Here For The Drama
(Illustration by Nathan Graber-Lipperman)
MacGuffins and White Russians is a new bi-weekly letter from Jake Graber-Lipperman looking around at all the things in pop culture and entertainment he now has time to consume. Get ready for all the sarcastic takes and oddball references you never knew you needed.
As a man of high culture and the resident culture sommelier on my little brother’s internet website, I recognize my duty to share with you the culture I’ve been consuming so that one day you too can become as high-cultured as me. Welcome to MacGuffins and White Russians!
Must-Watch Culture
Is there a Chris-Harrison-sized hole in your heart that Love is Blind can’t seem to fill? If so, Netflix has dropped Too Hot to Handle (2020) just in time to fill your early summer blues.
When it comes to The Bachelor, I’m the anti-Sam Hinkie. I’m not here for The Process. I’m here for stumbling through mediocrity as a mid-market team with no hopes of winning the title, i.e. I’m here for the drama and the drama only. I’ve long said the middle weeks of The Bachelor / Bachelorette are my favorite; it’s around this time that the characters begin to fully crystallize for the audience in some exotic locales, the villains emerge from their not-so-secret hiding places, and the real surprises start occuring. I’m also a fan of the more self-aware characters on the show who, like me, are fully aware that trusting The Process will only deliver you heartbreak (looking at you, vegan Jah). Recent contestants like Madison, Kelley, and Jed have all led to captivating drama because they entered the Bachelor Mansion fully aware that they are on a reality TV show, not a journey which guarantees a happy ending. Knicks fans know this pain all too well.
Likewise, Love is Blind didn’t really do it for me. It’s really about finding out whether love is blind (turns out it is, sometimes), getting to know each other, and developing emotional relationships. And that’s wonderful! But its contestants were fully aware of what they were getting themselves into, and not too much spice emerges from this premise.
(Netflix)
That’s why Netflix’s new gem, Too Hot to Handle, is brilliant. The network sought out the faces of millennial hook-up culture and invited them to a Bachelor in Paradise-esque retreat where opportunities for free-loving were promised. During their intros, the contestants profess their proclivity for fraternizing with unbelievably-high numbers of partners in a way that would make even Carly Simon’s jaw drop, flexing their abs and hyping up their best features.
And then the show’s Alexa-lite host, Lana, drops the real bomb.
There will be no hooking-up or gratification for contestants over the next month on the beach. The contestants will instead need to work on developing relationship skills beyond the physical. For each violation of the rules, Lana will deduct cash from the group’s shared prize-pot of $100,000.
Hi-jinks ensue, cash disappears, and some shocking amounts of personal growth occur. The producers of Too Hot to Handle may have been dreaming of utter trash when they conceived the show, but the concept actually does seem to be working wonders for it’s contestants (as of press release, the culture expert is about halfway done with the show).
Perhaps most notably, this show is raunchy. Like, absurdly dirty, even as I am fully aware of the inherently risque premise. The amount of inappropriate discussions, let alone the lurid acts mimed by its hook-up-deprived contestants to express their loneliness, is shocking for a TV show. This isn’t your grandmother’s reality TV - this is Netflix, baby! It’s going to be hard to go back to network television when The Bachelor comes back. I might even go as far to say that Bachelor in Paradise has been completely market corrected. Like oil on the futures market.
I don’t want to discuss too much about Too Hot to Handle. Like Tiger King before it, there’s not enough that I can say about the show that can make you fully appreciate its brilliance without having experienced it for yourself. I look forward to filling in the readers on my conclusions about the show when I inevitably finish it in the next few days.
Upper Crust Culture
After many a recommendation, I finally got around to The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, available to stream on Netflix), a star vehicle for then up-and-comers Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Cate Blanchett. It’s a murderers' row of performers who take you on a romantic tour of how fun 1950’s Italy was if you were an American heir/heiress.
If you're not an heir to the Greenleaf shipping empire, the film plays even more fascinating, inviting you into the lives of the rich and careless through the eyes of Damon’s Tom Ripley. Ripley’s talent, you might ask? Impersonating anyone, quite useful when you’re trying to infiltrate the upper crust of society.
The movie’s a tad long, and could probably have gone without twenty minutes in the middle. But even when it seems like it’s meandering towards the end, Ripley remains a beautiful stroll through Italy which serves as a perfect escape for these quarantined times. If you liked Catch Me If You Can (one of my favorite movies of all time), but wished there was a lot more blood, then The Talented Mr. Ripley is the perfect weekend diversion.
Lukewarm Culture
I’ve been keeping up with Dave (2020, available to stream on Hulu), Lil Dicky’s new semi-autobiographical show about the less interesting parts of his journey to Lonely Island litedom. It’s fine. The show oscillates between boyishly immature subject matter, a given for a show about a rapper named Lil Dicky, and some surface-level lessons on self-realization and unchecked ambition. For how brilliant Lil Dicky’s best work can be, Dave is disappointing. Like the majority of his songs, the show is nothing special.
The gimmick about whether or not Dave is a real rapper can only carry the series so far. The much hyped-up celebrity cameos, from a bit about Young Thug having a cold to a bizarre conversation about men giving birth with Kourtney Kardashian, play incredibly unrealistically for a show which tries to remain grounded in nature.
A product of being an FX show spearheaded by while also starring Lil Dicky, the internet can’t help but compare the show unfavorably to Donald Glover’s far-superior Atlanta. Doing so is a disservice to Atlanta, one of the most indescribably surreal shows to appear on network television in recent memory. Please check that out before traveling down to Lil Dicky’s sunny corner of Los Angeles.
Did I miss out on any must-watch culture you’ve been consuming? As a man of high culture, I find it unlikely, but not impossible. DM us on Twitter with any comments you may have!