There’s a memorable line from The Dark Knight that sums up the curious trajectory of Czech video game developer Daniel Vávra: “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Gamergate, an idiosyncratic …
Morrissey is the villain we need
It’s been 20 years since I first set eyes on a Smiths LP. The LP in question — Meat is Murder — was released 40 years ago this week. I loved that cover. It made me ponder an alternative universe, …
The Left won’t let go of woke
“Wokeness” is receding, according to the mainstream conventional wisdom. Having peaked in the plague-and-reckoning year 2020, the story goes, Left identity politics and the disciplinary practices that usually go with them have been on a downward trajectory ever since. The …
Will our universities ever recover from Covid?
From job losses to course closures, British universities are in meltdown — as panicked institutions are desperately shedding their crumbling 20th century identities. Yet if academics, subjects and even physical buildings all look set to go, with administrators scrambling to …
It’s time to flee your utopia
I was recently at a party when someone I hadn’t seen in a while said, “I found out that two of my cousins are actually Trump supporters. Like, actual Trump supporters. Seriously. Like they actually support Trump. I couldn’t believe …
America’s most embarrassing man
Spring, the season of rebirth, is as good a moment as any to review the second lives of the formerly cancelled. Some are faring better than others: Louis C.K., for one, is fully back in business, albeit after taking a …
America’s censors have committed their Guernica
America’s cultural mood calls to mind a bunch of people tentatively peering out from their hiding places in the aftermath of a torrential hailstorm. Is it over? Can we come out now? Are we still cancelling each other to death, …
In defence of grumpy old men
In every culture, in every era, you will find the archetype of the cantankerous old man. He’s ubiquitous in cinema — the aged, scowling hero of Gran Torino; the feuding codgers of Grumpy Old Men; the dementia-stricken patriarch of The …
David Mamet on Hollywood, Hamas and Donald Trump
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and director David Mamet has, in his own words, gone from a Hollywood veteran to “the hermit of Santa Monica”. Celebrated for his plays American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Speed-the-Plow, Mamet has dedicated his formidable energy …
We are all Mean Girls now
In 1995, a girl named Emily Brown raised her hand during our pre-high school anti-bullying presentation. “Excuse me,” she said, smiling serenely at the guest speaker: “I think you should know, it’s just not like that in our class. We …
The rage behind Transgender Map
Andrea James used to be a respectable, mainstream figure within the trans rights movement. A transgender woman herself, she was (and is) a film producer who carved out an important niche in the very early days of the internet: one …
Twilight has made monsters of us
Fifteen years ago, in a world rattled by economic turmoil and facing impending recession, one of the most influential phenomena of our time emerged — an issue that would dominate the discourse, capture the intellect, and shape the political destinies …
Free speech is still worth fighting for
Freedom of expression is probably the most widely acknowledged human right in the world. Lip service is paid to it even in totalitarian states. Freedom of expression is not worth much in Russia or North Korea, but their constitutions guarantee …
Does Billy Bragg have a woman problem?
Louise Distras was once a darling of the anti-establishment Left. An underground punk singer whose hits include “Dreams From the Factory Floor”, this working-class woman is unafraid to speak her mind. Five years ago, she was being invited onstage by …
Can paedophilia ever be a thought experiment?
Imagine that a philosophy professor is invited onto a podcast. The hosts ask him to describe a thought experiment he finds interesting or provoking. He decides to pick a scenario in which an adult male has sex with a “willing” …