Cut to the Feeling is a monthly column by Anne T. Donahue about the art and pop culture that sparks joy, grief, nostalgia, and everything in between.
When I first saw the Wicked trailer this summer, I couldn’t have cared less. I’m not big into musicals. I knew nothing about the story or its place in Broadway lore. I couldn’t imagine spending nearly three hours watching a movie that didn’t culminate in the development of the first nuclear bomb. And yet Wicked culture still came for me.
As we’re reminded almost daily, we are living in unprecedented times. With every breaking news alert, circumstances feel increasingly dire and that sense of foreboding is matched only by pure, old-fashioned panic. Social media, obviously, isn’t helping. The artist-formerly-known-as-Twitter has completed its evolution into the digital equivalent of a Cyber Truck blaring the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Meta will never make Threads happen. Plus, merely surviving the current political, social, and economic landscape right now feels bleak: we’re marching deeper into the (latest) winter of our discontent, making it even easier to feel disconnected and disillusioned. Ultimately, we are all Dr. Manhattan: tired of Earth, these people; tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.
Unless we’re talking about monoculture.
For the record, I know that music, movies, and TV shows will not save us. Taylor Swift doesn’t care about me, the cast of Gladiator II are not our friends, and listening to “Defying Gravity” on repeat is not an act of self care. But goddamn it, the comradery formed around Big Cultural Moments™ can certainly buoy us. I didn’t care about Wicked when I first saw the trailer in July, but thanks to the universality of pop culture, it’s the life raft I will rest on when treading water gets a little too exhausting.
And out of every form of escapism, why wouldn’t we choose pop culture? I didn’t see Taylor Swift in Toronto (and can’t justify spending that much on any concert), but there was still something endearing about watching tens of thousands of people descend on the city and experience joy. You may not be front row for Wicked, but you can still appreciate the highlights culled from the press tour and consider the way you too may be holding space. Even People‘s Sexiest Man Alive bred a valuable (and important) form of monoculture: for one precious day, we all bonded over the collective disbelief that John Krasinski took the title — especially when Conclave‘s Ralph Fiennes was right there (I am not even kidding). Monoculture isn’t a cure for our social ills, but it is a coffee break. It’s a valuable and important little treat.
It’s a common adage that during the worst times in history, the best art is usually made. (See: the original Wizard of Oz, released in 1939.) But typically, monoculture has nothing to do with that. To start, commiserating over box office blockbusters or living vicariously through a stadium tour is not the same as using music or filmmaking as a means of artistic expression — the magic of monoculture is less about what we’re consuming and more about the shared experience of interpreting one thing at the same time. To willingly engage with it is proof that you can still laugh at stupid things or have conversations with strangers about Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal’s junket rapport. It’s a rapid fire life-check; if even for a minute you can muster up the energy to roll your eyes at news of a Vanderpump Rules reboot, it means that somewhere deep inside your marrow, there are still flashes of . . . something. You are still an active participant in our oft-disappointing society!
None of this is to say that you have to change your cinematic preferences or abandon your favourite artist’s favourite artist. To revel in monoculture doesn’t mean you have to abandon who you are or ignore the actualities of broken systems. To participate in a trend (and to find joy in it) isn’t another version of burying your head in the sand — it’s a fleeting moment in which you choose to feel something that gives you the charge necessary to keep going. Plus, it’s f–king fun. I didn’t know how much I needed to see hundreds of posts about Ariana Grande holding Cynthia Ervo’s finger until I, like you, held space with it. I thought I’d transcended meme culture or had aged out of mash-ups or fan edits. Which, I guess, is what really makes monoculture so special: as cynical as we may become, we’ll never really outgrow these necessary reprieves from real life.
