Ted Lasso, Industry, and the 25 greatest actors
Two shows about American fish out of water, plus culture notes about that buzzy NYTimes list
Hello!
On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss Ted Lasso (2020) and Industry (2020), two series about lone Americans navigating unknown waters across the pond — in one case, a football field, in the other, an investment bank. (What’s with this UK theme lately? Don’t ask me!)
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02:34 Ted Lasso, one of Apple TV+'s first true word-of-mouth sleeper hits, sits at the intersection of cheesy, surprising, heartwarming, and pure, unadulterated vibes.
Based on a character Jason Sudeikis played for an NBC Sports promo in 2013, this series takes that folksy-bordering-on-dumbass portrayal and softens the edges, creating a protagonist who is unfailing optimistic and good-hearted, but not stupid.
The pilot is a little slow/setup-heavy, but it’s a show that grows on you, despite the kinda contrived premise: one-time college football coach from Kansas lands a job managing an English Premier League team despite having zero knowledge of football (sorry, soccer) or the UK.
Here’s Mike Hale’s review for the Times, which I disagree with; it feels more cynical than fits the actual subject of the review:
You can predict most of the sports-comedy heartbreak and uplift that flow from these premises — the big games, the locker-room speeches, the drunken road-trip hookups, the selfish players coming around. What you wouldn’t guess, and may be continually stunned by, is how determinedly cornball the show is. It’s as if Sudeikis et al. foresaw the chaos and terror of the summer of 2020 and wanted to prove that America could do something right.
What I like about Ted Lasso is this comfortable space it occupies between cliche and not: both willing to include the dad jokes and to outmaneuver some of the tropes you would expect from a show like this. Ultimately, it’s about human kindness and what it means to be a decent person, and as uncool as it is to say, I grew to care for it!!!
17:22 Industry, out on HBO, is like if Skins were a cutthroat, hypercapitalist workplace drama, complete with sex, drugs, and P&Ls.
Created by two “former investment banker wankers” (in Pelin’s words), this series is basically a complete 180° from Ted Lasso. Imagine all the worst kinds of people—those who believe unflinchingly in capitalism, work-hard-party-hard finance guys, “young Thatcherites” (again, Pelin’s superior wording!)—and throw them all in a pressure cooker of a company where they have to compete for a limited number of jobs, and you have Industry.
It’s hard to root for these characters, but you have to feel sorry for them, too, and the way they buy into the fantasy of work. They’re so young, too; that especially comes through in scenes of emotional vulnerability, when they cry, or are gaslit and abused and taken advantage of at the office, because they believe that’s what they have to do to climb up this corporate ladder.
Remember, there’s more to life!
29:50 Plus, culture notes about an ingeniously controversial "25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century" list from New York Times critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott.
Who said criticism was dead??
This list is the perfect “conversation starter” because it gets everyone talking: both those who are celebrating that their faves are on here, and those who are mad that theirs aren’t.
Here’s the full list if you don’t feel like scrolling (although I would recommend that you still give it a whirl, the interactive design of this thing is maybe the 26th greatest performer of the 21st century):
Denzel Washington
Isabelle Huppert
Daniel Day-Lewis
Keanu Reeves
Nicole Kidman
Song Kang-ho
Toni Servillo
Zhao Tao
Viola Davis
Saoirse Ronan
Julianne Moore
Joaquin Phoenix
Tilda Swinton
Oscar Isaac
Michael B. Jordan
Kim Min-hee
Alfre Woodard
Willem Dafoe
Wes Studi
Rob Morgan
Catherine Deneuve
Melissa McCarthy
Mahershala Ali
Sonia Braga
Gael Garcia Bernal
In Pelin’s opinion, Toni Collette needs to be on here, and Michael B. Jordan and Keanu are hm… interesting choices.
Speaking of Michael B., here’s the tweet we promised we would link:
I’m just glad to see Zhao Tao (exquisite in Ash Is Purest White) and Saoirse.
Who would you add/remove from the list? Let’s debate!
Bonus links
Here’s our final take on The Undoing:
The most cringe audition video ever (a.k.a. what we would’ve discussed for culture notes if the 25 actors thing didn’t drop):
I liked this Ann Patchett New Yorker essay about her three fathers, particularly this meta moment:
“We were all standing there waiting on the photographer,” my father told me later on the phone. “And Mike said, ‘You know what she’s doing, don’t you? She’s going to wait until the three of us are dead and then she’s going to write about us. This is the picture that will run with the piece.’ ” My father said that the idea hadn’t occurred to him, and it wouldn’t have occurred to Darrell, but, as soon as Mike said it, they knew he was right.
A thought-provoking Jay Caspian Kang opinion piece about the inadequacy of “people of color” as a label and a monolith concept, and the need to reframe political and cultural thinking to more effectively address the needs of working-class immigrants.
Okay bye!
— Jenny
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Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu
Special thanks: Dan Geneen