Critics at Large | The New Yorker

One of the most fundamental features of art is its ability to meet us during times of distress. In the early days of the pandemic, many people turned to comfort reads and beloved films as a form of escapism; more recently, in the wake of the election, shows such as “The Great British Bake Off” have been offered up on group chats as a balm. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the value—and limits—of seeking solace in culture. Comfort art has flourished in recent years, as evidenced by the rise of genres such as“romantasy” and the “cozy thriller.” But where is the line between using art as a salve and tuning out at a moment when politics demands our engagement? “One of the purposes of the comfort we seek is to sustain us,” Schwartz says. “That’s what we all are going to need: sustenance to move forward.”  Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Crown” (2016-2023) “Sesame Street” (1969-) “The Great British Bake Off” (2010-) “In Tumultuous Times, Readers Turn to ‘Healing Fiction,’ ” by Alexandra Alter (The New York Times) Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” (1950-2000) “Uncut Gems” (2019) “Somebody Somewhere” (2022-) “3 Terrific Specials to Distract You from the News,” by Jason Zinoman (The New York Times) “Tom Papa: Home Free” (2024) “America, Don’t Succumb to Escapism,” by Kristen Ghodsee (The New Republic) “Candide,” by Voltaire Beth Stern’s Instagram “Janet Planet” (2023) Marvin Gaye’s “What's Going On” Donny Hathaway’s “Extension of a Man” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Since the comedian Julio Torres came to America from El Salvador, more than a decade ago, his fantastical style has made him a singular presence in the entertainment landscape. An early stint writing for “Saturday Night Live” yielded some of the show’s weirdest and most memorable sketches; soon after that, Torres’s work on the HBO series “Los Espookys,” which he co-wrote and starred in, cemented his status as a beloved odd-child of the comedy scene. In his most recent work, he’s applied his dreamy sensibility to very real bureaucratic nightmares. “Problemista,” his first feature film, draws on Torres’s own Kafkaesque experience navigating the U.S. immigration system; in his new HBO show, “Fantasmas,” the protagonist considers whether to acquire a document called a “proof of existence,” without which everyday tasks like renting an apartment are rendered impossible. In a live taping at The New Yorker Festival, the hosts of Critics at Large talk with Torres about his creative influences, and about using abstraction to put our most impenetrable systems into tangible terms. “Life today is so riddled with these man-made labyrinths that are life-or-death … there’s something very lonely about it,” Torres says. “These flourishes are there in service of the humanity.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Problemista” (2023) “Fantasmas” (2024-) “Los Espookys” (2019-22) “I Want to Be a Vase,” by Julio Torres “My Favorite Shapes” (2019) “Saturday Night Live” (1975-) “Julio Torres’s ‘Fantasmas’ Finds Truth in Fantasy,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker) “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996) “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” (2003) “The Substance” (2024) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.  Share your thoughts on Critics At Large. As a token of our appreciation, you will be eligible to enter a prize drawing up to $1,000 after you complete the survey. https://selfserve.decipherinc.com/survey/selfserve/222b/76152?pin=1&uBRANDLINK=4&uCHANNELLINK=2

The art of advice-giving, championed over the years by such figures as Ann Landers and Cheryl Strayed, has lately undergone a transformation. As traditional columns have continued to proliferate, social-media platforms have created new venues for those seeking—and doling out—counsel, from the users of the popular subreddit “Am I the Asshole” to the countless “experts” who peddle their takes on Instagram and TikTok. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz try their hands at the trade, advising listeners on a variety of cultural conundrums. The hosts trace the form from early examples such as Advice for Living, the short-lived column written by Martin Luther King, Jr., in the late nineteen-fifties, through to the Internet age. The genre has long functioned as a forum for parsing the ethics of the era, and its enduring appeal might be explained by our inherent curiosity about the way others live. “There is a sort of plurality of approaches to life itself, which means that we are all passing into and out of other people’s moral universes,” Cunningham says. “I think it causes more trouble—causes more questions.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Witch Elm,” by Tana French “Crime and Punishment,” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky “Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen “Intermezzo,” by Sally Rooney “The Guest,” by Emma Cline “I’m a Fan,” by Sheena Patel “My Husband,” by Maud Ventura “The Anthropologists,” by Ayşegül Savaş “Small Rain,” by Garth Greenwell “Brightness Falls,” by Jay McInerney Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” “Ghost World,” by Dan Clowes The Ethicist (The New York Times) Dear Sugar (The Rumpus) “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson “Lisa Frankenstein” (2024) “The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James “Carrie,” by Stephen King “Little Labors,” by Rivka Galchen “Matrescence,” by Lucy Jones “The Mother Artist,” by Catherine Ricketts “Acts of Creation,” by Hettie Judah r/AmItheAsshole Advice for Living (Ebony Magazine) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. 

“The Apprentice,” a new film directed by Ali Abbasi, depicts the rise of a young Donald Trump under the wing of the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn. The film is, in many ways, an origin story for a man who has overtaken contemporary politics. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the movie and other works that explore Trump’s and Cohn’s psychologies, from duelling family memoirs to documentaries. The sheer number of such texts raises the question: Why are we so interested in the backstories of people who have done wrong, and what do we stand to gain (or lose) by humanizing them? “Do we want to see our villains, our absolute villains—people who have caused much harm to the world—as weak little boys who’ve undergone trauma and have had their reasons for becoming the monsters they later turn into?” Fry asks. “Or do we not?” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Apprentice” (2024) “Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir,” by Mary Trump “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way,” by Fred C. Trump III “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” (2019) “Roy Cohn and the Making of a Winner-Take-All America,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker) “Angels in America” (2003) “Joker” (2019) “Wicked” (2024) “Ratched” (2020) “Elephant” (2003) “Cruella” (2021) “The Sopranos” (1991-2007) “Mad Men” (2007-15) The “Harry Potter” novels, by J. K. Rowling “Paradise Lost,” by John Milton “Be Ready When the Luck Happens,” by Ina Garten New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

In “The Substance,” a darkly satirical horror movie directed by Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore plays an aging Hollywood actress who strikes a tech-infused Faustian bargain to unleash a younger, “more perfect” version of herself. Gruesome side effects ensue. Fargeat’s film plays on the fact that female aging is often seen as its own brand of horror—and that we’ve devised increasingly extreme methods of combating it. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss “The Substance” and “A Different Man,” another new release that questions our culture’s obsession with perfecting our physical forms. In recent years, the smorgasbord of products and procedures promising to enhance our bodies and preserve our youth has only grown; social media has us looking at ourselves more than ever before. No wonder, then, that horror as a genre has been increasingly preoccupied with our uneasy relationship to our own exteriors. “We are embodied. It is a struggle. It is beautiful. It’s something to wrestle with forever. Just as you think that you’ve caught up to your current embodiment, something changes,” Schwartz says. “And so how do we make our peace with it?” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) “The Substance” (2024) “A Different Man” (2024) “Psycho” (1960) “The Ren & Stimpy Show” (1991-96) “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison “Passing,” by Nella Larsen “The Power of Positive Thinking,” by Norman Vincent Peale “Titane” (2021) “The Age of Instagram Face,” by Jia Tolentino (The New Yorker) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.