This week on Entertainment Is Broken, Richard Crouse and Sarah Hanlon hold up the “art is a mirror” cliché…then immediately use it to start a small, tasteful blaze. We’re talking art as resistance…from Picasso’s Guernica energy to pop culture moments that make the internet reveal its whole personality in public.
We also take a beat to acknowledge the death of Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek at 48, and why his openness about colorectal cancer matters…plus Richard’s blunt reminder that early screening can save your life (yes, even if you have “literally anything else” you’d rather do).
Then it’s into the beautiful chaos: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show as storytelling, culture, and a giant empathy machine…complete with NYC water data that proves half of New York held it together out of respect for the performance (and then absolutely did not). From there, we connect dots between protest music and icon moments…Sinead O’Connor, Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” Public Enemy, punk rock, Spike Lee, and what happens when resistance goes mainstream without getting sanded down into “brand-safe inspiration.”
We also detour through Toronto’s disappearing music landmarks, including the news that Steve’s Music on Queen West is closing…and what that says about culture, community, and the slow gentrified vanishing of the places where scenes are born.
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Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@EntertainmentIsBroken
Listen: https://pod.link/1855097197
