The Value—and Limits—of Seeking Comfort in Art

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker Episode: The Value—and Limits—of Seeking Comfort in Art Release Date: November 14, 2024

In the enlightening episode titled "The Value—and Limits—of Seeking Comfort in Art," The New Yorker's Critics at Large—Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz—delve deep into the intricate relationship between art and comfort, especially in times of political and social turmoil. This comprehensive discussion explores how art serves as both a sanctuary and a catalyst for engagement, the nuances of escapism, and the potential pitfalls of over-reliance on comforting narratives.

1. Setting the Stage: Art Amidst Upheaval

The episode opens with the trio grappling with the pervasive question, "How did we get here?"—a reflection on the current cultural and political climate post-election. Vincent Cunningham introduces the central theme:

Vincent Cunningham [01:55]: "What can art do for us in moments of great political social upheaval, unreality. Especially in a time where so many people are disaffected, kind of numb, and are for that reason, looking to art to kind of escape the moment instead of engaging more deeply with it."

This sets the tone for a thoughtful exploration of art's dual role as both an escape and a means of confronting reality.

2. The Craving for Comfort: Personal Reflections

Naomi Fry shares her personal inclination towards seeking comfort through art, admitting a yearning for escapism amidst anxiety-inducing realities:

Naomi Fry [01:55]: "I feel like I've been really seeking comfort. I would love for art and culture to give me some sort of sense of escapism from the current reality."

Alex Schwartz echoes this sentiment, recounting her retreat into the first season of "The Crown" post-Trump election as a form of escapism:

Alex Schwartz [03:06]: "I think it's hard to answer this question at this juncture."

3. Escapism in Action: Elmo and British Bake Off

The conversation shifts to specific examples of comfort-seeking in contemporary media. Alex describes a poignant Sesame Street video featuring Elmo, which, despite its innocuous appearance, conveys a haunting emptiness:

Alex Schwartz [07:16]: "The caption was. 'Stop scrolling. Take a deep breath and use the next few minutes to escape to a place where the air is sweet.'"

Contrastingly, Naomi highlights the enduring appeal of "The Great British Bake Off" as a source of wholesomeness and comfort:

Naomi Fry [09:27]: "There is something very comforting. Everything seems so wholesome from a distance in that tent."

4. The Spectrum of Comfort in Art

The trio discusses the variety within comfort-seeking art, distinguishing between purely escapist culture and art that, while not traditionally comforting, offers solace through its artistic merit. Naomi brings up Annie Baker's "Janet Planet" as an example of a beautifully crafted character study that provides comfort through its authenticity:

Naomi Fry [42:46]: "It's just an incredible movie. It's about a single mother and her young daughter... it's so beautifully done."

Conversely, Alexandra Schwartz recommends "Somebody Somewhere" for its honest portrayal of personal struggles intertwined with humor, emphasizing the importance of humanism in art:

Alex Schwartz [42:53]: "It's really not about everything being great... But I do think it's about the struggle."

5. The Risks of Over-Escapism: Historical Parallels

Vincent Cunningham introduces a cautionary perspective by referencing historian Kristin Godsey's analysis of the Soviet era's "internal emigration." He warns against the societal consequences of excessive escapism:

Vincent Cunningham [28:00]: "When your private garden is all that there is, that's a problem. It's a problem for you, and it's a disaster for society."

This segment underscores the delicate balance between personal comfort and societal engagement, highlighting the potential for cultural retreat to contribute to broader societal collapse.

6. Art as a Catalyst for Humanism and Freedom

The discussion pivots to the intrinsic value of art in fostering humanism and intellectual freedom. Vincent posits that art nurtures the imagination, enabling new thoughts and perspectives essential for societal progress:

Vincent Cunningham [40:08]: "Art feeds the imagination in all these different ways and gives us the freedom to contemplate and to think new thoughts."

Alex concurs, advocating for art that promotes genuine curiosity and understanding of others, which she identifies as a form of humanistic comfort:

Alex Schwartz [37:08]: "I want to see more [humanism in art]. Just a sense of being able to be curious about people in a very real and complex way."

7. Recommendations: Navigating Comfort and Engagement

In the latter part of the episode, the critics offer actionable recommendations for listeners seeking comfort through art without succumbing to the dangers of escapism. Naomi suggests following Beth Stern's Instagram for uplifting animal rescue stories and recommends Annie Baker's "Janet Planet." Alex reiterates her endorsement of "Somebody Somewhere," while Vincent shares his appreciation for classic soul albums by Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway, emphasizing their ability to intertwine everyday life with profound political commentary.

8. Concluding Thoughts: Balancing Comfort and Responsibility

As the episode draws to a close, the critics emphasize the importance of balance. Naomi encourages listeners to view comfort-seeking as part of a "marathon, not a sprint," advocating for mindful engagement with art that sustains without isolating:

Naomi Fry [35:48]: "We're individuals who are living through time, and sometimes things take a while to absorb... it's not all or nothing."

Vincent reiterates the societal necessity of maintaining spaces for contemplation and artistic freedom, asserting that such freedoms are foundational to a truly free society.

Notable Quotes:

• Vinson Cunningham [01:55]: "What can art do for us in moments of great political social upheaval, unreality. Especially in a time where so many people are disaffected, kind of numb, and are for that reason, looking to art to kind of escape the moment instead of engaging more deeply with it."

• Naomi Fry [01:55]: "I feel like I've been really seeking comfort. I would love for art and culture to give me some sort of sense of escapism from the current reality."

• Alex Schwartz [07:16]: "The caption was. 'Stop scrolling. Take a deep breath and use the next few minutes to escape to a place where the air is sweet.'"

• Vincent Cunningham [28:00]: "When your private garden is all that there is, that's a problem. It's a problem for you, and it's a disaster for society."

• Vinson Cunningham [40:08]: "Art feeds the imagination in all these different ways and gives us the freedom to contemplate and to think new thoughts."

Conclusion

"The Value—and Limits—of Seeking Comfort in Art" offers a profound examination of how art functions as both a refuge and a means of deeper societal engagement. The New Yorker's Critics at Large adeptly navigate the complexities of seeking comfort through cultural consumption, advocating for a balanced approach that honors personal solace while reinforcing collective responsibility. Through personal anecdotes, critical analysis, and thoughtful recommendations, the episode serves as a compelling guide for listeners striving to find equilibrium between escapism and active participation in shaping their cultural and political landscapes.

Transcript

[Alex Schwartz]

Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz.

[Nomi Fry]

I'm Nomi Fry.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And I'm Vincent Cunningham. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. How you guys doing?

[Nomi Fry]

How did we get here?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, big question.

[Alex Schwartz]

I don't really know how to answer this question. Personally, I'm okay. I don't think things are okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Things are.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I agree, Alex. I think it's hard to answer this question at this juncture.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And listeners, if you're anything like us, you have been really turning over and over and over in your head this how we got here question. Since the election, I, for one, I don't know about you guys, but I've been trading theories in my group chats. I've been digging through op eds and more newsletters than I care to admit that I subscribe to just to see what, you know, smart writers and thinkers have to say, but just to let listeners kind of into the behind the scenes of our show a little bit. With so many of us, as we should be laser focused on politics, the three of us have really been thinking hard about what a show like ours can offer. And on some level, that questioning produced the topic of today's show. Right. What can art do for us in moments of great political social upheaval, unreality. Right. Especially in a time where so many people are disaffected, kind of numb, and are for that reason, looking to art to kind of escape the moment instead of engaging more deeply with it.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah. I mean, speaking for myself, I feel like something I've been really craving. I think it's something I always crave to an extent, as a kind of nervous and anxious person by nature, but especially when reality kind of steps in in a way that demands our attention in ways that are more than usually anxiety producing. I feel like I've been really seeking comfort. I would love for art and culture to give me some sort of sense of escapism from the current reality. And I don't know, and I feel like it's complicated. Like, I don't know that that's necessarily. Like I question that impulse in myself. I don't know if it's necessarily the best thing or the right thing. I think I have some guilt feelings around my desire to hide in a nook, but nonetheless, I do have that desire.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Have you been sort of seeing people dealing with that push and pull, too, Alex?

[Alex Schwartz]

Absolutely. I think I've been seeing that push and pull for the last eight years.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. You know, it's not like everything has been so cozy and great until now. I think that's one of the things that is. Yeah, that is the strangest, which is a sense of, again, being kind of dashed against the rocks after having maybe a brief reprieve where your head just pops above water and boom, you're thrown under again. And just speaking personally, I know the feeling that Nomi is describing very, very well, the need to seek comfort. And I felt it acutely after the first Trump election. This is what immediately comes to my mind. That was such a shocking moment in a way that I have not processed this moment as much of a shock that I think what I did was just watch the first season of the Crown, which had just come out, and that was pure escapism. That was really a sense of just smoothed, seen from the point of view of the ultra elite that I found quite relaxing in that moment of disempowerment.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, right, right. And we'll talk about all of this. How entertainment can help us through difficult times, how art comes to meet us at these intersections where real life and the political overwhelms us. And really importantly, this question of escapism. What does it mean to turn away right, when an uncanny political reality demand our attention more than ever? So that's today on Critics at Large, the value and limits of seeking comfort in Art. So we've been mentioning this theme of comfort and seeking comfort right now. Is this something that you guys have seen since the election or even kind of just around Election Day and the buildup and afterward? I could tell you, I myself was live blogging for the New Yorker's website. The election, therefore, in real time. The souring in my mood was apparent to all of our many listeners who tuned in. We were trying to figure this out. Why would somebody be on the New Yorker's website refreshing that listening to our commentary? And the reason is people are afraid or are trepidatious or nervous or whatever and want somebody alongside them, which is not different than what we're discussing. It's like a kind of, I don't know, togetherness.

[Nomi Fry]

That's nice.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And so you get to listen to Rachel Maddow with her sort of the stentorian pronouncements and feel that somehow you are not alone. It is a kind of entertainment, which has, of course, led to all kinds of political derangement, but it's not dissimilar from this comfort idea, the need for completely.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think that's true. I Mean, personally, would I prefer some smoke to go up as when the Pope is selected? Yes, I think so. That would just spare me a lot of source. But, yeah, I think you're exactly right. There's comfort in a kind of togetherness of processing.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right, right.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I mean, have you observed this as a broad phenomenon, just anecdotally? What kind of things have you seen? People, not just after the election, but around this election season. People kind of turning to, well, didn't.

[Nomi Fry]

Elmo have some words for us?

[Alex Schwartz]

I was about to say Elmo. My mind immediately went to the cultural bellwether, Elmo.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Elmo's message did not reach me. What happened with Elmo?

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, so Elmo. Vincent, you know who Elmo is, right? Oh, please.

[Nomi Fry]

Hi, Alex. Don't insult me as Elmo.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Ness. Yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

You know, I love to define our terms. I mean, sometimes it's true. Elmo is universal.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Elmo figure, comma, the beloved Sesame street red thing, comma.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, that's right. That's right. Okay, so Elmo, I think it was on election day. The official Sesame street social media account shared a video of Elmo that I myself happened to see because I'm a Sesame fan. Sesame's huge in my household right now. And it's of Elmo sitting on the steps of his own brownstone building.

[Nomi Fry]

He's made some smart investments.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, certainly his parents have. The caption was. Stop scrolling. Take a deep breath and use the next few minutes to escape to a place where the air is sweet.

[Nomi Fry]

Do you want to play it, perhaps?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, let's play it. Of course, the interesting thing is there is no sound except for the rustling wind. And this video got more than 8.5 million views on TikTok, 5 million views on X. You know, tons of comments from people who declare themselves to be weeping, shaking, just like meeting his home. I just wanna tell you guys about the video for one second. So the video is Elmo sitting on his stoop. It then pans to different locations on Sesame street that are empty, including Big Bird's huge nest. Where's Bird? You know, it looks like an apocalyptic vision of Sesame street where the fun, wonderful friends who are always up to, who have some kind of, you know, gambit afoot, have just vanished into thin air.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Disappeared.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. It's like, I don't find that comforting. Elmo. What about comfort and community? This is terrifying.

[Nomi Fry]

My question is like, since when is Elmo scrolling? Like it says, oh, since.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh. Do you want an answer to that? I'll tell you. Since, smarty. The Smartphone became a major character on Sesame Street. Don't even get me started. On a future episode in which we will talk about children's entertainment, I will be having my say about Smarty, the most nefarious character to ever make an appearance.

[Nomi Fry]

I'm totally out of the loop. I apologize. We've aged out.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, they let a smartphone into Sesame Street.

[Nomi Fry]

Smarty, not Smarty.

[Alex Schwartz]

Let's look it up. Okay.

[Nomi Fry]

Oh, no.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Any other things you've observed, Frank Escapist moves that you've observed in this time?

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, I think people are turning to. As they always do in times of trouble, people are turning to British Bay. I certainly have been watching British Bake off again. I mean, I remember during the pandemic, I watched maybe eight seasons of Bake off, and there was something about the fact that they were, like, in a tent in England. Now, I know England has its problems. You know, I grew up on the Smiths. Like, I. Yeah, okay. I know.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Fry]

And yet there is something very comforting. Everything seems so wholesome from a distance in that tent.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, gosh.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's bread week, and we want the bakers to produce 12 identical savory buns. We're testing the baker's knowledge on basic bread making. So we want to see a good structure, a nice stretchy dough, and a great flavor. When you're making bread, you need to show that love, but also at the same time, you need to show the bread who's boss. You know what I mean?

[Alex Schwartz]

The nice thing about the spongebob Nomi, I think, if I may venture to say so, I think it's actually because of all the problems we know that England has, that the tent is such a utopia. Because in the tent. In the tent. First of all, the show has always a really diverse cast, and I think there just is this sense that none of those social problems matter in the tent, where baking is the great equalizer.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's like baking, not Brexit.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes. The only thing I would add to our roster here is I was really interested. This is not specific to the American election, but I do think we're going to be seeing more of this. I saw an article in the New York Times that came out right after election day called In Tumultuous Times, Readers turn to Healing Fiction. It's by Alexandra Alter, who reports on books for them, and it's about a genre of fiction in Japan and Korea that's starting to take off globally. That's basically, like, cozy. The whole mood of these books is to create a sense of Coziness. And I bet we're going to see more of that here in the US as well.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, there is a whole. I just want to say, because I was talking to my book agent recently who informed me that in addition to Romantasy, a hugely ascendant genre that publishers everywhere are looking for are called cozy thrillers that are like literally what you're saying, and that is already here. It's like. Or cozy mysteries, where it's mysteries, but it's like, oh, but did you know that she works in a sweater shop? And the stakes are very low. This just jumped into my mind. I was like, what are you saying to me? I thought I was having a stroke. A cozy thrill. What are you. What? But this is something that a whole book market has grown up to sort of provide.

[Alex Schwartz]

So are the crimes more the yarn went missing or is it more she took the knitting needles and stabbed out someone's eyes?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I think it's like, oh, you know, there's a book missing from the library. Just like low stake mysteries.

[Nomi Fry]

Encyclopedia Brown.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Who are. Who are like really happily attired.

[Nomi Fry]

Is there a thatched cottage?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm reading from crime reads.com right now. Like any genre, cozy mysteries have a set of story qualities that make them what they are. For cozies, five primary qualities define the genre. There's an amateur sleuth, a lighthearted tone, no bloody violence, no graphic sex and no hard profanity. Oh, they didn't say no profanity. So you can get a G Willikers in there, but don't you come in here with your damns and shits and fucks. Not in my cozy thriller.

[Alex Schwartz]

So leave that at the door.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Leave that.

[Nomi Fry]

It would be amazing if all of this was the case. But there were graphic sex scenes.

[Alex Schwartz]

They removed their sweaters.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Super cozy, no cursing, but full penetration. So much fucking. Yeah, but not that. So this does seem to be a thing.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, comfort's a thing.

[Nomi Fry]

Comfort's a thing. The last eight years at least, you know, we've been leaning hard into comfort.

[Vincent Cunningham]

In a minute. Are there hidden costs to comfort critics at large? From the New Yorker will be right back.

[Nomi Fry]

Hi, this is David Remnick and I'm.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Pleased to share the news that I'm not a robot.

[Nomi Fry]

A live action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series has been.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

[Nomi Fry]

This thought provoking film grapples with questions.

[Alex Schwartz]

That we can all relate to about.

[Nomi Fry]

Identity and technology and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world.

[Alex Schwartz]

I Encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Along with our full slate of documentary and narrative [e-mail] video, this week's episode is sponsored by Neon's film Presence. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, Presence is a thrilling new ghost story about a family that moves into a new home and becomes convinced they are not alone. Starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan and Julia Fox, Presence has been hailed as one of the scariest movies you'll see this year. Experience it in theaters on January 24th. Yeah, it might be interesting to maybe draw some distinctions, taxonomize a little bit. We love to taxonomize here. Love it. And we don't all draw comfort from the same thing, of course. So what makes an ideal comfort text for you? Or what are the different kinds of comfort that you. That you seek through art?

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I mean, I definitely seek comfort in things that are classic comfort texts, you know, like reading, like Peanuts, you know, like Charles Schulz, you know, which I've read a million times since I was like a child and. And picking it up. And it has this duration, this 40 years of a corpus that is just. There's something very reassuring about the kind of length of this kind of wholesome world existing over time. So that would be kind of one type of. Kind of more of a classic comfort read or watch, I guess, that I would seek. But then there's like another type of comfort, I guess, that I go to, which isn't necessarily comforting in and of itself. I'll give you a specific example. I was on the plane a couple days ago, and I decided to rewatch Unca Gems, the Josh and Benny Safdie movie from 2019, starring Adam Sandler as this sort of like, jeweler, gambling addict who comes to, you know, a lot of kind of bad things happen.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm literally minutes away from closing the biggest deal of my goddamn life. And when I do, you're gonna be embarrass Virus. Oh, and by the way, the watch they took for me, it's worth $20,000. I want that deducted from the 100 grand. You understand? Call me back.

[Nomi Fry]

This is not a comforting movie. This is not a comfort text per se, at all. It's actually a famously anxiety producing text. Okay. But I think watching something that's really, really good. And in fact, actually when I was watching it, I was like, oh, this actually came out in late 2019. This was made through the Trump era. It's like, to me, a perfect movie works really, really really well on a lot of different levels. And the fact that that movie was created and exists gave me comfort. And it's like, oh, people have gone through, lived through, whatever, you know, either personal, like, difficult personal experience, difficult political eras, you know, and yet they have managed to create these works of art that have been companions to many other people going through their own shit, you know, and that in itself is a kind of comfort.

[Alex Schwartz]

I love that, because if you were to recommend uncut gems to someone who had never seen it but needed a comfort watch, that person would not be your friend anymore. They would be very. They would try to fight.

[Vincent Cunningham]

They would try to fight you.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, but I totally get what you're saying, Nomi. I think for me, I'm sure there are more qualities than these two, but the two I'm really thinking of right now in this context are wit and. And humanism. And the reason I chose wit may be similar to what you're describing, Nomi, which is a sense of people being able to take life and reality and spin it with intelligence. And I'm defining it pretty broadly. I was trying to think, because the other week when we did our podcast, our advice podcast, and Naomi, you and I both mentioned Jane Austen to the listener who had read a devastating book and really felt that he couldn't engage with reading fiction at the moment and wanted a way to kind of return to reading fiction. Gerald immediately went to. Gerald, and we both immediately went to Pride and Prejudice. And I've been thinking over the last couple of weeks, why did we go there? And I think, you know, is it escapism? In part. Although if you live the life that, you know, one of the Bennet sisters lives in the book, you're living a life of total political disempowerment in which, you know, your family's estate is about to be taken from you simply by virtue of your gender and given to a random. Basically, no. You have no financial control or power of any kind over your life. So it's not like all was rosy. And I think it's the use of wit in a large kind of just human intelligence, of parsing these circumstances that helps. And what I mean by humanism also has to do with that book, but with many other things, which is a genuine sense of curiosity about other people that I find comforting, and I find that really hard to sustain at moments like this. Like, Vincent, you were mentioning before, reading all kinds of, like, aftermath election stories, what happened, what went wrong. And that's a way to try to understand people. But it's a very broad way.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Very abstracted.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, it's very abstracted. It's journalistic, sociological. But it can often make you feel, I think, even more alienated from people than when you started out. And I think a huge thing that we're dealing with and have been dealing with for years and are about to deal with even more extremely is a sense of true social breakage and alienation. So I look for things that help me that to me are interested in actually understanding people beneath all those labels and surfaces. And so one thing that I've been watching, it's in a new season now, so I have occasion to watch it again. And it's one of my favorite ever shows is the show Somebody Somewhere created by Bridget Everett, who also stars in it. I don't know if you guys have seen that.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I haven't. But I really enjoy Bridget Everett as a performer.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I like her too.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Been big on the New York scene for a long time. Joe's Pub and other places. A wonderful performer.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, exactly. She's a cabaret performer in New York and about a woman, a middle aged woman from Kansas who goes back to her hometown after her sister dies and she's a mess and her family's a mess and she's kind of trying to pick up the pieces. And it's really not about everything being great. Like the show starts with cancer and a death from cancer. There's divorce, there's alcoholism, there's all kinds of stuff that isn't great. But I do think it's about the struggle. And one thing I like about it is that it's honest about the struggle to connect with other people and to need other people. The way it comes across most vividly is in friendship, just the friendship that Sam, Bridget Everett's character has with this guy Joel, who she meets at a kind of dead end job and they just become kind of friend soulmates. Is that a dream board?

[Vincent Cunningham]

No. Oh, it's a vision board.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Wow.

[Alex Schwartz]

You really spent some time on this. You go to Paris, you got an Eiffel Tower there.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, just Europe. I want to go to Europe. Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, and then of course, everybody's hands.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And a heart community. Mm, great.

[Alex Schwartz]

Was that a blender or something?

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's a Vitamix. I just, I really want to have a nice kitchen and.

[Nomi Fry]

Oh, what's this one?

[Alex Schwartz]

Is this you and Michael and your nine adopted kids or what?

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's not nine, it's six. And four of them are adopted. Yes. Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

And you want to do all of this here in Kansas.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. This is where I live.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, family. And it's not easy, but I find it very comforting in the sense of you fall down, you pick yourself up, you try again.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. When you mentioned wit, I thought that you were gonna go down a path that is very sort of characteristic of my sort of private life with art, which is standup comedy, which has always been. Even if I'm feeling low, just personally, not even politically, I always go to that. One of my favorite critics the Times is Jason Zinneman, who talks about, among other things, comedy. He put out a piece right before the election that's like specials to distract you from the news. And one of them was a special that I had really enjoyed. It's called Home Free by Tom Papa. And Papa puts on this Persona where he's almost kind of a very lax self help guru. And one of the bits is about how, you know, it's possible to know too much. We're all asked to know too much. So, you know, there's this kind of ignorance is bliss theme running through terrifying these phones. I had to describe to my nephew the other day what nuclear Armageddon was. Yeah, thanks for that. TikTok kid had no idea what it was. Seventeen years old, by the way. Yeah. I was like, oh, maybe there's an advantage to being a C student. Good for you. Everyone's yelling at him to read more. He was happy until a week ago. I was like, yeah, look. Yeah, look, we're all gonna die one day. And there's a way we could all die on the same day. It's just kind of family comedy, all with the underlay of, like, you know, things are hard, you're doing okay, you know, and comedy is one of these things that, speaking of humanism is often kind of addressed from one person to another. That's like, I made this to engender this effect. And that sort of, I guess this is characteristic of art. It's one of the definitions of art is that it's like it starts in the mind of one person and is aimed toward causing effect in another. This kind of. I mean, sometimes it's to startle, to disturb many other things, but it always comes across to me as generosity. Right. Like, here's something that I can give to you.

[Nomi Fry]

One thing that I think about as we're talking and I've been thinking about, you know, the last few days, is that the ability to seek comfort and the ability to speak about, oh, this is suddenly a moment of crisis from which I am wanting to escape. And I'M going to escape, you know, as much as I possibly can. Is kind of obviously a position of privilege. Right. Because horrible things as we know are happening all the time and have been happening and as we are kind of watching Bake off people, there's a war in Gaza, you know, like it's, there's like a million horrible things happening in the world and have been going on for much longer than this, you know, election season. Right. And I think that I have this like sense of guilt when I'm like, okay, I'm gonna now I'm experiencing as like a well fed American, a moment of crisis because Trump has been elected. So I'm gonna go watch Bake off, seems to me, and I might still do it. I'm not saying I'm not gonna watch Bake off and I'm not gonna, you know, try to make myself comfortable as much as I can. But it also kind of begs the question. It makes me realize that my ability to do this is possibly occluding for me ongoing realities that I'm choosing to ignore where I'm thinking like, okay, what the escapism at what cost? Even at what like moral cost? I guess it opens up a whole kind of the question of comfort. Opens up a whole can of worms, in other words.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I think these are the questions. I mean, look, I don't think we want, in fact, I know we don't want comfort to be the sum and total of our experience as people in this time, in this world. That's not what we want.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We don't want that.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, we don't. Yeah, that itself is a disaster. So. Yeah. Are there downsides? Yeah, you know, I'm thinking of. There's this historian, Kristin Godsey, and I read a piece by her not long ago where she, she's a historian of, of the Soviet era and the ussr and she's drawn a lot of comparisons between contemporary American life and the life in pre collapse, the pre collapsed Soviet Union, which should give anyone pause and should make us all a bit nervous. And one of the thing she's written about is this idea from Soviet times of internal emigration, meaning people living under Soviet rule who had such little control over their lives, whose circumstances were so bad that they basically opted out mentally and were just dealt with it all by deciding that they were not gonna think about, they were not going to deal with the brutalities of the life that they were living. You know, this idea of just kind of taking yourself out of the world that you're in mentally and you Know, it might have meant, like, listening to a lot of music or reading a lot of books or reading poetry or, you know, as famously happens at the end of Voltaire's Candide, making a garden. Any of these things that on their own seem really great and nice and that I absolutely advise us all to do and our listeners all to do, because those are sustaining human activities when they become the totality of experience and there's nothing else. When your private garden is all that there is, that's a problem. It's a problem for you, and it's a disaster for society. And, you know, I think that one of Godsey's points is that that kind of attitude, the kind of, I'm just gonna take care of my own self and my people and I'm just gonna do what makes me feel good and try to ignore what makes me feel bad, led to collapse. And I do see how it could lead to collapse with us, too. I mean, Nomi, I don't think. I tend to be suspicious of guilt, not because I think it's wrong to feel guilty, but because I often think that the wrong people do feel guilty too much of the time. Yeah, I hope you're right.

[Nomi Fry]

I hope you're right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, that's very true.

[Alex Schwartz]

I mean, it's okay to feel guilty, but, like, I can't imagine Elon Musk right now spending too much time on that. So, you know, it's like if you're watching a couple of episodes of the Great British Bake off and are just wracked with anxiety that you've let your eye off the ball for a second, you can. You can rest easy.

[Nomi Fry]

Thank you. Thank you, Mother.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, I do think that you're. You're very welcome, my child. But I do think there is. There are various traditions of escape escapism which, you know, we can feel nervous about, and rightly so, because to me, one of the purposes of the comfort we seek is to sustain us, because that's what we all are going to need, sustenance to move forward.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I do think that my most liberal belief is that we do society precisely so that we can sometimes afford ourselves leisure and freedom of thought. That when politics has totally monopolized our mental capacity, something is wrong. That the moment that we are convinced that we have to be political, informal terms with every moment of our being, that this is itself a kind of authoritarianism of the mind, that freedom to contemplate, which is what I think art, at least one of its highest functions, is. Is actually not just to Give ourselves over to somebody else's contemplations. But to have freedom to seek our own or whatever. And therefore, I guess I'm always on the side of. You know. This is why I love sports so much. It's like. It's not just entertainment. It's about maintaining an inner freedom that is the mark of a free people.

[Alex Schwartz]

That's what sports is about to me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Sports is. Sports is about contemplation. For me. We could get.

[Alex Schwartz]

Is that the inner mark of a free people? This is news to me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yes. I mean, yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

Mind blown.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, but I mean, I'm gonna need.

[Alex Schwartz]

You to break that down a little further.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Just then I was talking about sports as a species of art.

[Nomi Fry]

I don't know. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. It sounds convincing.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And when you look the highest possible forms of. Okay, I gotta mount it as defensive sports.

[Alex Schwartz]

Here we go. Here we go.

[Vincent Cunningham]

There are, of course, low ways to look at sports and very high ways to look at them. And often it's because of the quality that you're watching. But if you look at Simone Biles circling and spinning and flipping, causing parabolas to form in the very air before your eyes. This opens up a space in your mind to contemplate not only the beauties of the human form, not only certain ideal shapes. Soccer does this often makes us think about what is a triangle and what are its possible applications? How does it form in your head?

[Nomi Fry]

Alex is shaking her head.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But just an appreciation abstract contemplation that sports can. Can cause and make room for causing you to think many other things. That freedom of thought that does not. That like various emergencies want to tell you, you don't have time for. That to me is not the definition of freedom, but it is the mark of the existence of freedom in a society where you don't have time to take in a ball game and get bored and think about everything else. If you don't have time to do that, you are not free.

[Alex Schwartz]

I totally see that and I'm convinced. And I think I agree with you about the freedom of contemplation, the freedom to waste time. I'm with you 100%. I think if we were not, we would not be in this room. But I do have the fear that you can get sucked down that rabbit hole and not reemerge because it's so nice there.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's totally right.

[Alex Schwartz]

My question, I guess is. And maybe we can talk about this a little bit more after the break. Where is the line? You know, because everything you say Is true. And yet, if you're just sitting at the ball game as horrors go on and then what good are you?

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's totally right. Where is the line?

[Alex Schwartz]

We're gonna find it.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We're gonna find it. Critics at large from the New Yorker. We'll be.

[Alex Schwartz]

On Lipstick on the Rim. We speak with industry insiders, doctors, and the biggest stars to bring you all the facts. Become best friends with your hairstylist. They're gonna make you look and feel.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So good, and you'll just show up as a better you.

[Nomi Fry]

I always wanted to make hoops.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Those girls are hard to raise. They are gonna push all the buttons.

[Nomi Fry]

Just having a community is the best because you can compare stories with your girlfriends.

[Alex Schwartz]

Cheers. Listen to Lipstick on the Rim on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts or watch full episodes now on YouTube.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, so as we've been talking about, where is the line? How much comfort is too much comfort? When. When does seeking comfort become a way to willfully ignore the society that you have a responsibility to contribute to?

[Nomi Fry]

I think something we need to think about is that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Okay. In the sense of, like, you can judge. It's like it's not all or nothing, I think is the thing, Alex, as you were saying before, which I found very comforting, in fact. And you are the strong.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, good.

[Nomi Fry]

You are the strong leader that I have been seeking all my life. When you said it's okay to watch a couple of episodes of British Bake.

[Alex Schwartz]

Off and you know, I gave you permission.

[Nomi Fry]

You gave me permission, and that's all I need. We're individuals who are living through time, and sometimes things take a while to absorb. And some moments one might seek more of an escape hatch and some moments less. And I. For me, that's something that I'm trying to remember, that it's not all or nothing.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. So not to ask, you know, the biggest question in the world, but sometimes it's good to do that. You know? What. What do you guys think the role of art is right now? Or will be or should be?

[Alex Schwartz]

Hoo, boy. I'm thinking back to trying to force my mind back to the first go round at a Trump presidency. And a lot of art that was being made was a little bit like, sound the alarm bells kind of art. You know, the kind of wake up, look what's happening around us. Freak out, freak out. This is really bad. There were a lot of references to Trump. I'm thinking of that public theater production for Shakespeare in the park of Julius Caesar, where Caesar wore a Trump style wig. I think it became its own kind of comfort art in a way. I think it comforted a certain obviously liberal sensibility that we were gonna call it like it was and point it out and artists were gonna say something. That to me is a different kind of comfort text and not a good one. And I shut down at stuff like that. I think it's complacent in a way, and it's very. In its kind of ostentatious resistance of complacency. There's something that feels very complacent about it as well. That's why I go back to what I was mentioning before, which is a kind of humanism that I seek. I find it totally absent from our politics in many ways. And I want to see more of it in our art. Just a sense of being able to be curious about people in a very real and complex way. And if I call that comforting, as I did before, I think it's because it makes me feel that there is a way through reality. It can't be easily described or navigated even. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but it's not as easy as pinning a slogan on something and leaving feeling like, you know, okay, well, we all. We all agree and we all realize that we have a problem in front of us.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Maybe it goes back to what you were saying before, Vincent, which is a kind of close looking. And I'm talking about a close looking at other people, which I think is something that many of us do not feel down for right now, but might be necessary nonetheless.

[Nomi Fry]

I mean, I think art reminds us what people can do and the great things people can do.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Nomi Fry]

And I think being reminded of that ability to relate collectively through an identification of what being a person is like is in itself political, which is, to me, hopeful and has kind of like a horizon to it, which can have some political utility in times when you feel like it might all be over.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And I think I continue with this motif of maybe freedom, but it's like part of the, it seems to me, the constitution that can continue to think new thoughts and be useful in various political movements and other things in society. Part of that makeup is an imagination that is trained and also loosened and made free by art. That art feeds the imagination in all these different ways and gives us the freedom to contemplate and to think new thoughts. If nothing else, we need new thoughts. And art is part of the mix that frees us to go off on our many ways of thought and come back with something valuable.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

So given that happy atmosphere, I wonder if you guys have recommendations of things that people might check out in light of everything that's going on or just in the middle of it.

[Nomi Fry]

Yeah, I have a couple of ideas. The purely escapist is not art, really, but it is culture, I would say. And I would recommend to everyone, especially the cat lovers among us and bunny lovers as well, to follow Beth Stern's Instagram. She is an animal activist and is married to Howard Stern, and she does a lot of rescue work for cats and some bunnies and just following these cats every day and their adventures. Recently, she has brought in a feral cat from outside named Bud, and she's kind of like, giving him a warm home and getting him comfortable with humans. It's just the purest joy to watch it. So I would recommend that as a kind of, like, security blanket, like, comfort escapism for, you know, those of us who seek that. And another thing that is the art part is Annie Baker's recent movie, Janet Planet. And it's just an incredible movie. It's about a single mother and her young daughter in 90s Western Mass. And it's just kind of like a character study, and it's so beautifully done. What about you guys?

[Alex Schwartz]

I also very much enjoy Janet Planet. Yeah, I'm just gonna double down on my recommendation of somebody somewhere I'm doubling down.

[Nomi Fry]

Double.

[Alex Schwartz]

You know, the show starts in its first season with Sam, the character played by Bridget Everett, basically sleeping on a couch and not literally or metaphorically being able to get up. She cannot get up and get on with it. And she has to, because there is no other choice. But the show is a comedy. It's funny, and it is about, you know, one step forward, two steps back, but then one step forward again. So I highly recommend.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Very nice. I have so many thoughts, but maybe I'll be honest. In my current experience, which is listening to a lot of music, which I always do anyway. But I've recently been listening to albums, classic albums of the 70s, soul albums that are asking a lot of big questions. Marvin Gaye, what's going on? I was playing in this very studio before we started to record. And then one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite singers, Donny Hathaway, his album Extension of a Man, which, among other things, Donny Hathaway's voice is the voice of an angel. And I hope for it to be the last sound I ever hear. It also puts politics next to so much else. Right. It's got, like, this song he's got Take It From Me, Someday We'll All Be Free. All of these. There's a song called the Slums Big Questions that were characteristic of the 70s, but also there are beautiful love songs. Hang on to the world as it spins around. Just don't let the spin get you. I think it does. What we've been trying to talk about, right, is that it puts politics next to the stuff of everyday life. It admits that there's no other way to live life than to live it in kind of all of its simultaneity. This has been Critics at Large. Our senior producer is Rhiannon Corby and Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Conde Nast's head of global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of Critics at Large at New Yorker dot. See you next week. I'm Dan Taburski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[Nomi Fry]

I was like, at my locker and.

[Vincent Cunningham]

She came up to me and she was like, stuttering super bad.

[Nomi Fry]

I'm like, stop around. She's like, I can't.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's.

[Alex Schwartz]

All these girls with a diagnosis.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The state tried to keep on the down low.

[Alex Schwartz]

Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. Well, yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical.

[Nomi Fry]

Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right.

[Alex Schwartz]

Leroy was the new Dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery.

[Nomi Fry]

From prx.