CE /9.

99 JUNE 16, 2025

 IN COLLABORATION WITH
PALOMA PICASSO

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THROUGH JULY3,2025
980 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK

GAGOSIAN
 THE
NtWYOllKEll
1@
JUNE 16, 2025

4 GOINGS ON
7 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Michael Luo on Trump's Chinese-student crackdown;
general Naomi-hood; JacindaArdern at a stroll;
life with an astronaut; a meatpacker's.fondfarewell.
ANNALS OF HOLLYWOOD
Jennifer Wilson 12 Action!
The rise of the intimacy coordinator.
AMER.ICAN CHRONICLES
Emily Nussbaum 18 Mother of the Sitcom
How Gertrude Berg created a TV genre.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Mike O'Brien 25 Redditors: Immigrants Keep
Kidnapping My Wife!!
LETTER. FROM ISRAEL
Eyal Press 26 Without Borders
A Palestinian doctor caresfor all.
PROFILES
Rebecca Mead 36 Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
Jenny Saville's paintings of the nakedfemalefarm.
TAKES
Ina Garten 43 Calvin Tomkins's "Good Cooking."
FICTION
Jim Shepard 46 "The Qyeen of Bad Influences"
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
54 An ambitiousfeminist reappraisal of the aughts.
Dayna Tortorici
59 Briefly Noted
Adam Gopnik 60 What Irving Thalberg brought to the movies.
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Justin Chang 64 Celine Song's "Materialists."
POEMS
Rick Barot 30 "The Terminal"
Rae Armantrout 51 "Murmuration''

COVER.
HarukaAoki "Nothing to See"

DRAWINGS David Sipress, Will McPhail, Elisabeth McNair, Michael Maslin,

Amy Hwang, Roz Chast, Maddie Dai, Ellis Rosen, Jon Adams, Pia Guerra and
Ian Boothby, Jimmy Craig, Benjamin Schwartz SPOTS Emilia Mirkisz
 CONTR.IBUTOR.5
THE NE,W YOR.Kfil

THE FOOD
Rebecca Mead ( "Bodies, Bodies, Bodies," Eyal Press ( "Without Borders,"p. 26) has
p. 36) joined the magazine as a staff been a contributing writer since 2023.
writer in 1997. Her most recent book He is a Puffin Foundation Fellow at

SCENE is the memoir "Home/Land."

Jennifer Wilson ("Action!," p. 12) is a

the Type Media Center.

Emily Nussbaum ( "Mother ifthe Sitcom,"

staff writer covering books and culture. p. 18), a staff writer, won the Pulitzer
Previously, she was a critic at the Times Prize for criticism in 2016. Her book
Book Review. "Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Re­
ality TV" was published last year.
Michael Luo ( Comment, p. 7) is an ex­
ecutive editor at The New Yorker. His Ina Garten ( Takes, p. 43) is the author
book, "Strangers in the Land: Exclu­ of thirteen cookbooks and the host of
sion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the show "Be My Guest with Ina Gar­
the Chinese in America," was pub­ ten." Her memoir, "Be Ready When
lished in April. the Luck Happens," came out last fall.

Jim Shepard (Fiction, p. 46) first con­ Rick Barot (Poem, p. 30) published his
tributed to the magazine in 1987. His fifth poetry collection, "Moving the
book "The Qyeen of Bad Influences Bones," last year. He directs the Rai­
A newsletter about and Other Stories" is due out next year. nier Writing Workshop, in Tacoma.

what, where, and Haruka Aoki ( Cover) is a poet and an

illustrator. This marks their first con­
Mike O'Brien (Shouts & Murmurs,
p. 25) has written for "Saturday Night
how to eat. tribution to the magazine. Live" and created the sitcom "A.P. Bio."

The James Beard Award-winning Rae Armantrout (Poem, p. 51), a Pulit­ Dayna Tortorici (Books, p. 54), a first­
zer Prize-winning poet, is the author time New Yorker contributor, has been
critic Helen Rosner's weekly
of "Go Figure," among other books. a co-editor of n+1 since 2014.
dispatches from New York City's
culin ary scene, plus recipes,
cooking advice, and other notes
THIS WEEK IN THE NEW YORK.ER. APP
from the world of food.

New Yorker subscribers

get early access:
newyorker.com/food

Taylor Swift's Master Plan

When the star decided, in 2019, to rerecord her albums and
Sean to receive the
take control of the music rights, the idea was applauded as an act
free newsletter. of feminist reclamation. Was it? Tyler Foggatt reports.

Download the New Yorker app for the latest news, commentary, criticism,
and humor, plus this week's magazine and all issues back to 2008.
 THE
NE.,W YOH.KEil
THE MAIL
l®
BY THE PEOPLE Gopnik concludes that too many po­
litical obstacles made the Civil War
Adam Gopnik, in his survey of recent unavoidable, but that the mass death
Civil War literature, asks whether the that resulted still needs to be more
conflict was, after so much death and widely and deeply acknowledged. Al­
suffering, worth it (Books, April 28th). though I don't disagree with those as­
He writes that "we accept mass dying sessments, he glosses over the experi­
with enormous aplomb" and that we ences of enslaved people.
view it as "the price of the history that He is right to foreground the con­
seemingly rewards us now." In addi­ flict 's enormous costs, in death and
tion to the eight hundred thousand injuries, and the false promise of eman­
dead, another casualty of the Civil War cipation, given that what followed was
that's often overlooked was civil lib­ Jim Crow and other manners of or­
erties. Abraham Lincoln suspended ganized oppression throughout the
habeas corpus during the conflict­ country. But the Civil War's bloody
first unilaterally, and then with the ac­ canvas must also be considered along­
cession of Congress, after Chief Jus­ side the violence inflicted daily upon
tice Roger Taney stated that only the the millions in servitude-violence
legislative branch has the authority to that, in Gopnik's "gradual emancipa­
take such action. tion" scenario, would have continued
Americans seem to accept wartime for years. How might one weigh that
intrusions on our civil liberties with the hypothetical suffering against the ac­
same equanimity with which we accept tual misery and destruction caused by
thousands of soldiers dying to defend the Civil War? WNYCSTUDIOS
those very freedoms. Lincoln's suspen­ Paul Weichselbaum
sion of habeas corpus led to Woodrow Hendersonville, N C.
Wilson's crackdown on dissent after
the United States entered the First "Specious" is what Gopnik calls Lin­
World War, which led to Franklin D. coln's argument, in the Gettysburg Join The New Yorkers
Roosevelt 's internment of Japanese Address, that the question posed by editor, David Remnick,
Americans during the Second World the Civil War was whether any na-
War and George W. Bush's establish­ tion "so conceived and dedicated" to for in-depth interviews
ment of a surveillance state during the liberty "can long endure." But Lin­ and thought-provoking
war on terror. coln was right: no political institu­ discussions about politics,
This long history of the expansion tion-not a nation, a state, or a school
of executive power, often with the ac­ district-can survive if a disaffected culture, and the arts.
quiescence of the courts, to violate and minority is free to withdraw. The in­
restrict civil liberties in the name of na­ stitution can endure only if its con­
tional security has ultimately brought stituents are obligated to go along
us to our current situation. President with measures they dislike and to ac­
Trump is blatantly ignoring court rul­ cept that they may act on their ob­
ings and due process, and justifies many jections only within the rules of the Available wherever you get
of his actions with the dubious idea that institution. If splintering the institu­ your podcasts.
we arc at war with any country from tion is always an option, the result is
which immigrants have fled to enter the ongoing anarchy.
U.S. illegally. War, as Randolph Bourne John Ross
put it, may very well be the "health of Bend, Ore.
the state," if we define the state as the
executive branch. One can imagine
•
Trump agreeing with that definition, Letters should be sent with the writer's name,
seeing himself as a kind of modern-day address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to Scan to listen.
Louis XIV, proclaiming, "I am the state." themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
Jason Schlabach any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
Cincinnati, Ohio of correspondence we cannot reply to e-very letter. To find all of The New Yorker's podcasts,
visit newyorker.com/podcasts.
 to bring out its grandest productions. These

GOINGS ON include "Swan Lake" and "Giselle," but also

the charming, lesser-known 1952 ballet "Sylvia"
(July 8-12) by Frederick Ashton, set to Delibes.
JUNE II - 17, 2025 The company also performs Christopher Wheel­
don's "The Winter's Tale" (July 1-5)-a deft
adaptation of the late Shakespeare play-for the
first time in New York. The Russian ballerina
Olga Smirnova, who left the Bolshoi for Dutch
� National Ballet after the Russian invasion of
Ukraine, makes a guest appearance in "Giselle"
What we're watching, listening to, and doing this week. on June 21; and on July 18, the longtime princi­
pal dancer Gillian Murphy bids farewell to the
stage with a final "Swan Lake."-Marina Harss
John Cazale was one of the indelible character actors of the nineteen­ (Metropolitan Opera House;June 10-July 19.)
seventies, but his career was tragically brie£ He acted in only five feature
films-all Oscar nominees for Best Picture. He played Fredo Corleone in OFF BROADWAY I Beowulf Boritt's blue-and-blush­
ing-pink set for "The Imaginary Invalid," Jeffrey
the first two parts of "The Godfather," as well as antsy sidekicks in "The Hatcher's sparkling Moliere adaptation (directed
Conversation'' and "Dog Day Afternoon'' (pictured) and the guy who by Jesse Berger, for Red BullTheatre), contains
doesn't go to Vietnam in "The Deer Hunter," which came out eight months several surprises: portraits that open; naughty
wallpaper vignettes that reward close inspec­
after he died, of cancer, in 1978. He was forty-two. To celebrate Cazale's tion. The play's hypochondriac paterfamilias
ninetieth-birthday year, Film Forum plays all five of his films,June 13-19 . Argan (Mark Linn-Baker) would benefit from
It's a chance not only to revisit a string of stone-cold classics of the New more attention, too, though his doctors (Amie
Burton, in a variety of wigs) only see a fool.
Hollywood but to pay closer attention to the guy who's off to the side, filling Berger's tiny stage bulges like a clown car, stuffed
his unglamorous characters with delectable grace notes.-Michael Schulman with superb comedians such as Russell Daniels,
playing a prospective son-in-law (and Grade A
idiot) who shrieks around sick people, and Sarah
Stiles, as a pert soubrette. At the show's center is
Linn-Baker, whose lambswool softness conceals
a watchmaker's perfectionism; the whole silly
clockwork depends on his comic gears rotating
precisely from joke to joke.-Helen Shaw (New
World Stages; through June 29.)

ART IIn the informative catalogue accompa­

nying Jennie C. Jones's "Ensemble" ( on the
Met's roof), the artist talks about the inspira­
tion behind her three large and elegant works,
all acoustic sculptures based on string instru­
ments-the trapezoidal zither, a tall Aeolian
harp, and a doubled, leaning one-string. Jones
has called the installation "site responsive,"
and it is something to see the vast green of
Central Park below and the grand homes in
audience of these sculptures gleaming in the
sun, housed in a powerful institution but tak-
ing their inspiration from the life and work
of little-known American musicians, such as
the harpist Dorothy Ashby and the one-string
musician Louis Dotson. Jones's deeply vibrant
aluminum surfaces are suffused with the history
of those who have been forgotten; they are also
evidence of the artist's continuing interest in
how sound connects with image.-Hilton Als
ABOUT TOWN (Metropolitan Museum ofArt; through Oct. 19.)

t-iOVIES I Hard on the heels of his metafictional

DANCEHALL I In the nineteen-eighties, the Jamai­ extraterrestrial activity, undiscovered planets, rock doc "Pavements," Alex Ross Perry is pre­
can singer and d.j. Ophlin Russell became one of wormholes to other dimensions. It's also this miering his nearly three-hour archival docu­
the most significant figures in dancehall music, year's slogan for the Music at the Anthology Fes­ mentary, "Videoheaven," at the Tribeca Film
as Sister Nancy. Dancehall, a child of reggae, was tival, an event that has always felt otherworldly. Festival. A decade in the making, the new work
less downtempo, more open to electronics, and Co-founded by Philip Glass, the festival aims to considers how video stores have been depicted
dominated by the "sound system" -groups of lift up young experimental composers, kicking in movies, whether Hollywood, art house, or
d.j.s who perform in clashes to determine the off with Jessie Cox's "Enter the Impossible," grind house. With a wall-to-wall commentary
superior crew. Dancehall is a club culture, but played by the iconic Afrofuturist Sun Ra Ark­ (delivered by Maya Hawke), Perry maps his
Sister Nancy's reputation was cemented in the estra and the contemporary-forward FLUX themes-video stores as sites of horror, video
studio. Her 1982 debut, "One, Two," is a genre Quartet. Other nights feature such works as rentals as social encounters, clerks as nerd gate­
landmark, including "Barn Barn," among the George Lewis's explorative "String Quartet keepers-onto real-world changes, including t
greatest songs ever made. Performing alongside 1.5: Experiments in Living," and the world the rise of local independent video stores, their j
JonnyGo Figure, a local d.j. who carries on the premiere of Reza Vali's quartet "Salmak." Put replacement with corporate chains, and the ::_
musical legacy, the icon keeps stoking an eternal your spacesuit on.-Jane Bua (ISSUE Project demise of video stores in the age of streaming. �
party.-Sheldon Pearce (Public Records;June 15.) Room;June 11-14.) With clips from more than a hundred movies, g
Perry channels an obsession into a fascinating 8:
CLASSICAL I The phrase "intergalactic infin­ BALLET I residency at
American Ballet Theatre's encyclopedic form.-Richard Brody (Tribeca Film ;;
ity" brings to mind a science-fiction movie- the Metropolitan Opera House is an occasion Festival;June 10-12.) 2

4 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025

MYSTERY
ATTHE GROOMS'
JUNE 19-29,2025 �
PIER 36,299 SOUTH STREET HERM:£5
NEW YORK CITY PARIS
 PICK THREE
Helen Rosner on ice-cream sundaes
for the start ofsummer.
1. Like so many dishes at Bonnie's, the chef
Calvin Eng's restaurant of creatively reen­
visioned Cantonese cuisine, the Chow Nai
Sundae is referential, rigorous, wacky, and
wondrous. A base of vanilla ice cream is nearly
invisible beneath an avalanche of toppings:
toffee-like buttered peanuts, dusky, husky,
malty Ovaltine hot fudge, and bronze cubes
of fried milk. The cherry on top is optional
pork floss, crumbled bits of shredded salty­
sweet pork with the airy texture of cotton candy.
head curator of the museum's department
PHOTO BOOTH 2. Gramercy Tavern's pastry chef, Karen De­
of photographs, builds from format to Masco, almost always has a sundae of some sort
How American Photography format-including tintypes, ambrotypes, on the menu, but she adapts its particulars to the
and stereographs-charting the techno­ seasons. Right now she's doing a Passion-Fruit Sun­
Came Into Its Own dae, with strata of fresh pulp studded with poppy­
logical refinements that made each an crunchy seeds, vanilla ice cream, passion-fruit
"The New Art: American Photography, improvement where the maker's control sorbet, coconut tapioca pearls, and shards of
1839-1910," at the Met throughJuly 20, was concerned. Although a number of lime-scented meringue. It brings to mind a pav­
lova, an ultra-messy Eton mess, the fruit-and­
is a big, sprawling show of work from the images are credited to known studios or condensed-milk swooniness of Korean bingsu­
medium's era of busy development, as established photographers such as Alice even, fleetingly, a mall-kiosk Orange Julius.
photographers were exploring the possi­ Austen and Eadweard Muybridge, there
3. Harry's Hot-Fudge Sundae, served at the sib­
bilities of a new form of expression, a new are no trophies here, and much of the ling restaurants the Odeon, inTribeca, and the
way of seeing. By focussing on work made modern work is by little-known or un­ Upper West Side's Cafe Luxembourg, begins
in America, the show also charts a country known makers. with scoops of ultra-creamy house-made ice
cream in your choice of flavors-1 somewhat
and a democracy defining itself bit by bit. The exhibit is full of pictures chosen obscenely prefer the peanut butter-plus sugary
In the beginning, photography was for what they convey about their mo­ chunks of praline almonds. The dark, slithery­
largely a specialist's medium, the domain ment in history: Atlanta in ruins in 1866, hot chocolate sauce has a bittersweet edge that
makes the whole thing feel a little bit electric.
of a few inventors and commercial stu­ a shattered building that barely survived Like the restaurants themselves, Harry's sundae
dios. But the daguerreotype, despite re­ the San Francisco earthquake, the scars has an aura of immortality to it: it's a dessert
quiring a high level of expertise, was the of a formerly enslaved man in the fa­ of an earlier age, a dessert with a fundamental
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themselves. Photographs became not just that Yves Tanguy would have envied. All
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passed on. "The New Art," curated byJeff arranged and wide open to discovery. Sign up to receive the Goings On newsletter,
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THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025 5

 •

� (ev� � had a, �,, Charleston rewards the curious. Walk cobblestone alleys once trodden by
revolutionaries. Lin r in galleries where - eritage is reimagined. Share ideas over She-crab soup and rooftopjazz. 1his is a place that
invites reflection and inspires conversation. From thought-provoking exhibits and James Beard-honored kitchens to barrier island beaches,
the Charleston area is where tradition and transformation meet.

@EXPLORECHARLESTON EXPLORECHARLESTON.COM

•
 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT sively revoking" the visas of Chinese stu­ nounced charges last week against two
THE CHINESE QUESTION dents, including those studying in "crit­ researchers-"citizens of the People's Re­
ical fields" and those "with connections public of China'' -for allegedly smug­

E verett F. Drumright, the American

consul-general in Hong Kong, be­
lieved that the United States was con­
to the Chinese Communist Party."(The
Party has some ninety-nine million mem­
bers and is intertwined with nearly all
gling into the country last summer a fun­
gus that causes "head blight" in grains
and, prosecutors said, is a "potential agro­
fronting a grave threat to its national aspects of Chinese life.) The announce­ terrorism weapon."
security. It was 1955, and the consular ment is the latest effort in the Admin­ The Drumright report is a reminder
officers were being besieged by Chinese istration's apparent attempt to force a of how long suspicion has trailed peo­
people seeking to flee the mainland and rupture between China and the U.S. In ple of Chinese descent in the U.S. Don­
immigrate to the U.S., claiming that April, it imposed punitive new tariffs on ald Trump, during his first term, report­
they were American citizens through a China, only to pause them, as the two edly said, referring to China, that "almost
parent. According to Drumright, virtu­ nations agreed to continue trade nego­ every student that comes over to this
ally all of them were relying on ficti­ tiations.(Last Thursday, President Trump country is a spy." A recent survey by the
tious documents. He issued an eighty­ said that he and China's leader, Xi Jin­ Asian American Foundation found that
nine-page report, laden with racist ping, had "a very good phone call" and forty per cent of Americans believe that
insinuations and filled with alarm about would hold a new round of talks.) At Asian Americans are more loyal to their
the infiltration of the country by "Chi­ the end of May, Trump officials blocked countries of origin than to the U.S.
nese Communist agents," in which he exports to China of certain technologies, Chinese citizens studying in the U.S.
warned that China was poised to ex­ including those related to jet engines and have long provided a connection be­
ploit America's immigration system "to semiconductors. In another move that tween the two countries. In 1854, Yung
the service of her purposes alone." seems calculated to send a message Wing became the first Chinese gradu­
Soon after Drumright submitted his to Beijing, the Justice Department an- ate of an American university, earning
report, federal prosecutors embarked on a diploma from Yale. In 1872, with the
a wide-ranging probe of the Chinese support of the Qing government, he es­
community. In New York, prosecutors tablished the Chinese Educational Mis­
announced that they had uncovered a sion, which brought a hundred and
vast criminal scheme that had smuggled twenty Chinese pupils to New England.
into the U.S. thousands of immigrants, In 1881, as anger over immigration rose,
including Communist agents with "con­ Chinese officials shuttered the mission.
cealed skills," planted, as one newspaper The following year,Congress passed the
ll put it, by the "Red Chinese government." Chinese Exclusion Act, barring labor­
1�
Prosecutors ultimately brought cases ers from entering the country. A cote­

I §
,, >-
against nearly sixty defendants-laun- rie of missionaries, diplomats, and busi­
i; z drymen, dishwashers, and others-on ness leaders pressed to ease entry for
'5 � assorted immigration-fraud charges. Yet students. By the early twentieth century,
ii � the findings revealed nothing like the hundreds of Chinese students were on
!� elaborate espionage operation that American campuses. When Mao Ze­
,[ 0
'; 0 Drumright had laid out. dong's Communist Party seized power,
l�
1=
Late last month, Secretary of State in 1949, nearly four thousand found
,!) �=, Marco Rubio announced that the Trump themselves stranded in the U.S. and sud­
Si Administration would begin "aggres- denly objects of suspicion. Federal agents
THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025 7
subjected them to interrogations and Met Your Mother" and "Breaking Bad." system, even for a minor infraction. (In
even incarceration. It took several years Zhang's English improved rapidly, late April, federal officials revealed that
before the hysteria faded. In 1965, a and all that TV-watching influenced his they had run students' names through
sweeping new law finally placed Chi­ world view. He came to understand that a computerized index that includes
nese-and other Asian-immigrants on people in other countries lived differ­ criminal-history information.) A few
equal footing with everyone else trying ently from those in China, ruled by an years ago, Zhang got a speeding ticket.
to enter the U.S. In 1979, Deng Xiao­ authoritarian regime. He enrolled in a Now he worried that this made him
ping, set on modernizing his nation, re­ prestigious university near his home, but vulnerable. He said that he and his peers
stored diplomatic relations between the bridled at the required propagandistic feel a "constant sense of panic."
countries, and Chinese students began classes. For his junior year, he won a schol­ The United States' diplomatic ap­
arriving in earnest.Their numbers surged arship to attend a university in Califor­ proach to China has long oscillated be­
again in the mid-aughts, as China's in­ nia, where he thrived. He returned to tween conflicting credos-either that it
creasingly robust economy became in­ Beijing resolving to apply to graduate represents an existential threat on the
tegrated with the global economic order. school in the U.S., only for the pandemic geopolitical stage or that it should be
Today, there are two hundred and sev­ to intervene. Eventually, he enrolled in engaged as a potential partner. Presi­
enty-seven thousand Chinese students a journalism program on the West Coast. dent Trump's dial is perpetually set on
in America. Many of them were chil­ After getting his degree, he landed a job bellicose. Last Wednesday, he issued a
dren during the aughts, when China's at the school, taking advantage of a spe­ proclamation targeting international
market was opening up. Liwei Zhang­ cial extension of his student visa for ad­ students at Harvard, in which he re­
not his real name-was born in Beijing, ditional training in his field. peatedly invoked the Chinese menace
the son of a police officer and a nurse. Earlier this year, Zhang started see­ and accused China and other "foreign
When Zhang was four, his parents bought ing reports on Chinese social media of adversaries" of "exploiting the student
him a boxed set of Disney DVDs, and students whose visas were cancelled and visa program for improper purposes."
he watched them all. His favorite was whose legal status had been terminated. The alarm rings familiar, and so does
"Winnie the Pooh."W hen he got older, Word spread that many of them had the cost of overreach.
he binged television shows like "How I previously had encounters with the legal -Michael Luo

MEETUP Also a writer? The Naomi who in­ "W here is everybody from?"
A NATTER.ING OF NAOMl5 spired this council: the author and ac­ "I'm from Houston."
tivist Naomi Klein. In her book "Dop­ "I was born in Eritrea, but I grew up
pelganger," Klein talks about being in Arkansas."
frequently mistaken for Naomi Wolf, the One Naomi hailed from Kyoto, where
third-wave feminist turned anti-vax con­ the name is written with a character
spiracy theorist. "I read the back cover for "beauty."
and I thought, This would be really fun "I always go by the Japanese defini­

A t any given moment, there may to talk about with other Naomis,"Naomi tion versus other definitions, like 'pleas­
well be a number of people named Becker, the meetup's organizer, said.
Naomi scattered across Prospect Park's
ant,"' another Naomi, a barista, said. "I'd
Back in March, Becker, a thirty-one­ rather be beautiful."
five hundred-odd acres. But, on a recent year-old data manager at an immigra­ Becker, who wore two-tone glasses
cloudy Saturday afternoon, the population tion-advocacy organization, started put­ and dangly crescent-moon earrings, made
peaked on a patch of grass labelled "Bar­ ting up flyers that read "Is Your Name efforts to steer conversation toward
becue Area." Sitting in a duck-duck-goose Naomi?," inviting Naomis (and Nomis Klein's book. "Should we talk about it?"
circle, on top of colorful blankets, were and N oemis and N aomys) to discuss she asked eagerly.
citizens tall and short, young and slightly the book and the name that inspired it. "I'm twelve pages in," one admitted.
older-all with one common denominator. The flyer included a map with an arrow "I didn't read it."
"I've never met another Naomi!" one pointing to a vague spot. Becker herself had only finished it
said, looking around the group. "I was very grateful for the sign," that morning. "It's quite grim," she told
"I'm really bad with names, so this one said, referring to a piece of card­ the group. " Sorry for everyone that's
is such a relief," another said. board with "NAOMI" sketched in black been traumatized."
"Should we do introductions?" marker, which Becker had propped on "Could someone run through the book
"I'm Naomi. I work in software." a nearby fence. She had also designed structure?" a negligent Naomi asked.
"I'm Naomi. I'm a student at Barnard." a bingo board with Naomi-themed "It's about Naomi Wolf and how she
"I'm Naomi. I work in employee re- squares: "Find a Naomi who goes by kind of went off the rails," Becker began.
lations, but I'm going to law school in their middle name." "Find a Naomi "It goes into covm, and how we had
the fall!" Congratulations rippled around who prefers savory over sweet." "Find this opportunity to reinvent the world
the circle. a Naomi who saw Beyonce this week." and that just didn't happen-in part,
"I sell wine for an importer." "Find a Naomi who moved to New Naomi Klein's thesis is, due to Naomi
"I'm a writer." York within the past year." Wolf 's misinformation."
8 THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025
 But, before anyone could chime in, ("My Administration has accomplished
VISITING DIGNITARY
someone walked up to the group. more than almost any Administration'');
OLD HAUNTS
''Are you Naomi?" Ardern sat next to her fiance, Clark Gay­
"I am!" ford, who held their newborn in his arms.
U ltimately, general Naomi-hood Then came covrn, and New Zealand's
seemed to be a more appealing subject. lockdowns-unusually effective, but also
"Is anyone here left-handed?" Si­ unusually draconian. They were popular
lence. "O.K., statistically normal." for a while, but then protesters set up camp
Nicknames: " Does anyone have outside Parliament. Ardern's approval rat­
people that call them I -moan, like
'Naomi' backwards?" W hen Stephen Colbert landed in ing plummeted. In 2023, she declined to
New Zealand in 2019, his ride run for a third term. ("I no longer have
Worst pronunciation: "In elemen­ from the airport was Jacinda Ardern, enough in the tank.") Since then, she has
tary school, a kid called me Wyoming." the Prime Minister. They filmed a seg­ settled for being the Right Honorable
"I've gotten Natalie and Nicole." ment in her car, greeting rubberneckers Dame Jacinda Ardern, with a fellowship
"Those are the ones you find on the and singing "Bohemian Rhapsody"; the at Harvard's Kennedy School. She lives in
key chains," someone responded. filming continued at her house, culminat­ Cambridge with Gayford, who is now her
An awkward silence settled over the ing in a barbecue with the second most husband, and their daughter, Neve, who
group. It was relieved by the appearance important woman in the country, Lorde. is now six. "She's a really good traveller,
of another woman, who'd hesitantly ap­ (Peter Jackson, the third member of the and we've taken her on the Acela to New
proached the mosaic of blankets. Kiwi Power Trinity, appeared on "Col­ York a few times," Ardern said the other
''Are you Naomi?" bert'' later that week.) Those were Ar­ day, stepping out of a black S.U.V. near
"I'm Naomi!" dern's glory days. She was in her thirties, Union Square. "Last time, we bought her
About an hour and a half in, clouds the youngest Prime Minister in New Zea­ a little Statue of Liberty souvenir-the
had thinned and the sun was cutting land's history. Her brand at the time was kind that makes noise when you squeeze
through keyholes. Attempts at book something like the Obama of the antip­ it-which I regretted immediately."
discussion had petered out. A few late odes: a liberal media darling, icon of the Ardern, wearing a jean jacket and
Naomis had straggled in, and the group global anti-Trump resistance, transitioning white Chuck Taylors, was in town to
had divided into smaller units to chit­ smoothly from lofty oratory to easygo­ promote her new memoir, ''A Different
chat. Topics abounded: Scotland, dat­ ing relatability. After a mass shooting at Kind of Power," and a new documentary
ing, 9/11, perfume,Turkish delight. One Sandy Hook Elementary School,Obama about her time in office, called "Prime
Naomi had just published a novel set gave a poignant speech and called for an Minister." Much of the footage was
in Philadelphia. "Our next meetup can assault-weapons ban, which didn't pass; filmed at home, by Gayford, and the
be for your book!" another replied. after a mass shooting at two mosques in movie includes a few glimpses that only
Some passersby eyed the group. Christchurch, Ardern gave a poignant an in-house cinematographer could have
"M aybe they're all named Naomi, but speech and called for an assault-weapons captured (Ardern putting Neve down in
they're too shy to join," someone said. ban, which did. At the U.N. General As­ her crib, then curling up in bed to read
Soon, disbanding was under way. sembly, Trump rambled from the lectern stacks of public-health reports; Ardern
One by one, the Naomis bid a bitter­
sweet adieu to their doppelgangers.
"I feel like we're breaking up!" one
exclaimed on the way out.
A lone Naomi once again, Becker
folded up her orange checked blanket.
"I'm delighted," she said. The afternoon
was a success-even if Naomi Klein
herself never showed. Becker had
reached out to her via her website. She
didn't bother reaching out to Klein's un­
savory double, Naomi Wolf.
Word of the event did reach Klein,
from more than six different sources.
She passed along her thanks, but said
that she was unable to pop down from
Canada. Klein was wary of the con­
cept, anyway. "I've had enough trouble
dealing with one other Naomi," she
said. "Twenty Naomis might be my
worst nightmare." 'Tm extremely co'!fident about your case now that breaking
-Jane Bua the law doesn't carry the stigma that it used to."
in a bathrobe, looking exhausted, saying, ways the anti-Trump.) In the travel sec­ They became friends and remained in
"Today, we're basically going to close the tion, she spotted another old favorite, touch. Ride went to Stanford to study
borders"). Late in the film, while she "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voy­ physics; O'Shaughnessy joined the first­
picks out what to wear to her resigna­ age." (Even this had a promotional tie-in: ever professional women's tennis circuit,
tion speech, Gayford, from behind the "Prime Minister" features footage of Ar­ the Virginia Slims. Watching a Swedish
camera, floats the idea that she could dem trekking through Antarctica, in sup­ tennis player on the court one day, she
have stayed in the job longer if only she port of climate-change research.) realized that she was having what she
had learned to delegate more. Ardern, She bought a copy and walked east. called "very gay" feelings. Buoyed by the
with a cockeyed glare, suggests that he Finishing a cup of coffee, she made for gay-liberation movement, she came out
strike his "full-blown mansplain" from a trash can, then hesitated. "Will this be as queer. Ride, meanwhile, was selected
the record. "The doco isn't the most fun recycled?" she said."The cup is fully com­ by NASA's Astronaut Corps, in 1978, and
thing for me to watch," she said. "I'm postable." A block later, a white-haired married her fellow-astronaut Steven Haw­
glad it exists, for posterity, but I'm not old lady elbowed her out of the way. Only ley, in 1982. But she and O'Shaughnessy
sure how eager I am to rewatch it." in New York. "I was walking pretty were still orbiting each other. As Ride
She ducked into the Strand and slowly," Ardern said. "So that's on me." was preparing to go to space, O'Shaugh­
breezed past a table of new nonfiction, -Andrew Marantz nessy said, "she called to say hi, and to
where her own book was displayed, with say, 'You want to come to my launch?"'
her toothy grin on the cover. "That isn't TRAILBLAZER. DEPT. O'Shaughnessy watched the shuttle take
why I came here, I swear," she said, head­ SPACE ODY55EY off from a mile or two away, as one of
ing for the basement. "The poetry was Ride's fifty guests."We could hear Mis­
down here, if I recall." For many young sion Control counting off. People had
New Zealanders, an O.E., or "overseas picnic baskets out on the grass. W hen
experience," is a rite of passage. Ardern the countdown got to 'Ten . . . nine . . .
spent hers, in 2005, sleeping on a friend's eight,' everybody got so excited."
couch in Park Slope. "She was an orga­ Ride's expedition made her a house­
nizer with a local trade union, and I didn't
have a job," Ardern said. She volunteered T he other day, amid throngs of hold name, but she hated fame-in con­
schoolkids, a septuagenarian woman trast to Katy Perry and the other pop­
at a soup kitchen, walked around listen­ with a puff of gray hair, in a black tur­ culture space tourists on Lauren Sanchez's
ing to "too much James Blunt," and tleneck and pearl earrings, stepped into recent Blue Origin flight. "That was ri­
browsed in bookstores, reading inven­ the Rose Center for Earth and Space. "I diculous," O'Shaughnessy said. "Sally al­
tory she couldn't afford to buy. "There remember coming here in the early ways liked the work. She never did things
was also a bialy place I absolutely fell in nineties," the woman, Tam O'Shaugh­ for the awards or the celebrity."
love with," she said. ''And I got this"­ nessy, said. "W hen we came, no one rec­ In 1985, Ride visited O'Shaughnessy
an earring in her tragus, the cartilage ognized Sally. It was perfect for her. We in Atlanta, where she was studying bi­
near her jawbone-"so I guess I still carry were just two citizens." Sally was Sally ology.They sat on a couch near O'Shaugh­
around a bit of New York with me." Ride, who in 1983 became the first Amer­ nessy's cocker spaniel. "I bent over to pet
The poetry section had moved up­ ican woman in space. O' Shaughnessy her, and I felt Sally's hand on my lower
stairs; she found it and leafed through was her partner of twenty-seven years, a back," she recalled. "It was a little bit of
some classics-Pablo Neruda, W islawa fact that became public only when Ride a surprise, because friends don't typically
Szymborska. (Once the anti-Trump, al- died, in 2012, and O'Shaughnessy wrote do that! I turned to look at her eyes, and
herself into the obituary. she looked like she was in love. We kissed,
O'Shaughnessy tells the full story of and it was basically all over."
�- :(t,,t ., .,·: their relationship in a National Geo­ Ride divorced Hawley, and after a
'U•.:,_ ,i,' . ,- " ..
t -,If I.- . , 4 graphic documentary, "Sally," which is few years O'Shaughnessy moved to La
i', � "'"i•'H'4-�' due out next week. "She was a pretty Jolla to live with her. But Ride remained
4 ... ''t�t·

hard-core introvert," O'Shaughnessy said. closeted even to friends, which frustrated

"I'm an introvert, but I think I like peo­ O'Shaughnessy. "We did everything to­
,
ple more than Sally did." She stood on gether," she said. "But she just never ut­
, a walkway surrounding the planetarium tered the words 'Come meet my partner,
sphere. She and Ride met when they Tam."' They co-wrote children's books
were twelve and thirteen, respectively, at and, in 2001, founded Sally Ride Sci- <i:

a tennis tournament in Redlands, Cali­ ence, a science-education company. "We �

fornia. "We were standing in line, and I made the conscious decision not to be �
noticed this young girl ahead of me," she open to the public," O'Shaughnessy went .�
�
recalled. "W hen the line started moving on, passing a display about atoms and io
forward, she suddenly rose up on her quarks. "Sally had some quarks, that's for ::£
Q
toes and walked on her toes a few steps. sure," she said, laughing. "I wanted her �
0::
It just cracked me up. I thought it was to be open with people she cared about. �_J

Jacinda Ardern the funniest, quirkiest thing I'd ever seen." I could care less if the rest of the world
10 THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025
 garian.The family has worked in Manhat­ led the way. The meat cutters would show
tan's meatpacking district for a hundred up for work just as many of the club­
and twenty-five years. As his forebears goers were going home. Pastis, Keith
did, Jobbagy arrives at work at four in McNally's restaurant, became an anchor.
the morning. He makes the two-mile trip Two local guys had the idea of turning
from his apartment, in StuyvesantTown, the derelict elevated railroad tracks into
by car and does not drive much beyond a garden walkway-the High Line.
that. His Lexus is twelve years old and Jobbagy said, "W hen the High Line
has about eighteen thousand miles on it. came in, in early 2009, the place exploded."
Jobbagy runs J.T.Jobbagy, Inc., whose Lefrancois said, "The neighborhood
packinghouse is near the comer of Lit­ began getting millions of visitors a year.
tle West Twelfth Street and Washing­ I saw Gwyneth Paltrow sitting at an out­
ton Street, by the far western end of door table." In 2015, the W hitney Mu­
Fourteenth. He is tall, long-armed and seum relocated to Gansevoort Street.
-legged, and totally at home in the neigh­ "Before the W hitney made that de­
borhood (fist bumps, quick conversations cision, they asked us, the meatpackers,
with passersby). He serves as the president if we were comfortable with it. We were,
of the Gansevoort Market Co-op. The but we appreciated that they asked,"
other moming,Jobbagy, dressed in jeans Jobbagy said.
Tam O'Shaughnessy and a light-brown ball cap, had break­ Lefrancois picked up the check, and
fast with Jeffrey Lefrancois, the execu­ Jobbagy took the person with the note­
knew. I understood she had a lot to lose." tive director of the Meatpacking District book to his packinghouse. Under the
In 2011, Ride found out that she had Management Association.The two met at marquee were railings for sliding car­
pancreatic cancer. The couple became Hector's, a longtime local diner, and talked, casses in off trucks, and garlands of sharp,
certified domestic partners, to insure while a guy they'd asked to join them, who shiny meat hooks hung at the ready. In­
hospital-visitation rights. "We had a no­ brought along a notebook, tried to keep up. side the meat locker itself, among the
tary come over. Then we had our tradi­ Outside it was pouring. Jobbagy said hanging half carcasses, it was cold, claus­
tional beer and saltine crackers with that on days like this you hated to get trophobic, and terrifying.
melted Brie," O'Shaughnessy said. As wet on your way to work, and then to Back on the street, Jobbagy said that
Ride was dying, O' Shaughnessy asked have to stand all day in a thirty-three­ he would not be moving to Hunts Point.
how to identify herself to the world. Ride degree meat locker. LeFrancois, who wore "I'm going to retire, and closeJ.T.Jobbagy
answered, "You decide.""I wrote the obit­ a well-tailored suit with a pocket square, down,"he said. "I'll be sixty-nine this year,
uary a few days before Sally died, for our comes from northeastem Connecticut, and I've been in the market since I started
website," she said. "And then it went viral." on the far side of the line that divides the working for my dad when I was four­
She paused at a model of the moon state's Yankees fans from its Red Sox fans. teen. Look at Fourteenth Street here­
and caressed its craters. W hen Ride Although he's been a New Yorker for it's more than sixty feet wide, with twenty
talked about being in space, she recalled years, he could never root for the Yankees, feet of sidewalk. The semi trucks used to
looking back at Earth's atmosphere. he said. The blocks around Gansevoort back up to the buildings of both sides. A
"She'd describe it as this thin, fuzzy blue Street have housed New York's meat sup­ single lane of traffic could barely get be­
line, almost like the fuzz on a tennis pliers since the nineteenth century. When tween them. The trucks came from Illi­
ball," O'Shaughnessy said. "The way she the city temporarily declined in the nois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kan­
would always describe being in space is nineteen-seventies, the area remained a sas. Huge, burly guys were tossing full
that she loved floating free." busy market, with some residential use. carcasses out the backs.The underground
-Michael Schulman The person with the notebook had lived refrigeration system was cooling all the
on Gansevoort Street in 1974 and remem­ buildings, hundreds of meat cutters were
ENDANGER.ED 5PECI E5 bered the cobblestones slick with fat and filling orders for stores and restaurants all
MEAT HOOK.5 the wee-hours prostitution. over the city, delivery vans coming and
Now the raindrop splashes in the cob­ going-you've never seen anything like it."
blestones' puddles could have been a sign Behind him, mannequins in dresses
of the place itself effervescing into a new leaned in the window of a boutique. "I
state of being. By this fall, all the meat­ used to wonder if my family's journey
packing firms will be gone-relocated was a straight line or a circle," he went
to the huge wholesale-market space at on. "Today, I'm at the same place where

Y ou pronounceJohn T.Jobbagy's last

name with the accent on the first syl­
lable: ''.foe-bagee."The two "b"s sound like
Hunts Point, in the Bronx, and to Red
Hook, in Brooklyn. LeFrancois and
Jobbagy batted the neighborhood's se­
my grandfather got his first job when he
came ashore from Ellis Island, a hun­
dred and twenty-five years ago. Now I
one and the "g" is hard. It's not the kind of quential high points back and forth. It know that the journey is a circle. I'm
name you run into every day. Like all sur­ started to become fashionable in the ending where he began."
names ending in "agy,""Jobbagy"is Hun- eighties. Certain clubs and restaurants -Ian Frazier
THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025
 ample, the Intimacy Professional Sum­
ANNALS OF HOLLYWOOD mit, a three-day conference in Minneap­
olis for intimacy coordinators, featured

ACTION! panels such as "Sex Parties, Orgies, and

Other Large Scenes" and, for those in­
terested in depicting, say, Regency-era
Inside th e world ef intimacy coordinators. raunch, "Romancing the Past."
Just seven years ago, the picture was
BY JENNIFER WILSON quite different. It was January of 2018,
during the early, eruptive months of the
#MeToo movement.James Franco----days
after wearing a Time's Up pin at the
Golden Globes-was publicly accused
of sexual misconduct by several women,
including two from his Studio 4 acting
school, where he taught a class on sex
scenes.They told the Los Angeles Times
that, among other accusations, the actor
removed actresses' genital guards during
scenes of simulated oral sex. (Franco de­
nied the allegations and later settled a
class-action lawsuit, brought by the stu­
dents, for $2.2 million.) At the time, he
was starring in the HBO series "The
Deuce," about the rise of the pornogra­
phy industry in New York City in the
nineteen-seventies.
Executives at HBO learned about a
woman in New York City who was call­
ing herself an "intimacy coordinator."
Alicia Rodis had been a fight director
who had developed a specialty in cho­
reographing sexual-assault scenes after
working on Off Off Broadway produc­
tions such as "The Rape of Lucrece."
The network asked Rodis to implement
safety protocols on set. The producer
"sounded like he was calling a prosti­
tute," she told me. "He said, 'I see that
you offer a service, and I think we need

E arlier this year-Valentine's Day

weekend, to be precise-I found my­
self sitting on the floor of a loft in down­
sweatshirt that matched his graying faux­
hawk. After our final exhale, he leaped
up from a stool and gave each of us a fist
this service.' He was, like, 'I promise, I'm
a producer."' Soon, news stories about
Franco's misconduct were eclipsed by
town Los Angeles with eight other adults, bump, adding a heartfelt "Good work!" ones about Rodis's hiring."How Do You
learning how to fake an orgasm. We had I was participating in a four-day sex­ Play a Porn Star in the #MeToo Era?
been told to make three "oo"sounds punc­ choreography workshop run by CIN­ With Help from an 'Intimacy Director,"'
tuated by a sharp inhale. Next, we bit our TIMA, which Duenyas co-founded in read one headline in the New York Times.
lower lips and exhaled on the letter "V." 2023- It is one of twelve certification pro­ In October, HBO announced that all
"Vuh, vuh, vuhhhhhhh," we harmonized. grams accredited by SAG-AFTRA to train its productions would be staffed with an
After a few rounds ofthis, I started feeling intimacy coordinators. It is a new job­ intimacy coordinator. Six months ear­
out of breath. A scene from "Barbarella'' so new, in fact, that the union offers a lier, Netflix had hired its first intimacy
in which Jane Fonda's character, strapped definition on its website: "an advocate, a coordinator-lta O'Brien, a movement
into an orgasmatron by a mad scientist, liaison between actors and production, professor in the U.K.-for the teen sex
nearly expires from pleasure flashed be­ and a movement coach and/or choreog­ comedy "Sex Education." Claire Warden,
fore my eyes. At the front ofthe room was rapher" of sex scenes. My CINTIMA a fight choreographer, became Broadway's
our conductor, Yehuda Duenyas, a lithe classmates were hoping to join a rapidly first, working with Audra McDonald
fifty-one-year-old in a pewter-colored professionalizing field. In April, for ex- and Michael Shannon on "Frankie and
Johnny in the Clair de Lune," a bedroom
Instead if "kiss, " one might say, "close the distance between your mouths. " play about two New Yorkers who con-
12 THE NEW YOMER. JUNE 16, 2025 I L L USTRAT I O N BY B E N W I S E � A N
sider extending their one-night stand. op-ed titled"#YouToo, Gwyneth Paltrow?" wardrobe. A woman in her early twen­
What was once a curio of a career Intimacy coordinators are one of the ties named Grace had been a hair-and­
was on its way to becoming an indus­ most visible "wins" of the #MeToo move­ makeup assistant; when, on set, she saw
try standard-and an object of intense ment. It's no surprise that the public has two preteen actresses having to kiss each
public fascination and borderline-pruri­ begun to perceive a director's or a star's at­ other with their parents watching, she
ent media attention. "Did you work with titude toward them as a proxy for his or her decided to become an advocate for less
an intimacy coordinator?"became a com­ attitude about consent and abuse of power. mortifying working conditions.
mon press-tour question. Us Weekly even Howfair was that? I wondered, mid-fake For one of our first in-person lessons,
compiled a listicle, "Everything Celebri­ orgasm. To supporters, intimacy coordina­ we gathered around a table lined with
ties Have Said About Working with In­ tion was part of a necessary cultural reset. silver mannequin torsos. Scattered be­
timacy Coordinators on TV and Movie To critics, it was a cynical H.R. maneuver, neath them was the latest in barely-there
Sets"; Emma Stone called working with there to shield studios from lawsuits.What wardrobe technology-strapless thongs,
one on "Poor Things" "extremely, ex­ kind of work was this job actually doing? penis pouches, pasties. (Duenyas's back­
tremely meaningful." In contrast, Mi­ ground is in experimental theatre and
chael Caine told the Daily Mail, "In my
day you just did the love scene and got W alking into the loft in L.A., I had burlesque; he used to strip at the Box, an
been greeted by Duenyas and his erotic night club in New York, where he
on with it."The role became an irresist­ two co-founders-Jaclyn Chantel, an became known for a saucy routine in­
ible late-night punch line. In 2022, Chris intimacy coordinator who worked on volving a mannequin leg.) He recom­
Pine, on "The Late Late Show with James "Westworld" and the ''American Gig­ mended a brand of flesh-toned body tape
Corden," spoke about filming a sex scene olo" reboot, and Jimanekia Eborn, a called K-Tape, noting that it also came
in ''All the Old Knives" with his co-star sex educator and the host of the pod­ in green and could thus be easily painted
Thandiwe Newton and having "this lit­ cast "Trauma Qyeen." Eborn was drink­ out in postproduction. ''Are the pouches
tle woman tapping you on the shoulder ing from a water bottle covered in stick­ one size fits all?" Giselle, a cheery woman
going, 'No, I don't think you would wrap ers of vibrators and a decal of a vulva in her forties from Yorkshire, England,
your arm around her quite like that,' and with the words "Clean is not a smell." asked."No, there are different pouch pro­
giving you notes on how to have sex, es­ I recognized them from CINTIMA's files," Duenyas replied diplomatically.
sentially." Corden quipped, "I would ac­ required online training, which consisted "Whenever I tell people I'm taking
tually quite like this in my marriage." of sixty hours of video across three mod­ this course, they ask me what happens
(He's in luck: O'Brien, Pine's intimacy ules. The first reviewed what kinds of if an actor gets an erection," Grace said.
coordinator, just published "Intimacy: scenes call for an intimacy coordinator. This was the perfect segue to a discussion
A F ield Guide to Finding Connec­ "A secretive longing glance across the of barriers. These were meant to "reduce
tion and Feeling Your Deep Desires," table, while it could be a fire moment and sensation," Duenyas explained, gestur­
with a foreword by Gillian Anderson.) while definitely intimate, wouldn't nec­ ing to a small, partly deflated Pilates ball.
Since then, the conversation around essarily be under the purview of our jobs," Duenyas then had us take turns cho­
intimacy coordinators has grown spikier. Duenyas explained onscreen, unless an reographing one another in group sex
In December, in an "Actors on Actors" actor "was to slide their foot up the other scenes. There were eight cis women and
interview with Pamela Anderson for Va­ actor's leg and press it into their crotch." a trans man, but we would be assigned
riety, Mikey Madison said that she and The second module offered "Sex Ed." rotating gender roles. Emily, a set deco­
her ''Anora" co-star Mark Eydelshteyn CINTIMA prides itself on insuring its rator from Colorado, directed me to lie
had turned down the director's offer of trainees are comfortable with the language down with my head underneath a chair,
an intimacy coordinator. Madison had of various sexual subcultures; at the end where a Swiss trainee named Nathalie
wanted to "keep things small," she said, of the module a quiz asked questions such had taken a seat. At Emily's direction,
and suggested that one hadn't been nec­ as "What is the primary reason people Grace placed a Pilates ball on my pel­
essary precisely because she was playing engage in Edge Play?"(Not to be confused vis and started grinding on it while sim­
a sex worker: "It 's just what she has to with edging.) The last module covered ulating oral sex on Nathalie. I realized I
do. So I think I also, as an actress, ap­ contracts, preproduction meetings, and had forgotten to ask if Grace's character
proached it in a way of it being a job." pay scales.(Intimacy coordinators are en­ had a vagina. Duenyas had told us that
The clip went viral, with many comment­ couraged to quote the union rate for stunt we could pretend to stimulate our part­
ers criticizing the director, Sean Baker, coordinators-twelve hundred and fifty ner's clitoris by making a "pinching salt"
for not insisting on an intimacy coordi­ dollars a day.) There was also a section motion. Emily called cut and bent down
nator given the film's subject matter. Con­ about on-set "intimacy kits," which basi­ to check on me: "You look lost." We all
troversy f lared again in March, when cally consist of what you'd pack for a high­ started laughing. I had killed the mood.
Gwyneth Paltrow, while promoting her stakes first date: mints, deodorant, camel­ One of the first things intimacy coor­
upcoming movie "Marty Supreme,'' told toe concealers ( a.k.a. front-wedgie inserts). dinators do after being hired is request the
Vanity Fair that being given specific cho­ Soon, the other trainees filed in. I script and identify scenes that might re­
reography for sex scenes (" 'O.K., and thought they might be crunchy types, quire their involvement. When it comes to
then he's going to put his hand here"') like doulas there to birth a new, gentler sex, scripts can be both explicit and vague.
would make her feel "very stifled." A few Hollywood. In fact, most were already In CINTIMA's online course, Sarah Scott,
days later, the Guardian published an working in production-art direction, the intimacy coordinator for the HBO
THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025 13
sports drama "W inning Time: The Rise intimacy coordinator will insure that his reographer Michael Arnold was hired by
of the Lakers Dynasty," referred to a sex co-star doesn't have shrimp for lunch.) Martin Scorsese to block a gay orgy scene
scene between Jerry West and a woman The intimacy coordinator then generates in "The Wolf of Wall Street." Arnold's
he meets at a motel bar. The script says, a nudity rider. "You can revoke your con­ pitch to the director: ''As the camera pans
"The pounding knocks an oil painting off sent at any time, but then production has by, we land on a naked butt, and the but­
its hook. It topples, but they keep going, the right to use a body double," Grace ler, who is giving someone oral sex, pops
unabated, leaving it all out on the floor." told Chantel. "Though the body double his head out." Arnold told me, "It was
Scott asked the director for help inter­ can't do anything you didn't agree to do not a time to be shy."
preting the sports metaphors: "Do we wit­ in the original rider." But the practice of intimacy coordina­
ness a climax?" An intimacy coordinator "Could a director change their mind?" tion as we know it began in 2006, when
can't leave anything to the imagination. one trainee asked. "Look, if Werner Her­ a graduate student in theatre at Virginia
We practiced having those same sorts zog were here, he'd be, like, 'This is fucking Commonwealth University namedTonia
of conversations with directors, using a ridiculous, film is the art of the moment, Sina was cast in a school production of
script from the horror movie "Room­ storyboards are for the weak,"' Duenyas Steve Martin's 1993 play, "Picasso at the
mate Wanted," which Duenyas had said. But intimacy coordinators are not Lapin Agile." She had the role of Suzanne,
worked on. Nathalie went first, pretend­ the enemies of spontaneity, he main­ a"beautiful young heartbreaker" who has
ing to be a newly hired intimacy coor­ tained. "There are protocols in place, a fling with the painter, but she and the
dinator. "This scene reads, 'Two women though." Any new sex scenes require a actor playing Picasso weren't clicking.
come out of the room half naked,"' she new nudity rider, which actors must re­ "The director said, 'This is awful. You
said. "W hich half ?" ceive forty-eight hours in advance. guys need to practice,"' Sina told me.That
Then we did"actor calls," during which Duenyas adheres to the forty-eight­ night, alone in the theatre, they whispered
intimacy coordinators gauge how much hour rule even when it's the actor who their lines between kisses. "It was not act­
a performer is willing to do onscreen. is pushing for more than originally con­ ing anymore," she said."We got very con­
Grace was nervous."The stakes of getting sented to. "Because, when they come fused." The two left their partners only
it wrong are so high," she explained. We down from that high, they might think, to break up after the play's run-what's
all knew stories of actors feeling blind­ Why did I do that?" he said. " Why did I known in the business as a showmance.
sided. Sharon Stone revealed in her mem­ take my pants efl?" "There had to be a better way," Sina
oir, "The Beauty of Living Twice," from recalled thinking. There were choreog­
2021, that while filming the infamous
scene from Paul Verhoeven's "Basic In­
stinct" in which her character uncrosses
B efore intimacy coordinator was an
IMDb credit, the task of putting
actors at ease before sex scenes largely
raphers for fight scenes, so why not sex
scenes? She decided to make the ques­
tion the subject of her thesis, "Intimate
her legs-referred to as "the most paused fell to directors. In 2007, during the film­ Encounters: Staging Intimacy and Sen­
moment in movie history"-she had been ing of"Atonement,"Joe Wright played suality." In one chapter, Sina adapted
asked by the crew to remove her panties, "Come to Me," by Mark Lanegan and choreography used to stage mass battles
because they were reflecting the light. She PJ Harvey, to set the mood beforeJames for an orgy scene at the Department of
didn't know, until a pre-release screening, McAvoy pinned Keira Knightley against Motor Vehicles. She called it "Fantasy
that her vulva would be visible. "I went to a stack of library books-and then yelled, at the D.M.V."
the projection booth, slapped Paul across "Keira, wank him off!"Taking a differ­ How did she land on the word "inti­
the face, left, went to my car, and called ent approach, Luca Guadagnino leaves macy"? I asked. "How the hell is a uni­
my lawyer," she writes. (Verhoeven has the room. "I describe everything, but versity going to hire a sex choreographer?"
denied Stone's version of events.) But then I go," he told Variety, of working she said. "The word 'sex' couldn't be in it."
sometimes it's a question of interpreta­ with Timothee Chalamet and Armie After graduate school, Sina began offering
tion. During the filming of Paul Haggis's Hammer in "Call Me by Your Name," a workshop titled"Intimacy for the Stage"
"Crash," the actressThandiwe Newton did from 2017."They have to make love with at colleges and small theatre companies. In
not realize that her co-star Matt Dillon, the camera." 2017, her work caught the attention of the
playing a police officer, was going to sim­ Occasionally, directors have brought playwright Jillian Keiley, who hired Sina
ulate violating her in a pat-down scene. in professionals. Lilly and Lana Wa­ as the "intimacy director" for Anne Car­
She has said that she thought the term chowski hired the journalist Susie Bright son's "Bakkhai," at the Stratford Festival.
"finger-fuck' ' in the script was"ironic." An to work on the nineties lesbian thriller In Keiley's staging, Dionysus gives King
intimacy coordinator would have clarified. "Bound" after reading her memoir "Susie Pentheus (Gordon S. Miller) the ability
Grace asked Chantel, who was play­ Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World." Credited to experience female arousal. Sina coached
ing an actress, if she was O.K. appearing as a technical consultant, Bright recom­ Miller on how to simulate a clitoral or­
nude. Chantel shook her head. "O.K., mended more closeups during a scene in gasm, even making a voice recording for
what about the story of nudity?" Grace which Gina Gershon, as a hot plumber him to echo. "I was so glad I didn't have
continued, referring to the use of strate­ named Corky, fixes Jennifer Tilly's sink. to be the one to do that," Keiley told me.
gically placed bedsheets. Other questions: "I was like, 'Lesbian hands are lesbian By then, Sina had founded a nonprofit
"How do you feel about simulating an cock,"' she told Slate last year. ("I mean, called Intimacy Directors International
orgasm?" and"Do you have any allergies?" any dyke knows this," she said to me.) In with two other women-Siobhan Rich­
(If an actor has a shellfish allergy, say, the 2012, the Broadway performer and cho- ardson, a movement coach, and Rodis,
14 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
who had been doing some informal in­ (Abigail Bengson) choreographs two ac­ an intimacy coordinator. "We wanted to
timacy coordination for a stunt program tors (Nick Kroll and Rebecca Hall) por­ create a standard that could be upheld,"
at N.Y.U.'s film school.ID.I.had a 'Janky traying a campaign manager and a poli­ she told me. "I didn't want it to be where
website," as Sina put it, but it was enough tician having sex in a field office. "How anybody could do this."
to get noticed by HBO. do we want to get to this desk?" Kym asks But others saw the registry as gate­
After the L.A. Times published its them. On HBO's "The Idol," Lily-Rose keeping, and some feared that producers
story about Franco, David Simon, a cre­ Depp, playing a troubled pop star, is so would prefer intimacy coordinators who
ator of "The Deuce," released a state­ annoyed by the intimacy coordinator try­ had undergone a pricey SAG-approved
ment clarifying that there had been no ing to enforce a nudity rider for a photo training program (rather than learning
complaints on set against the actor, who shoot that her team locks him in a closet. on smaller jobs or student films). Chel­
had also directed several episodes. Pri­ Things were moving quickly, perhaps sea Pace, an intimacy coordinator and a
vately, the show 's lead actress, Emily too quickly. "There was a fear that this former movement professor at the Uni­
Meade, threatened to quit. She didn't whole thing was going to get scrapped if versity of Maryland, Baltimore County,
want to be implicated in a message that we let the wrong person in," Rodis told worried that the competition to get onto
she felt downplayed the allegations, she me. One aspiring intimacy coordinator Hollywood sets would lead to a certifi­
told me.The network asked what it could suggested that productions set aside spare cation gold rush. "There were a lot of
do to persuade her to stay. Meade had rooms for people to masturbate in after people, like myself, who had years of ex­
never heard of an intimacy coordinator, sex scenes. "I was, like, 'Oh, no, no, no. perience choreographing intimacy and
but she requested "an objective party to We're at work,"' Rodis said. now had to spend thousands of dollars
make sure everybody's O.K." during the In 2019, the actress Gabrielle Carteris, to get a star on their folder that said, 'Hey,
sex scenes. Reflecting on it now, she can't then the president of SAG-AFTRA, got you're eligible to do this now,"' Pace said.
believe the network said yes. "It was a nervous that the splashy headlines about Professionalization also changed the
sliding-doors moment that I don't think sex choreographers for movie stars were tenor of the job. In 2015, Duenyas had
would have happened at any other time going to attract the other kind of bad worked on the Thomas Bradshaw pl ay
and place," she told me. actor. She and the union's executive di­ "Fulfillment"-about a lawyer sleeping
Rodis met with each actor individu­ rector, David White, convened a series with a co-worker--as a sex choreographer.
ally and then took their concerns to the of meetings with more than a dozen in­ "It felt really fun to call it that, because
director, as is now common practice. She timacy coordinators-Rodis, Blumen­ there's so much shame around sex,"Duen­
also helped with "silly aspects," Meade thal, and Duenyas among them-to draft yas said to me, sounding nostalgic.
said, like bringing the actress kneepads a list of official protocols for the posi­
for a blow-job scene.
That October, when HBO announced
it would staff every production with an
tion, such as safeguarding "closed sets"
and reviewing final cuts to check com­
pliance with nudity riders. Carteris also
I n 1980, the director Francis Ford Cop­
pola hired Constance Penley, a Berkeley
Ph.D. candidate and an editor of a fem­
intimacy coordinator, the network had to established a registry to aid producers in inist film journal, as a research assistant
get creative-colleges were not exactly identifying qualified candidates, whom on "One from the Heart," a Vegas-set
graduating intimacy majors. Amanda the union defined as someone who had musical romance. The script included a
Blumenthal, who had just completed a spent sixty days on a SAG-AFTRA set as sex scene, and Coppola asked Penley to
course at Somatica, an institute in Berkeley,
California, that trains sex-and-relationship
coaches, was hired after her mother, an
HBO executive, mentioned that the net­
work was looking for "this thing called
an intimacy coordinator" on a new show,
"Euphoria." Mam Smith, a former stunt
performer, was brought in to work on the
third season of "Westworld." Smith told
me, "On my first day, there were two hun­
dred naked extras, all painted blue, and
they had to be wet, because the story was
that their characters had been in cold
storage." Smith made sure that there were
warming tents and requested additional
wardrobe crew to hand out robes.
By 2019, intimacy coordinators were
even working with actors playing inti­
macy coordinators. In "High Mainte­
nance," an anthology series that aired on
HBO, about New Yorkers who have the
same weed guy, a character named Kym
identify what the best ones had in com­ still felt suffused with erotic energy. In Hulu adaptation ofSally Rooney's "Nor­
mon. Coppola, Penley told me, "gave me Claire Denis's "Stars at Noon,"Margaret mal People," specifically a nine-minute
an office at Zoetrope and a telex that I Qyalley plays a righteous Americanjour­ sex scene between the characters Con­
could use to call whomever I wanted and nalist in Nicaragua who falls for a nai've nell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne (Daisy
say, 'Francis wants to know, What is the British oil executive (Joe Alwyn) unwit­ Edgar-Jones), two Irish teen-agers from
most erotic scene in film?"' Susan Sontag tingly in the way of an American plot to different social sets who are having a
said that for her it was the wind blowing control the industry.Their lovers-on-the­ clandestine affair. O'Brien said that she
through Barbara Stanwyck's hair at the lam sex scenes did nothing for me. Yet worked with Mescal to simulate putting
end of "The Bitter Tea of General Yen." when Qyalley's character, thinking she's on a condom so that it looked as realistic as
After reviewing hundreds of films, finally lost the couple's tail, walks into a possible. "Details are important," O'Brien
Penley gave Coppola a report that out­ dilapidated restaurant and spies Benny told me. Sex scenes, too, must have narra­
lined two main criteria for a good erotic Safdie in a C.I.A.-issued Hawaiian shirt, tive continuity. "The amount oftimes I see
scene. First, the characters are not sup­ and he asks, "Do you mind sitting down shows where someone just rolls over-it's,
posed to have sex. "There has to be some and watching me eat my breakfast?," I like, 'Hold on a minute.A penis penetrated
big difference between the two," she said, was rapt. I called Denis in Paris, and she someone here,' " she said. "You've got to
one that makes their encounter unlikely. seemed to confirm Penley's hypothesis. have a beat where it appears that they
Second, one or both of the characters is "They are both defending something, but withdraw-this is a real bugbear ofmine."
"under threat of death." As an example, they're on the opposite side," she said. Plus,
Penley offered the sex scene between she added, "There's something so sexy
"'
" J\ re you comfortable participating
Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn in about saying,'You're with the wrong guy. 1"'\.. in the exercises?" Duenyas had
"The Terminator," in which the latter But intimacy coordinators believe that, asked me before I arrived in L.A. ''Abso­
plays a man from 2029 who has travelled even after a script's narrative has been lutely," I told him, without really asking
back in time to rescue Hamilton's char­ determined, they can augment erotic ten­ myself if that was true. I was a journalist.
acter from a cyborg assassin played by sion through sex choreography, which I How could I face my war-correspondent
Arnold Schwarzenegger. "If you see it learned has a vocabulary all its own. On colleagues if I walked off an assignment
out of context, it's O.K.," she said. "But a dry-erase board, Duenyas had written because I was too anxious to simulate
when you know he's from the future and a glossary of technical terms from Chel­ cunnilingus on a bunch of friendly white
they're being hunted, it's really, really hot." sea Pace's textbook, "Staging Sex: Best women in yoga pants?
My favorite sex scene, I realized, fit Practices,Tools, and Techniques for The­ But then Duenyas had us do an ex­
the formula. In "Out of Sight," Jennifer atrical Intimacy."The first word was "dis­ ercise called Instant Chemistry, designed
Lopez, as Detective Karen Sisco, finally tance." (An intimacy coordinator would by Sina. (She thought ofit as a technique
comes face to face, at a hotel bar, with not say "make out" but, rather, "close the to create that mysterious dynamic with­
George Clooney's Jack Foley, a handsome distance between your mouths.") An­ out having a self-destructive affair with
bank robber she has been trailing. There's other term was "shapes." (Instead of tell­ your co-star.) We had to find a partner,
an implausible pairing and the likelihood ing an actor to "grind on'' his co-star, one line up on opposite sides of the studio,
of a shoot-out denouement, and so when might say, "make a figure eight with your and stare into each other's eyes. I paired
Sisco tells him, "You really wear that suit," hips.") Shapes, Duenyas told us, "are off with Laura, an actress whose most
it's obvious that it will soon be coming off. when you can really start telling stories." recent role was as a nun in the body­
Penley's formula also helped me see I spoke to the British intimacy coordi­ horror film "Immaculate," alongside Syd­
why certain scenes without a hint of sex nator Ita O'Brien about her work on the ney Sweeney. I now had to imagine her
on the day she was born.
"Visualize the room," Duenyas said.
"What time of year was it? Was the sun
shining?" I pictured infant Laura on a
bright summer day, her tiny, perfect head
on her mother's breast. We all took a step
forward. "Next, picture your partner at
their fifth-birthday party." I saw little
Laura, overwhelmed, in a crowded apart­
ment filled with unruly children. Another
step. Next, we envisioned our partner's first
kiss, first love, and first big heartbreak.
As I pictured Laura on a bed, crying at
the news that her college boyfriend was
going to take a job in another country, our
faces were just a few inches apart.Was she
going to kiss me? Did I want her to? Why
did I have to be partnered with some­
"I.finally became a butterfly, and everyone's already asking what's next. " one who looked like Monica Bellucci?
 In 2023, the actor Penn Badgley re­ tually making few substantive changes. tections-but that entailed revealing the
vealed on his podcast,"Podcrushed," that Intimacy coordinators unionized under limitations of their role at a time when
he had asked the creator of his Netflix SAG-AFTRA in late 2024, but they are still they feel especially vulnerable. I was sur­
hit, "You," if he could stop doing inti­ preparing to negotiate a contract with prised to hear how deeply the "Anora"
mate scenes altogether. "That aspect of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Tele­ controversy had affected them. That a
the job, that mercurial boundary-has vision Producers. An eventual contract film about sex workers could win five
always been something that I actually will help clarify what intimacy coordina­ Oscars without hiring an intimacy coor­
don't want to play with at all," he told tors do and do not do. Duenyas has had dinator made many of them anxious that
Variety. Badgley's comments were poorly production staff approach him on set other productions would follow suit. At
received. Wasn't that an actor's job? Some looking for relationship ad- first, I thought that seemed
feel that there is already too little sex in vice. "We're not therapists," paranoid, especially since,
film and TV, and last year a study com­ he commented. Occasion­ as of 2023, SAG-AFTRA re­
missioned by The Economist found an ally, the confusion stems quires productions to make
almost forty-per-cent drop in erotic con­ from intimacy coordinators "best efforts" to hire an inti­
tent in American films since 2000-leav­ themselves. Some insist they macy coordinator when ger­
ing porn to make up the difference. In are there to protect not just mane to the material or re­
response, the Toronto Sun asked, "Has cast but also crew. However, quested by a performer. But
the onscreen sex scene gasped its last cli­ another intimacy coordi­ just as the D.E.I.-consultant
mactic breath?" nator disagreed, citing differ­ job market, which boomed
But I had seen the power of the mind ent union protocols." We're after the 2020 Black Lives
to trick the body. I didn't envy the CIN­ not trained to keep everyone Matter protests, has cra­
TIMA trainees having to manage such safe," that person said. "I think this is tered under Donald Trump's second Ad­
complicated feelings, if they even get the something people started adding out of ministration, it did not seem impossible
chance. Like all the SAG-AFTRA proto­ fear for job security." that Hollywood's new industry, likewise
cols, the "actor calls" we practiced during There have been similar internal propped up by a movement, could vanish.
the training are a recommendation, not clashes over how this new industry should Recently, news broke that a stunt dou­
a requirement. Some actors refuse to do address diversity. A census taken in 2022 ble who worked on the set of"Horizon 2,"
them, putting intimacy coordinators in the by The journal of Consent-Based Peifor­ a Western directed by Kevin Costner, was
difficult position of having to defy talent. mance found that seventy-nine per cent suing him and the film's producers for
Sarah Scott,the"WinningTime" intimacy of intimacy coordinators identify as white. having her perform a rape scene with no
coordinator, told me that she attempts to Efforts to rectify racial disparities have intimacy coordinator present and with­
make contact anyway: "I will call that actor resulted in intimacy coordinators who out the requisite forty-eight hours' no­
to check in, even if it serves me not to." specialize in "culturally competent inti­ tice. (Costner, whose lawyer has denied
Intimacy coordinators are part of the macy," which did not always strike me the legitimacy of the claims, did not re­
gig economy and thus susceptible to the as a terribly accurate term. I interviewed spond to a request for comment.)
same forces they are hired to mitigate. Michela Carattini, the founder of Key In­ The actress Emily Meade has worked
"We talk about the power dynamics that timate Scenes, a SAG-AFTRA-accredited only sporadically since "The Deuce." She
actors are under," Jessica Steinrock, the training program in Australia. Carat­ fears that it's because she called "the sex
C.E.O. of lntimacy Directors and Co­ tini, who grew up in Germany, identi­ police," as some in Hollywood refer to
ordinators, the largest training program fies as "mixed (Indigenous Panamanian intimacy coordinators. Nonetheless, she
in the industry, said. "We are also under and Anglo-Celtic Australian)."The pro­ said,"it's not something I regret. It's some­
a significant amount of power dynam­ gram's website lists among its specialties thing I still have pride in, but there's a lot
ics." She went on, "At the end of the "African Intimacy," "First Nations Inti­ of pain around that pride."
day, sticking up for an actor and saying, macy," and "Latin American Intimacy." I thought of an observation that Duen­
'Hey, no, we can't film this'-there's a real I asked Carattini for an example of the yas had made in the workshop."I want to
chance that we're going to get fired, and latter."In Latin cultures, you know, phys­ push against this idea that we're there to
there's really nothing we can do about it." ical intimacy can be like a dance, and can make people comfortable," he said. "Per­
Tanya Horeck, a professor of film and have aspects of our dancing and our cul­ formance is professionalized discomfort.
feminist media at Anglia Ruskin Uni­ tural sense of rhythm within it," she told We're there to help actors succumb to
versity, in the U.K., who researches inti­ me. (I later mentioned this to a Jewish it." Intimacy coordinators have unsettled
macy coordination and"care in the media friend, who joked, "I wonder if I fuck something, in Hollywood and in us, and
industry," told me that a number of her like Schoenberg.") maybe that's what their job is ultimately
subjects have reported arriving on set only The intimacy coordinators I spoke about. Chelsea Pace never asks her ac­
to be "shoved into a corner so production to tended to vacillate, even during the tors if they're comfortable: "Because they
could check a box."Horeck said that Hol­ course of a single conversation, between might not be, and a lot of actors aren't in­
lywood often uses intimacy coordinators wanting to convey that everything was terested in being corrifortable. They want
as a form of "care-washing," a term for great and wanting to let me know how to push themselves in their art." Also, she
when a company presents itself as con­ much was wrong.They needed more sup­ noted,"You usually have something stuck
cerned for employee well-being while ac- port-assistants, better workplace pro- to your pelvic area. That's not comfy." ♦
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 17
 and even a line of housedresses for
AMER.ICAN CHRONICLES full-figured women. In a national poll
in Good Housekeeping, Berg was ranked

MOTHER OF THE SITCOM America's second most admired woman,

bested only by another liberal firebrand,
Eleanor Roosevelt.
The glorious, tragic story if Gertrude Berg, the creator ef "The Goldbergs." In 1945, Berg's radio show ended­
and four years later she rebooted it as a
BY EMILY NUSSBAUM television sitcom on CBS, during the
loosey-goosey early days ofthe medium,
when shows still aired live and were run
by advertisers. Working with General
Foods, she flacked Sanka decaffeinated
coffee in character as Molly, boosting the
brand's sales; in 1951, she won the first
Emmy for Best Actress, beating out Imo­
gene Coca, Helen Hayes, and Betty
White. Television was about to trans­
form the culture, and Berg was poised to
become one of its greatest luminaries.
lnstead,just three years later, her life's
work was in peril. In 1950, as the Mc­
Carthy era descended, an ideological cage
dropped over the industry, terrorizing a
community of liberal-minded creators,
among them Philip Loeb, the actor who
played Molly's husband, Jake, on "The
Goldbergs." Loeb had his name printed
in "Red Channels," the notorious anti­
Communist snitch book. For a year and
a half, Berg fought hard for Loeb, refus­
ing her sponsor's demands that she fire
him, but CBS dropped the show, and in
the end she gave in. "The Goldbergs"
was now airing on the more marginal
DuMont network, with a new sponsor
and a new Jake. Another family sitcom
had taken Berg's old Monday-night slot

0 n May 9, 1954, on the set of the body?" into her tenement airshaft, the
CBS game show "W hat 's My social network of its day.
on CBS: "I Love Lucy," starring Lucille
Ball, the First Lady of television.
On "What's My Line?," Berg gave
Line?," the week's "mystery celebrity" The past year had been a difficult little indication that anything had gone
strolled past a panel ofblindfolded judges one for Berg, then f ifty-four, whose wrong. When one of the panelists, the
and, to a roar from the studio audience, family show "The Goldbergs"-origi­ actress Faye Emerson, who'd noticed the
wrote her name on the chalkboard: Ger­ nally titled "The Rise of the Goldbergs"­ extended applause at Berg's entrance,
trude Berg. A zaftig woman with warm, debuted in 1929 as a radio serial that asked, ''Are you someone very much in
expressive eyes and a dumpling nose, bounced between networks before set­ the public eye?," Berg scored laughs by
Berg was dressed with Park Avenue flair, tling on CBS, becoming a national sen­ answering in the high, breathy voice of
in a regal fur stole and three strands of sation. During the Depression and the an upper-crust Brahmin: "Rahther!"
pearls. Onscreen, a caption displayed Second World War, Berg had beavered "Have you appeared regularly on tele­
the name she was better known by, that away at an astonishing pace, producing, vision?" Emerson asked.
of a fictional character who, for a quar­ writing, directing, and starring in thou­ "On and off, yes," Berg replied. She
ter of a century, had been as iconic as sands of episodes about a hardworking then added, nearly inaudibly, a sly zinger:
Groucho Marx and as beloved as Mickey Jewish immigrant family. In the process, "Depending on the sponsor's disposition."
Mouse: the irresistible, Yiddish-accented, she'd become a multimedia mogul, with Yes, Berg said, she'd been on the stage;
malaprop-prone Bronx housewife Molly an advice column called "Mama Talks," she'd made a movie, too. And, yes, she
Goldberg, hollering "Yoo-hoo, is any- a comic strip, a best-selling cookbook, said, her eyes sparkling, her character was
famous for her accent. After a few false
Berg's show began in 1929, on radio, becoming a huge hit. It moved to TV in 1949. leads, the TV host Steve Allen blurted
18 THE NEW YOMER, JUNE 16, 2025
out the correct answer:"Is it Molly Gold­ like many Jews of her generation-in­ mythologizers, eager to bend an anec­
berg?"Delighted, the panelists asked Berg cluding my own grandmother Malka, dote to make it more romantic, less tragic.
for a treat, a taste of her character's voice. known as Molly, who passed through Berg shared that tendency: in the book,
"Vot do you want me to say, dahlink?" Ellis Island the year "The Goldbergs" she never mentions her older brother,
Berg shot back, channelling her alter ego debuted on the radio-had been a fierce Charles, who died of diphtheria at around
with a grin. Before she left the stage, the optimist about America, a true believer the age of seven, devastating her parents.
panelists rose up to shake her hand. For in cultural progress and in a democracy (Her mother had a nervous breakdown;
a moment more, Gertrude Berg was still that opened its heart to new arrivals. But, her father kept the telegram announc­
the apple of America's eye. in the end, Berg's life became proof of a ing Charles's death in his pocket for the
darker truth, one that is newly relevant rest of his life.) Instead, Berg sticks to

I n the just-so story that Americans

learn about television, it all started in
the fifties, with Lucy Ricardo wailing
in the Trump era: doors that swing open her joyful summers at her father's hotel,
can also slam shut. where she ran the theatre program, per­
There have been a few attempts, in forming a fortune-teller act on rainy days
"Waaaahhh!" in her brownstone on East recent years, to fly Berg's flag again, in­ and, beginning at fourteen, staging
Sixty-eighth Street. The family sitcom cluding a 2007 scholarly biography by sketches based on hotel gossip. These
was the mass medium's primal format, Glenn D. Smith,Jr., and, in 200 9, Aviva stories starred Maltke Talnitzky, a woman
the source of both brash marital farces Kempner's lively, affectionate documen­ in her fifties with a lousy husband and
like "I Love Lucy" and "The Honey­ tary "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg," featur­ a lot of legal troubles. (Many of the ho­
mooners" and blander offerings like"Fa­ ing interviews with Berg's family and tel's guests were lawyers.)
ther Knows Best" and "The Adventures colleagues. In 2021, Jennifer Keishin Among those summer guests was Til­
of Ozzie and Harriet," placid fantasias Armstrong published the excellent lie's future husband, Lew Berg, a British
of white suburban conformity, with rock­ "W hen Women Invented Television," chemical engineer, who impressed Til­
jawed commuter dads and morns vacu­ which skillfully wove Berg's story into lie with his posh accent. ("He said 'whilst'
uming in pearls. Each decade, new neigh­ those of three other neglected innova­ and 'hence' and 'shed-yule,"' she marvels
bors moved in: in the seventies, the tors: Ima Phillips, the creator of the in "Molly and Me.") The couple mar­
Bunkers and the Brady Bunch; in the soap opera; the Black jazz chanteuse ried when she was nineteen and he was
eighties, the Cosbys and the Conners. and DuMont-network TV host Hazel twenty-nine, then moved, for three mis­
The small screen became a mirror that Scott; and Betty W hite (less forgotten, erable years, to the Deep South, where
your own family could gaze at, to catch although few people know she basically Lew worked as the chief technologist of
a glimpse of another family, seated on invented the TV talk show). a Louisiana sugar plantation. To her re­
their own sofa, in front of their own TV. Still, on a frigidJanuary day, as I leafed lief, the refinery burned down, giving the
The Goldbergs were the first of these through Berg's archive, at Syracuse Uni­ couple an excuse to settle in New York.
ref lections. Sweet, sharp, and a little versity, her story felt peculiarly like a cold And then, shortly after the birth of her
schmaltzy, the show was set in a world case-or like a symptom of a stroke, a second child, in 1926, Berg made a grand
ofJewish immigrants-rag-trade work­ gap in shared memory. W hy had she leap, changing her name to Gertrude­
ers, bighearted housewives, crowds of been forgotten, when her peers had lin­ more Park Avenue, less Harlem-and
cousins and assimilated children crammed gered on as nostalgic figures, totems of diving into show business.
into tenement kitchens, with kreplach a safer, simpler time? In her papers, there With her husband's support (he typed
sizzling on the skillet. Yet, despite the were thick scrapbooks of Christmas up her scripts throughout her career),
cultural specificity, Molly,Jake, and their cards, many from fellow-celebrities­ the newly minted Gertrude Berg hus­
children, Rosalie and Sammy (known as Berg clearly adored Christmas. There tled for jobs, scoring odd gigs like a role
Sameleh), were portrayed not as ethnic were piles of fan mail, from both Jewish narrating a Y iddish-language Christmas­
exotics or vaudevillian " types" but as or­ and non-Jewish fans, often addressed to cookie ad aimed at Jewish consumers.
dinary Americans, patriotic and emo­ Molly Goldberg. There were more inti­ She also sold four episodes of her first
tionally relatable-a provocative idea in mate notes, too, addressed to her birth radio show, "Effie and Laura," a serial
a period when Jews were widely viewed name, Tillie Edelstein, documents so about two shopgirls in the Bronx talking
as outsiders at best, subversives at worst. fragile that they f laked when I lifted about the meaning of life. It was an au­
W hen"The Goldbergs" disappeared, them up, snowing on the page. dacious concept-a proto-"Laveme &
so did the legacy of Berg herself, the first Born in 1899, Tillie grew up in a Jew­ Shirley," it likely aced the Bechdel test
"showrunner" of any gender and a life­ ish neighborhood in Harlem, the daugh­ more than fifty years before it was in­
style influencer fifty years before Oprah ter of Jake Edelstein, a speculator who vented-but the show became Berg's
or Martha Stewart. By 2013, the mem­ owned a run-down Catskills hotel called first lesson in power. The network, of­
ory of Berg had been so fully eclipsed Fleischmanns, and his doting, fragile fended by one of Laura's cynical zingers,
that when ABC launched a new family wife, Dinah. In "Molly and Me," Berg's that marriages are not made in Heaven,
sitcom called "The Goldbergs"-writ­ 1961 memoir, she portrays her relatives­ axed the show after a single episode.
ten by the unrelated Adam F. Goldberg mavericks like her tinsmith grandfather, Luckily, Berg was busy polishing an­
and based on his adolescence in nineteen­ Mordecai, who fled persecution in Po­ other script, this one starring a Maltke­
eighties suburban Philadelphia-few land and kept a secret still for making ish heroine, only younger and luckier in
people even registered the echo. Berg, schnapps-as a crew of cheerful self- love. According to a story Berg loved to
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 19
tell, her handwritten script for "The Rise Sophie Tucker's signature song,"My Y id­ ness savvy. Frank R.Jennings, from Chi­
of the Goldbergs" was illegible, so an dishe Momme"; the anxious mama bird cago, sweetly mimicked Molly's accent
executive asked her to read it to him­ in the 1938 poem "Oyfn Veg Shteyt a in a postscript: "Please excuse it the type­
and then, charmed, insisted that she play Boym," so terrified her child will freeze writer, it aint so well to-day yet and don't
the lead. (On one occasion, she claimed that she weighs him down with scarves ask it me vhy, I don't know vhy."
that had been her plan all along.) The and hats until he can't lift his wings. Like For both sets of fans, it mattered that
first episode aired a month after the this sorority of martyrs, Molly sacrificed, the show was made by Jews. "I believe
stock-market crash of 1929, perfect tim­ scrimped, and saved. But she was also you're really trulyJewish," one viewer en­
ing for a story about a family struggling full of joy, appetite, and opinion; she was thused; another described a debate over
to stay afloat. Berg got up at six to write more of a baleboste, the Y iddish term for Berg's ethnicity with her husband, who
scripts, perfecting each detail, down to a powerhouse, a do-everything. She took thought she might be faking it. Still, the
the authentic sizzle of eggs on the stove. up space, instead of shrinking. question of authenticity was a sensitive
In the course of fifteen years,"The Gold­ So did Berg-and her left-leaning one: in 1933, after Berg dropped a Gen­
bergs" expanded to include some two politics were part of that force. In the tile actress who had been temporarily
hundred characters, with lively figures mid-thirties, she renegotiated her con­ filling in for the girl who played Rosa­
such as the querulous Uncle David, ob­ tracts to gain greater creative control; in­ lie, the actress's mother complained to
sessed with his doctor son, Solly. At its creasingly, she filled the show's dialogue Pepsodent, leading the right-wing gos­
height, the serial reached ten million lis­ with pro-worker, pro-New Deal themes. sip columnist Walter W inchell to de­
teners, airing multiple times per day. At a time when the demagogue Father nounce Berg: "Hitler victims using Hit­
The heart of the show was Berg's per­ Coughlin was flooding the radio with ler methods? Shame!"
formance as the redoubtable Molly, a antisemitic hate speech, Berg offered The scandal stung, as bad publicity
meddler and a chatterbox but also the counterprogramming. In 1933, Berg ran always did. In radio, advertisers had the
show's moral heroine, a problem solver what amounted to a Very Special Episode: final say. But Berg had a weapon of her
energized by the troubles of others. In a full Seder, sung by a real cantor, which own. Despite strong ratings,"The Gold­
the pilot episode, Jake, a dress cutter, Pepsodent, her sponsor, agreed to air with­ bergs" faced cancellation several times:
needs money to go into business for him­ out ads. The P.R. move paid off: one tele­ her bosses (including, and often espe­
self Molly saves the day, grabbing a tea­ gram read, "JUST AS PEPSODENT ACTS cially, the Jewish ones) had never been
pot from a closet, where she's been sav­ AS A DISI NFECTANT SO DOES YOUR fully at ease with the show's ethnic blunt­
ing a secret stash of cash. Loving and B ROADCASTING TO DISPEL HATRED ness or its politics. Each time, Berg stayed
resourceful, Molly was both an homage AND BRINGS HUMANITY CLOSER TO­ on top with the help of her fans: once,
to Berg's relatives and a compensatory GETHER." Six years later, Berg aired an early in the serial's run, after she skipped
fantasy, a contrast to Berg's own grief­ even more pointed Seder episode, in which a few episodes because she got sick,
stricken mother, who became mired in a thug threw a rock through the Gold­ thousands of worried letters poured in.
a lifelong depression. Berg herself wasn't bergs' window-a reference to Kristall­ As the media historian Carol Stabile
much like Molly: she didn't cook, clean, nacht, which had occurred a few months wrote in her 2008 lecture"Red Networks:
or even read Hebrew. (Lew taught her earlier. At the Seder, Molly compared lib­ Women Writers and the Broadcast Black­
the Y iddish script for that cookie com­ eratory ideas to the wind, an invisible list,""Only its popularity among listeners,
mercial, phonetically.) A secular high­ force that blows everywhere and can't be which Berg herselfrepeatedly leveraged in
brow, she read Russian novels and owned contained, even in the face of fascism. support of the program, kept it on the air."
a Picasso; her workaholic devotion to Jewish listeners wrote her letters full
her fictional family strained her relation­ of pride-some kept the radio on during " T he Goldbergs" was cancelled in
ship with her daughter, Harriet. Still, like their own Seders. One joked, darkly, that 1945, supposedly because of low
Molly, Berg had a deep, empathetic cu­ she hoped"The Goldbergs"wouldn't en­ ratings, although Berg's family suspected
riosity, an extrovert's urge to explore the courage her neighborhood's "Hitlerites." that politics were a factor-a memo had
world around her: to find new plots, she But non-Jewish fans wrote to Berg, too, gone around CBS which listed Berg,
sneaked down to the Lower East Side with a complex parasocial intimacy, often who had stumped for F.D.R., as one of
to eavesdrop, once joining a women's confiding their feelings about her "race." the President's boosters. For a while, Berg
group under an assumed name. A Mrs. W. D. Arena wrote that, "hav­ hovered in show-biz limbo, developing
From the start, the character of Molly ing been thrown in with them'' during other projects, including a "Negro show"
Goldberg made some listeners nervous. travels in Colorado, she had "learned to and an adaptation of the comic strip
Was the portrayal a form of minstrelsy, esteem them very highly"; a woman "Penny," about a Wasp teen-ager. She'd
like the crude blackface dialect humor whose daughter worked at a hospital as­ already tried out "House of Glass," in
of"Amos 'n' Andy," the only radio show sured Berg that poorJewish patients were which she played a very different char­
with higher ratings? But, if Molly was a the most appreciative demographic. An acter: the hotel manager Bessie Glass, a
trope, she was also a corrective to an ear­ especially prolific Episcopalian superfan "crisp modern exponent of efficiency"
lier stereotype, that of the mournful, named C. M. Falconer weighed in on running a family business in the Catskills.
self-abnegating "Y iddishe mama": the the show's plots, like a modern recapper, But by then it was hard for her fans to
saintly shtetl survivor in the 1927 talkie and spun out several hair-raising theo­ accept her as anyone but Molly.
"TheJazz Singer"; the humble bubbe of ries about the roots ofJewish men's busi- In 1948, Berg staged "Me and Molly,"
20 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
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 show's rich tonal blend, its combination
of screwball comedy and sincere con­
cern with the daily troubles of working
people, the small dramas that add up to
a life.The show's focus on workers' rights
�
extended behind the scenes: Berg hired
left-wing firebrands like Burl Ives and
Garson Kanin as guest stars, and she
crossed the color line on both radio and
TV, hiring the Black actress and civil­
rights activist Fredi Washington. In 1950,
.,. "The Goldbergs" also helped lead a tech­
nician's strike, forcing CBS to substi­
tute other programming. Berg herself
was a millionaire, with a home on Park
Avenue and an estate in Bedford Hills.
''Do you realize how lucky we are to be able to walk to work?" But her project was a magnet for a dif­
ferent crowd: the bohemian set who fre­
• • quented Cafe Society, an integrated
night club in Greenwich Village. In the
late forties, when television was itself
a Broadway play, and then approached the preteen Rosalie, a studious girl with an unpainted wall, it still felt possible
the newly established television networks a sleek bob. In the series' signature shot, for these idealists to define the medium,
with a reboot of "The Goldbergs," rein­ neighbors gossiped from their windows to tell the types of stories that got cen­
vented as a sitcom. Televisions were still across the airshaft, their voices overlap­ sored in Hollywood.
pricey gadgets, and the audience was ping. These sequences highlighted Mol­ That artistic circle included Loeb, an
small and urbane; nearly everything on ly's gift for speaking, as she often said, established actor and director who had
the air was adapted from radio, theatre, "from our family to your family." playe d Jake on Broadway. A First World
and vaudeville. With such attractive I.P., Only a handful of these early episodes War veteran who'd co-written a Marx
Berg was confident that she'd get the go­ still exist, preserved on kinescope, cre­ Brothers movie, Loeb was a pro-union
ahead, but, to her shock, she found no ated by filming a TV screen. In one,which activist devoted to improving the lives
takers, even at CBS. With Molly-ish aired in September, 1949, the Goldbergs of theatre workers. He was a natural tar­
moxie, she pushed back, insisting on a get a new, neglectful landlord. As Molly get during the second Red Scare-Mc­
meeting with her old CBS boss, Wil­ and Jake argue about the best way to Carthyism-which began in the late for­
liam S. Paley. He relented, and Berg was confront the problem, Jake-in high ties, spearheaded by a group of ex-F.B.I.
proved right almost immediately: when dudgeon, waving his finger like a baton­ agents who operated under the name
"The Goldbergs" debuted on TV, on Jan­ makes the case for a rent strike, tearing American Business Consultants. In 1947,
uary 10, 1949, it became a smash hit, with up his rent check and calling for a these former G-men started publishing
General Foods signing on shortly after. building-wide protest.(As he fulminates, a newsletter called Counterattack, a sort
Berg radiated charisma onscreen, he throws in his own Mollyp ropism: "Ig­ of anti-Communist burn book focussed
opening each episode perched in Mol­ norance is nine-tenths of the law!") Molly, on the film industry; in theory, their tar­
ly's tenement window, confiding directly the house moderate, lobbies to treat the gets were Communist Party members,
to the home viewer about Sanka's ben­ landlord like "a person," giving him a but in practice the net extended to any­
efits: "The sleep is left in!" Live television birthday cake. It's played as wacky farce, one who supported Black civil rights or
was even more breakneck than making with Uncle David's voice interrupting unionization, anyone suspected of being
radio-it was like mounting a brand­ Molly's sweet talk with gibes about bro­ gay or of spreading "subversive" ideas.
new Broadway play each week-but the ken elevators, but it's unmissably polit­ When Congress called these targets to
long hours paid off, as Berg helped forge ical. And though Molly's humanism usu­ testi:fyin front of the House Un-American
the key elements of TV comedy, down ally saves the day, this time Jake has a Activities Committee (HUAC), a group
to neighbors bursting through doorways. point: aiming for a compromise, Molly of defiant creators, the Hollywood Ten,
There was a kinetic spark between Berg accidentally negotiates the rent up by refused to "name names."They got black­
and Loeb, evoking the warmth of a long two dollars. listed, and were jailed for contempt of
marriage, at once skeptical and tender. As with much TV from this period, Congress . Hundreds of artists f led to
Eli Mintz, a Y iddish-theatre star, played there's a lovable amateurism to the en­ Europe or went into hiding, working
Uncle David with a high, wheedling tire endeavor: in one comic sequence, a under pseudonyms.
voice, his hands a blur of gesticulation, housepainter slaps a series of new col­ Television, still a small industry, wasn't
and the Goldberg children were por­ ors on the wall, a joke that doesn't land yet a significant target. In fact, in 1949,
trayed by Gentile actors, including the (probably because color TV was still five when American Business Consultants
endearing Arlene (Fuzzy) McQyade as years off) . Still, the episode captures the leaned on General Foods and CBS ex-
22 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
ecutives, threatening to feature Loeb's schizophrenic son who lived in a mental network notes. The family had moved to
name if they didn't agree to subscribe to institution. He released a statement that a Connecticut suburb, tellingly called
Counterattack, they simply said no. A let Berg off the hook; in response, she re­ Haverville, where Molly looked like an
year later, everything changed. At the leased a supportive statement saying that ethnic outsider, with no airshaft to yell
time, "The Goldbergs" was flying high: she had never believed he was a Com­ into; Jake had been recast with new ac­
Berg had been nominated for Best Ac­ munist. Still, it was a painful split. Loeb, tors-first Harold J. Stone, then Rob­
tress, and the cast filmed a spinoff movie, unable to work, living with the family ert H. Harris-who exuded a cooler, more
"Molly," in Los Angeles, during their of his friend and fellow blacklist victim distant air, closer to the dad on "Father
summer break.Then the axe fell. InJune, Zero Mostel, sank into despondency. In Knows Best." ln 1952, the newspaper col­
Counterattack had released the book "Red 1955, he checked into the Taft Hotel and umnist John Crosby, his era's shrewdest
Channels: The Report of Communist took an overdose of pills, killing himself. observer of radio and television, had writ­
Inf luence in Radio and Television," In "W hen Women Invented Televi­ ten a biting dispatch, describing the re­
adorned with the image of a red hand sion,"Armstrong describes her own visit booted series as"mighty subdued, its earn­
clutching a black microphone. It was an to the Syracuse archive, where she found ing power diminished, its chief male actor
amateurish compilation of innuendos one slim folder dedicated to Loeb. She missing, its format extensively rearranged."
presented as fact, the Libs of TikTok of struggles to imagine a better ending to Crosby had sympathy for Berg's vexing
its time. Between its covers was a list of the story, another way out. Could Berg situation, but more for Loeb, whom he
a hundred and fifty-one people in the have launched that boycott, instead of portrayed as tragically isolated, having
entertainment industry, many of them merely threatening to do so? W hat if been dropped by an industry so wary of
on CBS. Loeb was on the list. she had joined forces with other targets, controversy that it didn't even have the
The document had no legal force, but like Hazel Scott, a star at Cafe Society guts to fire him: "Sponsors didn't fight;
that didn't matter: suddenly, anyone in who, like many Black artists, had her they simply melted away until Loeb was
"Red Channels" was in danger, along name printed in "Red Channels," and out of the picture."
with anyone associated with those peo­ had her own tragic downfall? Would the In its final years, new themes had
ple. In September, General Foods gave McCarthy era have been cut short? Or begun to leach into "The Goldbergs,"
Berg two days to fire Philip Loeb. He would "The Goldbergs" have simply among them a Freudian tendency to
rejected the idea of a buyout-he wanted been cancelled faster-particularly after blame mothers. "Our beautiful Rosalie
to fight, he told her-and she supported CBS, once the most liberal network, a duckling? I gave her a complex,"Molly
him, hugging him and telling him, "I started requiring its staff to sign loyalty moans, in an episode in which her daugh­
will stick by you." For a year and a half, oaths? Loeb's blacklisting, Armstrong ter wants a nose job. Terrified that her
Berg held to that promise, stalling, ne­ writes, became"one of the first, and most "nag, nag, nag" has risked causing her
gotiating with her network bosses and ominous, signs of the conformity that "subconscious psyche" to "get a trauma,"
her sponsors, hoping the crisis would television would demand." Molly showers Rosalie with praise, then
blow over. Just as she had in the past, schemes with the plastic surgeon to get
Berg used her loyal audience as a tool,
threatening to launch a national boycott B y the time "The Goldbergs" aired its her daughter to change her mind. It's a
last episode, in 1956, Berg had ab­ playful, twisty plot, but one overflowing
of General Foods. The threat worked, sorbed the lessons of her age. In the with contradictions, not least the fact
but the reprieve was temporary. show's final year, she expressed this Re­ that Rosalie is played by McQuade,
As the pressure built, Berg got des­ alpolitik simply, in an interview in Com­ whose nose is a button. W hen Molly
perate. At one point, she approached Car­ mentary: "You see, darling, I don't bring asks, again and again,"So what's wrong
dinal Francis Spellman, who was New up anything that will bother people. with Rosalie's nose?," no one says, "It
York's most infamous power broker. A That's very important. Unions, politics, looks tooJewish"-in Haverville, some
prominent anti-Communist, Spellman fund-raising, Zionism, socialism, inter­ things couldn't be said.
moonlighted as a fixer during the black­ group relations. I don't stress them. And, Berg never stopped working, always
list era-and he'd purportedly helped to after all, aren't all such things secondary seeking fresh outlets for her talents. In
rescue Lena Home and Harry Belafonte, to daily family living?" The Goldbergs 1959, she played a Russian mother whose
as a favor to the TV host Ed Sullivan, who wereJewish, but they weren't"defensive" son is dinged by antisemitic quotas in
was Catholic. Berg, however, got nowhere: about it, she explained-nor were they "The World of Sholom Aleichem," a joy­
Spellman simply strung her along. "especially aware of " their ethnicity. ful independent television production di­
CBS had dropped "The Goldbergs" Moreover, the actors who played Rosa­ rected by and cast with blacklisted art­
by then, replacing it with "I Love Lucy," lie and Sammy were '1ust average-looking ists, including Mostel.The same year, she
which had been scheduled to run as a young people, notJewish." Although the broke through on Broadway, winning a
companion to Berg's show. Berg jumped show had once been called "The Rise of Tony for "A Majority of One," where
over to NBC, but no sponsor would sign the Goldbergs,"Jake would never make she played aJewish widow who has a ro­
up with Loeb in the cast. Finally, inJan­ it big, the way his creator had. "I keep mance with aJapanese man. In 1961, Berg
uary, 1952, she gave in. Loeb got a gen­ things average,"Berg noted. "I don't want got her last shot at television, in a show
erous deal, ninety per cent of his salary to lose friends." called"Mrs. G. Goes to College"-watery
for the run of the show-money he des­ At this point, "The Goldbergs" was gruel, in which Berg played Sarah Green,
perately needed, as the sole support of a airing in syndication, watered down by a sort of magicalJewess among clean-cut
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 23
coeds.That year, she published her mem­ from Minnesota, disliked Berg, who she vived the McCarthy era: in 1953, Ball had
oir, "Molly and Me," co-written with her felt had snubbed her at W.G.A. meet­ met with HUAC about her 1936 voter reg­
son, Cherney, her frequent collaborator. ings, possibly because Lynch had stolen istration as a Communist, claiming she
In the book, she celebrates her stand­ Berg's TV director Walter Hart to over­ had done so to appease her socialist grand­
off with Paley, but makes no mention of see her show-or maybe because Lynch, father. (Her husband and co-star, Desi
the blacklist. There is only one sentence who owned the rights to her show, saw Arnaz, allegedly told their studio audi­
about Loeb, who is described simply as no use for a union. ence, "The only thing red about Lucy is
"a veteran of Broadway and the movies." So I was excited to hear what Berg her hair, and even that's not legitimate.")
By this point, the space for a Molly had to say to Ball, the genius comedi­ None of those subjects made it into
Goldberg had narrowed, like a dress cut enne who had triumphed in her wake. the conversation. Instead, Ball asked if
too small. The television industry was At the time of the interview, Ball was Berg thought, as Ball herself did, that "a
sexist and ageist; once "The Goldbergs" starring in her second sitcom,"The Lucy great many men have relinquished-not
was gone, it was also resistant to any­ Show," and, during breaks in production, even reluctantly-but just sort of . . . let
thing that executives deemed "too Jew­ recording breezy, brief episodes of a radio go of the reins."
ish." As David Zurawik points out in show called"Let's Talk to Lucy," in which "Well, because the women have taken
the book "The Jews of Prime Time," she interviewed stars like Mitzi Gaynor. over!" Berg said. "Women are out there,
there wasn't another explicitly Jewish A few minutes in, Ball called her guest career women, are out in the world-I
main character on prime-time network "Molly," then caught her mistake, but think that has a great deal to do with it.
television until 1972. Berg's most beloved Berg reassured her that everyone did Women are embarrassed when they say,
creation struck assimilated Jewish so­ that. "I scarcely know where one begins 'I'm just a hausfrau!"'
phisticates as a corny throwback: the and the other ends," she said. "It's very "They shouldn't be!" Ball said.
architect Frank Goldberg changed his gratifying to know that a character that "Certainly they shouldn't be!" Berg
name to Gehry because his wife hated you created thirty-two years ago still is said. "W hat is greater than the career of
the association. alive, you see? That makes me very happy. raising a family?"
Meanwhile, the Y iddishe mama had She is a dear person, Molly." Listening to the exchange made me
made a comeback, in a sinister new form. After some chat about Berg's teen feel uneasy, the way I often do lately. It
In the work of Jewish artists such as years at Fleischmanns, Lucy turned the felt like a performance, although it was
Woody Allen and Philip Roth, she was talk, rather abruptly, to domestic life: hard to say for whom it was intended.
reduced to a punch line-and, worse, de­ "W hat does your home life consist of Housewives who might resent their suc­
moted to a walk-on. By the nineteen­ these days, Gertrude?" Berg described cess? Men who controlled their indus­
sixties, Jewish women were rarely por­ her love of travel, her trips to Los An­ try? Each other?There's history, and then
trayed as protagonists, and, when they did geles. She had a play in the works; a there's what's missing from history­
show up, it was often as cruel stereotypes: musical, too-a full slate, it felt like. But what got cut in the edit, suppressed from
the spoiled princess, the homely meeskite, somehow the dialogue kept veering, the conversation. Berg's story faded for
the castrating mother. In 1965, Ameri­ compulsively, back to their roles as wives many reasons, including the fact that
ca's biggest nonfiction best-seller was a and mothers. most episodes of her show didn't air in
satirical self-help book by Dan Green­ "There should be more discipline," reruns. Perhaps she simply died too young
burg, "How to Be a Jewish Mother," full Berg said to Ball. to be reclaimed by the next generation
of hacky gags. The last time Berg's fans "Do you think that the husband of women and celebrated as a role model.
heard her voice, she was speaking Green­ should be absolute boss of the house­ But there was also the fact that, despite
burg's lines on the record album of the hold?" Ball asked, encouragingly. her remarkable accomplishments, Berg's
book. A Broadway adaptation of the book Berg answered in the affirmative: "I life couldn't be easily packaged as a feel­
was in the works; after Berg's death, from think that makes a tremendous difference." good story-nostalgia for a more inno­
heart failure, in 1966, the Y iddish-theatre They were two of the wealthiest, most cent time, the way fifties sitcoms were,
legend Molly Picon took the role. ingenious businesswomen in America. decades later, treated as documentaries,
I was searching for that album on Berg had invented the family sitcom, al­ their narrow portraits of the American
Spotify when I stumbled across an in­ most single-handedly, on the cusp of the family repurposed by conservatives as if
terview that Berg had done shortly be­ Great Depression, then translated it for they were a real, shared childhood mem­
fore she died, seemingly the only record the small screen; Ball had turned the genre ory. In her memoir, Berg had trimmed the
of an interaction between the producer into a juggernaut, helped shift the for­ worst bits out, and, as the decades passed,
and her clearest historical peer, Lucille mat's production to Los Angeles, and in­ so did the people around her. And who
Ball. There had been a few other pio­ novated the rerun and the three-camera could blame them? At the height of the
neering female showrunners, such as Peg method. Each had played an iconic house­ blacklist, network executives had been
Lynch, whose witty sitcom "Ethel and wife, although Molly stood in fascinat­ cowardly; sponsors had folded without
Albert" debuted on TV not long after ing contrast with Lucy Ricardo: the for­ hesitation. It happens all the time, these
"The Goldbergs." But solidarity didn't mer was a fixer, the latter a firecracker, days, everywhere you look: at universi­
come easily in a culture that trained prone to fits of mischievous rage, then ties, newspapers, law firms. Hard times
women to see one another as competi­ spanked into submission by her band­ don't make easy history. But liberatory
tion: Lynch, a stylish, younger go-getter leader husband. Both women had sur- ideas, like the wind, blow everywhere. ♦
24 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
 immigrant! Women in our country are
SHOUTS & MURMUR.5 strong and read books and have strong
husbands who protect us. The clock is
ticking on your sick and twisted time
on this planet!"
The guy smiled at that, probably not
understanding a goddam word. Then
he decided that it was time to leave.
Maybe he sensed that I was watching
and that he couldn't go through with
the final sacrifice or something.
This time, he was able to lose me,
using a nasty gang trick where you turn
left just as a light turns red. I'd thought
I'd become impossible to shake, for
reasons I won't go into. . . . Fine, full
disclosure: I'd had to develop recon­
naissance skills when I was gathering

R.EDDITOR.5: IMMIGR.ANT5 intel for my unlawful-termination suit

against Best Buy after my Asian boss

KEEP KIDNAPPING MY WIFE!! fired me basically just for being white

and peeing in a dryer.
Anyway, the next morning, I woke
BY MIKE O'BR.IEN to find that I had clearly scared him
enough that he'd delivered my wife
r/Advice would he make her eat ten entrees and back to my doorstep at dawn and had
u/Skin ny_Kyl e_82381 then she'd be "Gluttony" in his series not completed his evil task.
U n c o mfo rta ble I m migra n t Situation of seven-deadly-sins killings!?! I stared She came upstairs and crawled
at him through the window as he cack­ into bed and spooned me from be­
Immigrants keep taking my wife for led with laughter, rolling his eyes back hind, complaining about real-estate
up to twenty-four hours, and no one is like a shark. hours. But the immigrant had gotten
helping! Police won't do anything. I'm I know what you may be thinking. sloppy and had dropped her off in
asking this community for advice on And, yes, I acknowledge that it's en­ a "There's no crying in pickleball"
this situation!! I feel powerless! She's tirely possible that the whole thing was T-shirt he'd probably tossed at her
the mother of my children, and she just him messing with my head. That after hours of torture.
keeps getting kidnapped! Please help me he chose that specific restaurant be­ It felt nice to have her warm body
end this nightmare!! cause he knew that I hate Indian food pushed against mine, but I knew it was
The most recent example: last night, and refuse to go there. And perhaps he time for a difficult conversation.
my wife got called in to her real-estate even knew that that was one of our "I know you're lying," I said, once
job for an all-nighter, which anyone biggest fights. He was sticking it to me. she'd finished talking about work. "I
who knows the real-estate game will It's possible that this illegal son of know that, once a week, an immigrant
tell you is fairly common. So she put a bitch had bugged my house and had kidnaps you and shows you where he's
on a dress and lipstick and started walk­ been listening to every word I'd said going to drown you."
ing to her office. But then I noticed a for months, and he was now going to There was a long pause, and then
red flag: a Mini Cooper pulled up down take my wife to do all the things I don't she said, "You're right. And the deal is,
the block, and she got in the passen­ like doing, until I go insane. he won't sell me to the cartels if we just
ger side! I was able to get a decent look After dinner, he drove her to the keep cool about it."
at the driver, and, sure enough, he was river. He made quick, unexpected turns Then she went back to spooning
an illegal immigrant!! My stomach filled in an unsuccessful attempt to shake me and rubbing my belly, which was
with acid! me. I'd learned to track people because making a lot of noises. And I couldn't
I have a knack for detective work of a private situation that forced me to help but think, I'm the luckiest son if a
for a reason that, legally, we shouldn't develop excellent manhunt skills. bitch on earth.
go into, so I knew that I should do a They ate cotton candy and sat on a So . . . you can see my dilemma. I
Find My Phone on her phone. I drove bench. The illegal pointed to the water, don't like having her go off with a
to where it indicated she was, which likely showing her where he was going human-trafficking illegal once a week,
� turned out to be an Indian restaurant. to drown her. But she just laughed in but if I rock the boat he might speed
-ffie= The immigrant had taken her to his face! I felt so proud of her. She up his timeline and sell her now!
m her favorite restaurant! Was this a probably said something like "You' ll D ELICAT E S IT U AT I O N ! !
u
3 death-row last-meal thing? Or, worse, never drown me in that river, you dirty ADVICE?? +
THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025 25
 LETTER FROM ISRAEL

WITHOUT B01\DEl\5
A Palestinian doctor in Israel treats people on both sides efthe coriflict.
BY EYAL PRESS

I
n October, 2023, a few days after "unique to the Jewish people"; the law
Hamas's attack on Israel, a physician also made Hebrew the country's sole of­
named Lina �sem Hassan filled ficial language, downgrading the status
her car with medical supplies and drove of Arabic. Israel had since installed the
from her home, in Tamra, a town in north­ most right-wing government in its his­
ern Israel, to the David Dead Sea Resort tory, a coalition of hard-liners and ex­
and Spa, in Ein Bokek. Tourism was about tremists who were not likely to temper
to nosedive throughout the country, but the rage, or the desire for revenge, that
the resort was busy, scrambling to accom- �sem Hassan feared the October 7th
modate hundreds of evacuees who had attack would unleash-not just toward
just arrived from Kibbutz Be'eri, one of Hamas fighters but toward Palestinian
the communities near the Gaza Strip citizens of Israel and residents of the
which Hamas had struck. West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In sub­
�sem Hassan, a family-medicine sequent months, reports on the suffer­
physician, came to help at a clinic that ing of Gazans were drowned out in Is­
had been set up on the hotel's grounds. rael by coverage of the hostages' plight.
She was soon dressing the wounds of in­ But for �sem Hassan the agony was
jured people and dispensing pills to evac­ immediate. On October 7th, while she
uees who had fled their homes without was still at home in Tamra, she heard a
their medication.The lobby, she told me piercing cry. It was her sister-in-law, who
recently, resembled a refugee camp, with lived next door; she had just learned
donated clothes scattered in piles and from a news report that her brother,
shell-shocked families walking around Marwan Abu Reda, a paramedic in Gaza,
aimlessly. Yet some of the new guests had been killed when an Israeli rocket
acted eerily normal, "taking towels and struck an ambulance in which he was
going to the swimming pool," �sem travelling. �sem Hassan had met Abu
Hassan recalled. "It looked like they didn't Reda and visited his family. He often
realize what they'd been through."The sent her holiday cards. That evening,
clinic stayed open for nearly two weeks. �sem Hassan cooked dinner for her
Every day, members of the kibbutz gath­ relatives and grieved with them. "It was
ered in a banquet hall to hear updates terrible," she said.
about neighbors who had been kidnapped The clinic at the hotel was a col­
or murdered or were still missing. Some­ laborative effort that �sem Hassan had
times the names of multiple family mem­ launched with her peers at Physicians
bers were read aloud. (Ninety-seven ci­ for Human Rights Israel, a nonprofit
vilians were killed at Kibbutz Be'eri on whose board she chairs. The organiza­
October 7th.) Although �sem Hassan tion, founded in 1988, produces reports
was accustomed to treating people who on sometimes contentious subjects; a re­
had suffered trauma, the experience tested cent one claimed that Israeli prisons were
her emotional endurance. "We had to be systematically denying medical care to
there to assist people who couldn't stand Palestinian detainees, resulting in a "wide­
the situation," she said. spread scabies infection," among other
The atmosphere would have been problems.(The Israel Prison Service did
difficult for any Israeli physician, but for not respond to a request for comment.)
�sem Hassan the challenge was com­ The group also provides medical care to
pounded by her background and iden­ people who lack access to it, both in the
tity. She is a Palestinian citizen of a coun­ occupied territories and at a clinic inJaffa
try that, in 2018, passed a law affirming that serves immigrants, asylum seekers,
that the right to self-determination was and refugees. In fact, at the time of the Lina Qasem Hassan, near her home, in Tamra,
26 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
Israel. She says her mother imbued her with the belief"that allpeople are equal and that human pain is universal. "
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM ROUHANA THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025 27
 ian situation in Gaza. In an interview
with Arad Nir, who hosts a program on
international affairs, Oesem Hassan said
that Israel had intentionally targeted
Gaza's hospitals, in violation of the Ge­
neva Conventions, which accord med­
ical facilities a special protected status.
Nir pushed back, arguing that Hamas
used these hospitals as command cen­
ters to launch deadly attacks on Israel.
Oesem Hassan replied that this claim
had not been verified by a third party,
and that targeting health-care facilities
violated international law.
As �sem Hassan was aware, such
views were rarely voiced on Israeli tele­
vision. A couple of months later, three
of her patients, who'd heard the inter­
view, sent a letter to her employer, Clalit,
"Sometimes I wish we hadn't installed a kitchen isthmus. " Israel's largest health-care organization.
The statements she'd made about the
• • bombing of Gaza's hospitals were proof,
they wrote, that her heart was "with
her murderous Palestinian brethren."
October 7th attack, Oesem Hassan and with her husband, a sociologist named The patients called for Oesem Hassan
other P.H.R.I. members had been plan­ Sharaf, and their four children, a wave to be suspended "in light of her soli­
ning to visit Gaza the following week. of arrests and investigations swept Israel. darity with, and support for, Hamas."
With access to Gaza cut off, Oesem Has­ Dozens of Palestinian citizens were ac­
san insteadjoined an emergency-response cused of inciting terrorism, often based
team and went to the Dead Sea, for rea­ solely on their social-media posts. To
sons both personal and philosophical. Jewish Israelis, the crackdown might
M any sectors of Israeli society, such
as the public-school system, are
highly segregated. But, in Israel's hospi­
"You can't divide human pain," she told have seemed like a necessary precaution tals and health clinics, Palestinian em­
Palestinian friends who questioned why after the worst massacre in their nation's ployees actually have an outsized pres­
she went to the hotel as the bombardment history. But it felt like unwarranted ha­ ence. In 2023, twenty-five per cent of
of Gaza intensified. "Whether you are rassment to many of the targets, includ­ doctors in Israel were Arab-more than
Israeli or Palestinian, it's the same pain." ing Abed Samara, the head of the car­ double the level in 2010---as were twenty­
Before leaving the Dead Sea area, diac intensive-care unit at Hasharon seven per cent of nurses and forty-nine
Oesem Hassan texted a photograph to Hospital, in Petah Tikva, who was sus­ per cent of pharmacists. The Israeli med­
a group of colleagues at a medical clinic pended without warning for social-me­ ical system could scarcely function with­
where she worked, in Kiryat Bialik, a dia posts that some interpreted as pro­ out them. After October 7th, a rabbi
town on the outskirts of Haifa. It showed Hamas, and for allegedly replacing his named Meir Shmueli released a YouTube
her standing in a white coat next to her profile picture on Facebook with a Hamas video in which he portrayed this devel­
fellow-volunteers. She added a note: "In flag after October 7th. According to Ha­ opment as a dire threat. "Do you know
the P.H.R.I. clinic we set up at the David aretz, the allegation was false-the image how many Arab doctors, may their names
hotel for evacuees from Kibbutz Be'eri." was of an Islamic flag, and it had been be erased, are in the hospitals?" Shmueli
" Very nice!" a Jewish nurse at the on Samara's Facebook page since 2022. asked. He claimed that these doctors
clinic texted back. "Human rights for But, once the accusation spread, Samara were "killing Jewish patients," a baseless
Israelis only!" was barraged with threats. He ended up charge that Zion Hagay, the chairman
" For all people," �sem Hassan resigning from the hospital, where he'd of the Israeli Medical Association, de­
replied. worked for fifteen years. nounced. Such talk could "ignite a war
"Certainly not!" the nurse responded. Oesem Hassan, who had sometimes within us," Hagay warned, hailing the
"Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and anyone who posted opinions about politics on social country's health-care system as a "bea­
collaborates with them don't have rights, media, stopped doing so, and she avoided con of coexistence and tolerance where
because they are not human beings." discussing the war at work. But she kept Jewish and Arab medical professionals
"For all innocent people," �sem her leadership role at P.H.R.I., which work side by side from day to day and
Hassan texted. occasionally required her to speak to have one oath and one goal: saving lives."
Oesem Hassan would soon stop ex­ journalists. In February, 2024, she ap­ In recent years, many Jewish Israelis
pressing herself so freely. Shortly after peared on Channel 12, a popular Israeli who might have entered the medical
she returned to Tamra, where she lived news outlet, to discuss the humanitar- field have instead gravitated to the tech
28 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
industry, sometimes after serving in in­ expected to"leave the politics at the door." of Zayyad's poems, which she then re­
telligence units of the Israel Defense In 2018, Guy Shalev, an Israeli anthro­ cited onstage in front of local dignitar­
Forces. (Most Arab citizens are not re­ pologist who is now the executive direc­ ies, including the author.) The political
quired to serve in the military, and rarely tor of P.H.R.I., published a dissertation culture of Nazareth was dominated by
do so.) Thabet Abu Rass, a political ge­ arguing that this egalitarian ethos was a Hadash, an alliance of the Israeli Com­
ographer at the Van Leer Jerusalem In­ :fiction. W hile doing field work at two munist Party and several left-wing groups
stitute, told me that Palestinians have Israeli hospitals, he discovered thatJew­ which championed socialism and Arab­
rushed to fill the resulting openings in ish doctors routinely discussed politics. Jewish cooperation. These values were
medicine. Abu Rass, an expert on Isra­ Only Palestinians had to avoid such talk, shared by �sem Hassan's mother, who
el's Palestinian minority, did not down­ he found. To have any chance of getting appeared at strikes even though teach­
play the level of racism in his country. promoted, a Palestinian medical student ers were not supposed to join picket lines.
"If we take the issue of land and plan­ noted, people like him needed to con­ "She wasn't afraid," �sem Hassan said.
ning, there are over thirty different dis­ vince their superiors that they were ara­ After finishing high school, �sem
criminatory laws within the system," he vim tovim, or "good Arabs." (The student Hassan enrolled in Hebrew University's
said. "The discrimination in Israeli so­ in question had been arrested at a protest medical program, inspired by the fact that
ciety is very structural." But he noted when he was a teen-ager, but had scru­ a beloved aunt had died suddenly, at the
that Israel has some striking contradic­ pulously avoided such activity ever since.) age of thirty-one, from a cause that had
tory tendencies. In recent years, the gov­ Although medicine offered Palestinian never been determined. In 2000, during
ernment has invested tens of millions of citizens an "entry ticket" into Israeli so­ �sem Hassan's third year, the second
dollars in scholarships for Palestinian ciety, Shalev concluded, it came at the intifada began after the breakdown of
students seeking to attend universities, cost of having to mute their identities. peace talks at Camp David. That Octo­
as a way of addressing poverty and un­ In a study published this past Febru­ ber, Palestinian citizens of lsrael flooded
employment in Arab communities. Abu ary, Ghada Majadli, a policy analyst at the streets in support of the uprising.
Rass, a member of the steering commit­ Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, ar­ The Israeli police opened fire on pro­
tee that oversaw this initiative, told me gued that this burden has grown heavier testers, killing thirteen people, among
that the number of Palestinian citizens since October 7th, as the atmosphere in them Asel Asleh, the brother of a medical
seeking advanced degrees grew from Israeli hospitals has become more overtly student in the class below �sem Has­
twenty-four thousand in 2010 to sixty­ nationalistic. A Palestinian doctor told san's. Political activity was barred on the
four thousand last year. Majadli that, at a staff meeting, a Jew­ campus of Hebrew University Medical
In 2016, two nonpro:fits, the Israel Re­ ish colleague said, "Let them annihilate School, �sem Hassan and her fellow­
ligious Action Center and the Israel Gaza'' while staring at him. Many of Ma­ activists were told. �sem Hassan, who
Movement for Reform and Progressive jadli's subjects feared that pushing back was among the leaders of an organiza­
Judaism, published "Heroes of Health," on dehumanizing comments about Pal­ tion called the Committee of Palestin­
a report heralding these changes. A pho­ estinians would cause them to be accused ian Students, challenged this policy. At
tograph on the cover showed a group of of disloyalty-or of supporting Hamas. one point, she asked the school's dean
medical workers holding up signs-some to explain why he'd said nothing after
in Hebrew, others in Arabic-that read
"Jews and Arabs Refuse to Be Enemies."
That year, a Pew survey found that nearly
F rom an early age, �sem Hassan was Asleh was shot.
encouraged to speak her mind. She The events of October, 2000, con­
grew up in Nazareth, Israel's largest Arab firmed Qgsem Hassan's belief that doc­
half of Jewish Israelis supported expel­ city. Both her parents were teachers, and tors needed to speak out about social
ling Arabs from the country. The report her mother and aunts all earned advanced issues that affected human health, from
argued that a spirit of collaboration and degrees. They were among the first Mus­ police violence to systemic discrimina­
openness nevertheless prevailed in the lim girls from Nazareth to go to college, tion. Like many members of her gen­
field of health care. A physician named �sem Hassan told me, reflecting their eration, she became radicalized, bris­
Suheir Assadi was quoted as saying, "I father's belief that Palestinian citizens of tling at efforts to promote intergroup
feel free in this system and I feel that I Israel couldn't afford to waste the oppor­ cooperation which masked discrimina­
can develop and do anything."Medicine, tunities offered by education. As a young tion and inequality.
the report suggested, was a neutral space girl, �sem Hassan absorbed the same During her time in medical school,
that hospital administrators kept insu­ message from her mother, who drilled however, �sem Hassan found a men­
lated from the headlines-which, that her with puzzles and brain exercises. tor in David Applebaum, an ordained
year, were dominated by stories about As �sem Hassan got older, she re­ rabbi and an emergency-medicine doc­
stabbings of Jews on sidewalks and in ceived an equally formative political ed­ tor who was known for rushing to the
markets. Such acts of violence (and re­ ucation. Her mother took her to rallies scenes of suicide bombings to tend to
taliatory shootings by Israeli security at a public square in Nazareth, where she the victims. Applebaum ran a clinic,
forces) were not discussed at work, ac­ heard speeches by the famous Palestin­ Terem, that provided urgent care in an
cording to administrators at several hos­ ians Emile Habibi, a novelist and a mem­ ultra-Orthodox community; �sem Has­
pitals. Osnat Levtzion-Korach, the di­ ber of the Knesset, and Taw:fiq Zayyad, san started working there on Saturdays,
rector of Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital, a poet and the mayor of Nazareth. (Her whenJewish staff observed the Sabbath.
in Jerusalem, said that medical staff were mother even made her memorize one Qgsem Hassan suspected that she and
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 29
Applebaum held radically different views
on most aspects of the Israel-Palestine
conflict, including Jewish settlers, sev­ THE T ERMIN AL
eral of whom worked at the clinic. But
she admired his compassion. In 2003, I want a face like that of the man who sets up his small table,
when he and his daughter were killed in chair, and worn typewriter in a corner of the bus terminal in the
a suicide attack at a cafe, she was shocked center of the enormous city and types the letters of the illiterate.
and saddened. They stand next to him, in a posture of awkward confession,
It was unnerving to be studying in carefully giving him the words. They pay him by the sheet, and
Jerusalem during the second intifada. for the stamp on the envelope, and the envelope. Because they
"Every coffee shop was a danger," Qgsem cannot read what is on the page after the letter is finished, they
Hassan said. To earn money, she worked do not know about the mistakes he makes and lets go without
at a restaurant in a mall where fans of correction, or the corrections he makes to their grammar. He has
the soccer team Beitar Jerusalem, who done this for many years, near the man who polishes shoes, near
are notorious for their anti-Arab racism, the woman who sells boiled peanuts. His face is as placid as a
sometimes celebrated after games. Qgsem god's, affixing a category to each letter. Money, infidelity, illness,
Hassan would hear them chant "Mavet despair, longing, gossip, grief-the way we identify saints by
la'aravim!"-"Death to Arabs!" Although the things that tortured them.
Qgsem Hassan did not wear a hijab and
spoke Hebrew so well that people some­ -Rick Barot
times assumed she was Jewish, she was
terrified of being outed and attacked.
One day at the Terem clinic, a woman the Knesset hearing, various hospital ad­ ous neighborhood of Kiryat Bialik. In
humiliated a Palestinian colleague of ministrators insisted that pregnant women 2022, she moved to her current clinic,
Qgsem Hassan' s by saying, "Don't touch had been separated only to respect cul­ which is in a poorer area; she was eager
my child-you're Arab!" At a different tural preferences. (It was noted that Or­ to serve a less privileged population, but
facility, Qgsem Hassan overheard a nurse thodox women might not want some­ the neighborhood surrounding the new
say, after an Arab patient had given birth, one next to them watching TV on the clinic was fiercely conservative.
''Ah, you've brought us another terror­ Sabbath.) But Qgsem Hassan testified Qg,sem Hassan responded to the joint
ist." Palestinian medical residents faced that she had frequently seen Palestinian letter by sending Clalit photographs of
extra obstacles when competing for po­ patients receive separate, and demean­ herself treating evacuees from Kibbutz
sitions in such fields as obstetrics and ing, treatment, including on occasions Be'eri. She also sent a link to a radio in­
gynecology, which was Qgsem Hassan's when doctors who did not speak Ara­ terview that she'd given shortly after Oc­
preference. She had strong grades and bic summoned male custodial workers to tober 7th in which she condemned both
recommendations, yet she had a hard ask women about their sexual histories. Hamas's attacks and Israel's retaliation
time finding a hospital that would admit Back in medical school, Qg,sem Has­ in Gaza as war crimes. Clalit, after a re­
her to its program. She later switched san had been doing a rotation in a pe­ view, decided to dismiss the complaint
to family medicine, and was accepted diatric ward when she'd overheard an against Qgsem Hassan. She was relieved,
at the Carmel Medical Center, in Haifa. exchange between a Palestinian woman but the Clalit representative who relayed
Not long after Qgsem Hassan grad­ from the West Bank and a Jewish doc­ this news to her then noted that her ac­
uated from medical school, her mother tor. The woman said that she had to cusers, unappeased, were threatening to
died, of cancer. At the memorial, Qgsem cross a checkpoint to get to the hospi­ stage a protest or go to the media. (The
Hassan spoke about the moral values that tal, and asked for a letter that she could letter's authors declined to speak with
had been instilled in her. In 2016, she de­ present to the soldiers there, who often me.) Other patients warned her that
cided to act on them by appearing before gave her trouble. The doctor provided they'd heard negative talk about her in
the Israeli Knesset to testify about the seg­ the letter, and also advised her to con­ the neighborhood surrounding the clinic;
regation ofJewish and Palestinian moth­ tact Physicians for Human Rights Is­ this prompted a security guard from
ers in maternity wards. A scandal had rael. Qg,sem Hassan had never heard of Clalit to offer to walk her to her car at
erupted after Israel Public Radio aired a the organization. She rushed to a com­ night. Sometime later, another patient
report on the practice, which is forbid­ puter and found its website. She soon at the clinic angrily confronted her about
den by Israel's health ministry. The con­ became a regular volunteer. her support for the rights of Palestinian
troversy grew when Bezalel Smotrich­ prisoners, and told her to move to an
then a far-right Knesset member, today {J �sem Hassan was shaken when she Arab country.
Israel's finance minister-affirmed that �eard that some of her patients had After this encounter, Qg,sem Hassan
maternity wards should be segregated. written a joint letter accusing her of being shut her office door and cried. Privately,
"It is natural for my wife to not want a Hamas supporter, but she was not she wondered if she could continue
to lie next to somebody who just gave entirely surprised. After finishing her working in such an environment. But she
birth to a baby that might want to mur­ family-medicine residency, she'd spent a didn't quit. One morning in February,
der her baby in 20 years," he tweeted. At decade working at a clinic in a prosper- I visited the clinic, a low-slung build-
30 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
ing with metal bars over its windows. I whose family was evicted from the vil­ �sem Hassan examined her in another
passed through a hallway decorated with lage ofTira. �sem Hassan told me that room, I spoke to the patient's husband.
Israeli flags on my way to �sem Has­ her father belonged to the generation of A small man with a white beard, he told
san's office, a small room appointed with Palestinians who were afraid to talk about me that in his youth he'd taught himself
family photographs and gifts that pa­ the Nakba, a fear reinforced by the fact to weave and to paint tiles; because of
tients had given her: a Gaudi figurine that Israel kept Arab towns under mili­ these skills, he had managed to earn
from Barcelona, a souvenir from Dubai. tary rule until 1966, and treated their in­ enough to raise five sons and five daugh­
�sem Hassan, who is forty-seven, habitants as an enemy within. ters. W hen I asked where he was origi­
with chin-length brown curls and a Before �sem Hassan visited the nally from, he said Al-Damun, the razed
poised bearing, told me that, after the home of her next patient, she pulled over town that �sem Hassan and I had just
joint complaint was submitted to Clalit, at the crest of a hill and led me down a left. Then he gestured toward the TV,
her biggest fear was that a critical mass path to an open field strewn with rocks. which showed footage of children wad­
of patients offended by her politics would These were the ruins of a cemetery in ing through rubble in Gaza, and said
switch to other doctors, as the authors Al-Damun, a Palestinian village that, ac­ that it reminded him of his own youth.
of the letter had done. Since her salary cording to several historians, was de­ He was born in 1946, he said, and al­
depended on the number of people she stroyed by the Israeli Army in 1948. The though he was too young to remember
treated, this could upend her ability to village's fifteen hundred inhabitants fled, the 1948 war, he vividly recalled its af­
earn a living. She also worried that Clalit among them the family of �sem Has­ termath, when his father was expelled to
might fire her, or that the controversy san's husband, who went to Lebanon be­ Jordan and he and his siblings were des­
would damage her relationships with fore eventually returning to the region titute. "I cried-I wanted bread,"he said.
patients to whom she felt close, many and settling in Tamra. �sem Hassan "No father, no bread."
of them with backgrounds that were and her husband had taken their wed­
radically different from hers.
One day, she invited me to accompany
her on some home visits. Our first stop
ding photographs by the village's ruins.
She showed me a well that had once sup­
plied Al-Damun with water.
I n addition to having a roster of patients,
�sem Hassan co-taught a medical­
ethics class affiliated with the Technion
was the residence of an elderly couple, After visiting the cemetery, we contin­ Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa.
Holocaust survivors she'd been treating ued along a highway that bisects the Gal­ One day in May, 2024, the theme of the
since 2014. They sat slumped in reclin­ ilee. As we passed Tamra, �sem Hassan lesson was the challenge of preserving
ers in the living room of their apartment. pointed out a restaurant and an auto-re­ the dignity of patients.The students were
The husband greeted �sem Hassan pair shop-locals sometimes said that given an article from Haaretz about a doc­
with a warm smile. His wife was less an­ these were the only reasonsJewish Israelis tor who'd served at Sde Teiman, a facil­
imated. For years, she'd struggled with visited the town." 'We come to Tamra to ity in the Negev Desert that, after Octo­
depression, a condition that she attributed eat the food, to fix the car-this is coex­ ber 7th, was used to detain alleged Hamas
to the murder of most of her immedi­ istence!' " she said, laughing. In the towns fighters and other suspects taken from
ate family during the Holocaust, when where her Jewish patients lived, �sem Gaza. In a letter sent to Israel's health and
she was a child in Romania. After I shared Hassan told me, the roads were smoothly defense ministers and its attorney gen­
that my maternal grandparents were Ho­ paved and children played in parks. In eral, the doctor wrote that he'd seen de­
locaust survivors from Romania, the man tainees blindfolded, made to wear diapers,
said, "My wife-they killed two sisters and placed in painful constraints-condi­
and an older brother and another." �sem tions that, in his view, violated the Incar­
Hassan asked the woman if she still ceration of Unlawful Combatants Law,
thought about what had happened. "Of which Israel amended in 2023- "Just this
course," she replied. Then she fell silent. week, two prisoners had their legs ampu­
Afterward, in the car, �sem Hassan tated due to handcuff injuries, which un­
said that she kept trying to get the woman fortunately is a routine event," the doctor
to talk more about her past, since her re­ stated.This was in"violation of lsraeli law,
fusal to do so seemed to exacerbate her and perhaps worse for me as a doctor, in
suffering. �sem Hassan had personal Arab towns, there were few parks, and the violation of my basic commitment to
experience with victims who were wary so children played in rutted streets. Dis­ patients." In a statement, the I.D.F. told
of discussing traumatic experiences. criminatory land policies had allowedJew­ me that any mistreatment of detainees
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, seven ish municipalities to expand while places is "strictly prohibited," and that "con­
hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians like Tamra grew ever more constricted. crete allegations" of abuse are investigated.
were expelled from Israel or fled their The next house call �sem Hassan The class discussion was tense. A
homes in fear; in the Arab community, made was in an Arab town called Kabul. medical resident, who was of Palestinian
this is known as the Nakba, or "catastro­ After welcoming us inside, three women heritage, said that he didn't want to talk
phe." Another hundred and fifty thou­ in head scarves plied us with cashews, about the subject because he feared that
sand became citizens of Israel. Many of dried fruit, and scented coffee.They were it was too inflammatory and divisive; sev­
these "' 48 Palestinians" were also dispos­ the daughters of �sem Hassan's pa­ eralJewish students said that they shared
sessed, including �sem Hassan's father, tient, a woman in her seventies. W hile his concerns. Another resident, a Jewish
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 31
reservist who had served at Sde Teiman, sight, she wished the discussion had not convince her that Israel's sixteen-year
insisted that during his time there the focussed on the Haaretz article-it had, blockade of Gaza had turned the terri­
detainees had been treated appropriately she said, "led some students, both Jew­ tory into an open-air prison, a situation
and given proper medical care. ish and Arab, to experience it as a polit­ that was bound to explode at some point.)
A week later, Qgsem Hassan learned ical debate rather than an ethical one." In early March, I met Qgsem Hassan
that the School for Continuing Medical In Qgsem Hassan's view, bias was not and a group of medics at a gas station in
Education in Family Medicine, which the issue-rather, the fact of prisoner Tayibe, an Arab town near the Green
oversaw the ethics course, had received mistreatment had made some students Line, which separates Israel from the
a letter from several residents in the class. uncomfortable. Since that day in class, West Bank. A black van had been loaded
In the letter, a copy of which I obtained, she noted, far more graphic accounts of with donations and supplies, and Qgsem
the students criticized the Haaretz arti­ abuse at Sde Teiman had emerged, in­ Hassan added a bag of winter clothing
cle as biased. They also accused Qgsem cluding an incident, caught on video, in that two of her children had outgrown.
Hassan of dismissing the concerns of the which a group of soldiers appeared to After crossing a checkpoint, we followed
resident who had served in Sde Teiman sexually assault a male detainee with a a road flanked by sloping hills toward
and of abusing her authority by impos­ baton.The faculty overseeing the course, Danaba, a town near Tulkarm, where Is­
ing her political agenda on them. she felt, wanted to muzzle discussion of rael had launched a major military oper­
Three days later, another group of a disturbing reality, which was itself a po­ ation in January. Its aim, according to
students submitted a reply. They ac­ litical choice. Qgsem Hassan also felt that Smotrich, the finance minister, had been
knowledged that the topic was emo­ she'd been subjected to a double standard. to root out militants and bolster "protec­
tionally charged, but they insisted that Back in November, 2023, Mordechai tion of settlements and settlers."The cam­
the conversation had been respectful, Alperin, the head of the family-medicine paign had displaced forty thousand Pal­
and that the reservist had been encour­ program, had signed an open letter en­ estinians-according to some analysts,
aged to express his views. They also dorsing the bombing of hospitals in Gaza the most in the West Bank since the Six­
questioned why only C1,isem Hassan that, the signatories said, were being used Day War, in 1967.
had been singled out for blame-the by Hamas. Nobody had accused him of The van stopped outside a white con­
class had twoJewish instructors as well, political bias, though several Palestinian crete building facing a courtyard deco­
Gila Yakov, a medical ethicist, and Amos students had privately complained to rated with a mural of the Smurfs. It was
Ritter, a family-medicine doctor. (Rit­ Qgsem Hassan about it.(In a text, Alperin a girls' school. After the supplies were un­
ter was not present that day, but he had told me he doubted that the open letter loaded, Qgsem Hassan pulled a medical
helped prepare the lesson.) The letter had had any impact on the situation in smock over her black jacket and entered
was signed by four Palestinian residents. Gaza, and argued that "there is no place a classroom decorated with diagrams of
The course had been visited by con­ for politics in the medical system."Ivzori­ the digestive system. A throng of patients
troversy before. Years earlier, after Qgsem Erel and Sudarsky noted that Alperin's had amassed outside. For several hours,
Hassan brought in a speaker from P.H.R.I. action did not take place "within the Qgsem Hassan tended to their medi­
who used the term "occupied territories," framework of the program.") cal needs, a task made harder by the fact
some students raised objections. Ritter, Qgsem Hassan had taught the eth­ that many had fled Tulkarm without any
who admires Qgsem Hassan's outspo­ ics class for seven years. She had recently possessions. A diabetic man with mud­
kenness, told me that, ever since then, learned thatTechnion would award her flecked shoes told her that he was miss­
"Lina has been marked as a left extrem- a diploma for excellence in teaching. ing both his insulin and his eyeglasses.
ist." Now Qgsem Hassan and her col­ But she no longer wanted to teach the A woman in a gray hijab said that she
leagues were summoned to meet with ethics class. "I can't teach medical eth­ suffered from depression and anxiety
Adi Ivzori-Erel and Merav Sudarsky, ics with a sword on my neck," she said. but didn't know what prescriptions she
who lead the academic program at the needed, because she'd left her medicine
continuing-education school.The teach­ {"") � sem Hassan's concern for the behind when soldiers evicted her from
ing of explosive issues should be coordi­ �gnity of patients in extreme sit­ her home.Then she showed Qgsem Has­
nated with the school's leaders in ad­ uations evolved from her work with san a picture of her son, which dangled
vance, the instructors were told, and the P.H.R.I. For years, she'd served as a doc­ from a chain around her neck. The son, a
lessons should draw on scientific papers, tor for Palestinian prisoners who launched young man in his twenties, had been shot
not on articles in Haaretz, which, in Is­ hunger strikes to protest being held under and killed by a soldier four months ear­
rael, is widely seen as left-wing. Ivzori­ administrative detention, meaning that lier, she said. She provided no additional
Erel and Sudarsky reiterated this in a they had not been charged with a crime context, but her grief was palpable. Qgsem
statement to me. "While addressing sen­ or granted a trial. It was one way she could Hassan held her hand, which was trem­
sitive topics is not prohibited, such dis­ express solidarity with Palestinians who bling, and wrote out a prescription for her.
cussions should rely on balanced, non­ were denied the rights and protections An elderly man in a dark thobe shuf­
partisan academic sources," they wrote. that Israeli citizens had. Another way was fled into the room, pushing a walker.
This was not the first time that concerns dispensing care at the mobile clinics that He was with his daughter, who told
had been raised about "political bias in P.H.R.I. operated in the occupied terri­ Qgsem Hassan that he had myasthenia
ethical discussions within the course," tories. (The conditions that Qgsem Has­ gravis, an autoimmune disease. The man
they added. Yakov told me that, in hind- san witnessed on these expeditions helped waved three fingers in the air, one for
32 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
 each of the times he'd become a refu­ Aviv Museum of Art, ref lecting the a demonstration in the northern town
gee: 1948, 1967, 2025. week's events. A few days earlier, a fu­ of Umm Al-Fahm. A hundred police
The last patient left at around 2 P.M.­ neral had been held for !(fir and Ariel officers made eleven arrests. Since then,
it was the start of Ramadan, and every­ Bibas, two children who were abducted he said, licenses for protests in the north
one wanted to get home before sundown. on October 7th and died while in cap­ had been denied. Meanwhile, Netanyahu
Oesem Hassan sighed and admitted, "I tivity. There had also been mounting in­ announced that the war now had four
can't take any more of these stories." dications (soon borne out) that the cur­ fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank,
On the way back toTayibe, we passed rent ceasefire with Hamas would unravel. and "within." Scores of Palestinian cit­
a hilltop where some caravans were vis­ The protesters waved Israeli flags and izens were brought before disciplinary
ible. It was a settlement outpost, built held up signs-"59 More To Go," a ref­ committees or hauled into custody for
with the Israeli government's tacit con­ erence to the hostages still in Gaza-in alleged incitement.
sent. From Tayibe, I got a ride back to both English and Hebrew. I did not see Fears of internal violence weren't un­
the Tel Aviv area with Daniel Solomon, any signs in Arabic.Tamar Hermann, a reasonable. In May, 2021, riots had erupted
one of the other physicians who volun­ senior fellow at the Israel Democracy in some mixed cities, sparked partly in
teered at the mobile clinic. Solomon, an Institute, told me that Arab citizens had response to a government effort to evict
Italian Jew who moved to Israel in 2012, been absent from the start. "One of the Palestinian families from their homes in
works at a hospital in a politically con­ main concerns of the protesters was to Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East
servative town. The staff is mixed, and show that they are very patriotic, that Jerusalem. The lack of bloody clashes in
when the focus is on treating patients they served in the Army, that they are those cities after October 7th suggests
everyone gets along. "There is definitely Zionists," she said. "The inclusion of that the Hamas attack didn't inflame the
some degree of coexistence," he told me. Arabs could have painted them as leftists, same divisions, and might even have ini­
But, as in most hospitals, the majority as collaborators and whatnot, so although tially fostered solidarity across ethnic
of the leadership positions are held by certain Arab leaders were invited, they lines. Two scholars at the University of
Jews, he said, adding that since Octo­ were not the more outspoken leaders. It Haifa, Doron Navot and Hanna Diab,
ber 7th the atmosphere had grown jin­ was not a joint Jewish-Arab protest." are conducting a research proj ect for
goistic. At the hospital's entrance, staff HassanJabareen, the director of Ada­ which they have interviewed dozens of
had hung a banner bearing the slogan lah, a human-rights organization, told Palestinian citizens-teachers, lawyers,
"One People: Together We W in." A me that after October 7th Palestinian doctors, journalists.Their subjects' state­
whiteboard and some markers were citizens concerned about the infliction ments provide some evidence to support
placed next to it, so that people could of collective punishment on Gaza led this notion. Many of them said that
write messages. In no time, Solomon
said, someone had written "Flatten Gaza"
alongside "Am Yisrael Chai!" ("The Peo­
ple of lsrael Live!")

T hat evening, I visited Tel Aviv's De­

mocracy Square, where anti-govern­
ment protests are held every Saturday.The
DAR K L I TTL £
1..T APARTMENT REA DS
demonstrations began in January, 2023, in
response to a plan by the government of
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
limit the Supreme Court's power. More
recently, the organizers have been target­
ing the government's failure to secure the
release of all October 7th hostages, and
the willingness of Netanyahu to appease
his right-wing coalition partners by pro­
longing the war.
The streets were crowded with dem­
onstrators, some of whom were dressed
in "Crime Minister" sweatshirts, a ref­
erence to Netanyahu's corruption trial,
which centers on accusations that he ac­
cepted lavish bribes and discussed doing
political favors for a media company in
exchange for positive coverage. Others
wore hats bearing the words "End This
Fucking War."The mood was more som-
• bre at Hostages Square, near the Tel
immediately after October 7th they felt said that they no longer wanted to be­ ning in Haifa. After October 7th, she
sympathy for the victims, some of whom long, and felt that their citizenship was locked her social-media accounts and
were residents of their own communi­ worthless. Navot and Diab draw a dis­ stopped communicating directly with
ties. "We lost people," a Bedouin from tinction between having formal citizen­ friends in Gaza, worried that even a be­
the Negev said. But being treated as an ship rights, which Palestinians in Israel nign text could make her the target of
enemy soon created alienation and re­ have, and being a citizen. "You can have an investigation. "I understand what Oc­
sentment. "I go into Jewish schools and citizenship rights without being a citi­ tober 7th meant to the Jewish commu­
hear the students whispering that I'm zen because society excludes you or ter­ nity-I understand their fears," she said.
Arab," one subject said. "This is racism rifies you or doesn't recognize you,"Navot "But I can't understand losing your hu­
that existed before October 7th, but now told me. "If you go to work or to your manity."In the past, few Palestinian cit­
it's out in the open." university and you are terrified to speak izens of Israel even considered leaving
In January, 2024, aChord, an Israeli up, you may have citizenship rights but the country, emphasizing the principle
nonprofit that studies social psychology, not .fee/ like a citizen." Aside from fear, of sumud, or "steadfastness," and the im­
released the results of a survey showing the dominant emotions their subjects perative to remain on ancestral land. But
that, among Jewish Israelis, there had expressed were disappointment and an­ the woman told me that many people
been a sharp rise in anger, fear, and ha- guish, fuelled by the widespread indif­ she knew were planning to relocate; in­
tred toward Arabs.Ron Gerlitz, aChord's ference they sensed from the Jewish pub­ deed, she and her husband were consid­
director, told me that it would have been lic toward the horrors occurring in Gaza, ering emigrating from Israel next year,
surprising "if we didn't see this." Recent where more than fifty thousand residents once their daughter graduated from high
surveys indicate that the animosity has have been killed and millions have been school. "I can't see a future here," she
levelled off. But Gerlitz said another displaced. Navot told me that nearly all said. In this sense, they had something
aChord survey found that almost sixty the subjects of the study had expected in common with Jewish Israelis, thou­
per cent of Jewish Israelis believe it's il­ Israel to respond harshly to the Octo­ sands of whom have immigrated to Eu­
legitimate to identify as both Israeli and ber 7th attack. ''And they accepted this," rope since October 7th because they felt
Palestinian.The message, Gerlitz said, was he said. "But they didn't expect that so despair about the future.
that Arabs in Israel "can't be Israelis" unless many Jewish Israelis would support the
they disavow a core part of themselves. continuity of the reaction for such a long " T his is where I belong," Qstsem
One of the participants in Navot and time. They are shocked by this, and it is Hassan told me in Tamra, where
Diab's study told them, "The Palestin­ one of the reasons they don't talk-it's she and Sharaf reside with their children
ian in Israel lives in constant tension be­ not only that they are afraid but that they in a house bordered by olive trees. Every
tween a desire to belong to the broader feel there is no one to talk to." year, Sharaf 's aunts harvest the trees,
society and the realization that this be­ I heard echoes of this from a Pales­ which supply the family with food and
longing is always conditional." Others tinian citizen of Israel I met one eve- oil. His family doesn't have legal title to
all of their land. The government hasn't
accepted their claim to it, even though
they've lived there for many decades; at
one point, they were forced to pay the
government a fee to prevent their house
from being demolished.
Living in Tamra isn't easy. There are
virtually no parks in the town, so when
Qstsem Hassan's two young daughters
want to play in one she often drives them
all the way to Kiryat Bialik. Another local
problem is crime, which has soared in re­
cent years, fuelled by gangs and, many res­
idents feel, by the deliberate neglect of the
police, which since 2022 has been run, ex­
cept for a short break, by Israel's national­
security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an
ultranationalist and unapologetic racist.
But Qstsem Hassan wasn't going any­
where, even as she acknowledged feel­
ing increasingly isolated, not only from
her Jewish peers but also from some of
her fellow-Palestinians, including fam­
ily members. Her older brother, a suc­
"Dad went outfor cigarettes and beer . . . and he cessful economist, and her sister, a gov­
brought back enough for the wholefamily!" ernment lawyer, have repeatedly warned
her that her outspokenness could dam­ the care they received. "She doesn't look brother was killed by an air strike-think
age not only her career but theirs. at your color or your views," Ellen said. of her helping him? Qgsem Hassan
Qgsem Hassan has also heard this "She just cares about you as a person." pushed this thought aside and offered
from her father, who lives in Nazareth. �sem Hassan also leaned on such him care. "I never judge my patients,"
She visits him often, in part to check on colleagues as Daphna Shochat, aJewish she said, though she admitted that "it's
his health; he suffers from pulmonary fi­ endocrinologist I met in Jaffa, outside not easy." It helped that �sem Hassan
brosis. One afternoon, she brought me the office of Physicians for Human Rights believed that the violence of the conflict
along, stopping on the way to buy knafeh, Israel. She and �sem Hassan were there harmed not only the victims but also the
a cheese pastry. When we arrived, her fa­ to record videos that would perpetrators. In her view, a
ther was lying on a maroon couch in the accompany a new P.H.R.I. reservist with P.T. S.D. "is
living room, with a plastic breathing tube report, which incorporated also a kind of victim."
attached to his nose. He told me that he interviews with twenty-four In recent weeks, �sem
was a graduate of Mikveh Y israel, an ag­ Palestinian medical profes­ Hassan told me, criticism of
ricultural school that prided itself on ed­ sionals who had been held the Gaza war had intensified
ucating the pioneers of the Zionist move­ at Israeli detention facilities, in Israel. She noted an edi­
ment. At the same time, he noted,"I lived where many of them said torial that the former Prime
those '48 years, and I saw the war with they had been tortured. Ac­ Minister Ehud Olmert pub­
my eyes. I lived in Tira, in the triangle, cording to the report, most lished on May 27th, in which
near Kfar Saba. And until now"-tears had been captured while he declared, "W hat we are
welled in his eyes-"I can't grasp how working in hospitals in doing in Gaza now is a war
another people could throw me from my Gaza, not while plotting acts of terror­ of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless,
house and live in my place." ism. (Both the Israel Prison Service and cruel." At the same time, Qgsem Has­
Qgsem Hassan told me that her fa­ the I.D.F. denied the report's allegations; san was deeply concerned about a bill
ther would sometimes express pride after the I.D.F. said that it detained only peo­ advancing through the Knesset. It pro­
hearing her on the radio talking about ple "suspected of involvement in terror­ posed that foreign donations to human­
human rights. But then he'd urge her to ist activities.") rights groups-which are currently un­
censor herself. Qgsem Hassan under­ Qgsem Hassan and Shochat-the taxed-be taxed at a rate of eighty per
stood his conflicting impulses. "He's a granddaughter ofYafa Yarkoni, a legend­ cent, a change that could cut P.H.R.I.'s
Nakba survivor, and he's afraid," she said. ary Israeli singer-were close, and their budget by more than a third.
Lately, though, she hadn't always been friendship had affirmed �sem Hassan's �sem Hassan also continued to feel
apprising her family of her media ap­ belief in the importance of forging alli­ frustrated by the strictures surrounding
pearances."I don't want these comments," ances with Jewish Israelis who shared the discussion of certain subjects at work.
she said. "I need support." She summa­ her values. Shochat, for her part, was im­ One day in February, she learned that
rized her dilemma:"If l speak up, I might pressed by the courage shown by �sem the clinic would be decorated with or­
damage someone-myself, the people Hassan, who was far more vulnerable to ange balloons, in honor of Kfir and Ariel
around me. If I don't speak up, I can't attack than were P.H.R.I.'sJewish mem­ Bibas, the child hostages who had died,
live. This is what gives me purpose." bers, and by her gentle fierceness. "She whose hair had been reddish orange.
Since October 7th, a source of com­ somehow manages to say things as they Their deaths appalled �sem Hassan.
fort to �sem Hassan has been the devo­ are,without apologizing, without compro­ "They are babies," she told me. At the
tion of patients she'd feared would aban­ mising, and without losing her dignity same time, she went on, "there are sev­
don her-people like Ellen and Shlomo, and compassion," Shochat said. She enteen thousand children in Gaza who
who live in Kiryat Bialik. Ellen, aged quoted the poet Leah Goldberg-"Even were killed, and no one really recognizes
eighty-two, is originally from Philadel­ in a time of war, the value of love is greater that it's a crime to kill them."
phia, and is the daughter of a passionate than the value of murder" -and said, This is what �sem Hassan had feared
Zionist. Shlomo is a Sabra-an Israeli "Lina really embodies that." from the start-that the horrific violence
native-who grew up in Tel Aviv. They �sem Hassan was aware that plenty inflicted on Israelis on October 7th would
both told me that they adored Qgsem of people viewed her less flatteringly, in­ be used to justify a war without limits,
Hassan. After Qgsem Hassan discov­ cluding people in the Arab world who dehumanizing all Palestinians. As a re­
ered that Ellen had an atrioventricular have seen Israel's Palestinian citizens as sult, she had sometimes asked herself if
block, she helped her get a pacemaker betrayers. "We are not," she insisted."We going to the Dead Sea after October 7th
before the specialist who could per­ are the people that stayed on our lands, had been the right decision. She ulti­
form the surgery left for the weekend. we are the natives, and we had to pay a mately decided that she was proud of it.
"I know she saved my life," Ellen said. price for that." She was constantly nav­ She told me,"I did it for myself, because
She and Shlomo were aware of ()gsem igating encounters that pulled at the dif­ it put to the test the idea I was raised
Hassan's political beliefs, which Qgsem ferent strands of her identity. One day, on-that all people are equal and that
Hassan told me she didn't conceal from a reservist came to the Kiryat Bialik human pain is universal." She paused."I
her patients. ("I can't hide who I am.") clinic; he was experiencing P.T.S.D. after did it for myself and also for my daugh­
Shlomo said to me,"We know she's ac­ serving in Gaza. W hat would Qgsem ters. I wanted them to understand that
tive."It had never affected the quality of Hassan's sister-in-law-the one whose a human being is a human being." ♦
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 35
 PROFILES

BODIES, BODIES, BODIES

The British artistjenny Saville has dedicated her career to painting human flesh.

BY REBECCA MEAD

I
n March, an exhibition of works pulse toward motion, capturing the rest­ lished an article about emerging British
by Jenny Saville, the British artist lessness inherent in a human body-par­ artists and included a photograph of
known for her large-scale figurative ticularly a body that is building up the "Propped," before which stood its com­
paintings, went on display at the Alber­ flesh and blood and bone of another body paratively diminutive creator. (Her work
tina Museum, in Vienna. The day be­ within its own. The paintings offered was characterized as"breathtakingly ac­
fore the opening, Saville visited the gal­ technically accomplished realism-Sav­ complished," with"a fierce feminist mes­
leries to inspect the completed hang. The ille can paint a puckered nipple so lifelike sage.") The painting caught the eye of
show, titled "Gaze," included several that it makes you want to turn up the Charles Saatchi, at the time the most
works in which Saville had sought to ex­ heat-combined with gestural abstraction. prominent collector of contemporary art
plore the fractured experience of life in Her female figures were large in their in Britain. He swiftly acquired it, along
the digital era. "I have had a fascination art-historical scope as well as in their with several of Saville's other student
for quite a while now with how we live scale, evoking not just the classical tra­ works, and also provided funding to sup­
these different realities," she explained. dition but also canonical modernist works port her for a year and a half while she
"If you sit on a bus or take the subway, by Pablo Picasso and Willem de Kooning. made paintings for her first solo gallery
everybody's on a device. So you've got At the same time, the paintings show, in January, 1994.
this sort of mundane, lived reality, and reached back visually into Saville's own In these and many subsequent works,
then this screened reality. If you've got catalogue. Now fifty-five, she achieved Saville took on one of the principal themes
twenty people on the subway train, those acclaim when she was in her early twen­ of Western art since the Renaissance: the
twenty people are probably all over the ties for another series of paintings focus­ naked female form. But she represented
globe, or even in outer space. Those re­ sing on the female body, some of which it in a manner that had never quite been
alities exist all the time. You just move she made while still an undergraduate, seen before. Unlike the works of Rubens
in and out, seemingly seamlessly." at the Glasgow School of Art. She had or Rembrandt or Lucian Freud, all of
We looked at a series of three paintings, been precocious in her painterly virtuos­ whose influences on Saville were clear,
titled "Fates." Each depicted a woman ity, particularly in the depiction of human her paintings showed what it was like to
seated in a chair mounted on a stone flesh, with its mottled colors and vari­ occupy a female body, rather than to ap­
plinth.They had been completed in 2018, able textures, the swell of muscle and the praise it from an easel. Saville was her
and at the time, Saville told me, she "had yielding dimples of fat. Among these own model for "Propped," and early in­
been looking at images of ancient god­ early works was"Propped" (1992), a seven­ terviewers were surprised to discover that
desses."The figures had the monumen­ foot-by-six-foot canvas on which Saville she was, and remains, a compactly built
tality of classical sculpture, but they lacked had depicted a towering female nude woman-the imposing scale of the paint­
the corporal integrity expected from such perched atop a stool, her legs wrapped ing was a trick of perspective.
forms. In "Fate 2," the figu re sat with her around a pedestal-like base. The figure's Some critics found Saville's approach
right leg cocked, her foot balanced on ample bosom poured forth, but it was off-putting: a male interviewer for the
the opposite knee-but there was also a not the painting's focal point; the view­ Independent questioned why her depic­
third leg, which hung over the arm of er's eye was drawn instead to meaty, jut­ tions of women seemed intent on "mak­
the chair. The figure's midsection was ting knees and sturdy thighs, into which ing them look so horrible.""I'm not paint­
scrambled into colored marks, a belly were dug tensed, strong fingers."Propped" ing disgusting, big women. I'm painting
button indicated by a scrawl of black on had been the centerpiece of Saville's grad­ women who've been made to think they
pink."Fate 3" also depicted a female body, uation exhibition, where it was displayed are big and disgusting," Saville told him,
but with a pregnant belly and pendulous opposite a mirror. In the reflection, an her point having been proved. Others
breasts, her intimidating scale exagger­ onlooker could read words by Luce Iri­ were more nuanced in their reactions. In
ated by the viewer's lowered vantage garay, the French feminist philosopher, 1994, the critic Sarah Kent wrote an as­
point. A pair of legs was tucked beneath which Saville had etched, in reverse, into sessment of"Branded" (1992), in which a
her, while a third haunch and leg ex­ the oil paint with the tip of a brush: "If large female nude grasps a roll of belly fat
tended to her right. The surfeit of limbs we continue to speak in this sameness­ in what Kent notes could be a gesture of
suggested the temporal and spatial lay­ speak as men have spoken for centuries, defiance, or of self-loathing. Across the
ering of experience which has become we will fail each other." figure's flesh, Saville had scrawled various
central to the way we see and live today. Not long after Saville's student show, words, including "suPPORTIVE,""DECO­
The "Fate" paintings conveyed an im- the London Times Saturday Review pub- RATIVE," and"IRRATIONAL."The figure,
36 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
Saville, in Oxford Unlike a portraitist, shefocusses on the human head andface and body, rather than on an individual.
P H OTOG R A P H BY T H O M AS D U F F I E L D THE NEW YOR.K.Ell, JUNE 16, 2025 37

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Kent wrote, "is occupied by an intelligence ups of heads, she rarely paints portraits, The photographer Sally Mann, who has
that makes us ashamed at our responses, in the sense of making images of named, spent time there, documenting Saville
and dismayed at our shame." Kent's judg­ recognizable people. At the outset of her at work, told me, "She reminds me in a
ment of the significance of Saville's work career, she decided that she didn't want to certain way of how Cy Twombly would
prevailed: in 2018, "Propped" went up for be associated with conventional portrai­ work-he was sort of a magpie, picking
auction at Sotheby's in London, and it ture, which seemed old-fashioned. She fo­ up a stain on a newspaper, or whatever in­
sold for the equivalent of $12.4 million­ cussed on the human head and face and spired him. She's a lot like that-she goes
at the time, the record price paid at auc­ body, rather than on the individual. Many from oil sticks to oil paints to watercolors."
tion for a work by a living female artist. ofher paintings have been self-portraits, in Saville led me through a small office
At the Albertina, Saville acknowledged a manner of speaking-her own rounded area, where a desk was piled with books:
that the "Fates" paintings were excursions cheeks, full lips, and big eyes have been collections of Greek myths, a volume
in deconstructing the robust figurative discernible in her work for decades. But about death and resurrection in art, a cat­
tradition in which she had so definitively she speaks of lending her face and body alogue from a recent Jean-Michel Basquiat
inserted herself with "Propped." She to herself as a matter of convenience; her show at Gagosian. On the wall above
sounded slightly unsure of her success in subjectivity is not her subject. the desk, a ripped-out page showing
the endeavor. "I don't really like postmod­ In Vienna, the exhibition included Velazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X
ernism," she told me. "I've never made several depictions of heads as giant as had been taped above an image of four
work that analyzes painting in itself too those in a Chuck Close painting. But the Warhol silk screens of Elizabeth Taylor­
much." She mused, "It's not that I don't images were much less clinical. Saville these were reference materials for past or
like these pictures, it's just that they are explained, "I work to have as much em­ present works.Just outside the office was
a slight experimentation." Still, in their pathy in those heads as I can. They are a courtyard garden, equipped with a table
allusion to the art of venerable precur­ particular to this person. The paintings and chairs, where S aville and I sat in
sors, the "Fates" series was as fearless in are not usually using a person for other bright spring sunlight to talk.
its ambition as her undergraduate efforts ideas-they are not as dissociated as that." As Saville's near-contemporary, I first
had been. When I mentioned that the In the "Fates" canvases, or in various other became aware of her work in the nine­
trio of paintings brought to mind Fran­ works in which multiple bodies are lay­ ties, and her presentation of the female
cis Bacon's smeary triptychs of seated fig­ ered and limbs are repeated, Saville's pur­ body struck me as a bracing challenge to
ures-these include his celebrated "Three pose is not to induce estrangement. "I normative standards of feminine beauty
Studies of Lucian Freud"-Saville said, don't have an intention of s aying, 'Right, and behavior. Like Saville, I'd been si­
"Yeah, I love Francis Bacon. I definitely I am going to make a piece where some­ multaneously reading feminist critical
feel I've got a kind of crew of artists that body has three legs,' " she said. "But, if theory and magazines that recommended
I go around with, and belong in the con­ you look at the Titian painting in the dieting or liposuction. Before meeting
versation with, hopefully." Met of Venus and Adonis, and the way her, I'd looked back at early interviews
Later this month, museumgoers in he's composed it, it's like there's a trian­ she'd given, and I'd been struck by the
London will have the opportunity to as­ gle oflegs. That's a really amazing rhythm. confidence with which she had articu­
sess the artist's reuvre with "Jenny Sav­ I'm not doing it to create a monstrous lated the critique her work offered. "The
ille: The Anatomy of Painting," a major setup, or to disturb a sense of order. It's history of art has been dominated by
exhibition at the National Portrait Gal­ really to put more humanity into it." men," she told one male interlocutor. "I
lery. It is, somewhat surprisingly, the first paint women as most women see them­
time that a museum in the British cap­
ital has dedicated a solo show to Saville.
Nicholas Cullinan, the former director
S aville lives in Oxford, where she has selves. I try to catch their identity, their
three studios: one devoted to draw­ skin, their hair, their heat, their leakiness."
ing, another to painting, and a warehouse Her paintings, she said at the time, were
of the gallery, who is now the director in which she can undertake very large­ not intended to be didactic. They were
of the British Museum, told me, "She's scale works. She divides her time be­ intended to provoke discussion: "What
produced, since the early nineties, an ex­ tween Oxford and a home in London, is beauty? Beauty is usually the male image
traordinary body of work that keeps de­ and she has also acquired an apartment of the female body. My women are beau­
veloping and growing and maturing, and in New York City. tiful in their individuality."
in some ways has been overlooked, from I visited Saville in her painting stu­ These days, Saville is less eager-or,
a museum perspective." In October, the dio earlier this year. Tucked down a side perhaps, less obliged-to offer declara­
show will travel to the Modern Art Mu­ road, the building was anonymous, with­ tive interpretations of her work. In our
seum of Fort Worth. out a doorbell or a knocker, its purpose conversations, she was friendly but a lit­
The National Portrait Gallery is not betrayed only by a slight smear of red­ tle guarded, and occasionally she ap­
an obvious institution to mount a Saville dish paint on the front door. Saville is in­ peared braced to be misunderstood. She
retrospective, given that it was established, tensely private about her spaces, and about mentioned more than once that she felt
in the mid-nineteenth century, to collect works in progress; Stefan Ratibor, the di­ her work had sometimes been subjected
pictures of "the most eminent persons in rector of the London branch of Gago­ to wayward analysis: its anatomical ver­
British history," with a bigger emphasis sian, the gallery that has represented her ity had been interpreted as a form of
on the subject of a work than on its cre­ for nearly three decades, told me that he'd violence, and that had never been her in­
ator. Although Saville often paints close- visited her studio on just two occasions. tention. Of her early paintings, she told
38 THE NEW YOR.KER., JUNE 16, 2025

-
me, "I remember being shocked at the tion from the fifteenth century, the Vir­ the canvas. "I thought, Oh, that 's how
hyperbolic language that was attached gin is struck by a heavenly beam of light you got the paint to behave that way­
to them, in terms of the fatness-'blub­ that enters through her window or door­ because you had that bowl, with that
bernauts,' or whatever,'' she said. "I didn't way. "I use this technique a lot now-of mixing." She added,"Many things about
have 'fat is a feminist issue' in my head. going through heads with yellow or gold the way he worked absolutely changed
I didn't want to make narrative paint­ and then rebuilding over the top," she the way I worked. I think I was able to
ings, so any narrative had to be in the explained. "There's a sort of force, or ten­ shortcut a lot of development."
flesh, or in the body. And a bigger body sion, that gets embedded within the Saville never met de Kooning, but she
has a narrative of getting to that size, so painting." Flourishes of this type, she did develop a friendship with his peer
that narrative in itself was quite inter­ said, "kind of creep in, even from look­ CyTwombly, and she considers the free­
esting. But I can't say it was necessarily ing at graffiti marks with rhythms-or dom of line developed by Abstract Ex­
from a feminist standpoint." calligraphy. Shapes wrapping around." pressionists in America to be as much of
Saville became most animated while For palettes, Saville uses a pair of long, an influence on her work as the more ob­
talking about paint itsel£ Her early com­ glass-topped trolleys on wheels, onto vious precursors of British twentieth­
mand of the medium has matured into which she squeezes deposits of oil paint. century portraiture: Freud, Bacon, Frank
a self-assured mastery. In the studio, sev­ When she is working, she stands between Auerbach. Twombly also shaped Saville's
eral canvases were in varying stages of the trolleys, a setup that she adopted after approach to living. "I went to a lot of Cy's
completion. There was a large image of visiting de Kooning's studio, on Long shows, and watched the way he was, and
a swan-necked young woman with a snub I sland, a few years after the painter's the way he lived, and the way he trav­
nose and a fleshy mouth, her lower lip death, in 1997. "I spent hours there, and elled," she told me. "They showed a very
sagging slightly on one side, as if she'd that was a really formative experience," international way of being an artist which
just wiped it with the back of her hand. she told me. She added that, when she was very different from a kitchen-sink,
A pair of portraits leaned side by side first saw his work, at MOMA, she expe­ British, gray way of being a painter-like
against a wall. Both heads featured the rienced a sense of recognition, seeing her Frank Auerbach taking a sandwich in a
brownish-pink and ruddy purple brush­ own passion for manipulating paint re­ bag down to the studio every day. Cy
strokes that Saville often uses to depict flected in his: "The twists and turns, the would be taking a boat down the Nile."
flesh, but she'd also used oil sticks, made reverses, the scrape-offs." I n the Long Unlike many artists of her professional
of solidified paint, to vigorously mark the Island studio, she could see how de Koon­ stature, Saville does not use assistants
heads with lines as vividly yellow and ing made recipes for his paint-color mixes, other than her partner, the artist Paul
blue and orange as in a Warhol print. and how he used house-painters' brushes McPhail, whom she met at art school
The bright colors were actually under­ to achieve certain sweeping effects on in Glasgow, where he also made fleshy,
painting, she explained, and would be
layered over with more realistic flesh tones;
but some of the underpainting would re­
main exposed, imbuing the work with an
almost hidden energy and light. This
method, she said, had been influenced by
her research into the Greek myth in which
the princess Danae is impregnated by
Zeus, who takes the form of a shower of
gold.The myth had inspired many works
by Old Masters, including several paint­
ings by Titian. Saville had been explor­
ing ways to visually capture the moment
of conception. "How do you find the
painterly language to depict that myth
from a female perspective?" she said.
Some of Saville's experiments with
bright underpainting were on display at
the Albertina. Under the influence of re­
ligious imagery from the early Renais­
sance, she had incorporated cerulean and
gold lines into depictions of several fe­
male figures. In one such work, the gold
underpainting recalled Byzantine ico­
nography, and a blue line piercing the
subject's cheekbone and emerging from
her nostril evoked the way that, in some
devotional paintings of the Annuncia- "His bark is worse than his Machiavellian scheming. "
 shapes that you couldn't even imagine,"
she said. "I j ust sit there, and speak to
them, or let them speak, and they will
put arms and knees in forms that you
just couldn't get close to. If you said, 'Hold
still,' and you wanted to make a paint­
ing directly from life, you would never
get that specific level of humanity."
Saville also feels that the presence
of a sitter would get in the way of what
she is trying to put down on a canvas,
which often dwells closer to abstrac­
tion than to realism. On another work
under way in her studio, the figure was
barely visible: a lurid ear, parted lips, a
nostril. The shape of the head was ob­
scured by energetic sweeps of the brush
in black and blue, with a splash of yel­
low bursting from the area where a j aw­
bone had been, and might be again.
"This one is more in its abstract incar­
nation," Saville said. "It's got really nice
areas and elements, but there are two
disparate languages, and they are too
far apart. There's not enough human
there yet, so I have to keep going until
I bring that out." Her ambition, she
said, was to fuse the languages of real­
ism and abstraction-"to get to the re­
alism of our human nature." She con­
tinued, "I have never been able to give
up the figure, really. I feel like I'd be
throwing the towel in if I did that. That's
''Propped, " sevenfeet by sixfeet, was made in 1992, while Saville was in college. not against abstract painting-I love
abstract painting. B ut I think what
figurative paintings and portraits. "He's be kept under closest observation," he makes my painting is the tension be­
washed a lot of brushes," Saville told me once explained. "If this is done, day and tween those things. That 's a powerful
appreciatively. She paints very slowly, night, the subject-he, she, or it-will space to work in, between those two el­
sometimes setting works aside for months eventually reveal the all without which ements. If I can get that right, it feels
or years before returning to them. Ratibor, selection itself is not possible." good, and it's worth the journey."
her London gallerist, said, "She's incred­ This dictum has never resonated with
ibly precise about her process, and there's
handsome demand with limited supply."
Even though Saville's artistic prac­
Saville; indeed, she told me, photogra­
phy allows her to see what a studio en­
counter cannot. She explained, "You can
S aville was born in Cambridge, En­
gland. The second of four children,
she had a peripatetic childhood; her fa­
tice is focussed on the human body, she capture things about the way the body ther was a school administrator, and the
does not use live sitters, preferring to moves, or the interaction of different family later moved from the south of the
work from photographs. In this, she has bodies, that you just couldn't get if you country to Yorkshire, in the north. Her
some distinguished antecedents: Bacon said, 'Can you hold this pose for two mother was an elementary-school teacher,
used photographs when painting por­ hours?' " Earlier in her career, she used a a job that gave Saville easy access to arts­
traits of people familiar to him, because, Hasselblad film camera to capture the and-crafts materials. An important early �
he told the critic David Sylvester, "I raw visual material from which to con­ influence was an uncle, Paul Saville, an °
U)

\i
don't want to practise before them the struct a painting. In the past decade or artist who also taught at a private school �
inj ury that I do to them in my work." so, she has embraced digital photogra­ in Oxford. He provided Jenny with her �
c,:
Freud, however, regarded the making phy. Subjects come to her studio for pho­ first set of paints, and gave her tasks that 6
u
of his portraits as a kind of collabora­ tography sessions that can last several cultivated her technical skills and powers
j
tion, albeit one in which he was the hours; during that time, she told me, of observation, such as making a draw-
dominant partner, and he required his their physicality unfolds. "The way bod­ ing of a hedge in the family garden every �>-
sitters to attend sessions in his studio ies naturally move-you have to learn to day for a year. He also took her abroad �
for months on end. "The subject must go with it, because they literally take up to look at art-to Italy, where she visited @

40 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025

Florence, Venice, and Mantua, and to conflict is what made that painting work." was kind of audacious." He went on,
Amsterdam, where she was exposed not Some Saville nudes from this period "You look at the scale of the work, and
just to the art of Rembrandt but to his seemed to resist the boundaries of the this kind of small woman-it made it
studio, which was restored as a museum canvas."Trace,"which Saville made under kind of amazing, in a way, that she
in the early twentieth century. Saville the early support of Saatchi, is filled to painted on that scale, with that confi­
learned how the position of a canvas be­ the edges with a bulky, mottled body dence, and with that power."For his own
tween a window and a hearth had in­ seen from behind, imprinted with the collection, Gagosian bought a large
formed Rembrandt's depiction of light, lingering marks of a too-tight bra and painting called "Hyphen," which was a
with the coldness of the daylight con­ panties."Plan," from 1993, plays a differ­ double portrait. He has sometimes dis­
trasting with the incandescent warmth ent visual game: it turns a woman's flesh played the canvas in one of his homes.
of the fire. Today, she can identify more into a vast landscape marked with con­ "It needs a big room," he told me.
complexity in the muddy background of tour lines, like those on a topographical Saville demurred when asked about
a Rembrandt canvas than most people map. The image was suggested, Saville her fearlessness in making grand-scale
could articulate about the faces of his has explained, by the markings that plas­ paintings while so young. "It was an era
subjects. The studio museum showed tic surgeons make before performing li­ when you'd hear about Anselm Kiefer
Saville "the nuts and bolts of an artist's posuction."I had friends who were draw­ putting a wing of an airplane on a canvas,
life," she told me. "It made me feel like ing on the edges of their body, of where so my nine-foot-by-seven-foot canvas
the things I was doing, making paint­ they wanted the boundary of the body was not so big compared to that," she told
ings in my room, was a way I could live." to be-they wanted to diet until they me, dryly. "I don't think I am courageous
Paul Saville had gone to art school in reached that line," she told me."I thought to make large-scale paintings. I just make
Glasgow, and, in 1988,Jenny followed in that was a fascinating desire-what's them the scale I think they need to be."
his footsteps, drawn by the institution's making especially women feel like this?" Much in the way that earlier artists,
strong commitment to painting. Lucian Saville did not herself have body-image including Rembrandt, attended autop­
Freud had recently had a show at the issues or an obsession with weight loss: sies to learn more about human anat­
Southbank Centre, in London, and Sav­ ''Actually, I thought it was a bit of a waste omy, Saville visited a New York clinic to
ille recalled to me that "everybody had a of time-all the books you could read, observe a plastic surgeon transforming
Freud catalogue at their feet when they all the things you could do." patients' bodies. This led to a 1999 work
were painting." Even so, young British In 1997, both "Trace" and "Plan'' were in which at least three different images
artists in those years were principally con­ included in the "Sensation' ' show, at the of a head and torso are painted on top
centrated on other forms of art, such as Royal Academy of Arts in London, which of one another. It is named for a plastic­
video and performance. Saville said,"You presented Saatchi's collection of art by surgery technique called the Rubens flap,
almost had to apologize to be a painter at young British artists. The show, display­ used in breast reconstruction; the term
that time"-painting was seen as belong­ ing many works that contained sexual is a reference to the voluptuous figures
ing to an outmoded, hierarchical, and pa­ imagery, was a scandalous success. Com­ in Rubens's work. Saville said,"The lan­
triarchal tradition. "If you were doing pared with the Chapman Brothers' per­ guage of plastic surgery was really inter­
anything interesting, you were almost al­ verse child mannequins, which had penises esting, because people had a fictional idea
ways not making a painting, and certainly for noses, or Tracey Emin's "Everyone I of what their normality was, which was
not a figurative painting," she said. Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995"-a tent not what they were. 'If only I could get
W hile in college, Saville spent a se­ embroidered and appliqued with the this chin done like this, or my nose like
mester abroad at the University of Cin­ names of dozens of lovers-Saville's skill­ this, I would be more of myself. "'
cinnati, where, in contrast to her curric­ fully modelled figures spoke more qui­ Her interest, she insists, was less po­
ulum in Glasgow, she was able to take etly, large and naked though they were. litical than anthropological; her paintings
classes in other disciplines, including in Some critics praised Saville's aesthetic were intended neither to excoriate nor
the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality distance from her "Sensation'' peers. The to endorse the kinds of bodies they rep­
Studies department. Saville became critic Brian Sewell, writing in the Eve­ resented, nor to validate or condemn the
hooked on feminist critical theory, fa­ ning Standard, excoriated the show's "as­ choices made by their inhabitants. In the
miliarizing herself with the work of Julia semblage of freaks, frauds and feeble fail­ late nineties, Saville met Del LaGrace
Kristeva, Helene Cixous, and Luce Iri­ ures," reserving his sole compliment for Volcano, a queer visual artist who is in­
garay, among others. The criticism that Saville, who, he said, "avoids the childish tersex. Saville made a painting of Vol­
she read was much more concerned with pornographic trap, and sustains her prom­ cano, called "Matrix," that mirrors the
analyzing literature than it was with in­ ise as a serious painter of female flesh." composition of Gustave Courbet's hom­
terrogating the visual arts, however, and By the time the " Sensation" show age to the vagina,"L'Origine du Monde."
when she returned to Glasgow she set came to the Brooklyn Museum, in 1999, But, unlike Courbet's work, which does
about finding a visual language to ex­ Saville had already been taken on by not include the model's head, Saville's
press some of that theory. One of the re­ Larry Gagosian, who became her dealer canvas extends beyond a sprawled nude
sults was "Propped." Saville said,"I liked when she was twenty-six. "There was torso and exposed pudendum to include
painting a nude body, which was very something new in her work that I hadn't Volcano's goateed, mustachioed visage.
frowned on in feminist studies-'Where's seen before from any other artist," Ga­ In the early two-thousands, Saville made
the gaze?,' all that kind of debate. That gosian told me. "For a young painter, it a portrait of a Colombian trans sex worker
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 41
named Carla. "It challenged my judg­ ered history, with its legacy of Byzantine, hinted at the forthcoming violence of
ment on every single level to see a penis Arabic, and Norman art and culture. the Crucifixion. The painting was never
and breasts in the same body," Saville "Here I can be as close to Rubens as I realized; a replica of the lost work was
told me in Vienna, where the Albertina am to Tracey Emin,'' she told the Guard­ commissioned instead.
show includes one of the resulting works, ian in 2005. A monograph, published by By the time Arturo was a toddler and
·
"Transvest1te Pamt · S tudy. " ("Transves- Rizzoli, documents some of her source Iris an infant, the family had settled full
tite," Saville noted to me, was Carla's material during this period: pages torn time in Oxford. After years of being
term of choice.) from dental textbooks on oral lesions, consumed by her art ("My life is sub­
At the time, trans identity and trans photographs from medical reference servient to painting-I can't find a sub­
bodies were little acknowledged by main­ books about elephantiasis, faces bruised stitute for it in the world,'' she'd told the
stream culture. "W hen I first showed or bloodied from violence or surgery, Guardian), Saville became absorbed in
those paintings, people were saying, 'Did Velizquez's vermillion-clad Pope. The motherhood. "I remember going in the
you make that up? That's actually a real paintings she was making at this time studio and having a few hours, and I al­
body?' " Saville recalled. The works are often had a brutal frankness, approach­ most couldn't do anything,'' she told me.
not voyeuristic, nor are they pious cele­ ing the boundary where human flesh is "W hen your children feel pain, you feel
brations of a marginalized identity; Sav­ revealed to be animal meat. She even pain. That shocked me. If they cried,
ille insists that, as with her paintings of painted animal meat: a work called"Sus­ you almost feel it inside-you actually
full-bodied women, she didn't mean these pension,'' which at first sight appears to are physically linked with them. It's in­
images to be polemical. "I've never made be of a mass of human flesh, is on closer credibly animalistic." But she soon dis­
these paintings saying, 'This is a good examination the carcass of a headless pig covered that being a parent didn't di­
way to live,' or 'This isn't,' " she told me. lying on its side, with a trotter limply ex­ minish her creativity; rather, it offered a
(Reached by e-mail, Volcano said that tended. The image is part odalisque, part tremendous stimulus. For an artist who
"Matrix" participates in "the pathologi­ massacre, and as red as a Pope's vestments. had spent decades studying and paint­
zation of intersex and non-binary bod­ "W hen you see the inside of the body, ing the human body, the opportunity to
ies by focusing on the 'discovery' of mixed the half-inch thickness of flesh, there's a observe the evolving bodies of her chil­
sex characteristics by doctors. Regard­ realization that it's a tangible substance, dren was fascinating, all the more so be­
less of Jenny's good intentions, 'Matrix' so paint mixed a flesh color suddenly be­ cause their flesh had been generated by
reproduces the intersex body as a pub­ comes a kind of human paste,'' Saville her own. ''Just watching them grow was
lic spectacle and thereby reinforces the said in an interview published in the book. so exciting, watching them jump in the
status quo.") In 2005, in an interview She also approvingly cited a famous quote bath, or the way they moved around, or
with the historian Simon Schama, Sav­ from de Kooning: "Flesh was the reason the way their bodies were constantly
ille acknowledged that she had been why oil painting was invented." changing,'' she said. "They were these
"searching for a body that was between In the late two-thousands, Saville human beings that were very mobile,
genders,'' adding, "I wanted to paint a gained a knowledge of flesh unavailable running around, and that became very
visual passage through gender-a kind to de Kooning-or to Rubens or visually exciting. And the level of love
of gender landscape." Her recollection Velazquez or Rembrandt or Bacon or was so beautiful-I felt all these things
of painting Carla was still fresh, and she Freud-when she became pregnant. In were circulating in me."
used charged, almost erotic language to 2007, she gave birth to a son, Arturo. Artists who are also mothers have
explain how she had applied intense The next year, her daughter, Iris, was sometimes found inspiration in their
color in the genital area, then run to­ born. Shortly before Iris's arrival, the di­ children: Berthe Morisot, the Impres­
gether several tones on the thigh. "I got rector of the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, sionist, made many tender paintings and
them all really oily,'' she said. She felt a Baroque chapel in Palermo's historic drawings of her daughter,Julie, reading
that she had only "one shot" with her center, suggested that Saville make a or sewing or gazing out a window; Sally
brush to "keep the color clean but slide work to fit inside an empty frame above Mann took photographs of her children
them together and create the thrusting the altar, previously the site of a Cara­ for a decade. But, in the Old Master
dynamic of this leg lifting up." Some vaggio painting of the Nativity that had paintings in which Saville had steeped
white paint dripped across the thigh; been stolen in 1969 and never recovered. herself, representations of children, es­
rather than clean it up, she realized that Saville had a friend photograph Iris's pecially in religious imagery, often missed
it contributed a useful tension. "In that birth and used the images to guide her something essential about their nature,
thigh, I had more about sex than the work. A preparatory sketch showed a and about the ways in which maternal
whole penis put together," she told bloodied infant in the moment imme­ care taxes even the most devoted. (Ra­
Schama. The story was in the paint. diately after delivery, being held aloft by phael's "Madonna del Prato,'' which
a midwife, umbilical cord still attached. hangs in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Mu­

A bout a decade after Saville became The image embodied the convulsive seum, a short distance from the Alber­
an internationally recognized artist, drama of childbirth that is occluded tina, shows a mother of Christ who is
almost on a whim she bought a huge in a traditionally peaceable Nativity remarkably serene given that she is in
apartment in a crumbling eighteenth­ scene-"Giving birth is like being in a charge of two toddlers, one of whom is
century palazzo in Palermo, Sicily. She Francis Bacon painting,'' Saville once holding a skinny cross sharp enough to
immersed herself in that city's multilay- said. The infant 's suspended posture take someone's eye out.) The only image
42 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
 you anything or to become famous. In
TAKES fact, Tomkins reports,]ulia gave the earn­
ings from her cooking demonstrations
Ina Garten on Calvin Ton1kins's to WGBH, the station that had launched
her TV career. She was on the road be­
"Good Cooking" cause she was so joyful about cooking
and so connected to her viewers that she
wanted them to feel the same satisfac­

B y 1974, when Calvin Tomkins wrote

his definitive Profile of Julia Child,
she had published both volumes of the
and permanently changed the form .
In 1962, after the Childs moved to
Boston,Julia had casually invented the
tion she experienced making a souffie
or a spun -sugar cage. She was like an
irrepressible child, and her unscripted
wildly successful "Mastering the Art of TV cooking show: as Tomkins notes, enthusiasm and delight were contagious.
French Cooking," and was twelve years she brought a copper bowl, some eggs, We talk about authenticity so much
into her television show, ''The French and a whisk to the local public-television today that it has become a cliche, but the
Chef," on public television in Boston. station, where she was scheduled as a term truly applied to Julia, and the qual­
Tomkins captures what made Julia so guest for a standard sit-down interview. ity endeared her to millions. People have
popular-both the force of her person­ Instead, she made an omelette on the often speculated about whether she ra­
ality and her ability to make people be­ air, and the segment proved so popular diated ease on television because she was
lieve that a proper breuf bourguignon that the channel offered her a regular slightly drunk when she was filming (not
could change their lives. Julia made it show. Having changed the cookbook true!), but, as Tomkins wrote, "It may be
look easy, but, as Tomkins shows us, be­
hind the scenes no one worked harder.
His descriptions of her cooking demon­
strations across the country convey how
exhausting they must have been, and how
critical they were to her success.Julia be­
lieved deeply in the joy that comes from
cooking a French dish and genuinely
wanted viewers to share her enthusiasm.
The origin story has, of course, be­
come famous: Julia discovered French
cuisine in 1948, when her husband, Paul,
a State Department officer, was assigned
to the American Embassy in Paris. It
was just after the Second World War, a
time of prosperity and innovation in the
U.S. Working women had been the back­
bone of the economy during the fight­
ing, and they now considered cooking at
home a chore that they'd prefer to re­ December 23, 1974
place with frozen TV dinners, baking
mixes, and Chef Boyardee. Even in the world, she would now break ground that real spontaneity has become so rare
nineteen-sixties, when Julia began pub­ by teaching people how to cook on TV. that it requires an explanation." If some­
lishing cookbooks, no one-and I mean These are details many of us know. one forgot to leave the butter out over­
no one-was looking for a recipe that But Tomkins vividly captures the sense night for a cake, Julia, instead of getting
required hunting for ingredients in three of authenticity that set Julia apart. In flummoxed, would say, "Well, here's what
grocery stores and a cheese shop, or, worse, the sixties, TV was mostly news pro­ you do when that happens." She paved
one that called for ingredients that were grams hosted by male anchors such as the way for those who followed her, in­
actually recipes in themselves, such as Walter Cronkite, scripted entertainment cluding me. Beyond explaining the ba­
"2 cups homemade fish stoc�' and "1 table­ like "The Dick Van Dyke Show," talk sics of cooking in her extraordinary books,
spoon demi-glace."The recipes in "Mas­ and variety series, and cartoons. Rarely she invented a career in food that virtu­
tering the Art of French Cooking" were did anyone bring to television Julia's big, ally didn't exist before she came along,
long and complicated. Alfred A. Knopf, warm personality and joie de vivre, which making it possible, sixty-five years later,
Julia's publisher, famously said that he'd blazed through our little black-and-white for me to have the privilege of teaching
eat his hat if anyone bought a book with screens (before later transitioning, of people how to be joyful about the kitchen.
that title. But, by the time of her New course, to color) . She wasn't there to sell For that, I will be forever grateful. ♦
Yorker Profile, Knopf had sold one and
a quarter million copies of the first vol­ To celebrate its centenary, The New Yorker has invited contributors to revisit notable
ume alone, and Julia had single-handedly worksfrom the archive. See the collection at newyorker. comltakes.
THE NEW YOR.K.Ell, JUNE 16, 2025 43

- - -- -
Saville could think of that captured any­ our whole human story. Or what does it 2017, was a pioneering feminist art critic.
thing close to her experience of the un­ mean about me, if I resist it? Yes, I still In 1971, she wrote an article provocatively
predictable movement of childish bodies take myself seriously as an artist, but I titled "Why Have There Been No Great
was a pen-and-ink drawing by Rem­ have had this whole other bit of life." Women Artists?" She argued that femi­
brandt which shows a mother struggling Some critics were indeed harsh. The nists, rather than fetishizing exceptions
to control the wailing toddler in her psychoanalytic art critic Donald Kuspit, to the masculine dominance of art his­
arms, his shift risen up and a kicked-off reviewing one show of Saville's mother­ tory-Artemisia Gentileschi, Angelica
shoe flying through the air. and-child drawings and paintings inArt- Kauffman-should acknowledge the defi­
Saville started drawing her son soon forum, spent less time evaluating her cit induced by historic exclusion ofwomen
after he was born, in an effort to portray brushstrokes than judging her maternal from art academies and museums, and
what she has called the "unsentimental competence, writing of the depicted focus instead on bringing about struc­
truth" of early childhood. "He was this mother-child dyad that "their bond is tural change. ''What is important is that
whirlwind oflimbs and slipping torso as precarious and uncertain" and suggest­ women face up to the reality of their his­
I carried him, which was so exciting," ing that "the mothers in her paintings tory and of their present situation, with­
she told Mann in a 2018 interview. "A have profound ambivalence toward their out making excuses or puffing medioc­
drawing of a singular body just didn't children." Saville still bristles at the in­ rity," Nochlin wrote. Nochlin had been
seem enough to communicate this tor­ terpretation. "If there's a crying child, an early champion of Saville's work, writ­
rent of human movement." Saville made that had beauty, too, in terms of accep­ ing in 2000 in Art inAmerica of her "bril­
works that not only alluded to Renais­ tance of them in all their forms," she told liant and relentless embodiment of our
sance paintings of the Madonna and me. "I said to myself, 'I can't see that any­ worst anxieties about our own corpore­
Child but also referenced imagery from where in art history-that acceptance of ality and gender," and arguing that "no
drawings by Leonardo and Michelan­ the way a child can be sleepy or crying. other artist in recent memory has com­
gelo. Saville, using photographs of her­ Why don't we see that?' But I've seen bined empathy and distance with such
self holding her son, layered images onto that read as I don't like my kids." visual and emotional impact." In subse­
one another to depict the ceaselessly Included in the Albertina show was quent years, Saville and N ochlin became
evolving experience of mothering. a large-scale drawing of a mother and friends. "She was a multifaceted charac­
Initially, Saville wasn't sure she wanted child rendered in charcoal on canvas; the ter," Saville told me. "She loved ballet,
to exhibit these works. Having put so composition was based on multiple im­ Manet, as well as feminism."
much effort into being taken as seriously ages that Saville had made of herself and In the charcoal drawing at the Alber­
as her male precursors, she was fearful her son. As we looked at the drawing to­ tina, the child was not a baby but a boy
of a perceived diminishment. "I had other gether, Saville explained, "If I land the of about twelve, with heavy dangling
artists telling me, 'Wow, ifyou show these, foot here and then another foot there and limbs and a drooping head. To my mind­
. .
you are really saying, "Mother," ' " she satd . there's a hand here-all of a sudden it the mind of a mother whose son, like
"I thought, if I don't do that, what does starts to create an anchored kind ofbal­ Saville's, is now a young adult-the image
it say about the legitimacy of being fe­ ance."The work was titled "Chapter (for offered a poignant evocation of parent­
male, or being a mother? That's part of Linda Nochlin) ." N ochlin, who died in ing a boy through the transition from
unself-conscious childhood to early ad­
olescence, the body of a onetime babe in
arms now easily outspanning that of his
0
mother. The drawing referred not just to
imagery of the Madonna and her infant
but also to Michelangelo's Pieta, with its
grown male body lying dead across his
mother's lap. Saville's palimpsests of char­
coal offered a concentrated representa­
tion of the maternal journey, with the re­
wards of nurture and the pain of sacrifice
present in the same instant. "I try to com­
bine love, tragedy, different emotions in
the same picture," Saville said. "That's
when they become like human maps.
Can you have multiple emotions in the
same picture, where when you look over
here you feel this, and when you look
over here you feel another way? And can
you span that trajectory oflife in the same
·
image.�" Sh e went on, "Th ere 's a sense
"I can'tfeel a pulse-but, to befair, I haven't been that the whole composition cannot exist
able tofeel anything since Janice left me. " in real life. But, when you first look at it,
is there a sort ofbelievability, a suspended monochrome palette, he had achieved "There's definitely a rational way ofwork­
reality that is more real?" emotional effects with differentiated ing if you want a chin to go out, for ex­
Saville is close to her children, who tone. "Ifyou look up close, it's very warm ample, or you want a neck to sit behind
are now in their mid- to late teens, and on the eyelid, because he uses the inner a chin." She went on, "There's a level of
she has continued to draw and paint glow of the paper as the warmth of the rationalism required in order to do that.
them with their supportive assent. In eye, and then on the cheek he uses this But you can also have a sort of sugges­
2020-21, she made a large painting of white, which gives the translucence of tive poetic nature within it."
Iris's head, her full lips parted and one the flesh," Saville said, adding, "There's Around us, other museumgoers
side of her face bathed in a wash of pris­ such an act of love in the making, too. paused before the paintings; sometimes
matic color. "When I have depicted them, It is so cared for, in the bringing out of a visitor took a photograph of a canvas
I feel a level of beauty that I haven't ex­ that form. The depiction of before moving on. Until re­
perienced to the same depth with other the knee-there has to be cently, Saville was an avid
picture-making I did before I had them," love embodied in the pro­ user of an iPhone camera,
Saville said. "They gave me a lot of per­ cess of doing that." documenting shapes or col­
mission for beauty."IfSaville's early work We moved on to a spa­ ors or shadows that she
challenged the viewer to reconsider re­ cious gallery devoted to the came across, with a mind
ceived ideas of what makes an attractive work ofTitian, and stopped toward incorporating them
body, or even an acceptable one�and if before three large canvases into her work. The classical
her investigation into how flesh works based on tales from Ovid's plinths on which the figures
led her to use medical textbooks and Metamorphoses. At the cen­ in her "Fates" paintings sat
sometimes lurid images as the starting ter was "The Death of Ac­ were derived from images
place for her pictures-her recent paint­ taeon," in which Actaeon, of blocks that she had seen
ings of large heads ravish the onlooker. having disturbed the goddess Diana while on a vacation to the Greek island of
"I have learned that, when you work with she is bathing, is killed by his own hounds. Delos. Lately, though, she has tried to
very dramatic imagery and you're mak­ Titian was in his eighties when he began keep her iPhone in her pocket. "Instead
ing a painting of that, the paint can't get the painting, and it remained unfinished of taking a photo of something, I just
beyond the image," she told me when I at his death. Saville pointed to places stop and look," she told me at her stu­
visited her studio. " And so I have learned where Titian was harnessing long­ dio. "Because we are on screens all the
that working with a more simple por­ developed methods: the light falling on time, it's quite an enriching thing to do
trait means the paint can be more visu­ Diana's forearm, the negative space be­ to stop and hold that memory. It's al­
ally exciting, and can be a more joyful tween the trees in the background. "Look most like an experience is not complete
thing to do." at the way the dog is depicted," Saville now unless you take a photograph of it.
said. "He delineates the underbelly with And I told myself, 'M aybe there's some­

I n late May, a few weeks before the

opening of the show at the National
Portrait Gallery, I met Saville around
just one dark stroke. He's painted that
cloth in carmine, and that water, and the
transition of different aspects of fauna,
thing missing in that."'
Saville explained that seeing the pink
of a flower against the green of a leaf in
the corner, at the National Gallery, to or flesh, so much in his life that he's de­ her garden will sometimes inform which
look at some of the work that has in­ veloped a kind ofshorthand way ofdoing oils she mixes onto her glass palettes, or
formed her artistic practice. We began it. You take more liberties. It becomes which pastel she selects from the box.
with Leonardo, whose Burlington House more playful. You know what works, and "The way a lemon sits on a marble table
Cartoon-a charcoal-on-paper draw­ what doesn't." with a shadow-why is that so beauti­
ing of the Virgin and Child along with In a nearby gallery, Saville stopped ful? As I have got older, the more beau­
St.Anne and the toddler John the Bap­ before a portrait of Philip IV of Spain, tiful things are what I have become at­
tist-hangs in its own small room, dimly by Velazquez, and remarked at the skill tracted to," she said. "If you'd asked me
lit in order to insure the work's preser­ with which the artist had made a curl when I was twenty-five, 'Are you inter­
vation. When Saville was a child, her of light-brown hair lift from the mon­ ested in flowers?,' I would have laughed,
parents inherited a small reproduction arch's brow. ''All his flesh is one," Sav­ because it would seem such a cliche. But,
of the image, and it had always fasci­ ille observed. "When you are making a in fact, they are so powerfully beautiful."
nated her. "I liked how you couldn't re­ portrait, you have to make sure every­ Saville doesn't rule out where these
ally tell whose leg belonged to whom, thing joins together, even though we've new interests might lead her. In Greece,
and how it became a kind of collective socially named these parts of the head she painted sunsets to study the transi­
image," she said. As our eyes adjusted separately, like eyebrows, for example," tion of light to use for portraiture; she
to the darkness, Saville's commentary she said. "That's what makes Velazquez's might yet try painting still-lifes. Never­
illuminated the artist's technical accom­ paintings so poignant, because he's able theless, she always goes back to the birth
plishment: the way Leonardo had made to bring that flesh together." of her own fascination with flesh. "I'm
a knee appear to come forward from We sat down on a bench before the very committed as a fi gurative painter
the flat surface of the paper; how the Velazquez portraits. "There are rules that paints portraits and bodies," she
rhythms of certain gestures led the eye when you make a picture, if you want it said. "That's a lot,just that subject. That's
around the composition; how, within a to have three dimensions," Saville said. a lifetime's work." ♦
THE NEW YORKE!\, JUNE 16, 2025 45
 FICTION

The Q ueen
of Bad I nfl uences

Jim Shepard

46 THE NEW YOR.KER., JUNE 16, 2025 I L L USTRAT I O N BY N AT ZA K H A R I A

- - - - -- ■ -- - - - ■ - - - -
T hroughout her childhood, Con­ twenty years had really mitigated her
stance called the gorse that grew loneliness, though even in his presence
on the hillsides above her house she remained as wary as one being stalked.
"honey-bottle," and gathered fistfuls of At her school, girls had been allowed
it despite the spines, so that her hands to go for solitary walks without their
she had hoped for something interest­
ing. Her disappointment had been com­
pounded by a despondency at still not
having made a friend. She had begun
occasionally walking and exchanging
would smell of it, a smell that seemed attendant mistresses, and she had gone information with a girl named Prue,but
to combine oatmeal and hot metal and out on many. She had told herself sto­ had found it hard to dispel the notion
sun. The smell was somewhat a solace ries while walking, and that spectacle that the girl had approached her only
when it came to her devastating shy­ had caused her classmates to call her because she was leaving as well.
ness, a shyness that so galled her mother Mad Connie.
that when Constance retreated into W hen she had been preparing to
sniffing her fingers in public her mother leave home for her first term, while emp­
could hardly restrain herself from swat­ tying out her drawers she came across
W hen she was seventeen, her
mother had taken her to a play
in which it transpired that a young
ting her daughter's hands from her nose. a list she had drawn up on her tenth woman had kissed a man to whom she
Her older sisters had no such inhi­ birthday, titled "My Best Friends. " It was not engaged, and her mother had
bitions and considered Constance a was a column of two names, which in­ bent close and assured her that such
minor mortification, while she under­ cluded her father and the jackdaw nest­ things never happened in real life. Even
stood their high spirits to be a manic ing in their chimney, and next to the so, in her exercise books Constance had
display of an unhappiness that their number three she had scrawled a series listed details concerning the kind of boy
mother viewed as a necessary part of of question marks. who might monopolize her affections.
their social success. That first term, secret notes signed She had finished school in May, and
She agonized through birthday par­ with pseudonyms had been all the rage, in June had her coming out, accompa­
ties. She refused school games. She per­ and she had chosen Isolde in horror of nied by her mother through the tedium
ambulated the fringes of family gath­ the wildly romantic lithograph that hung of formal dances, where she had been
erings, setting everyone's teeth on edge. beside her mother's dressing table, but keenly aware of the number of poten­
Her most vivid recollections of child­ then had been baffled as to whom she tial partners who, once introduced, did
hood seemed unconnected,like lighted would correspond with. She had corn­ not return-most ofGloucestershire, it
rooms scattered across a city, and she batted her subsequent despair with what felt like-so that dance after dance
had decided that the most painful felt she imagined to be a clear-eyed accep­ ended with her sitting against the wall
only distantly related to her. tance of the impossibility of real inti­ with her mother.
W hen she hadn't been absent­ macy between individuals. She had Her sisters recorded every anti­
minded she had been diffident, and shared that insight with her mother in Catholic remark as a measure ofall they
when she hadn't been diffident she had one unguarded letter, and her mother had to overcome in social terms, but she
presented as vacant. It was in no way had written back that she should be­ doubted that her religion was the main
clear to her how she had evolved into ware of queer spells and fits. And so impediment in her case. She had no gift
a moderately confident young woman Constance had remained grimly con­ for flirtation, and it hadn't helped that
of twenty. vinced that she was entirely alone when when she had encountered someone in­
Most of the girls she knew had mar­ it came to facing such quandaries. triguing she had been so startled by her
ried before they discovered what they Still, she had feared that, alone, she own attraction to that person that she
themselves were really like, a decision was missing what opportunities there had focussed on maintaining her com­
that seemed to have generated neither were to educate oneself for life. She had posure. One young man who suffered
harm nor joy. She marvelled at those imagined strolls in which she and a through her silence had finally begged
few other acquaintances who carried friend might discuss kingship in his­ her to have some champagne, hoping
themselves as if marked by fate at birth, tory, or subjects of topical interest, or that might induce her to say something.
young women whose decisiveness called gossip, but had come to believe that She had tried the champagne, and it
to mind Joan ofArc, or Florence Night­ such things were not for her to experi­ hadn't. And with every disastrous eve­
ingale, or Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. ence. She had asked her roommate at ning her mother had refrained from
Unlike those worthy role models, she one point during their Sunday reading making any comparison between her
had not been one for overcoming insu­ hours if she liked Walter Scott, and the and her sisters.
perable difficulties, and yet she had re­ roommate had answered after a pause Constance resolved that she had
tained her stubbornness, despite her that when younger she had enjoyed any thought enough about boys for the time
certainty that her path would have been number of sentimental works. And being. It was like expecting figs from
altogether more congenial without it. through such buffetings Constance's lit­ thistles and then blaming the thistles
Her mother found her daughter's cow­ tle ketch had run aground. for the absence of fruit. The one young
ardice in the face of strangers a secret On her last day of school, the visit­ man who had professed to be genuinely
disgrace, but Constance also had a fa­ ing luminary's address had centered on taken with her (after just a few short
ther who was happy with her and with the pitfalls of smoking and drinking, conversations) also claimed to be more
their time together, and that likely had leaving her disappointed at having had an antique Roman than a modern
been her salvation. Only he in her first to listen to something meaningless when drudge, and further insisted that their
THE NEW YORKEI\ JUNE 16, 2025 47
country's high-water mark had been And then it happened that her fa­ the office, she began taking strolls in
Alfred the Great, to which Constance ther's dissatisfaction with the candidates the little park near the railway bridge.
responded that it was 1913, not 886, and he interviewed for the position of con­ It was never very crowded. And on one
that she hoped that in the event of fu­ fidential secretary made him announce Saturday so stifling the omnibus horses
ture encounters they might find better at their dinner table that he would like had been fitted with straw hats for the
things to discuss. He had reminded her to try her. W hen she asked, after an heat, she came across a striking young
of a boy from the village she'd known awkward and thrilled silence, if it could woman aslant in a little canvas chair
as a child who had always surprised her really be true that she was more quali­ under some elms, absorbed in a pocket
with his awful impulses, like roasting fied than those other men and women, edition of ''Adam Bede."
sparrows over a candle. he explained that really the matter turned "You're staring," the woman noted,
She would be realistic enough to cut on the issue of trust. Her mother, after startling her.
her hopes according to her cloth. She her own nettled silence, reminded him "My apologies," Constance said.
had now been a bridesmaid for three of of just some of the many disadvantages "You're just going to stand in the
her cousins. And she found a sort of of taking on a daughter in such a role, sun?" the woman asked. She added
refuge in her memory of a prayer of St. and he acknowledged each, then added that this was the sort of heat in which
Teresa of Avila's: God, consider that we that they were nonetheless dwarfed by even ladies could not succeed in look­
do not understand ourselves, and that that one advantage. He concluded that ing comfortable.
we do not know what we want, and so it was her position if she wanted it, and And so Constance joined her under
are infinitely far from what we desire. her mother gave her an oblique look the elms. The woman introduced her­
and dropped the matter. And she swith­ self as Minna Royden, and in the re­

T hough her mother's expectation

seemed to be that she not aspire to
too much and instead remain useful in
ered for a few days but always knew she
would take it.
She had henceforth been present at
marks they exchanged about Eliot 's
early works gave evidence of a fluid in­
telligence. She seemed to return all looks
some homely and simple way, Constance all of her father's meetings and inter­ with her head at a disconcerting angle,
wished to develop in full measure what views, and it had been an education. He and when Constance finally confessed,
she imagined to be the three precondi­ required from her careful notes and lo­ after one of their lengthier pauses, that
tions of happiness-courage, selfless­ gistics but soon also took to soliciting she must be going, the woman's look of
ness, and discipline-holding before her impressions afterward, and she was bemusement haunted her for days.
herself a remark of Florence Nightin­ gratified to discover that her instincts They exchanged greetings each Sat­
gale's she had once read, that women were largely his when it came to his var­ urday after that, with Constance linger­
dreamed until they no longer had the ious employees and associates. His as­ ing longer and longer before moving
strength to do so. Her aunt had been sociates' views on the subject of her qual­ on. It transpired that Minna was from
part of the suffrage movement, and her ifications were far from hidden, but she Dursley and held the position of legal
cousins lamented that the instant they turned out to be so rare a phenomenon secretary, and when she first invited
complained about it she went straight in their world that most found her too Constance to extend their conversation
off and burned a letter box and got her­ exotic to disdain. Soon she had under at a Saturd ay lunch, Constance's cour­
self thrown in jail. As a fifteen-year-old, her a clerk and a typist to assist with age failed her, but three weeks later,
Constance had been dazzled by the her clerical work, and she found that, when she offered again, they found
newspaper accounts of the "Votes for as it became clear that shyness would themselves, after rather a long walk, at
Women'' procession at Charing Cross, be of little use in negotiating this world, a new little restaurant that had been a
with thousands of women carrying ban­ during her workday she put it aside. She coal cellar before being glorified by paint.
ners celebrating everyone from Madame still at that point had formed no par­ Their waiter's indolence meant a long
Curie and George Eliot to Boadicea. ticular friendships, but felt satisfied that wait even for menus, yet neither of them
But then this pastJune a suffragette had she had presented herself as friendly in let drop a word of complaint. They dis­
thrown herself before the King's horse a general way. She devoted herself to covered they each had two sisters, and
at the Derby and had suffered terrible reading, though she gave up on the sorts Minna said about her older one that
injuries and died; her father had pro­ of romances in which the heroine's their father claimed she thought with
claimed the woman's behavior appall­ mournful face was always fixed in a look her mouth, and about her younger one
ing, and she had been ashamed of her of self-abnegation. And she thought that she was the sort that could go on
mixed feelings when reading of the there had to be people somewhere for d ays about her luncheon cutlet. Of
woman's coffin being escorted through among whom she could sit and carp her schooling Minna said that she was
the streets of London by all those thou­ and still be counted as a familiar. mostly remembered for her imperti­
sands wearing their purple and white. nences in the presence of eminent schol­
She wanted to do something to
make someone glad they knew her, to
make some place the better for her
H er father's was a coal-trading con­
cern a short ride from their home
outside Sharpness, on the River Severn,
ars, and that at gatherings in general
her comments seemed to attract a side­
ways cautious glance. They shared their
having been there. Who was to say with Wales comprising all of those hills dislike for the coming-out dances,
there wasn't some vein in her that was to the west, and on Saturdays, after or­ though Minna asked with some plea­
not being worked? ganizing the week's correspondence in sure if Constance remembered the whis-
48 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
pering sound the train of her first long had then advocated, since it was a busi­ they heard the scuttle of feet before the
dress made on the stairs. ness trip and much of the cost could be concussion lifted the ship from the water
They seemed to share a spirit of mu­ justified, for travelling on something and soaked them in a column of white
tiny. Minna said she knew a number of swifter on the return voyage, in order spray. They came to themselves to find
the new dances, like the turkey trot and not to miss the best weeks of the year they'd been knocked to their bellies on
the chicken scramble. They got on the in terms of the weather back home, and the deck. Constance felt as though she'd
subject of sex, and Minna asked if it re­ so, despite the warnings that the Ger­ been showered with hot cinders, and
ally mattered how people acted in the man Embassy had issued, he had booked there was broken glass around them,
bedroom as long as they didn't do it in them two second-class cabins-one for and a woman's shoe beside her cheek.
the street and frighten the horses. She himself and Constance, and one for The debris cloud billowed away to
called it fortunate that their waiter had Minna-on the starboard side of the the stern, now tilted high above the ship's
been so delinquent, since they hadn't great Cunard liner Lusitania. Marconi wires. Other clouds ofhot steam
had to chat about the food, and she issued up from below. Some of those
seemed to be the sort of person who
when it poured down rain noted that it A quarter of an hour before she'd who had been near the cafe's entrance
been pitched into the water, she had been thrown down the stairs.
was good for the ducks. And, by the time and Minna had been arm in arm at the The ship's list was already so pro­
they parted, Constance was convinced open-air cafe at the end of the Boat nounced that the drawer of the cafe's
that the fact that many ofher new friend's Deck, a location that had become one cash register was slung open, and the
virtues were unconventional was an ad­ of their favorites because of its wicker pair were passed by officers and stew­
ditional appeal, and that, when it came chairs and minor thicket ofpotted plants, ards hurrying to their boat stations, their
to nurturing acquaintances, it was im­ and because on the second day out they arms out to each side like customers
portant to work to keep hope alive. had sighted from there an entire pod negotiating the tumbling barrel of a fun
of porpoises that had brought a crowd house. She and Minna helped each other

T wo years later, she snatched at that to the railings above and below them. to their feet, and because of the list had
same promise of hope as she spi­ And as they leaned together over the to set one foot on the deck and the other
ralled downward swallowing water until rail on a gloriously sunny afternoon, el­ on the bulkhead. Constance exclaimed
she remembered to close her mouth, bows touching, Minna talked of how about her father, still at lunch, and
and surfaced as part of a loose floating happy she was with their time together Minna cried that she would fetch the
island of people and debris. In the melee and Constance spied a narrow white life j ackets from her cabin and meet
of the ship's sinking, she'd been able to turmoil on the surface arrowing toward them at the lifeboat station below.
find neither her father nor Minna be­ them. From above, someone shouted, But Constance got o nly a short
fore the deck lurched and the green "Torpedo coming, starboard side!," and way down the stairs to find her father
water was up to her thighs with a stun­
ning jolt of cold, and she'd just had time
to unhook her skirt so its voluminous­
ness wouldn't hinder her when the water
swamped her chest and she'd been
sucked down. Beside her on the cha­
otic surface now was what looked like
the shattered bow of a collapsible boat,
and she clung to it. One of the funnels
of the great liner blotted out part of the
sky, and its stern was high in the air. It
seemed that all she saw in the water
were children, everywhere, and in their
shrieking and wailing they raised a mass
of waving arms. She started pulling the
closest of them to her and directing
their hands to the easy grip ofthe boat's
gunwale, and she could feel others cling­
ing to her from behind.
A month earlier, she and Minna had
teased her father mercilessly for having
chosen such a small ship for the pas­
sage to New York, since the result had
been ten long days made yet more dreary
by enforced blackouts so complete that
even smokers had not been allowed on 'Y.l.nd remember, if atfirst you don't succeed, the
deck after sundown. And she and Minna internet will let you know immediately. "
before being forced backward by the only to discover another view of the real flate, and conceded that the whole thing
crush of third-class passengers sweep­ summit farther off. reminded her of how she used to fear
ing up from the Main Deck, and when "I dote on you too much, I sometimes that nothing seemed ideal when you
she instead turned to find Minna she fret," she said, surprising them both. got too near to it.
was pummelled by those surging the Minna stopped in her tracks and "Which whole thing?" Constance
other way. She persevered and got as said that she had feared that instead of asked.
far as the nursery on the Shelter Deck fitting herself to some great task she But Minna shook her head, and took
before being further impeded by the had been drifting along daydreaming Constance's hand. And Constance
mothers unable to find their children about her friend. When, after a stymied clasped hers a moment, and then let it
in the tumult. And as the ship rolled pause, Constance confessed that she go, noting that Minna didn't seek her
further and she was pitched into the liked to appear indifferent while feel­ hand again, while they concluded in si­
sea, she registered that Minna had gone ing otherwise, Minna let it go, and then lence what they both later agreed was
back not only for their life jackets but noted grimly a few minutes later the an unexpectedly troubled outing.
for the cameo keepsake that had been way that they were perhaps all strang­
Constance's first real gift to her. ers to their best selves.
She added, "Do you know what I S he had led her floating daisy chain
of children far enough away from

T he cameo featured what they had

decided was the perfect likeness
of the heroine of a story that Minna
have written over my desk?" And then
she recited part of a poem of R. L. Ste­
venson's: "Wealth I seek not, hope nor
the immense ship that when it went
down and all sorts of swimmers and de­
bris were drawn into the great funnels,
had written when she was eleven. A love / Nor a friend to know me; / All I the horror seemed more remote. Soon
D ecember evening well into their seek, the heaven above / And the road after the vast curve of the stern sub­
friendship, Minna had shared with below me." merged, they were jounced by the rum­
Constance the memory of having been "And yet last week I rose in the mid­ ble of an underwater detonation, and a
scolded for telling her sisters a bedtime dle ofthe night to write you that I would colossal surge of foaming ocean boiled
story titled "The Earl Fell Into the have given a good deal to see you at just up, with corpses and wreckage spinning
Moat," and then had shown Constance that moment," Minna lamented. ''And up from below, and the resulting wave
the handwritten and illustrated "Saga that, if I could have, I would have wanted pushed Constance and the children even
of Q_yeen Ren," about a twelve-year­ to kiss you, very specially." farther away.
old queen sailing around the world to Where they were stopped, they could Perhaps her father was in a boat. Per­
find the perfect kingdom for her sub­ make out deep in the hedge a mother haps Minna was as well. Or they were
jects. Minna said that she had carried blackbird on her nest, tracking them elsewhere on the great floating island
the thing on for quite a while until she with her bright black eyes. And each of people and debris. She worked to
had got tired of it and left the poor girl registered the other's contention with master her panic about them the way
floating mid-ocean. the hard-hearted energy of her own she worked to master the cold.
Some nine months before they trav­ physical craving. The children's cries were mostly
elled to America together with Con­ When they finally regarded each whimpers and calls for their parents,
stance's father, Constance had pre­ other again, it was with increasing frank­ and one by one they gave in and let
sented the cameo, to great effect, on ness. Constance volunteered that there go, and after the first few times Con­
Minna's birthday. The following day, stance made no effort to pull them
they had surprised themselves with a back. One little girl floated like a tether
squabble. They had undertaken a black­ between Constance's sleeve and an in­
berrying expedition to the hedgerows fant face down in its life j acket. Oth­
along the river and Minna had asked ers bobbed about just beyond her reach
after her work, and Constance had an­ like water lilies.
swered that more than the usual had Even in the sun of the cloudless day
recently been heaped upon her shoul­ the cold went to her marrow. She could
ders, which had been fine, though it see a few lifeboats laboring back and
always left her feeling behind. Minna forth in the distance and held out the
had not responded, and Constance had had been many nights when she also hope that one might reach them soon.
found herself in a strange state of mind, had been too roused to sleep, and had She became aware that she was weep­
drawn as she was in many different tossed about for hours. ing, and she was moaning, Minna and
directions. Her friend's small atten­ "I'm not suggesting I'm the wronged Father, Minna and Father, over and over,
tions filled her with pleasure, and yet and desperate heroine," Minna said and stirred finally to discover the rest
there had been any number ofinstances sharply. of the children gone. The great mass
when a few unflattering words had "I'm not sure what you are suggest­ of which she was a part had begun to
rankled for weeks. ing," Constance responded, with some evanesce with the current. The cold
Why did she herself keep silent? sharpness of her own. And they ex­ gradually caused her to lose her grip,
Overcoming the reticence at the heart changed vexed glances helplessly. and she was registering the sunlight's
of her shyness was like scaling a cliff And finally Minna seemed to de- brightness from beneath the surface
50 THE NEW Y0I\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
 lence that felt to her equal parts con­
tented and unmoored.
MURMURATION Later, at the breakfast table, Minna
remarked on how long she had wished
They take shapes for a friend with whom she could share
m air something beyond the ordinary aspect
like a scarf trick. of things, and compared it to plucking
leaves and grasses from a thicket and
Look, girls, shape coming away with a handful of flowers.
folds over Constance listed all the ways in which
and pulls through itself Minna had taught her to be more forth­
right and thoughtful and affectionate.
so that And Minna wondered if they would stay
first becomes last as close as they were now throughout
and an end their future marriages.
"Throughout your marriage, you
becomes a fresh start mean," Constance told her. "I'll die an
in an instant. old maid."
"Your father will find some young man
Their flock is made for you," Minna said. "Someone who can
of thousands cope with your many indispositions."
"Or at least understand my peculiar­
as our bodies ities better than most,"Constance agreed.
are made of cells- And they sobered at the thought of such
a man, and gave their attention to their
but a murmuration's more toast and tomatoes.
elastic. It's wide It was all about love and respect and
patience, they later agreed, while wash­
open to s uggestion. ing and drying their dishes.
"I do sometimes pinch myself at the
-Rae Armantrout portion we've been allotted,"Constance
confided to her. And then, fired by her
own courage, she put her cheek to her
when the bumper of a lifeboat slid past ally the culprits were French novels, friend's and kept it there, so that they
and she raised up her hand and caught Minna had shown that any middle-class might more fully appreciate this bounty
it, and was pulled into the boat. Englishwoman could assault her own they had been offered, or had gath­
decency. And that her mother had also ered, together.

A week or so before their squabble,

soon after Constance had pur­
chased the cameo but before she had
recalled that even as a child Minna had
particularly enjoyed books in which none
of the children behaved well. S he found herself face down in a tan­
gle of shoes and boots, and someone
presented it, she had stayed over at "I cherish you as my Qyeen of Bad was working her arms to pump the water
Minna's house. The rest of the family Influences," Constance observed. from her lungs. She was helped to a sit­
had gone away for a short holiday. Minna 'Tm not much in that regard,"Minna ting position squeezed between two
had begged off, and with the house to responded. "Though it is possible I'm weeping men, one of whom was rowing.
themselves they had spent a riotous and too flexible for virtue and too virtuous She swayed there until a fishing smack
regressive evening dancing about and for villainy." bumped alongside and took on the life­
shouting and sometimes going to sleep. After a silence in which they hunted boat 's passengers. Once seated on the
They had shared Minna's bed and in for each other's hands beneath the smack, she noticed other lifeboats bob­
the morning Minna had remarked ap­ coverlet, Constance suggested they bing nearby, all far from full. Her boots
ropos of nothing on how important the save up and go to Rome together. She were gone and the deck slippery with
body was. She said that another sum­ would look after all the practical mat­ fish scales, and one of the fishermen
mer morning a few years before, when ters while Minna wandered about and looked aghast at her condition. Next to
her father was away, she had come down admired columns. her, someone's head was bandaged with
to breakfast perfectly naked just to hear They could keep a journal of the trip, someone else's handkerchief and bled
her sisters scream. She laughed that her Minna said, and write of things that through it immediately. She was given
conduct had been shocking enough, but they had never spoken of before, in pages some warm sugared tea. More people
far worse was the pleasure she took in that were to be burned at once. crowded onto the smack from other life­
recalling it. She added that her moth­ Constance agreed, with audible en­ boats. When she was strong enough,
er's response had been that while usu- thusiasm. And then they fell into a si- she joined others at the railings, scanning
THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025 51
 eyes, very pretty. Constance added the
cameo at the end of the description.
Until the last minute it hadn't even
been certain that Minna would accom­
pany them to America. They had had a
falling out that made their squabble on
the blackberrying expedition trivial in
comparison. Constance termed it a fall­
ing out when she sought to minimize it
for herself even as she registered that the
more apt term might be betrayal.
Minna had explained that her refusal
to play to others' follies had made her
current situation at the legal offices in­
creasingly untenable, and had suggested
that she might find a new position in
the consortium that Constance's father
was helping to organize, at the govern­
ment's request, to coordinate the supply
of munitions from the United States.
That was the main reason for the trip to
c::::::l America, besides her father's efforts to
E:lCJ locate new markets for his coal, and Con­
stance had surprised herself with her lack
of enthusiasm for Minna's request, a lack
she neither understood nor examined.
"Then Ijiggle the handle just to make sure it 's locked. " The closest she came to comprehend­
ing it was to attribute it to the fierceness
• • with which she prioritized her father's
interests, but that hardly explained her
reticence, since Minna would likely be
and scanning the waves. Someone said bed and given hot-water jars. Despite welcomed by both her father and his as­
something to her, but she was so chilled her fatigue, she couldn't keep herself from sociates. Constance had been further
she was unable to respond. keening, and throughout the night at any irked when Minna, without having con­
That same voice said they had sunk noise in the hall she came awake again. sulted her, importuned her father about
close to a town on the Irish coast and They spent four days checking the hos­ the consortium during a visit to Con­
were headed there now. All around them pitals and other hotels and private homes stance at home, and he volunteered that
passed other boats steaming the oppo­ that had taken in survivors, as well as the perhaps Minna could attend the lunch
site way. She remembered Minna beside lists at the newly constituted Cunard of­ he and Constance were having the fol­
her, the bright sunshine, the glassy sea, fice, before her father finally asked if she lowing Friday with a young man who
and some of that animation they felt wished to go to the post office to wire ran a sulfur-and-potassium concern. It
which overtook passengers when near­ Minna's family. Her hand shook so badly was agreed that Minna would meet Con­
ing port. Then she closed her eyes to the on the form that he had to steady it, and stance at home and proceed from there.
juddering of the engines beneath her. she could write only that they were still And when that Friday Constance found
She was helped up the gangway once looking and that not all hope was lost. herself alone at the appointed hour, she
the boat had docked. It was announced declined to answer the door for a full
that the recovered had been taken to the
next wharf over, and there was her fa­
ther among them, his face blank with
C orpses were continually being un­
loaded on the wharves, so every day
there were those ordeals. The quantity
twenty minutes until Minna went away.
At the luncheon, she pleaded ignorance
and then was told the following evening
shock. She was jolted to her knees by was staggering, and she remembered by her father that Minna had encoun­
the sight, and it was only when she got Minna's remark that a single stroll around tered him coming out of his office and
so close she was nearly staring him in the Promenade Deck covered a quarter had again put herself forward for the
the face that he seemed to recognize her. of a mile. By then, all of the retrieved consortium. And she and Minna had
After the maelstrom of their reunion, lifeboats had been drawn up quayside, then been out of touch until Minna in­
he agreed to wait with her for the other and seemed to be functioning as an ex­ tercepted her on a walk in the park near
boats coming in, and shared his blanket. hibit. The shopwindows were filled with the railway bridge, waiting in the same
Someone else gave her some men's ga­ notices of the missing, to which they added canvas chair under the same elms.
loshes. Around midnight, they were put their own: a young woman of twenty-six This time Minna stayed in her chair,
up at the Qyeen's Hotel and helped into years, with dark-brown hair and brown and remarked in a low voice that she had
52 THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE 16, 2025
spent more years than she should have The woman who changed her linens re­ ing over her. X was unhappy, Y was feel­
hoping for liberality from those for whom ported bodies washing ashore from the ing poorly, and Z was unwell. The pre­
it was apparently impossible. "Did you Garrettstown strand to the mudflats all vious night, a toad had been discovered
know my grandfather's only response to along the adj oining bays. Her father jumping about in the hall. Minna took
my father's birth was supposedly 'Well, seemed largely restored, though he moved her arm and teased her for not listening,
I see nothing for him but the work­ with a more uncertain gait, and after the and Constance joked in response that in
house' ?" she asked. ''And yet my father first week she had to coax him to per­ fact she sometimes felt she listened so
built a career in business." sist in inspecting the latest recoveries, closely that she heard almost nothing.
" D o you s e e why I ' m so disap­ even as she gleaned from his reports how She encouraged Minna to continue to
pointed?" she asked when Constance dreadful a task it had become. She tried share her difficulties, even though Con­
failed to respond. to scrub away the smudges and marks stance usually kept hers to herself, and
Constance was aware of others around that persisted on her thighs and torso then acknowledged that that hadn't been
them observing the scene. and discovered them to be bruises.There news since the hobble skirt had vanished.
"I expect people to act in their self­ was still some black oil in her hair. And Minna stopped and took both of
interest," Minna added. "But not to be at the end of those two weeks her father Constance's hands. "Is it a contentious
so ignorant of what that self-interest is." informed her, with the same kindness point that we share the most with those
"I don't have any explanation, for you she recalled from childhood when she'd we cherish most?" she asked.
or myself," Constance finally said, with thrown a tantrum, that he had made ar­ It certainly shouldn't be, Constance
a flatness that surprised her. rangements for their return home. responded. But such sharing wasn't al­
"I would have thought my request ways conducive to peace of mind.
would have seemed to you happy news,"
Minna said. "Not a burden."
Constance remembered her sister re­
F our years later, on the anniversary of
the Armistice, she sat in her child­
hood bedroom on the morning of her
"Peace of mind!" Minna exclaimed.
And they continued their walk.Toward
its completion, Minna said with real
minding her once that boys did a lot of wedding and listened to the unreliable regret that she could only assume that
hurtful things just from a lack of thought. clock in the church's steeple, a local em­ she didn't live as calmly with unrespon­
"There was something about it that barrassment, toll the wrong hours. She siveness as Constance and the rest of
caused me to fear," she was able to say. had not slept. The young man she was the world.
She meant that something had seemed marrying was quiet and grateful for her And Constance knew even then that
to threaten what they had together, or attentions and her father liked him very the best love acknowledged the groping
what she had found in Minna, but she well. She had spent the night remem­ effort of the erring will. And she was
didn't elaborate. bering a morning before there'd been any ashamed even then of her disbelief when
Minna surveyed her expression. squabbles, when under a hot sun she had Minna went on to claim that she felt
"Well, that puts me in mind of the way led Minna up the hills behind her house, sure there was a great and real happi­
the rich choose to believe that the poor where the world was gorse and sky. And ness waiting for them somewhere. She
endanger them rather than the other Minna had referred to the weather as remembered hoping that gazing at
way round," she said. April weather: rain and sunshine together. Minna was reply enough, and hoping,
But Constance offered no more in They passed mowing machines several too, that her friend's singularity would
her own defense, for all her mortification. guarantee her transformation as well.
"What a wretched lot of shrivelled Constance remembered Minna articu­
creatures we could all become by and lating for her the formula she had found
by," Minna finally remarked, looking so useful in business: state what you
away. ''And imagine where we might be want, then why you want it, and then
headed, without our regard for one an­ how you propose to get it.
other." She waited, and then refused to And Constance had refused that in­
offer any more. vitation. It put her in mind of two im­
And after Constance had made her ages from her last minutes on the Lu­
apologies, and took her leave, she listed sitania: the first, a woman and her infant
for herself on the remainder of her walk fields over. Dragonflies, blue with black sliding down the canted deck past men
those aspects of the desolation her friend markings. Starlings swooping up other who stepped out of their way, and the
was asking her to imagine: a return to insects disturbed by the browsing cattle. second, a foursome of young women
the realm of the empty and the lonely, While they walked, they talked about confronting a port-side lifeboat released
the self-stymieing and unnatural. their ideas of Heaven, Constance joking from its tethers and swinging wide of

0 n the fifth day, she could no lon­

ger rise and dress herselffor a morn­
that she hoped it would be a place with
plenty of music and nothing to do, and
Minna countering that she imagined an
the deck because of the ship's tilt, and
those women watching others succeed
and then still pronouncing themselves
ing of checking corpses, and her father endless gratified communion of kindred unwilling to make that leap. ♦
found her to be feverish. She was diag­ spirits. Minna talked about her family,
nosed as having bronchial pneumonia and, even as happy as Constance was, N EWYORKE R.COM/FICTION
and spent the next two weeks in bed. she sensed a dangerous coolness steal- Sign up to get author interviews in your inbox.

THE NEW YOl\lffl\, JUNE 16, 2025 53

 THE CI\ITIC5

BOOK.5

TOXIC
What the pop culture ef the two-thousands did to millennial women.

BY DAYNA TORTORICI

I
n 1969, Vivian Gornick was as­ we sit up late watching the movies of as millennial women entering their thir­
signed by the Village Voice to write our childhood, we turn again to famil­ ties and forties look back at the era in
about the "women's libbers" gath­ iar memoirs and biographies of distin­ which they came of age: the two­
ering in downtown Manhattan. Gor­ guished men and women." Adrienne thousands. Memoirs by Britney Spears
nick set out never having heard of wom­ Rich, in 1972, wrote that "re-vision," the and Paris Hilton, both published in
en's liberation. She returned one week task of"entering an old text from a new 2023, followed a major shift in public
later a convert. What happened in the critical direction,"was "an act of survival" opinion about the treatment of female
interval was the dawning of what sec­ for women: "Until we can understand celebrities as the grim details of Spcars's
ond-wave feminists called feminist con­ the assumptions in which we are drenched conservatorship prompted critics to re­
sciousness: the growing conviction that we cannot know ourselves." consider her plight. What if starlets like
how things were for women were not Gornick and Rich were building Spears were not happy collaborators in
how they had to be. Often, this insight on a foundation laid by the second a patriarchal order but scapegoats who
arose in conversation with other women, wave's earliest texts. In "The Second had been exploited for profit, pushed
in consciousness-raising groups. Com­ S ex," published in 1949, S imone de to the brink by an insatiable audience,
paring notes on the parts of their lives Beauvoir wrote that girls were not and forced to bear the misogynistic pro­
once thought too personal to merit po­ born women but learned to become jections of an entire country? In a re­
litical analysis-love, sex, housework, them, starting in childhood from fairy view of "The Woman in Me," Spears's
marriage, motherhood-they found tales. ("To be happy, she has to be loved; memoir, the Times critic Amanda Hess
their "symptoms of private unhappi­ to be loved, she has to await love. described what it felt like to rewatch
ness," in Gornick's words, "so power­ Woman is Sleeping Beauty, Donkey the singer's 2007 "comeback" perfor­
fully and so consistently duplicated Skin, Cinderella, Snow White, the one mance at the MTV Video Music Awards
among women that perhaps these symp­ who receives and endures.") In "The sixteen years after it aired. What Hess
toms could be ascribed to cultural causes Feminine Mystique," from 1963, Betty had remembered as an amusing disas­
as to psychological ones." Reflecting on Friedan argued that the image of the ter was more like "found footage in a
one's life in a consciousness-raising ses­ modern American woman that "shapes horror movie," she wrote. "I saw a new
sion, Gornick wrote, was "rather like women's lives" and "mirrors their dreams" mother being forced to do a sexy dance
shaking a kaleidoscope and watching is created "by the women's magazines, for America . . . to inform whether she
all the same pieces rearrange themselves by advertisements, television, movies, got to keep her children."
into an altogether other picture." novels." Owing in large part to the sec­ Meanwhile, on social media, videos
Making sense of this new picture in­ ond wave's influence, it is now axiom­ about two-thousands diet culture have
volved a kind ofreappraisal. What voices, atic among feminists that women are become regular viral fare. A favored
loud or soft, had convinced women of shaped by the culture that surrounds template rolls a clip from a paradigmatic
their own inferiority for so long? What them. The hopeful belief that follows text of the era-"Bridget Jones's Diary,"
myths, scripts, and stories had predis­ is that confronting one's cultural in­ "The Devil Wears Prada," "America's
posed them to accept the limitations fluences-identifying them, analyzing Next Top Model," a live performance
placed on them from within and with­ them, and exposing how their assump­ by Jessica Simpson-as a contempo­
out? What alternate ways ofliving could tions shore up a society of male su­ rary viewer reacts with hand-over­
be gleaned from the past? "Contempo­ premacy-can rob them of their power mouth shock to the unbridled disgust
rary feminism is bound up with a pro­ to indoctrinate. displayed toward any woman larger than
found rereading of the culture," Gornick During the past few years, a new a size 2. Recent essay collections like
wrote years later. "We read the novels we decade has emerged as an object of Emmeline Clein's "Dead Weight: Es­
grew up on as though for the first time, consciousness-raising-style reappraisal, says on Hunger and Harm'' and Colette
54 THE NEW YOMER, JUNE 16, 2025
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"Girl on Girl" chargesfashion photography and reality TV with making porn mainstream.
P H OTO I L LUSTRAT I O N BY C H A N TA L JAHCHAN THE NEW YOR.K.Ell, JUNE 16, 2025 55

■ ■ -- - - -- - - -- - - - :■ - - -- -
Shade's "Y2K: How the 2000s Became as nebulous and inert, squashed by a and p ap arazzi photos s crutinizing
Everything" draw a straight line from cultural explosion of jokey extremity women's gaffes and flaws (TMZ, Perez
the media that millennials consumed and technicolor obj ectification. This Hilton, Us Weekly, the U. K. magazine
in girlhood to the eating disorders they was the environment that millennial Heat), and allowed male writers to de­
developed as teens. '� the magazines women were raised in." S he "came to ride the teen girls they profiled while
talked about how to lose weight and believe that we couldn't move forward ogling their developing bodies (Roll­
get toned, praising the celebrities who without fully reckoning with how the ing Stone was a repeat offender) . All
did these things and criticizing celeb­ culture of the aughts had defined us. " circled the same themes: surveillance,
rities who didn't," Shade writes. It wasn't Gilbert presents a handful of media body image, sadism, hyperfemininity,
a leap to conclude that thinness "was as being particularly formative for the male (heterosexual) desire and wom­
socially prized." Clein puts it even more decade. She charges fashion photogra­ en's obligation to fulfill it. Thrumming
bluntly, asking what message a teen­ phy-the sweaty, high-contrast work beneath them, informing their values
age girl was "supposed to get, if not that ofTerry Richardson and the sexed-up and their visual vocabulary, Gilbert ar­
the body lent so much ink and paper is ads of Abercrombie & Fitch, Ameri­ gues, was porn.
one she, the nonfamous girl, should as­ can Apparel, and Victoria's S ecret­ "The title 'Girl on Girl' "-a play
pire to emulate?" with bringing porn aesthetics into the on the porn genre in which two or
mainstream and holding up the nine­ more women have sex-"was initially

I nto this broader context of cultural ties beauty standard of ultra-thinness

reassessment comes "Girl on Girl: ("concave hips and jutting chest bones"),
How Pop Culture Turned a Genera­ only this time with breasts. Paparazzi
supposed to be a j oke," Gilbert writes,
"a wry nod to all the ways in which
women seemed to have been turned
tion of Women Against Themselves" photography, then at the peak of its against themselves and e ach other,
(Penguin Press), by the critic S ophie market value and the nadir of its ethi­ handicapped as a collective force over
Gilbert-the latest and most ambitious cal sense, reaffirmed the public's belief the course of my adult life." The more
of the feminist reapprais als o f the that it had a right to access and pick material she dredged up in her research,
two-thousands. Born in the early eight­ apart young celebrities' personal lives. however, the more apt the title felt.
ies, Gilbert, a staff writer at The Atlan­ Remember "upskirt" photos ? "Adult Aided by the internet, p orn in the
tic, is an "elder millennial," a near age­ men would lie on the ground while two-thousands "seemed to have :filtered
mate of Spears. She turned sixteen in young female stars were stepping out its way through absolutely everything
1999, the year that the singer appeared of cars to try to capture what was es­ in mass media." The resulting pornifi­
on the cover ofRolling Stone in her under- sentially nonconsensual pornography," cation of pop culture taught girls her
wear an d th at "Amer1can · B eauty"-"a Gilbert writes . "When the photogra­ age that power for women was "sexual
movie in which a middle-aged man has phers succeeded, it was unfailingly their in nature," contingent on being attrac­
recurring sexual fantasies about his teen­ subjects who were shamed." tive and able to cater to men's contra­
age daughter's best friend," in Gilbert's Rounding out Gilbert's canon is re­ dictory wants. "There was only one way
words-debuted to critical acclaim . ality television, still in its "human zoo" to exist in public, and it was a trap,"
I n an Atlantic article adapted fro m phase of putting people in outlandish Gilbert writes . " Seventeen-year-olds
the book, Gilbert writes that she did or humiliating situations with few guard­ were expected to be sexy virgins, girls
not begin to question how coming of rails ("Big Brother," "Extreme Make­ with porn-star looks and purity rings,
age in this hypersexualized, internet­ over," "The B achelor," "Who Wants to able to s ell anything to any demo­
enabled environment had affected her graphic. " Meanwhile, the mainstream­
until a few months into the corona­ ing of pornographic aesthetics drove
virus pandemic, when she gave birth porn itself toward more violent ex­
to twins . Motherhood prompted "a tremes to maintain its edge. That in­
breakdown of self," as she put it in an creasingly hardcore turn "trained a good
interview with Hess. When she went amount o f our popu1 ar cu1 ture " to "see
back to work, she was drawn to stories women as objects-as things to silence,
about how culture shaped identity. Soon, restrain, fetishize, or brutalize. " Taken
she noticed that contemporary culture as a whole, the pornified media of the
was shifting around her in alarming two-thousands created a toxic atmo­
ways. Dobbs v.Jackson had overturned M arry a Multi-Millionaire?") , along sphere of"recreational misogyny" which
Roe v. Wade. Young women were coo­ with two types of teen film, the horror led girls to believe that "sex was our
ing on TikTok about becoming trad movie and the male-centric sex com­ currency, our objectification was em­
wives and stay-at-home girlfriends. edy, both of which proliferated in the powering, and we were a joke"-a les­
Young men were idolizing Andrew wake of the late-nineties blockbusters son that Gilbert says millennial women
Tate, an accused rapist and an open "Scream'' and ''American Pie." "internalized with rigor," to the detri­
anti - fe minist who o n ce app e ared Important but less central to Gil­ ment of their collective power.
on "B 1g · B roth er. " "I nd.1e s 1 e aze " was bert's inquiry are the websites and mag­ Gilbert's assessment of the era is
b ack. It all reminded her of the two­ azines that ran provocative editorials damning, and likely to resonate with
thousands, "when feminism felt just (Dazed), publicized celebrity sex tapes readers of her generation. I came of age
56 THE NEW YOR.KER., JUNE 16, 2025

-
in the two-thousands, a few years be­ has to bear out her argument that "pop
hind Gilbert, and though I cannot speak culture turned a generation of women
for all in my cohort, I can say that cer­ against themselves," as her subtitle has
tain behaviors were not uncommon. It it. If she doesn't want to offer her own
was not uncommon for girls to starve experience as evidence, whose will she
themselves to be thin, or to wield im­ point to instead?
ages of emaciated celebrities as a tool The answer appears to be: nobody's.
of dietary self-discipline. It was not un­ It's interesting to compare "Girl on Girl"
common to slut-shame other women, with Ariel Levy's 2005 book, "Female
to fat-shame other women, to feel the Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise
shame of being fat or slutty yourself, or of Raunch Culture," which covered some
to resort to self-harm to cope with that of the same territory and to which Gil­
shame. It was not uncommon to want bert makes passing reference. "We'd
to be "one of the guys,"but also insanely, earned the right to look at Playboy; we
impossibly hot, so that all the guys also were empowered enough to get Brazil­
wanted to sleep with you. (Why settle ian bikini waxes," Levy writes, describ­
for one form of male approval when ing the mood of the moment. "Women
you can have two?) It was not uncom­ had come so far, I learned, we no lon­
mon to laugh at men's cruel j okes to ger needed to worry about objectifica­
win their affection, and it was not un­ tion or misogyny. Instead, it was time
common to redirect that cruelty toward for us to join the frat party of pop cul­
other women to avoid becoming the ture, where men had been enj oying
target. It was not uncommon to con­ themselves all along." Like "The Fem­
sent to sex you didn't really want to have, inine Mystique"before it, "Female Chau­
to prioritize a male partner's sexual ex­ vinist Pigs" turns on anecdotes-jour­
perience far above your own, or to pre­ nalism as amateur s ociology. L evy
tend to be straight or straighter than interviewed fifty young people between
you were. And it was not uncommon the ages of twelve and eighteen, most
to do all these things at the expense of of whom seemed to be white, coastal
literally any other more life-affirming private-school students or teens at a
or world-expanding pursuit. suburban mall. The girls told her that
But Gilbert is oddly silent on this they were watching their weight, giv­
pitiful bouquet of pick-me behaviors ing oral sex (never receiving), and com­
in "Girl on Girl." Though the book is peting to "dress the skankiest."
laced with suggestive personal asides Gilbert, by contrast, doesn't conduct
and hypothetical questions that gesture any interviews. "Girl on Girl" cites a
at the ill effects of pop culture on young handful of studies, but few pertain to
women, it doesn't include an account women's behavior. A 2013 study by the
of how women actually responded to social psychologist Rachel M. Calog­
the material it so assiduously docu­ ero-which conclude s , in Gilbert's
ments. "Every magazine I read during words, that "the more women were
my teens and twenties, every TV show prone to self-obj ectification . . . the less
featuring a doe-eyed teenage star with inclined they were toward activism and
visible clavicles, seemed to contain the the pursuit of social justice"-is the
same message: shrink," Gilbert writes. most concrete example she gives of how
Did she try to shrink? She doesn't say; women reacted to sexist media. The
she mostly declines to write about her­ removal of the protagonist from this
self, even as "Girl on Girl" is built on story-the viewer who perceives and
the authority of her experience. "When acts in response-gives the book an
I was pitching this book to publishers, elusive, lopsided quality. On the one
virtually every editor I met with had hand, it is an exhaustive account, a
the same request: Could I make my­ formidably thorough excavation of
self more of a presence?" she says in a pop-cultural artifacts whose disdain
chapter on first-person women's writ­ toward women is often stunningly
ing from the twenty-tens. She implies blunt. (Terry Richardson's advice to
that those publishers were seeking the aspiring models : "It's not who you
enticements of confessional writing, but know, it's who you blow. I don't have a
the note may have been more method­ hole in my jeans for nothing.") On the
ological: someone's personal experience other hand, it is a strangely untethered
document, evidence marshalled for an phy's role in women's diminished power in cially brutal passage describes a docu­
unknown case: a long list of causes in the United States that recalls the feminist mentary featuring the sadist pornogra­
search of a presumed effect. anti-porn line of the nineteen-eighties. pher Max Hardcore, who, Gilbert notes,
"I'm not remotely opposed to porn," Gil­ is "notorious for abusing women with

R eading "Girl on Girl" as a member

of its target audience is a conflicting
experience, alternately tedious and en­
bert writes in"Girl on Girl,"but in theAt­
lantic excerpt the same disclaimer appears
in a different form. "I am not opposed
gynecological instruments, dressing them
up as children, choking them with his
penis to the point of blackout, spitting
grossing, unpleasant and therapeutic. It's to porn on principle," she writes there: saliva and phlegm in their mouths, and
refreshing to be reminded that one does inserting Sharpie markers into their rec­
Some of it is liberating; some of it is eth­
not know history just because one lived tums, with which he has them write, 'I
ical; a tiny amount of it is even devoted to un­
through it. I remembered, for instance, derstanding female desire in a universe built am a little fuck hole."' It's an extreme
that Jennifer Lopez had worn a plung­ on the male gaze and money shots. Still, in example; Gilbert quotes a porn actress
ing green jungle-print dress to the 2000 studying porn's long cultural shadow, I've come who describes buyers of Max Hardcore
Grammy Awards, but I was not aware to agree with the radical feminist Andrea Dwor­ films as "very near the edge." But Gil­
that the dress had been"the most popular kin, who wrote in 1 9 8 1 that "pornography in­ bert offers it as representative of porn's
carnates male supremacy. It is the DNA of
search query Google had seen to date" or male dominance." Porn has undeniably changed violent turn, which, she argues, inspired
that it had inspired the company to make how people have sex, as researchers and any­ a parallel trend toward sadism and mi­
Google Images. Nor did I know that You­ one who has even fleeting experience with dat­ sogyny in mainstream culture.
Tube was created after one of its found­ ing apps can attest. But it has also changed our In the new century, Gilbert writes,
ers was frustrated by how long it took culture and, in doing so, has filtered into our "porn's mores" could be detected in men's
subconscious minds, beyond the reach of ra­
him to find an online clip of Janet Jack­ tionality and reason. We are all living in the magazines like Maxim, Russell Brand's
son's nipple-exposing"wardrobe malfunc­ world porn made. standup joke about"cock-gagging" (some­
tion'' during the 2004 Super Bowl half­ thing he would later be accused of doing
time show. Lust is the father of invention. That last sentence quotes the leading to a sixteen-year-old), and the torture
I would have gone to my grave peace­ anti-porn lawyer Catharine MacK.innon photos taken at Abu Ghraib prison by
fully had I never been reminded of the almost verbatim. ("We are living in the American soldiers in 2004. By the time
smug, horny entitlement of young men world pornography has made," she wrote 2007 rolled around-a year Gilbert singles
in the two-thousands-the Tucker Maxes in a Times op-ed opposing OnlyFans, in out as particularly rough for women in
and Adam Carollas-or the pressure I 2021.) Gilbert doesn't propose legal con­ the public eye, from Lindsay Lohan and
felt to find their humor funny or smart. straints on porn production, as Dworkin Anna Nicole Smith to Britney Spears and
I did not enjoy being reacquainted with and MacKinnon did, and she claims to Hillary Clinton, who had just announced
male journalists' gratuitous comments be "not interested in kink-shaming"-a her run for President-the public was in­
about teen girls' breasts in Rolling Stone, sharp turn from the standard anti-porn ured to spectacles of female suffering and
or the haranguing of diet books like condemnation of B.D.S.M. She's mostly emotional breakdown. It had even been
"Skinny Bitch" ("You need to exercise, curious, she writes, "about how culture primed to enjoy them, as entertainment.
you lazy shit"). I had repressed all mem­ conditions desire, and what it means that It's a tempting thesis-the sudden
ory of the ghastly reality-TV show"The the impulse to inflict violence on women availability of free internet porn must
Swan," in which desperate and body­ is often blindly sanctioned in a sexual con­ have had some effect on culture-but its
dysmorphic women undergo a series of text in ways it would never be otherwise." explanatory power extends only so far.
plastic surgeries and are then assessed by Still, so menacing a presence is porn in Gilbert's signature move of lining up sug­
a panel of judges so that one may be "Girl on Girl"-always"filtering through'' gestive juxtapositions and stepping back
crowned "the swan'' among ugly duck­ the membrane that shields the world so that the reader may connect the dots
lings. In Gilbert's hands, reappraising of mainstream representation from the fails here, as it does elsewhere in the book,
the decade from a feminist perspective shadow realm of the illicit-that it's hard because what is she saying, really? That
is more an exercise in cataloguing than to avoid the conclusion that Gilbert shares hardcore porn was responsible for Brand's
in analysis: the ideology of the era is not Dworkin's and MacKinnon's dispropor­ abuse, for the paparazzi's harassment of
subtle, and its narratives don't need de­ tionate emphasis on its cultural power. Spears, and, further down the line, for
coding. The collected material makes a Parts of"Girl on Girl" echo the anti­ the rise of Donald Trump and the over­
persuasive case for self-forgiveness. If porn tradition's simplified "monkey see, turning of Roe v. Wade? Gilbert wouldn't
you contorted or disfigured yourself to monkey do" theory of reception, which stand behind such outsized claims, which
fit into this moment, the book seems to tends to see causation where correlation is why she doesn't make them. But she
say-if you "participated in your own is more likely. (There is plenty of evi­ seems equally reluctant to see porn as
oppression'' by getting the memo and dence that sadistic men watch sadistic anything but the master key to male su­
acting on it-don't blame yourself This porn, less evidence that sadistic porn cre­ premacy. Possessing neither the ambition
was the water; you were just a fish. ates sadistic men.) And, like many anti­ of the Dworkin-MacKinnonites nor the
Less persuasive are the conclusions porn writers, Gilbert dwells on porn's materialism of their socialist and Third
Gilbert draws about porn. There's a more violent offerings, as if the extremes Worldist contemporaries who traced the
whiff of something old school in them, express the truth of the medium more source of women's oppression elsewhere­
a half-buried paranoia about pornogra- than its bread-and-butter fare. An espe- to racism, colonialism, and economic in-
58 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025
equality-Gilbert's argument finds itself
at a dead end. Porn may be "the DNA
of male dominance," as Dworkin put it, BR.IEFLY NOTED
or it may not. Either way, Gilbert im­
plies, there's no stopping it. Apoca lypse, by Lizzie Ulade (Harper). In recent decades,

"I wanted to write this book because I

was truly stunned by the reversal of H o w C • • • u ,o p A. t
technological advances have transformed the field of ar­
cheology, allowing for the sequencing of ancient DNA and
the tracing of long-ago migrations. Drawing on a trove of
r, . . . 1
1 • • • "

Roe v. Wade in 2022," Gilbert writes. But

no amount ofsifting through the cultural c.. ., •.
O v r w , I d ,., ,. ,1

N• • • l liil t • t
data, Wade zeroes in on what she terms "apocalypses," mo­
ments in history when "rapid, collective loss" has forced a
artifacts of the two-thousands can explain society to radically change its way of life. "Change" is the
the retrenchment of the Trump era. The L l :Z: Z I I W A D I key word: Wade argues that certain examples-the climate
story of how Roe v. Wade was overturned disasters that displaced Mayans, the fallout from the Black
is not a story of ideology disseminated Death-show that nothing has ever fully ended. Nor do
from pop culture, let alone of hardcore apocalypses result in uniformly negative change; as she
pornography infecting the mind of the points out, numerous egalitarian political movements were
populace; it's a story about dark money, born of catastrophe.
legal strategy, and the slow, incremental
way the anti-abortion movement made The End Is the Beginning, byfill Bialosky ( Washington Square).
the procedure harder and harder to ac­ Told in reverse chronological order, this affecting book re­
cess until conservatives finally hijacked lates Bialosky's experiences caring for her dying mother,
the Supreme Court. In other words, it's Iris. The narrative begins immediately after Iris's death, fol­
a story about politics. lowing long battles with depression and Alzheimer's. Over
When the audit known as feminist the preceding decade, Bialosky makes torturous decisions
revision became a feature of feminist regarding her mother's care. As time recedes, Iris, a mere
theory, it was never intended to eclipse sketch in the opening chapters, emerges as a richly realized
in importance the activity known as character. Bialosky excels in capturing the nuances of pro­
praxis: organizing, taking over insti­ viding end-of-life care to a loved one, and offers astute ob­
tutions, seizing power to make lasting servations on what the old and infirm want: "To be viewed
changes in policy and law. Betty Friedan as they are, as human beings who have led full lives."
wrote "The Feminine Mystique,"but she
also co-founded the National Organi­ T h e B o o k o f Records, by Madeleine Thien (Norton).The pro­
zation for Women. Simone de Beauvoir tagonist of this beguiling novel, Lina, lives with her father
wrote "The Second Sex," but she also in a realm seemingly unbound by ordinary time. "Other cen­
wrote the Manifesto of the 343, which turies were falling down on us like rain through the trees,"
demanded free access to birth control she muses. Lina, who is eleven at the book's start, and her
and the right to have an abortion. Viv­ father have fled severe flooding on the Chinese mainland,
ian Gornick concluded her Village Voice and now dwell in a mysterious place known as the Sea. Other
article by announcing the formation of travellers, who come and go, tell them stories of Hannah
New York Radical Women and other Arendt, Baruch Spinoza, and the Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu,
feminist groups then taking shape "in which become intertwined with Lina's days and years. Ul­
New York, in Cambridge, in Chicago, timately, the novel is a meditation on the sheer force of long­
in New Haven, in Washington, in San ing-for a lost home, lost loved ones, a future that will never
Francisco,in East Podunk-yes! believe be attained. ''A person is not what they know," one of Lina's
it!," which readers could track down and fellow-travellers says. ''A person is what they yearn for."
join. There is little comparable sense of
agency or possibility in "Girl on Girl." The River Is Waiting, by Wally Lamb (S&S/Marysue Rucci).
Gilbert alludes to collective power, but This immersive novel of redemption, by a New York Times
remains hazy on what it is to be used best-selling novelist, follows a stay-at-home father who gets
for, and ends her book looking out onto into a car accident that kills one of his children. After blood
a familiar cramped horizon. Representa­ tests indicate that the father had consumed alcohol and a
tion matters, she tells us, and, if we can prescription anti-anxiety drug before he started driving, he
rewrite our limiting storytelling mod­ is convicted of manslaughter. When he begins a three-year
els, we can remake the world. Yes, repre­ prison sentence, the plot loses its sharp corners, and the
sentation matters, but culture alone can't book proceeds to loosely observe his days. Throughout, the
do the work of politics, and neither can novel chips away at its foundational questions: Does there
cultural critique. Gilbert is right that it exist a punishment equal to the atrocity of killing one's
makes a difference what we see. More child? And how should one weigh having been a good par­
important, though, is what we do. ♦ ent prior to committing a grave mistake?
THE NEW YORKEI\ JUNE 16, 2025 59
 M-G-M, ranging from big pictures like
BOOKS "Mutiny on the Bounty" to the Marx
Brothers' late-career hit, ''A Night at the

WHIZ KID Opera," though he left his name on al­

most none. ("Praise you give yourself is
worthless," he said.) It was Fitzgerald
What Old Hollywood's "boy genius" understood. who fixed Thalberg, as Monroe Stahr,
in the world's imagination as a type: the
BY ADAM GOPNIK. sensitive boy genius who knew the se­
crets of storytelling in a new technol­
ogy and tried patiently to share them
with a stuffy literary establishment.The
type endures into our own tech era.
Fitzgerald, with the fair-minded de­
tachment he applied to all the crises in
his life, was enthralled by Thalberg in
part because the writer ruefully accepted
that film was replacing fiction. "I saw
that the novel, which at my maturity
was the strongest and supplest medium
for conveying thought and emotion from
one human being to another, was be­
coming subordinated to a mechanical
and communal art," he wrote in "The
Crack-Up." By "communal," he meant
not only the studio system's grinding
collaborations-five or six writers on a
single script-but also the audience's
shared, almost churchlike, experience:
hundreds gathered in a single building,
often the most beautiful in town, silent
together in the dark. In this new order,
a boy genius who could make the me­
chanical art feel meaningful would be
as central an American figure as the
novelist had once been.
Nor was this a wholly projected fan­
tasy. Samuel Marx, one of the lesser but
more trusted producers on the lot, once
wrote that "Thalberg looked on liter­

T he afterlife of the great American character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfin­

movie moguls is uncertain. Way ished novel "The Last Tycoon'' (1941).
back when, you might one day be on Indeed, Kenneth Turan's "Louis B.
ary rules as if through the lens of a cam­
era, exchanging the patterns on a printed
page for the pictures he envisioned on
the cover of Time, the next day lost to M ayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole the screen." We want to believe that
time. Some who were once famous and Equation," from Yale University Press's someone knows how to exchange the set
feared, like Harry Cohn, of Columbia Jewish Lives series, takes its subtitle of patterns on the page for the pictures
Pictures, have vanished into the sands. from Fitzgerald's posthumously pub­ on a screen,and Thalberg's legend speaks
Sam Goldwyn persists only after hav­ lished roman a clef "Not a half dozen to that urge.
ing been made into a Yogi Berra, good men have been able to keep the whole Turan, who spent many years as a
for sideways wisdom-"Include me out," equation of pictures in their heads," Los Angeles Times movie critic, sees
and so on. But Irving Thalberg, the head Fitzgerald's narrator, Cecilia Brady, the that, since show business is a business,
of production at Metro-Goldwyn­ daughter of a character based on the Thalberg makes sense only within a
Mayer during the nineteen-twenties studio's boss, Mayer ( his ethnicity kind of twin-star system, orbiting Mayer, >-
f-
and thirties, left a lasting echo, in part switched from Jewish to Irish), explains his partner and more narrowly money- �
because he died young enough to be re­ of the Thalberg character, who can. minded corporate superior. Mayer, in ;;:;
membered romantically, but mostly be­ Thalberg produced some three or the world of Hollywood myth, is noted 3
cause he was the model for the title four hundred movies in his years at for lacking exactly the refinement that �
z
Thalberg is celebrated for, and so to- g
Irving Thalberg with his wife and Louis B. Mayer, his p artner at M-G-M gether they create the aura of a premon- 'i!
GO THE NEW YOI\KEI\, JUNE IG, 2025
itory Vito-and-Michael relationship, father, B. P. Schulberg, felt betrayed by more later. Along with that insight came
though they were separated in age by Mayer; the two had been planning to several others, all as persuasive now as
only fifteen years. Mayer's taste "was start their own production company then, including that someone who had
primitive and mawkish, even for those before Mayer allowed Loew to "prevail" once been a significant force, or hit­
rather primitive and mawkish days," on him to run the new, combined out­ maker, was unlikely to have lost his or
Budd Schulberg, a screenwriter and nov­ fit. B.P. rose to the top ranks of Para­ her talent, and just needed a new deal
elist who had known him since child­ mount, but he never got over Mayer's and frame. This is why he was eager to
hood, wrote. Mayer craved formulas; treachery; if he died suddenly, he de­ keep Buster Keaton and the Marx
after "Forty-second Street" was a hit for clared, he wanted someone to blow his Brothers in the movies when everyone
another studio, he told the great wit ashes in M ayer's face. else thought they were washed up.
Herman Mankiewicz that he wanted That didn't make him a soft touch.
"Forty-third Street," "Forty-fourth
Street," and "Forty-fifth Street," add­
ing, "Don't come to me with anything
T halberg was a wunderkind, and one
of the tricks ofbeing a wunderkind
is to leverage a youthful aura-selling
He fired Erich von Stroheim from
"Greed," the first of the "Heaven's
Gate"-style crises that litter Hollywood
new!" But Thalberg, we're told, wanted the Kind to increase the Wunder.Norma history-a runaway production being
pictures that were singular and inimi­ Shearer, an M-G-M star who became filmed far from Hollywood under the
table. "When Mayer came roaring out his wife, told the tale of meeting him control of a mad artist-director. Stro­
of the preview of the Clark Gable-Joan for the first time and taking him for a heim delivered a nine-hour version;
Crawford starrer 'Possessed' wanting an demure office boy. Though she repre­ Thalberg had it cut to two. The hard
immediate sequel," Marx recounted, sented this as a lovably artless self­ call was not knowing when to stop
"Thalberg said, 'Sure, L.B., and we'll presentation, Thalberg obviously knew spending but knowing what was worth
call it 'Repossessed,' then turned his at­ the effect he was having. Mankiewicz, spending on and what wasn't. Again
tention to more original notions." who co-wrote "Citizen Kane," said of and again, he kept faith with projects
Some of the difference between the him, "Thalberg celebrated his twenty­ even as the budgets rose if he thought
men came down to background. Irving sixth birthday today with bigger cele­ them worth doing and likely to draw
Thalberg, born in 1899, grew up in the bration than last year's twenty-sixth an audience. "If it's good, it's good; ifit
genteel Brooklyn of German-Jewish birthday. Plans bigger twenty-sixth isn't, it isn't," he said flatly of another
doctors and rabbis, a world apart from birthday celebration next year." expensive project, "Grand Hotel.""The
Mayer's rougher caste of Eastern Eu­ Bill Walsh, the sage football coach­ only way to save a lot of money is not
ropean Jews hustling for scrap metal in and very much the Thalberg of the to make it."
cold maritime Canada. Both entered N.F.L.-once said that "rising to the The real difference between Mayer
the movie industry when it was still occasion'' really means executing nor­ and Thalberg, it becomes clear, was not
New York-based, and the first genera­ mally while everyone else panics. This that one was classy and one was not; it
tion ofJewish movie men-many with came naturally to Thalberg, whose first was that they had different theories,still
thick Yiddish accents who'd stumbled major triumph at M-G-M, in 1924, was alive today, about how to make the most
into show business-still held sway. As rescuing an over-budget production of money possible in the entertainment
Garson Kanin dramatized in his 1979 "Ben-Hur" in Rome, where cast and business. Mayer believed in reliable for­
novel "Moviola," some got into the busi­ crew were treating the shoot as an ex­ mulas, endlessly repeated for predict­
ness simply because their "long stores"- tended holiday. "The location had be­ able profit; Thalberg believed that the
drygoods shops on the Lower East Side come a sinkhole of graft and lust," Irene entertainment business is a gold-rush,
with deep interiors-could double as Selznick, Mayer's daughter, recalled bonanza enterprise, in which one very
makeshift movie houses. Thalberg, a once, in an interview with this maga­ big hit can make up for minor failures,
lover of theatre and books, found work zine. Seeing that the film's structure was many small successes can't make up for
with one of them, Carl Laemmle, and, sound, Thalberg, with Mayer's backing, the absence of a very big hit, and the
after absorbing all he could, latched on calmly brought it home and re-started big hit tends to be the new thing splen­
to Mayer, who took him under his wing in Hollywood. He spent even more, didly done. A wise tycoon tries to an­
and brought him to Los Angeles. building a vast set for the chariot race ticipate where the audience wants to go
Marcus Loew was a member of that and championing an ingenious special­ and get there first.
first generation, who, owning a chain effects trick: tiny dolls suspended on a
of theatres, went west to see whether
he could get involved in actually mak­
ing movies-like a modem-day tech
matte painting to stand in for the Col­
osseum crowd.
The wisdom Thalberg showed then
T he sheer Jewishness of Thalberg,
Mayer, and the other studio heads
is a subject that has been much turned
tycoon with a platform looking for prod­ was double: he recognized that a strong over; Turan, writing a book for a series
uct. Loew was made the mark in a kind story that has worked before ("Ben­ on Jewish lives, naturally puts it front
of confidence game, Schulberg recalls, Hur"had been a best-selling novel and and center. At a time when it was con­
with Thalberg and Mayer putting on a a successful stage play) will probably sidered perfectly fair to mock Jews in
show of activity at the failing Louis B. work again, and that pulling the plug power as Jews-Samuel Marx, for in­
Mayer Productions that nonetheless on a vexed but basically sound project stance, was described in a 1932 Fortune
impressed the Hollywood innocent. His may save money in the moment but cost profile of M-G-M as "an intelligent
THE NEW YORKEI\ JUNE 16, 2025 61
Hebrew with a Neanderthal forehead"­ ple believe he was something more than angle," Turan relates. "No specific was
they were unapologetically of their kind. that. Indeed, it long ago became a set­ too small for him. He wanted, for in­
One might have expected Mayer, given tled view of American movie criticism stance, to open a scene with Grusinskaya­
how desperately he wanted to be ac­ that the work of the lesser studios-the the Garbo character-'sweeping into
cepted by the likes of Herbert Hoover, Astaire-Rogers musicals at R.K.O., or the lobby, flowers preceding her,' so the
to be a timid or "self-hating" Jew. Not a the crime melodramas of Warner Bros. audience knows she's had a triumph."
bit of it: in fact, his father presided over that eventually evolved into the genre Thalberg's passionate concern for
the Mayer family table at night wearing French critics dubbed "noir"-resonates details could make you miss the truth
a yarmulke and pursued his own obses­ in ways that the cautious prestige pro­ that they were pretty much all he cared
sions as a Torah scholar by day. And ductions of M-G-M do not. about. In the end, his beautiful story
when Norma Shearer and Thalberg wed, The film historian Mark A. Vieira solutions are formulaic fixes laid over
she felt compelled to convert, taking He­ tried to rescue Thalberg's reputation, a those details, meant to do little more
brew lessons and immersing herself in a decade and a half ago, in a diligently de­ than the eternal work of cajoling the
mikvah, explaining, with hilarious art­ tailed and fair-minded study of what audience into rooting for the leading
lessness, "I decided that I had no partic­ Thalberg really did, called "Thalberg: players. They didn't like the hero be­
ular religious convictions-that I could Boy Wonder to Producer Prince." The cause he slept with another man's wife?
find it in the Jewish faith." (Thalberg's recounting ofThalberg's process-a ste­ Make it another man's sister.They didn't
very Jewish Jewish mother, Henrietta, nographer kept notes on several story like the boxer losing the bout and then
was a constant presence at home.) meetings, which Vieira reproduces-tells losing his life? Have him win the bout
So, though the imaginative world the much. Thalberg's attention to detail is and then die. In every case, narrative
moguls presided over was, with few ex­ hugely impressive; you see why writers savvy comes to sound suspiciously like
ceptions, cleansed ofJewishness, the real loved him.Working on something called allegiance to the obvious formula, only
lives they led were obdurately Jewish. "Blondie of the Follies," in 1932, he probed with the obvious formula so thought­
This duality-publicly shaping an in­ the failures of the script and supplied fully considered that it seems to return
dustry that hid Jewishness while pri­ some bracing realism. ''All that drama of as original insight. He was a confidence
vately remaining steeped in it-mirrors the father's [outrage] is so false," he says man who truly had confidence in his
the larger duality of Thalberg's career. of this unprepossessing project. confidences. "In an industry where so
Ostensibly a master of high-minded re­ few have the courage of their convic­
He's j ust a beast. You can't make a great
finement, he was at the same time an tions," he said, "I saw that if I made
drama of a father 's love for a daughter who's
unrelenting pragmatist, a drygoods mer­ going to pieces if she really isn't going to pieces. them do it my way, they'd never know
chant in a Greek tunic, every bit as in­ Not in 1932. The story you told me today was if their way would have been better."
clined to judge beaux arts by box-office about a family girl who goes out and gets ev­ It could pay off. Of all the movies he
as his boss. erything she wants, but her father is mistaken. produced, the Clark Gable-Charles
How good was he at it, really? The He
thinks that she has given up her virginity.
It's too simple now. It hasn't the feeling of life.
Laughton "Mutiny on the Bounty," from
anti-Thalberg case has been made many You see my point, don't you? 1935, may best display his virtues, since
times, by those who see him as a cyni­ he made it, intently, while recovering
cal salesman oflimited if real gifts, chief Working on "Grand Hotel," Thalberg from a heart attack and supervising rel­
among them a knack for making peo- went over the footage "almost angle by atively few other projects. At first, every
moment feels studied and false-when
two boys on a Portsmouth dock kick
their legs, you can pretty much hear the
director telling them to do it. Yet soon
one is overcome by Charles Laughton's
creepy, convincing portrayal of Captain
Bligh's sadomasochism: most of the first
fifteen minutes is taken up with flog­
gings and other shipboard disciplining
of half-naked men, shown in detail while
Laughton looks on with long-lipped
lasciviousness. In fact, sublimated sex­
ual perversity seems an overlooked in­
gredient in the classy Thalberg formula.
Laughton does something similar in
another Thalberg production, "The Bar­
retts of Wimpole Street," in which, as
Elizabeth Barrett's dad, and under Thal­
berg's specific guidance, he makes clear
his incestuous attraction to his daugh­
"Keep stalling. " ter; the lesbian undercurrent in the
Garbo vehicle "Qyeen Christina" was Red-baiting anti-Communists as the Genres never quite die, but they do
also wholeheartedly encouraged by Thal­ Mob looked on and profited. change in function as others rise. Going
berg. ("Handled with taste it would give Part of what startled Fitzgerald's to the movies is now nearly as niche a
us very interesting scenes," he urged.) generation about their studio experi­ practice as attending a concert of instru­
The films of the Thalberg system that ence was how near at hand the real bad mentalists playing German music. Oscar
seem most alive now have an erotic core: guys could be. This helps explain the winners are pleading for the movie the­
the "Thin Man'' series with Myrna Loy culture shock that runs through Holly­ atre in Los Angeles the way European
and W illiam Powell, for instance-or, wood memoirs by S. J. Perelman and conductors once pleaded for concert halls
in a campier way, the "Tarzan'' movies, others; they were used to making com­ in Milwaukee. If Thalberg understood
which are absurd but feature the still mercial art, but not to the brutal truths one new thing, however, it was that mov­
unmatched, and often nearly nude, pair­ of American commerce being made so ing pictures, even those crafted by many
ing of Johnny Weissmuller and Mau­ brutal. It would be hard to imagine a hands, escape their makers' purpose and
reen O'Sullivan. novel of the same period in which Ben­ resonate on their own. The most mem­
In "Mutiny," the arrival in Tahiti is nett Cerf, the Random House co­ orable scene in Fitzgerald's novel involves
offered with much less National Geo­ founder, is about to whack his star ed­ Stahr spinning, for a disgruntled British
graphic leering than one would expect, itor, Saxe Commins. In Hollywood, the playwright named Boxley, a meaningless
and more dignity than such"exotic" mo­ Mob hovered closer to the surface­ scenario. A girl comes into a room:
ments were usually given at the time. Robert S. Bader's recent biography of
" She has two dimes and a nickel-and a
The provident sensuality of the Polyne­ Zeppo Marx tells us that the most cardboard match box. She leaves the nickel on
sian culture is played very straight; there's harmless-seeming Marx brother actu­ the desk, puts the two dimes back into her
even a tender, anthropological tum about ally served as a front for Israel (Icepick purse and takes her black gloves to the stove,
the number of words for "look'' in Poly­ W illie) Alderman in a Las Vegas ca­ opens it and puts them inside . . . just as she
lights the match you glance around very sud­
nesian. The movie is never racist: "The sino deal, and argues that he was en­
denly and see that there's another man in the
native woman, as you choose to call her," gaged in a Hollywood jewelry-heist ring. office, watching every move the girl makes-"
Gable says of his lover, witheringly, to a If Zeppo was mobbed up, who wasn't? Stahr paused. He picked up his keys and
British officer. Polynesian civilization is Yet, in the end, violence was rare. After put them in his pocket.
dramatized as superior to the straitened Mayer and Thalberg did at last have a "Go on," said Boxley smiling. "W hat
happens?"
and brutal British one. You might still bitter falling out-over money, predict­
"I don't know," said Stahr. "I was just mak­
rather watch Gable unleashed in some­ ably-they eventually wrote each other ing pictures."
thing as energetic and instinctively, light­ letters of apology, with the manipula­
heartedly poetic as Frank Capra's "It tive father-son hysterics of a novel by The pun lands nicely, making pic­
Happened One Night," for which he Philip Roth, not Mario Puzo.The horse's tures being all he does, but it points to
was "loaned out" to Columbia, but you heads are kept for the movies. a truth: images fascinate us for their own
see as well that Thalberg's taste and in­ The real reason for the enduring sake. Christian Marclay's avant-garde
telligence really were raising the brow Thalberg myth has less to do with any masterpiece, "The Clock," recently on
of popular entertainment. of this than with that perennial idea, view at MOMA, illustrates the point: it's
which fascinated Fitzgerald as it does made of disconnected moments across

W hich returns us to Fitzgerald's

novel. The best parts of "The
Last Tycoon'' concern screenwriting and
us, that there are secrets of storytelling,
to which a few are privy. Yet good Hol­
lywood films have more or less a sin­
a century of film, each clip linked only
by the presence of a clock marking a
minute of the day. We can watch for
moviemaking, including the touching gle story. Raise the stakes, place insu­ hours, needing nothing more than the
sequence about Stahr's longing to re­ perable obstacles before the protagonist, flow of time and the play of faces. We
create his love for Minna with her look­ have the protagonist somehow sur­ don't really care what happens next; we
alike Kathleen. Yet these persuasive mount them while becoming braver care what happens. As Thalberg under­
quiet bits sit within the larger shape of and better. W hat works for Dorothy stood, we see unspooling images as
a book that was meant to be melodra­ works for Rocky. In truth, we may fol­ dreams even when they're meant as dra­
matic and violent. The novel, as Fitz­ low stories, but we respond to themes; mas. Watching the best of the M-G-M
gerald planned it, was supposed to cli­ the story is just the tonality in which tradition-"The W izard of Oz," "The
max with the Mayer and Thalberg those themes are played. A producer Band Wagon"-we sense something
characters hiring hit men to murder with story sense may remind the com­ deeper, more primal, than we find on
each other. It seems bizarrely improb­ poser that a dominant seventh must re­ the page or the stage. We are stirred
able to us now, but it seemed to Fitz­ solve to the tonic, that every major has when reading of flying monkeys, but we
gerald the logical outcome of the mix its relative minor. But it's not the chord are haunted when we see them on a
of moguls and mobsters that he had changes we remember-it's the mel­ screen. Our imaginations demand wider
experienced in Hollywood. Indeed, Fitz­ ody. No one can recall the ins and outs screens and stranger affects than our
gerald, who died in 1940, was prescient of Salozzo's drug scheme in "The God­ lives provide. Making pictures is what
about the forthcoming tumult-the father," but we remember Pacino's face our minds do naturally with the frag­
eventual Hollywood strike mixed, as in in closeup: we come for the story, stay ments of our experience. Of this truth,
his novel, actual Com munists with for the sublimations. money, and movies, might still be made. ♦
THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 63
 tice. For him, Lucy is that woman, but
THE CURRENT CINEMA she insists that he can do better.
Matchmaking has granted Lucy a

MATCH ME IF YOU CAN coolly pragmatic, unsentimental view of

love. It has also trained her to see women
and men as human portfolios, no more
''Materialists." than the sum of their physical and fi­
nancial attributes. Some clients, such as
BY JUSTIN CHANG the persistent, sympathetic Sophie (a ter­
rifically brittle Zoe Winters), endure the

T he work of the Korean Canadian

filmmaker Celine Song is modest
in scope and intimate in feel, but listen
set in prehistoric times, in which we see
two cave dwellers embarking on an early
human romance. Love, the film sug­
indignities of the process in good faith,
desperately submitting to one fruitless
date after another. Others are far more
closely to her words-to say nothing of gests, has always been a strategic, ma­ demanding about what they want in a
her silences-and you will hear whis­ terial affair, a matter of skillful hunting partner, and they shamelessly exagger­
pers of a grand, even cosmic, ambition. and gathering. Your ears perk up when, ate their selling points to get it. Lucy, for
"Past Lives,"her debut feature, from 2023, about forty minutes ( and tens of thou­ her part, is ruthlessly honest about her
was a small-scaled yet breathtakingly sands of years) later, one character ad­ own market value: she's a college drop­
expansive tale of cultural and romantic monishes another: "You say you think out and a failed actress who's in debt and
makes eighty grand a year. "The math
doesn't add up," she tells Harry, who could
easily find someone younger, richer, and
altogether more suitable.
Harry, though, has a nice rejoinder:
"I want to be with you for your intan­
gible assets," he purrs. A great actor, the
cliche goes, can make the phone book
riveting; Pascal hints at the untapped
emotive possibilities ofthe balance sheet.
Even Lucy, who wants to marry rich
herself, cannot entirely resist Harry, his
sexy down-to-earthness, his exquisite
taste in mood lighting. No Johnson char­
acter has been this determinedly wined,
dined, and swept off her feet since An­
astasia Steele, the fresh-faced young her­
oine of "Fifty Shades of Grey" (2015) .
Thankfully, unlike Christian Grey, Harry
Dakota Johnson plays a professional matchmaker in Celine Song 'sfilm. has zero interest in hanky-spanky. He
may be a unicorn, but he has no need
confusion. The story skipped across I'm smart, but you're talking to me like of a whip or a crop to take Lucy on the
countries and decades, leaping fluidly I'm a caveman." Coincidence? In Song's ride of her life.
through time-twenty-four years back­ movies, there's no such thing. But there is another, scruffier horse
ward, twelve years forward, and so on­ The non-caveman is Harry, one of in the race: Lucy's ex-boyfriend, John
with a quiet confidence in the bigger Manhattan's most eligible bachelors. He's (Chris Evans), who resurfaces the same
picture. The three main characters, mod­ addressing our protagonist, Lucy (Da­ night she first meets Harry.John, a cater
elled on Song, her husband, and her kota Johnson), a thirtysomething match­ waiter and an aspiring actor, has never
childhood sweetheart, spoke of the maker for a high-end company called gotten over Lucy, and she, too, retains
Buddhist-derived concept of inyeon, Adore, which offers relief to New York­ more than a spark of affection for him,
which posits that love is not only fated ers tired of swiping and liking. Lucy is despite the financial pressures that ended
but also perfected acros s centuries , trying to explain to Harry why the two their relationship some time ago. A
through endless cycles of rebirth. of them are not an ideal fit: Harry is, in flashback finds them stuck in a Times
Now Song has written and directed industry parlance, "a unicorn." He is tall, Square traffic snarl, arguing over a park­
a new film, "Materialists," and it is, like handsome, and lethally charming-to ing fee: "I don't want to hate you be­
"Past Lives," a triangle without a villain. put it another way, he's played by Pedro cause you're poor," Lucy wails . Once
Nobody plots against anyone, but no­ Pascal-and he has a private-equity job you get past the cognitive dissonance
body invokes ancient proverbs, either. and a twelve-million-dollar Tribeca pent­ of seeing Madame Web dump Captain
It unfolds in present-day New York, al­ house. He can whisk the woman of his America, you realize that this isn't just
though there are two bookending scenes, dreams off to Iceland at a moment's no- a breakup; it's a breaking point, the mo-
64 THE NEW YORKER., JUNE 16, 2025 l L LUSTRAT I 0 N BY N U R I A J U ST
ment when Lucy realizes and acknowl­ downbeat score, veer toward moody met­ or her acute understanding of her own
edges that she cares more about money ropolitan rhapsody: Cat Power's "Man­ wants and needs. Johnson is skilled at
than love. It's a major moment of dis­ hattan," Harry Nilsson's "I Guess the playing both the sophisticate and the
illusionment, but Song has another in Lord Must Be in New York City."The nai:f, but she's ill served by a story that
store for her-one that might yet turn characters may flirt coyly one moment insists on showing Lucy the error of her
Lucy back into a hopeless, if not quite and speak with heart-on-sleeve candor money-conscious ways. I don't buy it,
penniless, romantic. All she needs is a the next, but Song has excised any trace Jane Austen wouldn't buy it, and deep
good, swift kick in the assets. of screwball energy from the pacing and down I don't think Song buys it. In at­
dialogue; here, as in "Past Lives," she tempting to merge escapist pleasures

S ong was a playwright before she steers her principals toward bouts of lan­ with financial realities,"Materialists" trips
turned to filmmaking, and much of guid self-reflection. A little of this goes up on its own high-mindedness.
her theatre work, which includes "End­ a long way, and you crave a bit more Consider two key sequences, which
lings" (2019) and the covrn-era virtual comic vigor and snap. Only when Lucy scarcely seem to belong in the same
experiment"The Seagull on the Sims 4" and Harry spar over the economics of movie, and which are all the more tell­
(2020 ), revealed a healthy, interrogatory dating does the script approximate the ing for their juxtaposition. In one, Harry
skepticism toward classical narrative sly, scintillating rhythm of banter. brings Lucy home for the first time, and
forms. With "Materialists," she dons From time to time, there are zippy Lucy is clearly as turned on by his pent­
the trappings of the Hollywood roman­ montages of Adore clients, filling Lu­ house as she is by him. Kirchner's slow­
tic comedy-a genre that has, regretta­ cy's ears with ridiculous demands and gliding camera, luxuriating in every inch
bly, all but vanished from movie the­ impossibly narrow preferences, some of of the space, is no less seduced. Com­
atres-with both an affectionate embrace them cluelessly sexist, ageist, and rac­ pare that with our shaky first glimpse of
and a slight wrinkle of the nose, as if ist. But the impulse behind these scenes John's cramped apartment, which he
she didn't entirely trust the goods she's feels less comedic than sociological. Song shares with two slovenly roommates
selling. And sure enough, the movie, herself once worked as a matchmaker, straight out of aJudd Apatow romp, and
like some of Lucy's clients, turns out to and she is keen to expose two of the in­ whose squalor the film can scarcely seem
be advertising one thing and peddling dustry's scourges: unabashed bigotry to tolerate for more than a minute. Song's
another. It often looks like a romantic and, in one daring but poorly handled script may say one thing, but her film­
comedy, thanks to the soft caress of sun­ twist, sexual violence. You can appreci­ making doesn't lie.
light in Shabier Kirchner's images and ate Song's refusal to shy away from the The inequities of "Materialists" go
the predominance of bubble-gum pink ugly realities of modern dating, and also well beyond real estate; they extend to
at Adore's offices, where Lucy gets ad­ her willingness to puncture rom-com Lucy's suitors themselves. John is a
vice from a straight-talking boss (an ex­ illusions. But there's something ques­ starving-artist stereotype in search of a
cellent Marin Ireland). There are also tionable about how the film deploys character, and Evans, always an appeal­
not one but two gorgeous weddings­ sexual assault as a plot device, with an ingly angular and mischievous screen
the first draped in wood-panelled mid­ ancillary character's trauma as a way presence, is treated as little more than a
town splendor, the second an upstate­ station on Lucy's path to learning and hangdog hunk. But Harry, for all his de­
barn-house affair-against which the romantic fulfillment. signer Mr. Right vibes, seldom stops sur­
characters' romantic longings emerge in It makes sense that Lucy, feeling guilty prising you, and scene after magnetic
wistful relief. and demoralized, might reconsider her scene leaves you wondering how Lucy,
But "Materialists" doesn't much sound line of work. I have more trouble believ­ alleged math whiz, could be so stumped
like a romantic comedy, at least not in ing, as the movie's second half suggests, by this particular problem."Materialists"
the conventional sense. The featured that she would immediately relinquish is Pascal's triangle, plain and simple. What
songs, in keeping with Daniel Pemberton's her hard-won cynicism about romance, other solution could there be? ♦

THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2025 CONDE NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

VOLUME Cl, NO. 16, June 16, 2025. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for five planned combined issues, as indicated on the issue's cover, and other combined
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THE NEW YORK.ER., JUNE 16, 2025 65

 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need ef a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose
threefinalists, and you votefar yourfavorite. C aption submissionsfar this week's cartoon, by Mort Gerberg,
must be received by Sunday, June 15th. Thefinalists in the June 2nd contest appear below. We will
announce the winner, and thefinalists in this week's contest, in the June JOth issue. Anyone age thirteen
or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker. com.

THIS WEEK'S CONTEST

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

"He used to begfar treats, but now

he's much more calculating."
Betsy Busch, New York City

"Tilt your head so he knows th at you don't understand" "Too late. We h ave to accept 'caterpillar' as yourfirst answer. "
Karen Olson, Fargo, N.D. Eric Abramson, Woodland Hills, Calif

"I h ate to tell him, but it equ als bath."

Filip Bondy, Roseland, N.J.
 THE
NE.W YOllKEll
l<ID
The fiction and poetry
of the century.
A CE TURY OF A CE TU�Y Of
FICTIO P O E T R. Y
IN

EW YOR.KER.
1925-2025

Celebrate the magazine's first hundred years with two

anthologies of remarkable short stories and verse, selected
by the fiction and poetry editors, including works by
J. D. Salinger, Shirley Jackson, Vladimir Nabokov,Jamaica Kincaid,
Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, W. S. Merwin,
Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Sandra Cisneros, and more.

store.newyorker.com Alfnd A. Kaopl

 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT.

14 15 16

THE 17 18

CR055WORD 19 20

A moderately challenging puzzle.

BY WYNA LIU

ACR.055
1 Game with an annual World Series
6 Duds
10 Large units of weight
14 Steamy spot
16 More than just bad
17 "The nerve ! " 45 46 41 48 49

18 Title princess o f nineties TV

50 51 52 53 54
19 Plant eater?
21 Point _ (sports-betting stat) 55 56
24 Idiomatically happy creature
25 Target of a palette cleanser? 57 58 59

26 Question to an unfamiliar face

31 Bowed shapes 4 Term for the vertical wrinkles between 41 Longtime talk-show host Maury
32 Dispenser at a breakfast buffet one's eyebrows 42 D.I.Y. technique that uses rubber bands
33 Food-assistance inits. 5 after me . . ." and squeeze bottles

34 Bit of Morse code 6 Pants, slangily 44 Sooty passage

35 Vedic recitations 7 Concerning comment from a barber 45 Letters on an old Soyuz spacecraft
8 It's large and full of holes 46 "What a disaster! "
36 Got introduced to
9 Suspect something's up 47 Catches
37 Drink suffix
10 Words that might follow an exchange of 48 Dot in the ocean
38 Exam with a max score of 5
numbers 49 Like Homer Simpson or Stewie Griffin
39 Word said with an arm raised, perhaps
11 A thing of the past 52 Small songbird
40 "Would I ever!"
12 "Black Swan" protagonist 53 Hockey Hall of Farner Bobby
42 Jose Carreras or Luciano Pavarotti, e.g.
13 _ bass (funky playing style) 54 "U sure about that?"
43 Major figure in the early automotive
industry 15 Tear apart

44 Usual extras, colloquially 20 Fantastic stories Solution to the previous puzzle:

21 Occasion for a body wrap, perhaps
45 Cool whips? 5 I w
50 Quaff with cloves and cardamom 22 What a float might be part of C A B E
23 Abundance A M
51 Feared book reviewer?
M C
55 "Mad Money" network 26 Lost one's way
p
56 She's all, like, "Whatever" 27 Finds insufferable

57 Bandmate of Baby, Ginger, Sporty, 28 Like the first commercially cultivated

and Scary coffee, geographically

58 Gave the once-over 29 Shakespeare character who says, "What

thou seest when thou dost wake / Do it
59 Word after data or diary for thy true love take"
G R
30 Gives voice to
B N E
DOWN 32 Device for archival data storage E y E T
1 "Masterpiece Mystery!" network 35 "Au Revoir les Enfants" director Louis K E 5

2 On vacation, briefly Piece of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art

39 Find more puzzles and this week's solution at
3 Rapper Li!' _ that might resemble a flower or a star newyorker.com/crossword
 TH E
NlW YORKER
l<ID

A hundred years old never

looked better.
Celebrate the magazine's first century with
limited-edition apparel, watches, tote bags, and more.

newyorker.com/store

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