T Lo’s Weekend Pop Culture Reading List

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Kittens, before we head out into the wilds of the weekend, here is one final gift from us to you: all the most interesting articles, posts and essays of the week. According to who? Why, us, of course. Enjoy!

The actor and star of “Pose” goes shopping without gender boundaries at Forty Five Ten.

Billy Porter Cat-Walks His Way Through Hudson Yards By Aaron Hicklin at The New York Times

Really, Chernobyl toys with the terror of having no control—of being at the mercy of vast bureaucracies and atom-splitting technologies, of trying to live a small life in the midst of grand uncertainty. In 1986, the average age of Pripyat—the city, now abandoned, just over a mile away from the plant—was just 26. Young people were trying to start families in this place, not knowing they were on the cusp of disaster. Catch-22 focuses on soldiers, and Good Omens is too merry to slow down. Chernobyl is about civilians in an ordinary town. Again, it’s horror—and a very plausible kind of horror, too. One day, the sky might fall.

The Unique, Addictive Dread of Chernobyl by Sonia Saraiya at Vanity Fair

The original queen of pop on aging, inspiration and why she refuses to cede control.

Madonna at Sixty By Vanessa Grigoriadis at The New York Times

Most of the self-proclaimed bad gal’s fortune comes not from the royalties of her eight studio albums, but her Fenty empire. When Fenty Beauty launched in September 2017, it sold $100 million worth of products within weeks owing to the inclusive product formulations, messaging and pricing promoted by Rihanna as her own best brand ambassador. Savage X Fenty, her body-positive lingerie line, was propelled to success by the hype from her 71 million Instagram followers before the online store even opened in May 2018.

Rihanna Tops Madonna & Beyoncé As The World’s Richest Female Musician by Alice Newbold at Vogue

Many creators are visibly struggling to adjust to the changing landscape, rejecting the “very special episode” path and seeking something more honest and original.

TV’s Reckoning with #MeToo By Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker

Fred had no idea who those white girls were. Bernice told him they were his sisters. But whenever he asked his mother who his father was, “she advised him, in no uncertain terms, that he should keep quiet,” Hiram said. Even Fred’s birth certificate was a mystery, with his father’s name listed as “John Henry Luck.”

“That was part of the whole game, right — we have to keep this anonymous,” Hiram said. He suspected maybe his grandfather — if the clothes and food were even coming from his grandfather — rationalized his actions as virtuous: “I’m going to be gentlemanly enough, to have enough heart to support my kids even though they are mixed race. But I don’t want anybody to know about it.”

His DNA Solved A Century-Old Jailhouse Rape. The Victim: His Grandmother. By Virginia Hughes at Buzzfeed

The Netflix revival of a beloved queer series brings back Olympia Dukakis as Anna Madrigal—and, in a crucial flashback episode, introduces trans actor Jen Richards as a young Anna.

How ‘Tales of the City’ Avoided a Trans Casting Controversy By Joseph Longo at Vanity Fair

Soria spoke with Vogue about the healing power of design, the joys of decorating while single, and what he’s learned about love as HGTV’s newest budding star.

Orlando Soria’s ‘Unspouse My House’ Is Your Newest HGTV Obsession By Michelle Ruiz at Vogue

The figure of the wife has also become an important trope within a specific, baroque type of Internet-based humor, and this isn’t accidental. Like Borat, the online world is profane and disorderly and constantly agitated; the wife, on the other hand, is imagined as sacred, eternal, controlled. When these two things connect, the idea of the wife starts to glitch. It now takes just a minor breeze of Internet attention for a wife to catch fire as a meme.

Please, My Wife, She’s Very Online by Jia Tolentino at The New Yorker

Fashion brands’ green initiatives can often come across as lip service: While the claim that the industry is the second-most-polluting in the world has been debunked, its toll on the environment is undeniably significant, marked by widespread chemical use and a heavy carbon footprint.

So, Just What Is Fashion Doing About Conservation? By Eliza Brooke at ELLE

Location manager Gregory Alpert and production designer John Paino break down Mary Louise’s (Streep) place, Jane’s (Shailene Woodley) new $3 million condo and the Monterey Five’s latest hangout in season two of the HBO drama.

First Look Inside Meryl Streep’s Condo and All the Set Shifts on ‘Big Little Lies’ By Cathy Whitlock at The Hollywood Reporter

“The actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that I apologize.”

The New York Police Department Apologized for Raiding the Stonewall Inn 50 Years Later By Lucy Diavolo at Teen Vogue

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Maza said he had heard from marginalized YouTubers across the board that they had been subject to such treatment after reporting harassment on the platform — not just LGBTQ creators, but people of color and women as well. He also pointed out the irony of YouTube failing to take action against Crowder during Pride Month, accusing the platform of profiting financially off its LGBTQ content creators and using them to bolster their image as an LGBTQ-friendly platform, while simultaneously turning a blind eye to homophobic harassment.

LGBTQ Influencers Criticize YouTube After Homophobic Videos Are Allowed to Stay By EJ Dickson at Rolling Stone

[Photo Credit: HBO]

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