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- 5 days ago50 min
How Romantasy Seduces Its Readers
A few years back, novels classed as “romantasy”—a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”—might have seemed destined to attract only niche appeal. But since the pandemic, the genre has proved nothing short of a phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series has repeatedly topped best-seller lists, and Rebecca Yarros’s 2025 title “Onyx Storm” became the fastest-selling adult novel in decades. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by their fellow New Yorker staff writer Katy Waldman as they delve into the realm of romantasy themselves. Together, they consider some of the most popular entries in the genre, and discuss how monitoring readers’ reactions on BookTok, a literary corner of TikTok, allows writers to tailor their work to fans’ hyperspecific preferences. Often, these books are conceived and marketed with particular tropes in mind—but the key ingredient in nearly all of them is a sense of wish fulfillment. “The reason that I think they’re so powerful and they provide such solace to us is because they tell us, ‘You’re perfect. You’re always right. You have the hottest mate. You have the sickest powers,’ ” Waldman says. “I totally get it. I fall into those reveries, too. I think we all do.”This episode originally aired on February 13, 2025.Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?,” by Katy Waldman (The New Yorker)“The Song of the Lioness,” by Tamora Pierce“A Court of Thorns and Roses,” by Sarah J. Maas“Ella Enchanted,” by Gail Carson Levine“Fourth Wing,” by Rebecca Yarros“Onyx Storm,” by Rebecca Yarros“Crave,” by Tracy Wolff“Working Girl” (1988)“Game of Thrones” (2011-19)“The Vampyre,” by John Polidori“Dracula,” by Bram Stoker“Outlander” (2014–)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- 1 weeks ago49 min
The Met Gala, “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and the State of Style
In the original “The Devil Wears Prada,” a hapless Andrea Sachs stumbles into the office of Miranda Priestly, the exacting editor of Runway magazine and a titan of the fashion world. The film, released in 2006, was adapted from a novel by the former Vogue staffer Lauren Weisberger, and it spun the glamour of the industry into a crowd-pleasing confection for the big screen. Two decades later, the atmosphere of its sequel is darker. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the reality-inflected elements of the new film, which finds Priestly and her team chasing clicks and catering to the whims of billionaires who might solve Runway’s financial woes. The question of billionaire influence was also present at this year’s Met Gala. The event’s lead sponsors were the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who reportedly donated ten million dollars to become honorary co-chairs. Attendees paid a hundred thousand dollars just to get in the door. Why, the hosts ask, does the gala still matter to the average fashion enthusiast? “It’s the one time where, divorced from utility and other reasons, it’s O.K. to just look at fashion,” Cunningham says. “I tend to defend our opportunities to just look at things that provoke pleasure.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:The 2026 Met Gala“The Devil Wears Prada” (2006)“The Devil Wears Prada 2” (2026)“Guys Are Wearing Slutty Little Reading Glasses Now” (GQ)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- 2 weeks ago49 min
What “Michael” Tries to Show—or Hide
“Michael”—a new film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, charting Michael Jackson’s rise to fame—just had the best opening weekend in the history of bio-pics, proving that audiences are still eager to celebrate the King of Pop. The movie also ends, pointedly, before the first in a series of allegations of child sexual abuse that have tainted Jackson’s reputation ever since. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and their fellow staff writer Kelefa Sanneh consider how the unprecedented highs and horrific lows of Jackson’s life and career have made him a prism for modern ideas about stardom and power. Sanneh’s recent Profile of Fuqua details the Jackson estate’s involvement in the production, which resulted in a sanitized portrait of a deeply complex figure. Other works have assessed Jackson’s legacy more critically: the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” lays out, in granular detail, the claims of two of Jackson’s accusers. “It’s just such a dissonance, seeing these two texts in such close proximity,” Fry says. “The thing with ‘Michael’ is, it doesn’t separate the art from the artist. It separates the artist from the wrongdoing entirely.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Michael” (2026)Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous”“The Action-Film Director Who’s Taking On Michael Jackson,” by Kelefa Sanneh (The New Yorker)“Quiet on Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV” (2024)“I’m Glad My Mom Died,” by Jennette McCurdy“On Michael Jackson,” by Margo Jefferson“Leaving Neverland” (2019)Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall”“Justin Bieber, Pop Music’s Fallen Angel, Rises Again at Coachella,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- 3 weeks ago48 min
Why Earnestness is Everywhere
Cynicism is widely considered a defining quality of our conspiracy-addled, irony-poisoned age. But audiences and creatives alike now seem ready to cast it aside in favor of an attitude that’s long been out of style: earnestness. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace this trend from the outer-space buddy comedy “Project Hail Mary” to the real-life Artemis II mission, whose crew has spoken movingly about Earth as a “lifeboat” in the middle of a vast, mysterious universe. The hosts also consider two buzzy new books—Lena Dunham’s “Famesick,” and “Transcription,” by Ben Lerner—which find their authors turning to earnestness in midlife, after precocious beginnings. In this era of political, economic, and environmental precarity, younger generations, too, have come to celebrate big feelings, rather than living in fear of seeming cringe. “We’ve just seen too much awful stuff, and it's impossible to ironize,” Cunningham says. “The only sane response to that is to kind of sober up and say, ‘All right, what resources do humans still have?’ ”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Project Hail Mary” (2026)“The Pitt” (2025-)“Love on the Spectrum” (2022-)“Heated Rivalry” (2025-)“Famesick,” by Lena Dunham“Girls” (2012-17)“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner“Climbing Cringe Mountain With Gen Z” (The New York Times)“Amos & Boris,” by William SteigLászló Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize lectureNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Apr 16, 202649 min
“Beef,” “The Drama,” and the New Marriage Plot
In 2019, marriage rates in the United States hit their lowest point in a hundred and forty years. They still haven’t rebounded. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how recent cultural offerings mirror this increasing dissatisfaction with matrimony. They discuss the new season of the Netflix anthology show “Beef,” which centers on two couples locked in a feud that gradually exposes the cracks in each relationship, and the A24 film “The Drama,” about a wedding that goes off the rails in spectacular fashion. They also consider real-life examples, including Lindy West’s recent memoir, “Adult Braces,” which has sparked a flurry of discourse about polyamory and open marriages. As such alternative ways of organizing our love lives enter the mainstream, the narrative around one of our oldest institutions is shifting, too. “I think we’re in a place where we’re trying to make marriage seem more like a positive choice, rather than an obvious obligation,” Schwartz says. “It’s a fascinating fiction that those who get married subscribe to, hoping that the fiction becomes true.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Beef” (2023-)“The White Lotus” (2021-)“The Drama” (2026)“Strangers,” by Belle Burden“A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides,” by Gisèle Pelicot“Madame Bovary,” by Gustave Flaubert“Parallel Lives,” by Phyllis Rose“Adult Braces,” by Lindy WestNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Apr 9, 202645 min
The Guilty Pleasure of the Heist
Last fall, a group of masked men broke into the Louvre in broad daylight and made off with some of France’s crown jewels. The stunt swiftly became an online phenomenon. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the sordid satisfaction of watching a heist play out, both onscreen and off. They dive into the debacle at the Louvre, along with a range of fictional depictions, from the fantasy of hyper-competence in “Ocean’s Eleven” to the theft that goes woefully awry in Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind.” Part of the fun, it seems, lies in rooting for those who identify and exploit the blind spots of an institution. “Someone else, just like me, is seeing that everybody is an idiot. But, unlike me, they’re able to best those people in charge,” Fry says. “It’s an alternative morality—a morality of wits.”This episode originally aired on November 13, 2025.Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Mastermind” (2025)“Ocean’s Eleven” (2001)Stella Webb’s impression of “the Louvre heist Creative Director”Jake Schroeder’s “Ballad for the Louvre”“Showing Up” (2022)“The Italian Job” (1969)“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” (1980)“Drive” (2011)“Le Cercle Rouge” (1970)“This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (2021)“Good Time” (2017)“George Santos and the Art of the Scam” (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Apr 2, 202648 min
“DTF St. Louis” and the New Story of the Suburbs
In the new HBO miniseries “DTF St. Louis,” Jason Bateman plays a weatherman living with his wife and kids in a sleepy town just outside of St. Louis. He befriends a coworker, Floyd Smernitch (David Harbour), and the two sign up for a dating app that specializes in clandestine affairs. By the end of the first episode, Smernitch is dead. So begins a whodunnit set against the backdrop of suburban America and the discontents simmering beneath. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz survey how the setting has been used over the decades, from the films of Douglas Sirk and the stories of John Cheever in the nineteen-fifties and sixties to the fantasy of that era seen in 1985’s “Back to the Future.” Today, the locale is being assessed anew. Like “DTF,” the recent docuseries “Neighbors” strips the suburbs of their glamour, focussing instead on petty grievances and property disputes. “They are small stakes, but of course, everything that is quintessentially American—property, the right to violence, the right to protect land—are all intensely operative in this space,” Cunningham says. “And if something goes wrong, somebody pays for it.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“DTF St. Louis” (2026—)“‘DTF St. Louis’ Peers Into the Suburban Male Psyche,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)“The Swimmer,” by John Cheever (The New Yorker)“Judy Blume: A Life,” by Mark Oppenheimer“Wifey,” by Judy Blume“Back to the Future” (1985)“All That Heaven Allows” (1955)“Desperate Housewives” (2004-2012)“American Pie” (1999)“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997-2003)“Adventures in Babysitting” (1987)“The Five-Forty-Eight,” by John Cheever (The New Yorker)“Neighbors” (2026—)“All Her Fault” (2025)“Friendship” (2025)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Mar 26, 202646 min
The Soft Power of BTS
The K-pop group BTS—by many metrics, the most popular band of all time—had a meteoric ascent before its members were called away by mandatory South Korean military service. Now, nearly four years later, the group has returned with a new record, “Arirang.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz delve into the album as well as the live-streamed concert and documentary that have accompanied its release, both on Netflix. “Arirang” is being framed as a return to the group’s Korean roots, albeit one that signifies a new, more mature era for its members, who are now in their late twenties and early thirties. The hosts consider BTS’s meticulously crafted image and its relationship to its devoted followers, known as ARMY. Intense fandom is nothing new—just ask the Beatles—but K-pop stans are particularly invested in the lives (and livelihoods) of their favorite idols, even paying for the chance to message them directly. “This further privatization of what we call parasociality,” Cunningham says, “if that can be monetized and organized, it really is the final frontier of the pop star.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:BTS’s “Arirang”“BTS: The Return” (2026)“KPop Demon Hunters” (2025)Justin Bieber’s “Swag”“The K-Pop King,” by Alex Barasch (The New Yorker)The music video for BTS’s “Swim”“Judy Blume: A Life,” by Mark OppenheimerThe Beatles’ “Let It Be”New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
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About Critics at Large | The New Yorker
Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.See Critics at Large live at 92NY on February 19: https://www.92ny.org/event/vinson-cunningham-naomi-fry-and-alexandra-schwartz
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