The year in culture wasn’t all breakout TV shows and movies, fantastic concerts and great performances. There were also some things we’d rather not remember.
‘The Last of Us’ kills off the reason to watch it
When it debuted in 2023, “The Last of Us,” about the aftermath of a pandemic that turned most humans into murderous zombies, pole-vaulted past series like “Halo” and “Resident Evil” as an example of how to adapt a video game into must-watch TV. And then came Season 2, Episode 2 when the show — and this is your spoiler alert — brutally killed off main character Joel, played by Pedro Pascal. Yeah, yeah, I know: the death is in the game. But the show also killed what I loved about it in Season 1: the relationship between Joel and immune teenager Ellie (Bella Ramsey), turning “The Last of Us” into a series primarily about revenge and violence rather than love and redemption. I’m not entirely convinced that a medium that demands to be played can effectively meet the demands of TV drama. But with TV adaptations of “Far Cry” and “Tomb Raider” still to come, I guess we’ll see. — Debra Yeo
‘Substance’ abuse
It was the type of Cinderella story that could have been the plot of a movie: for the first time in a nearly five-decade career, Demi Moore was poised to win an Oscar in March at the age of 62. And then, when the envelope was opened on the stage of the Dolby Theatre, Moore had been passed over for 25-year-old Mikey Madison. It felt like a gut punch for all of us women of a certain age who’d been buoyed by awards season assurances that Moore was the undisputed front-runner.
That she lost for her role in “The Substance,” a body horror film in which an aging woman goes to nightmarish lengths to maintain the appearance of youth, rubbed salt into the wound. Just a couple of months earlier, when Moore won her first Golden Globe, she talked about how she’d been denigrated by a producer 30 years before as a “popcorn actress,” and how she had learned to recognize her worth in spite of “those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough, we’re pretty enough, we’re skinny enough, we’re successful enough or basically just not enough.”
Look, nothing against Madison. She was great in “Anora.” And it’s not as though Moore’s career has stalled since she lost the Oscar. Now 63, she’s currently starring in the extremely popular TV series “Landman.” But that moment on the Oscars stage will always feel like a missed opportunity to tell an actor who won new fans with an inspiring career comeback: yes, you’re enough. — D.Y.
Taylor Swift accused of exploiting fans (and manipulating charts)
No one would have blamed Taylor Swift if she decided to take a breather this year. After all, she had a pretty good 2024, shattering every conceivable record with the Eras Tour, and becoming the first musician to win the Grammy for Album of the Year five times. Instead, the 35-year-old superstar and billionaire decided to keep her foot on the gas with the surprise release of her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl” (TLOAS).
Inspired by her fairy tale romance with NFL star (and now fiancé) Travis Kelce, the album received mixed reviews, with some critics describing the songwriting as predictable or overly familiar, while others complained that Swift’s usually engaging lyricism felt tired (or in the case of the song “Wood,” actually quite off-putting).
But the real backlash began after Swift began releasing an absurd number of “TLOAS” variants, encouraging her loyal fans to splurge on what amounted to slightly different versions of the same album. (As of writing, there are 34 different iterations, including seven digital albums, 18 CDs, eight vinyl LPs and one cassette). It was a savvy marketing ploy, easily launching “TLOAS” to the top of the charts. But it also generated accusations that Swift was exploiting the loyalty of her fan base in an attempt to artificially boost her sales and streaming numbers.
“Greed will always destroy art,” a former fan wrote in a scorching essay that went viral. “And Swift’s desire for profit … has destroyed her ability to create anything of value.”
Swift remains too big to fail, but 2025 revealed some signs of weakness in the once indestructible musical juggernaut. — R.A.
Karla Sofía Gascón’s social media meltdown casts shadow over the Oscars
Regardless of what you thought about “Emilia Pérez” — the highly polarizing musical crime thriller from French director Jacques Audiard — it was an undeniable (if overdue) sign of progress when the film’s star Karla Sofía Gascón became the first openly trans actor to earn an Oscar nomination.
Unfortunately, excitement over Gascón’s nomination quickly dissipated after Toronto journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed a shocking trove of social media posts in which the actor shared racist and offensive takes on Islam, George Floyd, diversity at the Oscars and (much) more. In a (now-deleted) tweet, she described Islam as “a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.”
Following an uproar, Gascón deleted her X account and offered an apology. But shortly after that, she reframed the controversy as an attack on her character, describing it as “a campaign of hate and misinformation.”
There was no real resolution to the scandal — Gascón did not win the Oscar, but attended the ceremony in March, where she was lightly roasted by host Conan O’Brien. Still, it was an unsettling affair, one that cast a shadow over awards season. — R.A.
A divided literary community
The Canadian literary community was rocked in November by Thomas King’s revelations that he has no Cherokee ancestry, despite claiming otherwise for decades. In an essay published by the Globe and Mail, the American-Canadian author said he felt as though he’d been “ripped in half, a one-legged man in a two-legged story.” He said he learned about his true ancestry after meeting with a Cherokee whistleblowing organization that exposes individuals who falsely claim to have Native American heritage.
The revelations sparked broad conversations about what it all means for the scholarship of King’s works, along with questions about how ancestral claims can be reliably verified to prevent similar cases of misrepresentation. King, 82, had built a career on what he previously believed to be his Indigenous ancestry, writing bestselling books such as “Green Grass, Running Water” and “The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.”
He’s one of several major figures in recent years whose claims to Indigenous ancestry have been debunked. Earlier this year, Buffy Sainte-Marie was stripped of her Polaris Music Prize and Juno Awards after a 2023 CBC investigation found the singer was not, in fact, born to Cree parents, as she had previously claimed. — Joshua Chong
Divided music fans left without a song of the summer
Is the “song of the summer” becoming a relic of the past? Or was 2025 just a strange year?
In July, Star staffers and music contributors took a stab at identifying some contenders, and though the list featured plenty of good music, the mishmash of tracks seem more like a reflection of personal tastes than a group of consensus favourites. Nor do the charts give us much to work with — according to Billboard, the top five “songs of the summer” include no less than three songs from bro-country titan Morgan Wallen, a Kendrick Lamar and SZA duet from last winter and a bafflingly popular but extremely boring song by someone named Alex Warren (aptly named “Ordinary”).
With the benefit of hindsight, there were a few standout tracks that feel uniquely tied to the chaotic summer of 2025 — the pure pop brightness of Zara Larsson’s “Midnight Sun,” the sweaty dembow rhythm of Bad Bunny’s “NUEVAYoL” or Haim’s single-girl summer anthem “Relationships.” But none soared to the zeitgeist-defining heights of 2024 summer tracks like Charli XCX’s “365,” Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” or even Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
Is this trend indicative of an eroding monoculture? Is it a reflection, perhaps, of an increasingly segmented and siloed society? Or is it a meaningless blip in time? Let’s pick this conversation up again next July. — R.A.
Movie mispunctuation sparks outrage
Did you know it’s considered bad luck to end a movie title with a question mark? (This is why “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is missing one.) Mis-punctuated movie titles were, annoyingly, rife at the box office this year, with multiple films missing crucial commas a la 2022’s “Don’t Worry Darling.” We’re already in the midst of a literacy crisis — no need to make it worse, film industry! The worst offenders include “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” “Die My Love,” “Wake Up Dead Man,” “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and “Honey Don’t!” (Shout-out to the correctly punctuated “Sorry, Baby,” one of the year’s best hidden gems.) — Briony Smith
Celebs go to space
The concept “celebs go to space” feels like a sweeps-week episode of “Happy Days” or a particularly scathing “Curb Your Enthusiasm” instalment, depending on how charitable you’re feeling. At a time of widespread earth destruction and cultural implosion, a bunch of celebrities sling-shotting themselves into the stratosphere didn’t seem like a particularly savvy use of billionaire funds. We could use that money to build more affordable housing, feed the hungry or, say, fund another season of “Claim to Fame,” a towering paragon of reality TV that was missing from the summer schedule this year. Now, that show features a great use of random celeb pairings, but we were less enthused about the C-listers who headed skyward this spring, including Katy Perry, Gayle King and Jeff Bezos’s new wife, Lauren Sanchez. If you’re going to blow money on space adventures, at least send someone interesting up there, like Robert Pattinson or RuPaul. — B.S.
