Editorials
Happy Gilmore’s Shooter McGavin Is the Perfect Comedy Villain
Editor’s Note: This op-ed originally ran in 2016 for the 20th anniversary of Happy Gilmore. Today, we’ve dusted it off for the 25th anniversary of the Adam Sandler blockbuster. So, grab your clubs, your gold jacket, and meet us in the sand. Happy Gilmore is basically perfect. Disagree with me? That’s your right, but I’m going to stab you with this skate. There’s a lot that makes Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler’s 1996 golf-idiot-savant comedy, so wonderful. Part of it is that it’s almost gleefully simple: failed hockey player discovers that his lousy slap shot could be good for golf and uses his newfound power to save Grandma’s house in a battle of homegrown hero versus rich prick. Part of it is that it’s just funny, made before Sandler started to exhaust his schlumpy charms. But more than anyt...
All Eyez on Me Captured 2Pac’s Last Moments of Peace
Editor’s Note: 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me originally dropped on February 13th, 1996. The double-album, the last record released while 2Pac was still alive, would go on to change the rap game forever. To celebrate the record’s 25th anniversary, Jayson Buford takes a look back at the album’s indelible legacy. In October 1995, Death Row Records boss Suge Knight paid the $1.4 million bail that was on the head of rap superstar Tupac Amaru Shakur, whose name had increasingly been in the papers for both his talent and troubles. Shakur was serving a sentence of up to four years for sexual assault, a crime that he maintained he did not commit. Alongside that black mark on his reputation, the night before the judge announced the verdict to the world, back in November 1994, 2Pac was shot outside of Quad S...
Jazz Great Milford Graves Drummed and Lived to the Rhythm of His Heart
There’s a rhythm inside all of us. Not of the sort that makes some people naturally gifted dancers or at least gives them the sense to clap on two and four. It is the irregular, yet constant, beat that resides in our chest. The first sound we become aware of in the womb and, if we are lucky, the last sound we hear before we die. For all his talent as a drummer and percussionist — skills that require a deep-seated feel for rhythm — Milford Graves listened to his heart more closely than any piece of music. During the past few years of his life, which came to an end on Friday January 12th at the age of 79, Graves was working with some biologists in Italy to create a device that would measure the human heartbeat and convert it into a melody. By sending that same sound back into a person’s body...
What the Cecil Hotel Reveals About Toxic True Crime Fandom
In 2013, the body of 21 year old Elisa Lam was discovered in the rooftop water tank of Los Angeles’ infamous Cecil Hotel. What was eventually ruled an accidental drowning took on a life of its own due to law enforcement’s decision to release surveillance footage of Lam’s final moments. Netflix’s new docuseries Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel pieces together this mysterious tragedy by examining Lam’s life and the complicated history of the hotel itself. Yet it also exposes the harmful nature of Internet sleuthing by questioning the ethics of true crime fandom and highlighting the line between compassion and exploitation. Morbid Obsession <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1104713" data-attachment-id="1104713" data-permalink="https://consequen...
In Defense of Phoebe Bridgers Smashing Her Guitar on Saturday Night Live
This past weekend, Phoebe Bridgers made her eagerly anticipated debut as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. During the final moments of her performance of “I Know the End”, a track from her buzzy sophomore album, Punisher, Bridgers went out with a bang — literally — when she repeatedly smashed her guitar into a monitor onstage. Unfortunately, the Internet being what it is, Bridgers’ epic moment of punk euphoria was clouded by curmudgeonly chatter. A simple search of “Phoebe Bridgers guitar” on Twitter brings up a litany of comments wondering why “that woman” had the nerve to “damage expensive property.” Others called the act pointless and even poked fun at Bridgers for apparently not being strong enough to have done more physical damage to the instrument. No matter how much doom scr...
Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power Still Thrives on Chaos and Unyielding Fury
When rock and roll evolved from the harmonious sludge of ditties about loving a gal from down the street or how kids wanted to rebel against their parents, The Beatles and Stones pushed our consciousness. Those bands dared us to see the emotional and sonic boundaries via large, orchestrated movements with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or the smooth but malicious undertones of Let It Bleed. These two bands broke the mold. They accelerated what the culture and artform were, but even as the Stones dipped their toes in dark water, it was still palatable to the masses, selling millions. But soon, new bands pushed harder. They came at the culture like a brick to the teeth: Jimi Hendrix took us to a different plane of existence, Black Sabbath dared us to see the devil and dance with him, ...
What WandaVision’s “Very Special Episode” Reveal Means for the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The following editorial is heavy on spoilers… Previously On WandaVision… Though Disney+’s WandaVision has already carved a niche for itself as a risk-taking series unlike anything the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has attempted before, the spinoff series’ most recent installment delivered a reveal in the final seconds of this week’s episode that completely redefines the possibilities in the MCU. “On a Very Special Episode…” — WandaVision’s longest outing yet with nearly double the runtime of the four prior episodes — saw Darcy Lewis (Kat Jenning), Jimmy Woo (Randall Park), and the newly-returned Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) try to find a way in to Westview, the town that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) has turned into her own fever-dream version of classic sitcoms. With Monica’s...
