The Take
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This is the Take. It's where you come to understand more about your favorite movies, shows and culture. Our video essays make the story worlds you enter richer and deeper. Think: Endings Explained, Character Studies, Hidden Messages and Symbols Revealed, Actor and Director Profiles, and more.
We want to share our love of visual culture with the world. So here's our Take.
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Seinfeld’s Elaine Benes is one of the most iconic and hilarious characters of the 90s – played by the comedy legend, Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She stood out for being the only woman of the friend group, but also because she was (at least at first) also less cynical than her friends. Her confidence and unapologetic attitude were refreshing and radical, and her character opened the door for so many of our faves that followed after. So let’s turn back the clock and analyze what made Elaine so different, why she became such an iconic and beloved character, and how, even if she wasn’t always a great person, she still managed to be a new kind of role model.
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Workaholism and hustle culture are certainly nothing new, but now it’s not just about being efficient at work, but reworking *every aspect* of your entire life to be “productive.” There’s a pervasive feeling that nothing in life is worthwhile if it doesn’t count as being productive – but productive pretty much always boils down to financially lucrative. In a world where making ends meet feels harder than ever, we’ve all been pushed into framing our lives around chasing capital and “maximizing our profits” like we’re over-the-top venture capitalists and not just… people trying to live our human lives. So let’s take a look at this modern streak of ‘toxic productivity’, the media and pop culture it evolved out of, and how we can best try to combat it and take back our hobbies and peace of mind.
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Netflix’s new hit adaptation 3 Body Problem is filled with symbolism, but what does it all really mean? The book on which the show is based is famous for leaning hard into the science aspect of sci-fi, creating an engaging but incredibly dense work. The Netflix series streamlines some of the story’s more confusing aspects, but it still takes us on a wild ride and leaves us with more questions than answers. The show uses a lot of symbolism to help get across its major themes, and unpacking these can help us understand the story on a deeper level. So let’s break down some of the show’s most important symbols to get a better grasp of what the story is really trying to tell us.
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From shows like Emily in Paris and You to movies like Not Okay and Ingrid Goes West, influencers and content creators of all kinds have begun popping up more and more as they become a larger part of our everyday lives. And just like their real-life counterparts, these on-screen influencers can give us some pretty unrealistic ideas about what it’s like to be a full time content creator. But sometimes they give us a more realistic, deeper look into the darker side of influencing that social media stars often try to hide… So, let’s look at what the media constantly gets wrong about these careers and their associated finances, the ways all creators are portrayed as uber-wealthy, and why they still get so much hate.
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So many film and tv characters have jobs that seem to be almost no work and all pay, pretty much the exact opposite of how things are in their careers in real life. From freelance writers somehow managing to live the high life, to public school teachers who seem to be financially secure and have so much free time, to lawyers who spend more time enjoying their lavish lifestyle than putting in the billable hours to afford it, salaries that don't line up with real world are part of the fun of movies and tv, but can also give people some pretty unrealistic ideas of what those jobs are really like.
So lets dig into some of our favorite shows, like Sex and the City, New Girl, Suits, Friends, and more to unpack some of the more unrealistic salaries on screen, plus we'll take a look at some other shows we love that actually seem to be getting things right like Insecure and Abbott Elementary!
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The Romantic Grand Gesture is one major romance trope that film and TV just can't get enough of. From filling a room with candles or bouquets of flowers to orchestrating a flash mob proposal, there are some wild romantic gestures in media that are so unrealistic they’re almost laughable, but... we love them nonetheless! Let’s take a minute to zoom out and take a look at all sides of this trope, unpack some of the most ridiculous dates and grand gestures in film and TV, who gets to experience them, and why this trope often conveys the wrong message about love.
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From real life Horse Girls like Bella Hadid and TikTok #HorseGirls to book and tv icons like The Saddle Club, Horse Girls are everywhere. It's long been a trope both on screen and in real life – you probably knew a Horse Girl growing up, or maybe you were the Horse Girl. The trope often splits in two directions: the bratty rich-girl equestrian and the tough and free spirited outcast true horse girl. Both types usually end up getting mocked, though for different reasons. And they both have important lessons to teach all of us, even if we don’t know the first thing about horses. So saddle up and let’s jump into this trope!
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Bradley Cooper spent years perfecting his performance (plus writing and directing) in hopes of securing an Oscar for Maestro, but instead, his performance was seemingly overshadowed by his "desperation" to win, and the Oscar for Best Actor instead went to quiet frontrunner Cillian Murphy.
Cooper’s Oscar’s journey actually highlights an interesting conundrum for Hollywood actors: it is very much a part of their job to go out on the awards trail and try to convince everyone that their film – and they specifically – deserve to be rewarded. But, if they get a little too overzealous, it can lead to some pretty intense backlash. (There’s also the flipside that if they don’t promote themselves enough they can essentially get forgotten, passed over again and again even though everyone knows they’re incredibly talented.)
Let's take a look at *why* Bradley got hit with so much backlash, plus take a deeper look at the overall mystery of what it really takes to run an Oscars campaign (and why it’s kind of started turning people off of the Oscars all together...)
'Poor Little Rich Kids' like Succession's Kendall, Shiv, and Roman and Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf seem to have everything, and yet… they’re still miserable. Hearing the old adage “money can’t buy happiness” can be grating, especially in financial times like these – but there is a kernel of truth in it. So to get a better understanding of this trope and why it keeps popping up on screen, let’s take a closer look at the Poor Little Rich Kid in film and television: the important truths the trope can expose, the places it falls flat, and why (no matter how much we might love the characters) it’s still often hard for us to sympathize with them.
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Film and TV love to show partly-relatable, partly-aspirational lifestyles that… actually don’t make a whole lot of sense when you really think about them. Of course, we’re not always watching movies and shows just to see real life, and it can sometimes work well when media choses to let go of realism a little bit to have more fun. But this can also lead to some pretty unrealistic ideas about life and money… So let’s take a look at some of the most nonsensical finances in media, from Friends to Sex and the City to Emily in Paris and beyond, why we’re influenced by them, and how we can enjoy our favorite shows without comparing ourselves to the fantastical examples on screen. Plus, we'll explore some shows like Broad City that are much more realistic in their portrayals of personal finances.
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Feud: Capote vs The Swans follows the downfall of arguably the most famous American mid-century writer, Truman Capote. His best seller In Cold Blood catapulted him to stardom, and with his natural magnetism and inclination for spectacle catapulted him into the closest inner circles of New York City’s elite, where he befriended a number of very powerful society women, who he referred to as his Swans. However, everything changed for Capote after he published a scathing excerpt about his friends in Esquire Magazine – which got him exiled from high society and sent him spiraling.
While these women were very much real, how much does Feud rely on facts and where does the show, and Capote, bend the truth for dramatic effect? Let’s take a look at how the show has portrayed the Swans so far in the first half of the season compared to their real stories to figure out how much fact is woven into the show’s fiction.
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Dune: Part 2, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and a host of other stars, has become a huge hit – crossing $80 million in only its first weekend at the box office. It’s no surprise that people love the second installment in Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel given how much we all loved the first one. But Paul Atreides’ story is a lot darker than most Chosen One characters we see get the big screen treatment. So how has Paul changed in part two, and what does that mean for what’s to come in his story? (And how might audience reactions cause a bit of a problem?) Let’s dive in!
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The Office is a beautifully crafted comedy that manages to bring the laughs, tug on our heart strings, and make us appreciate the magic of or everyday, ordinary lives. Over it's 9 seasons, we watched the characters stumble and grow, rooting for them all the way (well, most of them...) So join us in taking an extended look back at every season to highlight all of the things that made the show so great, and that have catapulted it to comfort show classic status!
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30 Rock’s Jenna Maroney still managed to stand out in a sea of hilarious characters. She was unbelievably vain, shallow, manipulative, unstable, thin-skinned… but instead of being annoying and unlikable, she became one of the most entertaining, iconic characters of modern television. So, how did Jenna manage to capture that ‘beloved star’ status that she was so desperate for on the show in real life? Let’s take a deeper look at Jenna’s character arc, the way she perfectly embodied all of the wild pressures that the industry puts on aging actresses, and how such an outlandish character managed to be so oddly relatable.
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Moms can be many things, but on screen if they’re hot they also often happen to be kind of evil – or, if not outright evil, still pretty bad. From The Graduate's Mrs. Robinson and Mad Men's Betty Draper to The O.C.'s Julie Cooper and Regina's Mom in Mean Girls and beyond, this trope pops up all over film and television. Thankfully this is finally starting to change as more modern shows and films have started tackling this trope head on, but it still hasn’t totally gone away. So let’s take a deeper look at why media was so afraid of hot moms, the problematic sub-trope that often pops up, and the iconic characters like Married with Children's Peggy Bundy and Modern Family's Gloria Delgado-Pritchett that started flipping the script.
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The Big Bang Theory’s Bernadette's (Melissa Rauch) tiny stature and high pitched voice might make her seem unthreatening at first, but one wrong move and you’ll quickly learn that she's not afraid of anyone or anything. But, instead of making her hated, her willingness to stand up for herself and speak her mind actually made her beloved – both on the show and in real life. So let’s take a deeper look at how Bernadette’s attitude was born out of her Oldest Child Syndrome, and how she learned to use her "mean girl" powers for good.
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Gilmore Girls’ Paris Geller is many things: hyper-intelligent, laser focused, extremely intense… but she became a beloved character because as the show went on we got to peel back the layers and see Paris as less of a looming threat and more as a real person. While things always seemed to turn out great for Rory Gilmore no matter what (at least for a while), Paris was hit with some big setbacks that caused her to have to rethink her life plan. Join us in taking a deeper look at what made Paris' story so interesting and how she became such an iconic character (and why she deserved all of the praise Rory got for being The Smart Girl.)
At first glance, The O.C.’s Marissa Cooper might seem like the epitome of the ‘poor little rich girl’ trope – she’s gorgeous, lives in a mansion in southern California, and never seems to be having a good time. But the show gave us a chance to see beyond the outer facade of Marissa’s seemingly-perfect life and into the darkness hiding beneath that beautiful surface. Marissa was a complex young woman trying to figure out who she really was in a world that was intent on telling her who she had to be. Let’s take a deeper look at Marissa’s attempts to break out of her gilded cage, find real connections, and grow.
Love bombing has been a huge topic of conversation in recent years, and if we take a closer look, we might start to notice that the TV and movie characters who we thought were so lovable and charming are actually doing this too – from self-identified “nice guys” like How I Met Your Mother’s Ted Mosby to full on bad guys like Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl and Joe Goldberg from You. But what is love bombing, what are the signs, how does it tie into narcissism, and why is this trope in so many TV shows and movies?
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Nathan Fielder uses his brand of awkward, uncomfortable humor (and a hint of darkness) to flip the script on contemporary TV’s obsession with reality. From creating cringe comedy that’s achieved cult status on his shows Nathan For You and The Rehearsal to his latest hyper-real horror show with Benny Safdie, The Curse, he shines a light back on the audience, making us reflect on the less pleasant parts of human nature. That might be our awkwardness or our selfishness; or, in the Curse specifically, our obsession with looking at the lives of other people. So what is Fielder really trying to tell us about the world and ourselves? And why has he decided to do it in such a weird way? Let’s take a closer look at Nathan Fielder’s special brand of unreality.
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