There’s a lot to despair about in the U.S. lately — an extremely disappointing administration, war with Iran, artificial intelligence creeping into a multitude of industries, ongoing struggles with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and so much more.
The news cycles as of late are, to say the least, increasingly devastating, and pop culture over the last few years has responded in kind.
The entertainment industry has expanded the pre-existing bubble of realist content into quite the looming entity, particularly when it comes to the silver screen and the music industry. For instance, the film “One Battle After Another,” fantastical and yet somehow quite on the nose for American culture, is a film about simmering civilian dissatisfaction with the government and the revolution of the common man.
Or take “Sinners,” a film following Black World War I veterans who return to the Jim Crow-era south and that includes particularly poignant themes of resilience in the face of discrimination. The film draws many parallels to the discriminatory practices of the current administration and ICE amidst the struggle against racism throughout American history.
Beyond theaters, a large deal of the content coming out of the music industry since 2020 has been particularly morose and reflective of the times. In particular, Billie Eilish’s 2022 EP “Guitar Songs,” is a hallmark of the beginning of this disconcerting decade. The first track “TV,” is a song about current events with single hard-hitting lines like:
“I’ll put on ‘Survivor’ just to watch somebody suffer,”
“The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial while they’re overturning Roe v. Wade” or
“I don’t wanna talk right now. I just wanna watch TV.”
Regardless of your feelings about the sentiments of the above events or emotions, it’s a set of lines that sticks with you. It’s a hard listen for such an incredible song if only because of the devastating realism and relatability of the lyrics to current events.
Another instance of realism in music is Beyonce’s “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” which is a comment on the state of our union and contains incredibly powerful yet difficult lines like, “Can we stand for something? Now is the time to face the wind. Now ain’t the time to pretend” or “They don’t, don’t know how hard I had to fight for this when I sing my song.”
Let me say now that the above films and songs are vital to the arts and our survival. Infusing realism into our culture to raise awareness, to remind and to encourage critical conversations of life and culture among the people are incredibly important. Realism can be beautiful and is necessary.
That said, the realist bubble has to exist alongside an outlet of escapism in the arts. Reality is often dark and quite the drag, and while acknowledgement and response to the world are important, means of escape are important methods to foster joy and resilience to the darkness of life.
I know for certain that I’ve found very few escapist experiences as of late.
In the last five years, there have been very few movies and very few songs that have had me leaving a theater or pulling off my headphones that resulted in me thinking about the wonder and joy that can be found in the human experience. I actually spent an hour searching for something to watch the other night that wouldn’t make me upset or disturbed, and I ended up settling on the two-decade-old film, “Practical Magic,” which has a million nonsensical plot holes and yet still wraps itself up in a beautiful, joyful little bow.
As for recent joyful mediums, I struggle to conjure up more than a handful of creations, but I will name a few:
“Barbie” was a particularly gorgeous comment on the human experience, and even as a man, the depiction of Barbie as a reflection of women’s experiences was so compelling and eye-opening to me. I genuinely cried tears of joy during my screening. I left the film feeling grateful to be alive.
Dare I say that Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” brought me a great deal of joy? It really did. So many people considered it surface-level music, not really to be considered art, though I would argue that it is a largely joyful and fun record. Joy and “meaningless” fun are extremely important to the human experience and have a different kind of depth than the self-excavating and self-deprecating corners of humanity.
I’d even say that Harry Styles’ new record, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally,”was a fun listen that made me want to dance and sing without having me sit down for half of its runtime wanting to ponder the sadness of my being.
That’s a short list, wouldn’t you say?
Everyone has different tastes and different things that bring them joy, even the more sad expressions in art being a source of joy; that said, I feel there is a serious dearth of feel-good, “lighthearted” content in pop culture. I don’t know about y’all, but I think we could all use a good dopamine fix with the state of our nation at the moment.
Riley Sanders is a 19-year-old biology major from Denham Springs, La.
