Charli XCX Misses the Moment

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Episode Summary: "Charli XCX Misses the Moment"

Release Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, Alexandra Schwartz

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Overview: Main Theme and Purpose

In this episode, the Critics at Large team—Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz—dive deep into Charli XCX’s new mockumentary film, The Moment, and its relation to her "Brat" era and the phenomenon of the pop star music documentary. They discuss what these films reveal—and obscure—about authenticity, celebrity, branding, and the porous boundary between pop artifice and reality. Along the way, they compare The Moment to iconic music documentaries, meditate on the illusion of intimacy in pop—and examine why so many of these films miss the mark.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The "Brat Summer" Phenomenon

• The show opens with a playful nod to the "Brat Summer" of 2025, when Charli XCX’s bratty, alternative pop persona captured the culture’s imagination.
  • "[03:10] D: I saw that Charli XCX posted Kamala is brat."
  • "[03:41] D: I just want to say the Arial font had a huge moment. I mean, it was Arial is brat every application."
• The hosts reminisce about the ubiquity and fleetingness of “Brat Summer,” the viral “apple dance,” and the memetic quality of the Brat aesthetic.

"The Moment": Charli XCX’s Film and Its Targets

• The film is framed as a parody/mockumentary (or “autofiction”), critiquing the now-standard, highly polished "authorized" pop star documentary, as seen with Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Metallica.
  • "[04:41] D: The moment is not a documentary. It's more like a mockumentary... a kind of parody of the endless exercise in self branding."
• Alexandra Schwartz lays out the film's premise: Charli plays a version of herself, with real-world figures (Rachel Sennott, Mel Ottenberg), fictional characters (Alexander Skarsgård as a soulless director), and risky celebrity cameos (Kylie Jenner).

Critical Responses to "The Moment"

• Naomi Fry: Disappointed by the lack of stakes and sophistication. "[09:28] C: The stakes could not be more non-existent. Like I ended up feeling like, who the fuck cares and what are the stakes here even?"
• Vinson Cunningham: Sees flashes of cleverness, notably in the satirical Ibiza scenes and the power play with Kylie Jenner ("one of the best performers in this movie" [13:33] E). But he thinks the film loses its way on questions of coolness and authenticity.
  • "[14:07] E: It didn't. I think it either wanted to be way crazy. It wanted to be like Black Swan or Slapstick. And I think it got kind of caught up in there."
  • Proposes a bolder, more topical plot: What if Charli’s 'Brat' brand were co-opted into a doomed political campaign? ("I would have loved to see a fake Kamala Harris campaign be like, that's brat." [14:43] E)
• Alexandra Schwartz: Finds the film’s relevance hollow because it reimagines recent history everyone already lived through.
  • "[17:59] D: To kind of pretend it turned out differently... this all kind of seems to me like an elaborate way of dodging the real issues that came up."
  • The film’s “strawman critique”—e.g., the brat credit card gag—doesn’t land because “the things she does in real life aren't that different.” (Referencing brand collabs with Super Bowl spots [19:50] C)

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The Genre of Pop Star Docs: Comparing "The Moment" to Other Music Films

• Taylor Swift and Beyoncé: The team analyzes the “authorized” concert movie, now produced by and for the star, always tightly controlled, inherently promotional.
  • "[24:11] E: It used to be... a documentarian with her or his own vision coming into your world, intruding and hopefully finding something that you didn't plan... More recently... it's always a commercial for me."
  • "[26:42] D: ...her [Beyoncé’s] Renaissance movie, which, it's stultifying. It makes you feel... not the experience of being at the concert."
• Classic Music Documentaries: Naomi reflects on “Gimme Shelter” (1970)—the antithesis of these new, calculated docs—documenting chaos, danger, true unpredictability (the Altamont concert murder).
  • "[28:50] C: ...the absolute chaos that is captured on film, it creates something the likes of which we'll never see again and which we have rarely seen since."
• Continuum and Self-Reference:
  • Vinson sees the evolution: "The pop star is kind of an avatar for us in this way..." [39:54] E

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Authenticity and The Illusion of Intimacy

• Madonna's "Truth or Dare" (1991) as a pivotal moment, navigating what it means to show “the real” behind the pop veneer ("the kind of newer path of like, I'm going to show myself for real...").
  • "[37:22] D: Do you want to talk at all off camera?...She doesn't want to live off camera, much less talk. I think that's what it is..." (with Warren Beatty as the dissenting voice)
• The New Pop Star Dilemma: Responding less to real life, more to formula and reference, leading to “diminishment of power and connection” [39:54] E.

Self-Branding and Its Discontents

• A meta-conversation: Now, everyone must manage their own "brands," not just celebrities.
  • "[40:30] D: Everyone is their own little pop star of their own confection... the famous people are trying to be real, the real people are trying to seem famous..."

What Do We Want from Celebrity Confessionals?

• Insights from artist biographies and memoirs: As Naomi observes, real candor generally comes from those no longer at “the top” or adjacent to it.
  • "[44:57] C: I found that you tend to get that more with the people who aren't extremely famous, which makes a lot of sense, right?"

Possible Models of Authenticity

• Alexandra highlights Bad Bunny as a contemporary artist successfully balancing massive fame with a genuine sense of self and politics.
  • "[46:23] D: I do feel Bad Bunny is tapping into like the perfect Persona mix of huge megastar popped him, mixed with this kind of like warm, personal, like, here's what I'm really about..."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Pop Stardom Parody
  • "[04:41] D: ...a kind of parody of the endless exercise in self branding that defines pop stardom today."
• Naomi on The Moment’s Lack of Stakes
  • "[09:28] C: The stakes could not be more non-existent. Like I ended up feeling like, who the fuck cares and what are the stakes here even?"
• Vinson on The Film’s Unfocused Tone
  • "[14:07] E: ...it either wanted to be way crazy. It wanted to be like Black Swan or Slapstick."
• Alexandra on the Film’s Strawman Critique
  • "[19:50] C: ...the things she does in real life aren't that different... this is like, literally your life. Like, you're not. It's not funny. It's real."
• On What We Get from Celebrity Memoirs
  • "[44:57] C: I found that you tend to get that more with the people who aren't extremely famous, which makes a lot of sense, right?"
• Vinson on the New Pop Star as Self-Referential
  • "[39:54] E: ...the pop star is kind of an avatar for us in this way. Am I, you know, quote unquote touching grass or am I just kind of navigating another cliche? A hall of mirrors of somebody's making..."
• Alexandra on Bad Bunny and a New Kind of Realness
  • "[46:23] D: I do feel Bad Bunny is tapping into like the perfect Persona mix of huge megastar popped him, mixed with this kind of like warm, personal, like, here's what I'm really about..."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:16–06:41]: Introduction to "The Moment" and the music doc genre
• [08:31–15:34]: Critics’ reactions and initial takes on The Moment
• [19:56–25:57]: The history and evolution of pop star documentaries—Taylor, Beyoncé, Meisels Brothers, shift from documentarian to self-producer
• [27:51–33:39]: Deep dives into Gimme Shelter, Spice World, and the A Hard Day’s Night lineage
• [35:24–40:30]: Authenticity, the paradox of celebrity “realness,” Madonna’s Truth or Dare
• [42:42–47:31]: The Joaquin Phoenix gambit ("I'm Still Here"), what we want from confessional docs/biographies, and contemporary models of sincerity (Bad Bunny)

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Final Thoughts

The critics argue that "The Moment," despite clever moments and parody, ultimately fails to address the real tensions at the heart of pop stardom and self-branding. Instead, the film and many of its peers land in a hall of mirrors where everyone—stars and fans—are performing versions of themselves for an audience that craves both authenticity and spectacle, seldom receiving either in full. The episode ends gesturing toward greater hope in artists like Bad Bunny, who, for now, seem to walk the line between true self-expression and mass appeal better than most.

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Critics at Large will be live at the 92nd Street Y on February 19. Next episode: a Toni Morrison deep dive.

Transcript

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[C]

Guys, this is our brat summer.

[D]

This is our. I mean, I feel like I'm finally having my brat. My brat. Midwinter. It's the Midwinter brat.

[C]

Well, that means maybe the brat can go on forever.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

This is critics at a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Nomi Frye.

[E]

I'm Vincent Cunningham.

[D]

And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. My frozen friends.

[C]

Oh my God, it's deep freeze Monday.

[D]

Yeah, we're Coming to you straight from the frozen tundra of New York City. But let's close our eyes for a second. Let's let the sun shine in. Think back, way back, to the halcyon days of Brat Summer. Pink is out and lime green is in. I saw that Charli XCX posted Kamala is brat.

[C]

What?

[D]

What does that even mean? I think it has a bit of that. If you know, you know angle. It can also be, like, so, like, trashy.

[C]

Just like a pack of cigs and like a Bic lighter.

[D]

So it's the idea that we're all kind of brat and Vice President Harris is brat.

[E]

I don't.

[D]

Well, I don't know if you're a shroud. Right.

[C]

Dark sunglasses, white tank tops. The elders were confused. The youngsters were cheering. Kamala was brat Ariel.

[D]

I just want to say the Ariel font had a huge moment. I mean, it was Ariel is brat ever application.

[E]

Not a great font. Great moment for that font.

[D]

Yeah, totally.

[C]

We were all doing the apple dance.

[D]

We were all doing the apple dance. It was Brat Summer.

[C]

What if I was doing the apple dance?

[D]

I mean, please do. Do the apple dance. You're encouraged to do the apple dance.

[C]

You don't want to see it because.

[D]

Cameras are in this room.

[C]

You do not want to see it.

[D]

To the comptroller. Yes. I knew she had it in her.

[E]

You did it. You did it.

[D]

Okay, okay. She drove the car and everything.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

We're, of course talking about Brat Summer connected to Charli XCX's album Brat. And now, just in case you haven't thought about Brat in a hot minute or month, it's back on our minds thanks to a new film, Charlie xcx, are you having a brat summer? I'm sorry, what is it again?

[E]

Is it we agree to Brat Summer forever?

[C]

Don't you just think the whole, like.

[D]

Keep having a brat summer thing is a bit cringe?

[E]

It's all cringe.

[D]

Good to go again. The moment is not a documentary. It's more like a mockumentary. Some have called it autofiction. I believe it is, among other things, a kind of parody of the endless exercise in self branding that defines pop stardom today. And it's also making fun of a very specific form, the authorized music documentary. That is something that's become, I would say, a definite cliche in the music world. I mean, what are. What are some examples that. That come to your minds when we talk about that?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, one of my forever favorites, Madonna's Truth or Dare from the early 90s, you know, Taylor Swift has released several. A few such documents. Right.

[E]

Beyonce is a purveyor of this sort of experience.

[D]

Yes, yes.

[E]

Homecoming, renaissance, et cetera.

[D]

Lady Gaga, five foot two.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, this is Metallica some kind of monster. I mean, there's a lot. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

[D]

It's the tip. And we are going to go below the water today to talk about a few of these projects. We want to ask, first of all, do they work? And if they don't, do they fall flat and how? And my big question is, at a time when even the meekest of us, the regular non pop stars among us, are under some pressure to curate our image, put out a public version, try to understand its relationship to the private version of the self, what do these very self conscious, big branding exercises in public pop star Persona give us that's today on critics at large? The moment and the illusion of intimacy. Okay, before we get into the moment, let's do what we love to do. Let's define our terms, because there are many different kinds of music documentaries. What would you guys say is the genre that the moment is parodying?

[E]

It's parodying a certain kind of narrative documentary that places itself in a particularly difficult, arduous, momentous moment in the artist's life and shows them sort of overcoming the hurdle that is, whatever. The great big tour, the really important concert, et cetera, at the same time. Right. It's parodying that, but it's also following in a quite established genre as well. This kind of mockumentary is not like kind of a standalone Charlie XCX thing. There's like, you know, in 1964 the Beatles made a movie called A Hard Day's Night, which is, you know, it's a comedy about them getting ready for a concert. Spice World by the Spice Girls is all about them. Sort of like breaking free of the label chains. But it's a very funny comedy. So she's poking at one genre and following, I think, kind of pretty faithfully another, it seems.

[D]

Yeah, I think I want us to get more into that because I totally agree with you and have thoughts. So let's just talk about the moment. Let's lay it out on the table. It's directed by Aiden Zemiri, who co wrote it with Bertie Brandes from an original idea by Charli xcx. The film, of course, stars Charli XCX playing a version of herself. And the cast list is long. Some of the people in it are actually playing themselves. Rachel Sennett for example, Mel Ottenberg, the editor of Interview. And then other actors are playing characters like Alexander Skarsgrd, who's playing a soulless corporate concert filmmaker named Johannes. And Kylie Jenner even shows up for a minute, definitely as her Kylie self. I have no idea what anyone in this room, except for me thought of this film. So I'd love to know. Tell me. A heavy sigh from Nomi Fry.

[C]

Oh, God. Listen, I really wanted to like this. I really, as you saw by my faithful Apple dance just a few moments ago, I, while not an active participant in Brat Summer in any meaningful way, I didn't go see a concert. I didn't, you know.

[E]

You weren't a participant.

[C]

I didn't go to the club.

[D]

She was a passive participant, et cetera, et cetera.

[C]

I very much enjoyed Brat and I listened to it quite a bit and, you know, really thought it was like a great, fun album. I wanted to like this documentary. In other words, I was like, let's see. It's an interesting idea, right? It's an interesting conceit to ask ourselves, like, how long can this shit last? Not, not just about this, but just generally speaking. It's very interesting to observe the kind of ebbs and flows of these cultural moments. And I was looking for this movie to give me nothing like an airtight answer, but to explore that question in an interesting and sophisticated fashion, as it seemed to suggest it would by, you know, all the promo around it, et cetera. And I unfortunately left unsatisfied. I didn't really think. I think the movie was trying to pull off something that it was ultimately unable to pull off. And like, I guess my feeling was that like, the stakes could not be more non existent. Like I ended up feeling like, who the fuck cares and what are the stakes here even? And who are these people and why? Okay, I had a couple of issues with this. Should I go into them now or should I?

[D]

I want to know what Vincent thinks and then I'm going to bring it back to your issues.

[C]

I don't want to overwhelm.

[D]

Hold onto your like delicious little apples. We're just gonna keep eating apples. Vincent, what did you think?

[E]

I agree largely with Nomi. There are parts of the movie that I really did like. But okay. Charli xcx, formerly a niche performer, right? Sort of set to the side for the really cool and sort of drug addled among us, suddenly does something that everybody can relate to and suddenly everybody.

[C]

Wants to be drug addled.

[E]

Everybody wants to be drug addled in Brat and So the question is, how do you carry your newfound accessibility to mainstream whatever. She's building a concert. Douchebag Alexander Skarsgrd is hired to make the tour movie, and he just takes over the production. Right. And so she's like, what to do? She's like, I'm sorry, I can't deal with this. I'm going to Ibiza. And she, you know, she goes. So it's like the question of authenticity all hangs therefore, on the concert.

[C]

Yeah. And like, another replacement of her creative director. Celeste played very well, I thought, by Hailey Benton Gates for the kind of figure of Skarsgrd, which are kind of positioned against each other as kind of like the authentic and kind of like, knows what Charlie is about person versus this other guy who's trying to make her more palatable for a mainstream audience.

[F]

I'm trying to tell a story here, okay?

[D]

Yeah.

[F]

And a nightclub is not a story. A nightclub is a nightclub.

[D]

Right.

[F]

And at some point, the night has to end and they turn on the lights and you like. And then the next morning you wake up and it's like, wow, my head is pounding. What's happening?

[D]

Whoa.

[F]

You know, maybe you even took illegal drugs.

[D]

God forbid.

[F]

Whereas a story can be told and retold, passed down from fathers to sons and obviously from mothers to daughters as well, and so on and so forth.

[D]

That sounds amazing.

[F]

It is.

[D]

It's. It's just the thing about this show is actually the people that come to it, for the most part, are just not. Are not that interested in having children. And some of them probably don't even speak to their fathers because they don't approve of their lifestyle. So it's like a whole different thing.

[E]

That we're doing in the moments that it was trying to be funny about fame and just kind of like, about how punishing and weird it can be for someone who's not prepared for it. I thought it was really funny. There's a great scene where, um, Charlie has absconded to Ibiza on. On vacation. While she's supposed to be, like, managing her tour on another thing is like, the movie. You could also describe it as a movie about somebody who does not know how to be a boss. Like, doesn't just can't make decisions and therefore folds under that pressure. She goes away. She runs into Kylie Jenner, who I have to say is one of the best performers in this movie.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

It's like she does.

[D]

She has a great moment. Yes.

[E]

As a vision of someone who's actually cameras a lot.

[C]

The woman is A pro.

[E]

She's great. And that's literally the point of her performance. She's like. She's kind of negging her and being like, oh, I wanted to work with, you know, whatever, Alexander Skarsgarden, but you. But I'm not mad at you, and I think you're gonna do great. But it's like this weird moment where someone with real aura is kind of like doing an alpha thing to her and Charlie is wilting under the weight of the interaction. Stuff like that. I was like, this is really good.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

But I also think that it wanted to have some. It's like Charlie's breaking down all the way through it. She's kind of screaming and sort of changing her mind and whatever. But it didn't. I think it either wanted to be way crazy. It wanted to be like Black Swan or Slapstick. And I think it got kind of caught up in there. And also, I just think it chose fundamentally. To your point about stakes, Nomi. It just. I think because it lands so much on what's cool and what's not cool, what's authentic and what's not authentic. I think it shows the wrong story.

[C]

What do you think would be the right story? I think yes.

[E]

And I don't mean to get into, like, diagnostics so early, but I think that it should be about someone like Charli xcx, whose music and branding has been co opted by a doomed presidential campaign of the nominee of one of the major parties in American politics. And what it means for cool to be co opted into politics and made to mean much more than it could ever mean. I think that's something that probably actually did face her and whatever. I don't want it to be a blank documentary, but I just think I would have loved to see a fake Kamala Harris campaign be like, that's brat. And all of a sudden, this girl who just wants to party and hang out and make cool music has to mean something in a way more than she has to mean instead of like, oh, is my tour gonna have corny visuals or not?

[C]

Okay, I want to. Alex, I want to hear what you have to say, and then I'll.

[D]

Okay, I'm just gonna leave us in suspense. 3. Did you love it? 2. 1. I love this movie. What? I'm absolutely kidding. I did not love this movie. See, I just did a little bit of a, you know, like, oh, my God, Alex.

[C]

My heart was beating like a drum.

[D]

He was a little brat, though, that I did that.

[C]

Alex is brat.

[D]

I'm 20, 26. I'm brat. A full 18 months after brat was a thing. And that would be very on brand for me. Nope, you're hitting the nails on the head, my friend. You're hitting the nails on the head. And I think this is a film that had really interesting ideas and a noble cause, which is part of extending the Charli XCX brand, which is to be a kind of harder, harsher, cooler version of pop stardom. It's the pop stardom that does cocaine in the bathroom and doesn't wear rhinestones. And so, of course, in the movie, there she is wearing rhinestones looking like, guess, Taylor Swift. It's very, very clear. And we can get into Charlie's possible beef with Taylor Swift and Taylor's possible beef with Charlie in the way that this movie is taking it. But Charlie as an artist and as a brand, and those things are, of course, very connected in the world of pop is about being alternative. Brat broke through in this huge way. So the question of the movie is the question of Charli xcx, which is like, how much do you extend that? How much do you milk that? And does the very fact of milking that and basking in the success of that means automatically that you're selling out? Like, if you're a little bit alt when you're on the in crowd, does that automatically ruin you and make you kind of suck? So I think she's working with an interesting question. And to go against, you know, she said that she got approached to make, like, a traditional concert film around Brat where someone would be following her around with the camera and seeing, like, how does she put it all together and how. What's she stressed about? You know, maybe like, a scene of her smoking a cigarette anxiously before her first triumphant appearance. And she didn't want to do that. Here's the fundamental thing I find really confusing about this movie that I think explains a lot of why it falls flat. It's a reimagining of something everyone lived through, and everyone knows what happened. Like, we know none of this happened. I'm not trying to be an idiot to say that, like, we know what the Brat tour was. We know that she did a big, like, remix in the fall of Brat. We followed Brat.

[C]

Right.

[D]

So to kind of pretend it turned out differently, like, Vincent I think to your point about Kamala, yeah, this all kind of seems to me like an elaborate way of dodging the real issues that came up. Like, the big scandal in the movie, which I think thought was a funny gag, is that she is approached by Atlantic Records, her actual record company, with whom she has a famously difficult history, to release a brat credit card that will help a failing bank.

[E]

Really funny gag.

[D]

It's a good gag. Like, it's a vomit green. It's the Brat Green credit card, and.

[E]

It'S for queer people.

[D]

It's aimed at young gays. Yeah, it's aimed at young queer people. There's a line about, like, how do we know they're gay? Like, to qualify for the card?

[E]

Like, you know, just, like, you can tell, you know. Yeah, there's some funny stuff.

[D]

There's some funny stuff in here. But it also does seem, because this is a totally apolitical movie, when Brat actually just entered political discourse at, you know, the weirdest political time.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. And I also think it's just, like, kind of by positioning the whole thing as a kind of parody of what a pop star does when she gets big and then has a hard time finding her way. And how does she deal with this newfound, you know, kind of surge of fame, et cetera? The critique. It's kind of like a strawman critique, right? It's sort of like, oh, what if she did this brat card? And it's like, oh, how hilarious. But, in fact, the things she does in real life aren't that different. In the super bowl, there was a big ad that she did with Rachel Sennett for Poppy for this, you know, soda, which is fine, whatever. I have no qual. I personally have no problems with it, but this is like, literally your life. Like, you're not. It's not funny. It's real.

[D]

When we're back, we dive into the long history of the music doc and the authenticity it promises.

[C]

I watched Give Me Shelter again this morning. Harrowing, I know, but what a palette cleanser.

[D]

What a palate cleanser. Because it's authenticity, baby.

[C]

Because it's like, actually, no.

[D]

We don't say no. Okay, hold it. Like a little apple, remember? Do your little apple dance.

[G]

Hey, it's Ryan Broderick, host of Panic World, a weekly podcast from Courier about how the Internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. We cover everything from deep dives into J.K. rowling's downward spiral to how a cartoon mouse and spirit inspired an erotic cult in Russia. Panic World keeps you up to date on the movements that break out of the Internet and find their way into the real world. And so follow Panic World on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[D]

We've been talking about the moment, the Charli XCX movie that Parodies to perhaps not the degree that one might wish. The usual path of pop star branding via concert movie. And we're gonna talk about a few examples in this genre so we can get a sense of what the moment is trying to do. So Taylor Swift just this last December released a yet another ERAS tour product which is called the End of an Era. It's a six part series on Disney. Yes, I resubscribed to Disney just to watch the first two episodes of this thing. I wanted to overserve the fans in terms of the amount of songs they were gonna hear and how far I was gonna push myself.

[E]

It's not the movie chopped up into parts. It's a different part.

[C]

It's a different thing.

[D]

It's a six part different thing. Which documents the ERAS tour. Guys, I've seen parts one and two. Those are the parts I'm gonna speak to. Okay? Please, may I share with you?

[E]

Yes, please.

[D]

So I am an alien when it comes to Taylor Swift. I have. You know how like, some people taste cilantro and then for other people it tastes like soap?

[E]

Yes.

[D]

Like, I don't think I have. I think I'm a freak, basically. I don't really have the Taylor Swift gene.

[E]

Enzyme.

[D]

Yeah, I don't have the enzyme.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Some of her music I like. Totally fine and enjoy. You know, I yearn to be holding hands, crying, making half a heart, and someone comes up next to me, makes the other half of the heart with our crooked fingers.

[C]

It just struck me that the apple dance. I know it's supposed to be having an apple, but in fact.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

It's breaking apart.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

The Taylor Swift heart.

[D]

Thank you. Okay.

[C]

I mean, I don't know, I see.

[D]

These hearts, these apples, these symbols, and I think it's all the same. This is like major cryptology happening on this podcast right now. I think we could make headlines with this. It might be our times. Yes, exactly. It might be the moment for us. Okay, so, guys, talk about executive function. If you want competency porn, watch Taylor Swift pressing a wax seal into like 800 envelopes into which she's going to hand out handwritten letters.

[C]

You're kidding.

[D]

In its own baggie. And I was thinking we can lay them. Oh, let me see. The wax seal. You wax sealed every one of these things? Yeah. Telling every member of her production team, her crew, her dancers, her backup, her, everyone, that they're about to get, you know, $100,000 bonuses. Cause her tour is doing so damn well.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

The wax seal, of course, the to Me utterly odious scene of her actually handing out the bonuses, which is like, please stop with the envelopes. So it's just a little too much Patty on the back kind of situation. But yeah, the whole what I got from the first two episodes at least is we know that the ERAS tour was the greatest success of all time of any tour era. We got it. We know. How do we make that dramatic anyway?

[E]

Well, there is a huge change in the kind of economy of this kind of work, which is that it used to be, at least it was a documentary crew, a documentarian with her or his own vision coming into your world, intruding and hopefully finding something that you didn't plan right, that the star herself was not in control of the means of production of the documentary. More recently, with streaming and the proliferation of this kind of one person documentary, increasingly it's the person commissioning it, they've hired the crew, they're always being taped all the time. And then they kind of chop it up like, you know, chop chop. It's like, oh yeah, I got enough to like, oh, I'm gonna make a little documentary. I'm gonna chop this one up and make it into a series. And I'm the one that's got all the stuff. And therefore it's always a commercial for me, which is less a documentary and more of a sort of elongation of something like an Instagram reel, except, you know, much more, much better made or whatever. So for example, and sometimes when you nowadays, if you get something real, it's because somebody slipped up and didn't pay their camera person, their camera person and.

[C]

Somebody else got the footage with the recent Kanye documentary.

[E]

Sean Combs, Puffy. I hired this cameraman. I haven't paid him yet. Somebody else slips in, buys the footage and uses it towards purposes that I didn't mean. So, like the fact that if someone's in charge of the film about them, unless this person is really trying to achieve some, you know, self scalding vision or something like that, it's just hard for that to be interesting.

[D]

It's hard for that to be interesting. I do want to, just because I'm courting danger Beyonce, an artist I hugely enjoy, who I've like, you know, whose music resonates a lot than the music of Taylor Swift, whose film Homecoming I watched twice, like, loved it. I definitely was like crying, whatever. Like, was I the target audience? No. But I love that shit about her Coachella performance.

[F]

It's my first time back home on the stage after giving birth. I'm creating my own homecoming. And it's hard. There were days that I thought, you know, I'd never be the same. I'd never be the same physically. My strength and endurance would never be the same.

[D]

Like, I still remember her talking about, like, her body, dealing with her body and her babyweight and trying to perform again. So, guys, I watched another entry in this genre, her Renaissance movie, which it's stultifying. It makes you feel. What's interesting to me about that movie is it makes you feel how not the experience of being at the concert you're having. Like you're watching people have a religious experience, seeing Beyonce crying, feeling connected to one another, similar to the Eras tour. And really none of that is coming through the screen. And there's a weird moment in the middle of the movie when it goes to black and white in a kind of like, you know, artsy, but also like futuristic way. And Beyonce is just saying the most obvious stuff about how many people go into making a huge concert tour. And it could have come right out of the Taylor Swift on any of these. Like, they want you to see the enormous effort and you do, but there's still this demand to be amazed by the spectacle after, like revealing. After the. Behind the scenes. Yeah. So you have to be very, very. To pull that off, which is the main point, you know, the beauty, the glory. You have to kind of minimize the other stuff.

[C]

I was thinking about, you know, other documentaries, other music documentaries that I've loved or been interested in in the past. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna rewatch the Mezels Brothers gimme shelter from 1970. I've mentioned this, I believe in previous episodes is documents the Stones 1969American tour and the lead up and then the disaster of their show in December 1969, Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where a man was murdered by the Hells Angels, a black man named Meredith Hunter, in front of the Stones as they played. And that is captured on film. Of course, nobody knew that this would happen. And then there are clips after the Altamon concert of the Stones watching footage from the concert and the actual footage, which is kind of like the second half of the movie, people.

[D]

I mean, who's fighting? What for? Who's fighting? And a what for? Why are we fighting? Why are we fighting?

[C]

And the absolute chaos that is captured on film, it creates something the likes of which we'll, you know, never see again and which we have rarely seen since, you know, because you see just the, you know, the meisels, just the Way they capture faces in the audience. Just like people totally having bad trips on acid. You know, people. There's like one of the Hell's Angels. There's this, like stunning frame where you see, like, Mick Jagger, like, singing, getting through the concert. And the focus is on one of the Hell's Angels. Just looking at him, just like so menacing, you know, so full of doom. And it's just like one of the most stunning documents of an era.

[E]

Honestly, I think I was just listening to all, like, that great stuff you said, Nomaine. It's like that era, it's so clear. The porousness between the world, the political dimension.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

And the star, completely unprotected. Each one is like insanely so. Each one is sort of impinging directly on the other and changing it in a certain way. So everybody is affected by the existence of the other. On maybe the Far side is maybe Taylor Swift or even the totally apolitical reality that Charli XCX is inhabiting. The corporate superstar who is really kind of aloof from the world of politics and everyday people thinking about all this. I did rewatch a movie that maybe shares more in DNA with the moment, which is the Spice Girls movie. Spice World. Oh, yes, the Spice Girls. It's like the 90s. And therefore it's maybe in between this continuum and the whole point of the movie is them dealing with, again, a kind of machine around them.

[A]

Look, Clifford, we're old enough to take.

[C]

Responsibility for our own lives.

[A]

Do you know what I mean?

[F]

You don't have a life. You have a schedule. You are part of a well oiled global machine. There are people everywhere working their butts off for you. People like Deborah here.

[D]

Can you leave my butt out of this, please? Oh, just don't be so uptight, Clifford.

[F]

Uptight? Uptight. You've got a live gig here tomorrow. It's my job to see that you turn up.

[E]

There's the truly evil figure of the label head who's like, I don't care if they need rest. No rest for them.

[C]

Wait, who is Richard?

[D]

Richard E. Grant.

[C]

Richard E. Grant?

[D]

Yeah. He's the antagonist.

[C]

The villain.

[E]

Yeah, but I think the villain. I think the head. He's the label head, right?

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

I have facial hair.

[E]

Yeah, that's right. Meat Loaf is their tour bus driver. There's so many funny little intrusions, but against that it's about them trying to take back a kind of power.

[C]

Girl power.

[E]

Girl power.

[C]

No, literally.

[E]

No, it is true.

[D]

It is true.

[E]

And they're all sort of. They've got these sportiest bias, Baby Spice, et cetera. They've got all these posh bias. Scary. They've all got these Personas that are tied to various visions of femininity. And they're saying, no, I don't want to inhabit these anymore. So they switch Personas. They're all joking around like, posh is gonna be baby now, et cetera, et cetera. What the movie evinces is a total understanding, even through this kind of almost like Monty Pythonish rat, a tat joke format, like those great jokes.

[C]

And it's kind of A Hard Day's Night Ish too, right? I mean, they're, like, running away from fans.

[D]

I think they consciously talk about A Hard Day's Night.

[E]

Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny.

[C]

God bless.

[D]

We didn't know how good we had it.

[E]

It's great. And all it evinces, though, is a total understanding of what they mean culturally. It's not funny if they don't understand what they mean in the real world. And just to bring it back to the moment for a minute, that's what I was like, okay, Charlie's this person. By all accounts, she works with the cool. Like the late, great producer Sophie, the coolest, most sophisticated musicians in the world is who she works with. She's got great taste. And what this movie asked me to believe is she doesn't. She just is nothing exactly the same. And so it's like, either we have the.

[C]

There's no way.

[E]

Either she's like who she is, the arch sophisticate, or tell me that this person who's our creative director is actually the brain is behind it, and she actually is somebody with no taste. And now it's funny because we're learning that her taste actually resides in somebody like something, but we're just throwing away the whole archetype that her Persona has given us. It's like, why don't you play with something that's real Anyway, The Spice Girls are like, I know exactly how you see me. And the whole joke of this movie is that I'm gonna subvert it without, like, totally tossing it away.

[C]

They embrace their own cartoonishness. Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Spice World may. I'm all about big statements today. It may be a work of genius. And I just wanna add this in because looking at the letterboxd reviews of the moment, we have Charlie's own comment about her movie.

[E]

About her movie.

[D]

And then she writes, P.S. i'm being a good sport and not rating my own films from now on, but obvs I would be giving this 5 stars even if I wasn't in it. Cause it's so spice world Cod could I not. Xx So I do think she's. You're very wise to go there, Vincent. Going forward.

[E]

Yeah. And I will say, with the Brett card and other things, when it was most spice, Worldish is when I liked the moment best.

[D]

Yes, totally. It is so hard to achieve authenticity, even though we all crave it. That's in a minute on Critics at Large from the New Yorker.

[E]

You should tell the people who we are and what our new show is. I'm Robert Smith and this is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast about the best ideas and people and businesses in history and some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. We struggled to come up with a name, decided to call it business history. You know why?

[G]

Why?

[E]

Because it's a show about the history of business.

[F]

Available everywhere you get your podcasts.

[D]

We've been talking about concert documentaries, music, films, reference points for the Charli XCX movie. So it does have me thinking about this question of authenticity. And again, the, like, paradoxical idea of authenticity in something like pop music, which is, of course, total artifice. I mean, what do you guys make of that when it comes to this kind of image making?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think there is. It is really hard to both reveal and conceal at the same time, or reveal enough in order to make the concealment seem not like cockblocking, you know, but to kind of, like invite the fan in, but not in a way that feels unsafe or feels like you are going to be showing something that can get you canceled, that can get you. That can make you sell less, that can make you unloved. You know, it's a real. It's a real trick. And I think maybe the best example of the kind of, like, concealing, revealing thing that I've seen with, like, an enormous star is Madonna's Truth or Dare from 1991, which Aleca Shishian directed. And it documents her Blonde Ambition tour. And it's really one of the best documents about what it's like to be ultra famous that I've seen. One of my favorite moments is where, like, she is being. She's having some ear, nose, and throat trouble. A doctor comes to her. She kind of, like, sticks out her tongue, you know, and the doctor is like, say, ah. And she's like, ah. You know? Meanwhile, Warren Beatty, who she Is dating at the time of the, of the making of the movie, is like, he's very kind of like critical of her. Kind of like proto reality TV attempt to kind of like record everything, flay it all open, supposedly.

[D]

Do you want to talk at all off camera?

[E]

You have nothing to say?

[F]

She doesn't want to live off camera, much less talk.

[D]

I think that's what it is.

[F]

There's nothing to say off camera.

[D]

Why would you say something if it's off camera?

[C]

He gets very upset about it. And it kind of shows these two paths. The kind of newer path of like, I'm going to show myself for real behind the scenes, even though of course that is completely, you know, artificial. An artificial construct of what real is. And he's like, no, no, no, I am a star who's not gonna reveal himself. Bts like, you know, it's just kind of an interesting, like two roads diverge in a wood moment.

[D]

The old way and the new way.

[E]

Yeah, two paths for the novel.

[C]

Two paths. Two paths for the novel.

[D]

Two paths for the pop star.

[E]

Yeah, there you go.

[C]

Two paths for the pop star.

[E]

I also think, you know, some of this goes to a real anxiety and I think you can see it among pop stars of more contemporary vintage, perhaps that the early stars of the 50s and 60s and maybe even early 70s weren't really making reference to anything. There were stars before, there were famous people before. But in the age of mass media, plus the invention of the teenager and certain kind of mass produced pop music, record labels and all this kind of stuff, it was new what they were doing.

[C]

Yeah.

[E]

And so while there was quality control and notions of that, there certainly wasn't. They weren't making reference all the time. And it does seem to me that someone like Beyonce or Taylor Swift is working with someone like Madonna, Michael Jackson, James Brown, whatever, of former notions of pop stardom in mind. And so their responsiveness sometimes is less to the world and more to an archetype that already exists. Their anxiety perhaps echoes ours where it's like we are recipients of various forms of mass media. Are we responding to? Do we have access to the real, the R E A L as opposed to the real R E E L, you know, Instagram feeding us images, ideas, sounds, and we think we're responding to real conditions and really we're just being tossed in turn. I think the new pop star is kind of an avatar for us in this way. Am I, you know, quote unquote touching grass or am I just kind of navigating another cliche A hall of mirrors of somebody's making, other than my own. The idea of the pop star who's always in the bus, always watching videos. Oh, I'm making a reference to this, Reference to that. It does seem like there's a sort of diminishment of power and connection that I think these newer things. Do you guys feel that anxiety, first.

[D]

Of all, the anxiety of getting to the real? Yeah, of course. I mean, I think you're getting it. I think you're getting at it. Like, you're really getting at the thing. There is. I think there's even, like, one extra layer of confusion and chaos going on, which is the need for a huge celebrity to seem real. Naomi, I think you absolutely put your finger on it when you were talking about Madonna and, you know, kind of like presaging this reality TV world where cameras are always rolling, so everything is relevant, everything is content. But then, of course, you are performing because the camera is rolling. So there is this new genre of real that is and isn't real. And now, to make matters more confusing, all of us are implicated because everyone is their own little pop star of their own confection. Even if that's not your thing at all. Even if you're just, you know, whatever. The fact that there is a public Persona that can readily be had, a public avatar that can readily be had for every ordinary person, it creates this problem in both ways, where the famous people are trying to be real, the real people are trying to seem famous, or maybe they're not, but that's its own kind of reaction. So I think, like, something like Vincent, I think you're just totally getting at the crux of it. And something like the Moment Is Coming is entering into a lineage of both things of, like, the effort to explore the reality of an artist and what goes into that with a kind of straightforward documentary. And also the playing with that, that's already happened. Because there's also now a lineage of, like, fakery around this question of authenticity. Like, that seems like total word salad. So I actually have, like, two things in mind specifically to make it more comprehensible. Cause my own brain is spinning now. One thing I thought about a lot while watching the Moment was the movie I'm Still Here, directed by Casey Affleck, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Joaquin Phoenix, pretending to step away from acting and playing a version of himself that, like. Do you guys remember this? He, like, famously committed to the bit on Letterman. Yeah. And, like, for, like, two years, insisted that he was done with acting. He was gonna Become a rapper. This, like.

[C]

He was, like, a slovenly asshole.

[D]

Slovenly asshole. Yep. That's the Persona. And he really leaned into the slovenly asshole Persona. And so there's one clip in particular that I was thinking of where Joaquin Phoenix is, like, walking around in this fake documentary, which wasn't clear, was a fake documentary at the time in this blue hoodie. And he's talking about how he doesn't want to play himself anymore.

[H]

It's like the chicken and the egg. I don't know what came for us. Whether they said that I was emotional and intense and complicated, whether I. Or whether I was truly complicated and intense. And then they responded to it. Then, like, once they responded to it, then I responded to what they were saying. And, yeah, I utilized it in some ways. And there's. I'm embarrassed about that. And that's what a lot of this is about. I mean, I guess that's why I agreed to do this documentary is because I don't wanna. I don't wanna play the character of Joaquin anymore. Like, I wanna be. Whatever.

[D]

No, I don't wanna play Joaquin anymore. I just don't wanna be playing that part anymore, where. Of course that's exactly what he's doing. He's leaning into it. And so, like, should any of your heartstrings be pulled by that sense of wanting to step outside the prison of a Persona you've created? Joke's kind of on you. He's leaning into it.

[E]

Nomi, I've been wanting to ask you because you are kind of an aficionado of a very related form that might answer this question I have, which is, what do we want when these people disclose things? You've read a lot of artist biographies, the books that they put out, autobiographies, memoirs, this form of. Okay, now I'm gonna tell you what it's like. What happened behind the spectacle.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

What do you want from those? And what is sort of, like, different than this. Kind of like this form they're talking about, this movie thing.

[C]

I. Of course, in my jealous. You know, kind of like my desires, my greedy, jealous desires. I would want full revelation, full disclosure. I know that's not realistic.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

I think I found that you tend to get that more with the people who aren't extremely famous, which makes a lot of sense, right?

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

Or people who are very past their prime, you know, so either people who are kind of, like, were adjacent to.

[E]

Fame, character actor, or something like that.

[C]

Spent a lot of time around famous people and were maybe Kind of in rooms, you know, that, you know, people behaved kind of like badly or honestly in, or people who used to be famous and are now past that, but is already, you know, kind of doesn't give a fuck. For instance, you know, like Motley Crue's the Dirt, which is like written many years past, you know, this heavy metals band, heavy metal bands prime is just kind of a no holds bar. Like disgusting, but also like invigorating and interesting and honest. Look at what it was like when they were kind of like on top of the world. Right? But I do think it's very tricky when a person is still within their moment to get an actual honest take.

[E]

That's so great. I mean, it's almost like, you know, are we just looking in the wrong place? Like the pop star at the top of their pop stardom. Is that just the wrong place to look for the. The goods that we want?

[D]

I kind of think, like, are we looking in the wrong places for authenticity? We might be. I do feel not to just like be, you know, getting him in here because he's very like hugely happening this moment. The way you guys are talking, I am thinking a lot about Bad Bunny, who is so involved right now, like on this huge stage of the super bowl, of the Grammys or whatever, in putting forward a version of authenticity that I think a lot of people are really relating to and are really like and is very moving. Especially because it's a time of such hardness and cruelty and fear. And I feel like right now that I do feel Bad Bunny is tapping into like the perfect Persona mix of huge megastar popped him, mixed with this kind of like warm, personal, like, here's what I'm really about. Let me bring you into my world. Like in the way that he set up his set for the super bowl to be this Puerto Rico of the mind, basically. It's not a concert documentary. But I feel like he is walking the line in a way that's working right now. Scott Bunny is my answer, I guess, to the question.

[E]

And crucially, it's not a total transparency of biography.

[D]

No. Or even what he had for breakfast. I don't care. I don't wanna know.

[E]

It's like a clarity of intention. It's somebody who's saying, here are my politics, here's where I'm from, here's what I care about. And yes, I will bring an enormous amount of polish to that. But someone who's sort of sending a signal that has some crucially with the horrors of this ice moment and then Bad Bunny's it seems almost direct response to it in many ways a sort of again grounding in the real, like, oh, this person is talking about something and they have their mind in the world as opposed to someone sort of bouncing signals off of so many panes of glass.

[D]

This has been critics at large. Alex Barish is our consulting editor and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Alexis Quadrato composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with mixing by Mike Kutchman. A reminder, a very important reminder. You can still buy tickets to see us live next week at the 92nd Street Y. We're talking all things Wuthering Heights. If you're not in New York, guys, you can stream the event. Be with us. And more great news. We will be back in your feed next week with an episode about the legend Toni Morrison. It's not like we needed an excuse to spend a whole hour talking about Morrison, but we do have one. There's a new book called On Morrison by Namwali Serpell, a set of really wonderful essays all about her work. So join us for that next week. And as always, you can find each and every one of our [e-mail] Critics.

[B]

Foreign.

[D]

Hi, I'm Willa Paskin, the host of Decoder Ring, Slate's podcast about cracking cultural mysteries. On Decoder Ring, we dive down rabbit holes and obsessively explore questions hiding in plain sight, like why has slow dancing gone out of style? And when did we all become obsessed with hydration? And where did the word mullet, you know, to describe a a hairstyle, come from? That's Decodering, named one of the best podcasts of 2023 by the New York Times. Listen to new episodes every two weeks and make sure to follow us so you never miss one.

[C]

From PRX.