t have, s/he never even pressed charges! It’s an easy rhetorical out. It could be as simple as Celebrity X doesn’t want to believe Kevin Spacey did something bad, and as he’s never been held accountable in a court of law, then they don’t have to believe it.
Question from Karisue: Lainey turned me on to BTS a few years ago so I'd love to get her take on RM's new album now that it's out and with accompanying videos. I am OBSESSED with this Namjoon! Free, loose, DGAF. I feel like his air humping of the streetlight in "Groin" is a call back to when he was thrusting in the Festa 2020 Bus. I still remember dying laughing when Lainey wrote, "Namjoon, what are you doing!!?"
Lainey’s Answer:
RM’s Right Place, Wrong Person is suuuch a strong piece of work – and it’s not just that there are no skips for me, it’s that you can see the thought that RM put into the sound of it, the experimentation of different sounds, not just in relation to BTS’s sound but his own. Each of his solo albums are distinct from one another, a wonderful showcase of RM’s curiosity as an artist, and how he’s choosing to spend his artistic time away from the band.
Joon has always been very clear about his loyalty to BTS, what the group means to him, and needing to have his own unique experiences as an artist – and the fact that both things can be true: RM of BTS and RM, the artistic extension of Kim Namjoon, can co-exist. Right Place, Wrong Person accomplishes this, in my opinion.
And it’s also a flex. Like this is turning out to be a visual album, right? We’re going to have a video for every song (if we don’t already by the time you read this), right? Making videos helps boost streaming, so I get the business argument for this but it’s also a fuckload of work, and I truly believe that RM isn’t here just the numbers but for the expression. As you said, this is free and loose, DGAF Joon. But it’s also film nerd Joon. It’s Joon the scholar, familiar with 90s London street aesthetic. It’s offbeat Joon making a meme video exploring the deeper themes about the temporary nature of art these days when its digital discourse can be so easily derailed by what comes next and just how quickly and thoughtlessly we’re consuming art.
He's shown us that he’s an eternal scholar, he’s always reading, he’s a fine arts enthusiast, and these videos reflect all those influences he’s absorbed, with the freedom to be able to just attach his own name to it. Because the thing about being in a band is that it’s a collective experience, which is beautiful, and they obviously love it so much, all seven of them. And yet, in a group, all of the music, the visuals, etc, is a representation of seven voices. And it’s normal, in any family setting, and these seven people are definitely a family, that not all members of a family feel the same about certain ideas, nor should they. Joon has said often that the members of BTS are like passengers on a boat. They’re all going in the same direction but each of them is standing on their own parts of the ship facing different ways. In simple terms, the work they put out as a group represents the overall direction of the band. But the work they put out as individuals represent the lens from which each member is looking at the world along that journey. Right Place, Wrong Person is RM’s view, at this particular moment in time, along that passage.
And one more thing… the productivity of these idols! He did all this before going into service – a whole ass album and allll these music videos. Compared to how hard they go at it when they’re not in the military, do you think being in the military feels like a breeze for them in terms of work hours?
Question from Ketri: We’ve talked a lot about Friday news dumps. Is there a practical reason (e.g, print deadlines) that this originated and worked so well? Is it still effective in our online, 24/7 news world? It feels like media outlets may be paying MORE attention on Fridays now than other days of the week.
Sarah’s answer:
It’s the print deadlines. The celebrity magazines are weekly publications—it’s in the name: In Touch Weekly, Us Weekly. PEOPLE’s print edition is weekly. So, back in ye olden times, if you wanted to bury a negative story, dump it on Friday, because the magazines have already hit the newsstands for weekend shoppers to pick up and peruse (PEOPLE, for instance, is dated on Mondays but goes on sale two Fridays before its Monday date). It’s too late by Friday to include the story in that week’s issue. By the time the next week’s issue goes to press, your bad news is hopefully old news, and either warrants only a brief, non-front-page mention, or even no mention at all.
The internet, of course, changed that, as there is now a constant, 24/7/365 news cycle that is amplified by social media. However, as Lainey and I have pointed out, we like our weekends. A lot of people who work in new media like their weekends. So while a Friday news dump isn’t as effective as it used to be, it still kind of works because UGH, who wants to work on a Friday? But it is possible, because new media is faster. We can react to breaking news a lot faster. If, say, Bennifer actually implodes and they dump their announcement on a Friday, we can still publish that day. We’ll just be fucking surly about it.
You know when I would dump bad news, were I a celebrity publicist? Saturday morning. It’s full off-time. People are sleeping in, they’re doing things with their family, they’re running errands. No one but diehards are scanning the wires for breaking news. Issue a terse little announcement first thing Saturday morning, people are too busy or checked out to give it the attention it deserves. And by Monday morning, probably something else has happened, anyway. There’s been a big sporting event, or someone else did or said something stupid over the weekend to take the heat off my client. Saturday morning seems like a way more effective time to bury bad news.
And with that, here’s hoping we do not have to work this afternoon!
See you next week, same squawk time, same squawk channel,
Sarah & Lainey
I love that photo of Lainey and Nicola because their poofy dresses look like they're trying to be friends.
Show Your Work: Bridgerton Edition, yesss! Fascinating. I never realized you might interview the talent so many times, and that managing those recurrent interactions is a careful dance. You make it look easy - love hearing about the grind that goes into getting the gold.