Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

New film stills from Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice series are spreading across the newsfeeds and people have a lot to say.

The series is set to be released on 3 December, and yes, there will be a detailed breakdown in written and podcast form by me.

While I don’t want to make any bold assumptions, I feel reassured that my reviews will be positive, unlike most of the internet who are unable to control their hysteria that this new adaption doesn’t hold any promise.

General offences by the public include:

• Side by side graphics and carousels comparing stills from the 2005 film starring Kiera Knightly and Matthew McFaddyen with stills from the new series, revealing a grey, more muted approach to colour and tone in the later

• Why is Pride and Prejudice being readapted when the 1995 BBC series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth and the 2005 film are both considered classics in their own right.

• In fact, why are we readapting classics like Pride and Prejudice at all? Hasn’t this story already been told in countless ways?

• Haven’t we had enough Pride and Prejudice adaptations, reimaginings, retellings?

The answer for the last point is no. Never.

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I don’t say this as a massive Jane Austen fan. Pride and Prejudice is a seminal novel that influenced my reading and writing life. I could speak about the novel and its adaptations for 12 hours straight if I wanted to.

No joke.

I make the claim that we need more adaptions and retellings, not only of Pride and Prejudice, but of all the great classics (and some that are not so great) as both a writer and cultural consumer.

Retelling and re-contextualising great novels is a vital means of exploring and questioning the stories that have influenced society and generations of creators.

Every time I re-read Pride and Prejudice, I learn something new about writing, about relationships about society. It’s rare for a novel to be able to do that time and time again. When you have a rich and layered story, it only makes sense to explore and reimagine it multiple times.

And this new retelling is imperative to keep the art of adapting classics alive and to re-experience the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Especially at a time where concepts of love, courting and dating, seem to be more frayed than they ever were before – essay for another time.

Aside from the aforementioned adaptions, there have been reimaginings such as the Bollywood inspired musical Bride and Prejudice in 2005, the sci-fi take Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in 2016, and the contemporary reinterpretation in the rom-com Bridget Jones’s Diary. Each one of them, good, bad, interesting, cult, are an important part about how we look at our storytelling past and an exercise in our creative present.

I’m excited by Netflix’s adaptation and by Dolly Alderton’s vision. Not only is she a brilliant writer in her own right, I feel she understands Austen, the characters, and the world they come from.

In a recent story by British Vogue – Inside The Making Of Dolly Alderton’s Lavish New Pride And Prejudice – we got a day-to-day diary by Alderton as she goes about adapting the classic.

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The article is a wonderful insight into what it takes to adapt a mammoth book of this nature, a story that is so embedded in culture. Alderton details the advice she sought from Emma Thompson – I don’t know what adequate work exists to explain Thompson’s relationship to Austen. Fan or lover feels inadequate.

Thompson’s 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility starring herself and Kate Winslet exemplifies, in my opinion, an almost perfect translation of the text and story into film.

I really believe Thompson has Austen in her blood.

It was fascinating to read the advice Thompson gave Alderton, as well as the details of editing and the sacrifices a script must undergo in order to become suitable for filming.

Many details the average person doesn’t even think about it.

What I found particularly vexing about the internet’s reaction to the stills is the direct comparison to the 2005 film.

While I understand the natural inclination to compare, it’s important to remember that a film is different to a series, and within those mediums, there are various ways to depict and tell a story – and lest we forget the obvious, hello, the source material in written form is not a visual medium.

Let’s stop expecting elephants to fly and pigs to perform gymnastics please.

Stories are not meant to be identical even though they might come from the same original source.

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Every decade has a new set of actors, writers, producers, new technology that has the potential to elevate and highlight different parts of a classic novel that we all love in a new way. Also, each decade also has a new audience with different experiences, tastes, expectations and as we well know now, attention spans.

Linking adaptations to each other is an interesting exercise but comparison really is the thief of joy.

I won’t be doing a deep dive into this question of why all new films are grey and muted now. This is not the right essay to discuss general stylistic trends.

I once went to a talk where the actress Alison Steadman, who played Mrs Bennet in the BBC series version, spoke about her career. Steadman told the audience that shortly after she was first cast in the role, while at a restaurant with her family, she was badgered by a stranger, who reminded her that she has a big job ahead of her, that she can’t disappoint Austen fans.

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I also recall that even though the 2005 film is now seen as a classic, at the time, the public were not impressed by the casting of Knightly as Elizabeth. She was considered a more modern beauty not Austen enough and many felt she wasn’t good enough of an actress to play Elizabeth.

To many Austen fans now, that idea is unfathomable.

Fans… extreme fans especially have strongly worded opinions about adaptions. But, as naive as this may sound, I believe we should refocus our passion and rage to being grateful.

We are living in a time where our favourite classics are consistently being reimagined. This gives us the opportunity to revisit them in new ways and consider again where they sit in the cannon of literature and why they remain so inspiring to many of us after so many years.

Let the new Netflix television series speak for itself, let the cream rise. And let’s enjoy the ride!

The new iPhone Duo is an ugly thing.

The first foldable iPhone by Apple, called the iPhone Duo, was unveiled during Apple’s annual September product event, an event titled Surprise and Shine. Sounds like a Kendall Jenner vocal stim.

Videos have been circulating the newsfeeds of the audience’s oohs and aahs when the phone appeared on the big screen after Apple CEO John Ternus’ “one more thing” moment. I was, and remain to be, genuinely confused as to why people are excited by this news.

Wow, the new iPhone, look, it can fold!

You know what else can fold? A book. And this is not a hot take, but a book doesn’t have ads or short-wavelength blue light that suppresses or delays melatonin.

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I’m not about to go into an analogue rant here and mourn the loss of the physical, the tangible, the texture in our lives. I’m not a fan of nostalgia and I do think there are plenty of benefits to technology and the digital era.

However, I have to emphasise, what in the emperor’s clothing is going on here?

I’ll say it again, the iPhone Duo is not an attractive looking thing, nor do I understand how it will enhance our experience of the world. It’s trying so hard to look like a book that it’s embarrassing. Just be yourself, an addictive piece of tech that’s slowly sucking the joy out of almost everything.

Yes, I know, that reeks of bitterness, but I don’t mean it to.

There was a time where I was looking forward to every new iPhone update, eager to get my hands on the new phone with the better camera, sleeker design, more storage, more power. I genuinely believed that I would be able to create faster, better content with every new iPhone. And yes, I have indeed, over the years, surpassed my own expectations with what I can do with this technology that is now the overlord and centre of our lives.

But I, and I believe a lot of people, have had enough at this point. We have reached the peak of what a smartphone is and what it can do for us, so much so, that it no longer feels like a technology that’s improving our lives but mutating it.

As I’ve mentioned twice at this point (and will surely mention it a few more times before the end of this essay), the iPhone Duo is ugly.

Somewhere between and a smartphone and an iPad, it looks awkward to hold with one hand. The soft edged minimal design, the futuristic elegance that initially drew us all to Apples phones, has become bulky, feels uncoordinated and is just a pale echo of wonderfully analogue objects - a magazine, a book, an alarm clock, a television screen.

I’ve written about the war against beauty (see below) and this is really another affront to anyone who wants to be surrounded by objects that have true aesthetic value.

Its more mechanical than seamless, bold and bulky without being vibrant or formidable, the iPhone Duo is another lyric to the anthem of weaponising individuality to create uniformity. And that is truly the ugliest thing. Ugly with no charm.

But perhaps beauty shouldn’t be a consideration when it comes to updating a piece of essential technology. This is a new concept, an exciting path forward for the iPhone - it folds!

But hang on, the foldable phone is not a unique concept. Seven years ago, Samsung released the Galaxy Fold. Which in of itself is not that impressive.

Since its release there have been hundreds of complaints about the crease that develops on the screen, issues with the hingers, and general durability. There’s also something about their design, which I also noted on the iPhone Duo, that isn’t as sleek as a single screen. Nor does the foldable phone have the flip to close satisfaction of the iconic flip-phone era of the early to mid-2000s. They look and feel badly designed and obnoxious.

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One can argue that Apple is not Samsung. That any potential issues with a foldable screen have been ironed out in the iPhone Duo. Except for the irony that the iPhone Duo’s folding OLED screen is made by Samsung Display. Reportedly, Apple is paying Samsung Display around $250 for every folding panel used in the iPhone Duo.

So, what exactly makes the iPhone Duo a better phone?

In his speech, Ternus said the iPhone Duo is:

“The most transformational change to iPhone since the original. With an entirely new design and intuitive experiences, it shows what’s possible when hardware and software are engineered together and redefines what it means to use a foldable phone.”

You know what would be a transformational change to an iPhone? A durable charging cable for your phone. Not sure why Apple hasn’t worked on that.

I’m not anti-Apple. I’m not anti-tech. I believe in technology evolution, not gimmicks that reduce the quality of our lives. And here’s the issue. The iPhone Duo feels gimmicky.

I get it. This is consumer capitalism at its peak, we have arrived and are very much navigating through the simulation. Most of us have been brainwashed to be excited by the newest, latest, shiniest blah, blah, blah.

But can we please use our critical thinking skills for a moment?

Here are some verbatim points about the iPhone Duo from Apple’s website:

• “Pin a video to the top and watch it while using another app.”

Perhaps I’m not evolving as a human should be, but what is the benefit of this? A version of this already exists – having a YouTube video playing on your screen while checking your messages – I wonder how many people find this helpful or distracting.

• “Set iPhone Duo down and watch a show or follow a workout.”

The world won’t be satisfied until we are full living in a phone. We are already tethered to these things emotionally, spiritually, and it would be ideal for tech companies for us to physically migrate ourselves into the screen so they can have us by the balls.

We should be discouraging people from watching films and reading books on their phones. Aside from completely defiling the experience of story through that small glossy blue light screen, it simply cannot be healthy at any capacity.

• “A spacious display for incredibly immersive entertainment. You can even use two apps side by side with Split View multitasking.”

The fact that we now have two screens means we will double our doom scrolling and will make it harder to get off the phone.

I have written extensively that we are at war with distraction, a battle that is taking us away from art and beauty. For me and many other people, we don’t want to be immersed any more than we already are in the digital world. Somehow Apple got a sense of this and decided, “nope not on our watch! Hear something more addictive and more immersive.”

The price is insanity – $1,999 with 256 gigabytes of storage, ranging up to $3,199?

From the split-screen multitasking to fold-aware iOS and the dual-battery architecture as well as the duo preview and crease-minimising display technology – to name a few of the iPhone Duo’s new features – what are we paying for exactly?

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The iPhone Duo’s new features largely exist to enable, accommodate or exploit the fact that the phone bends in half.

Aside from that it will be delicate. It only has two lenses. How do you put a screen protector on it? How do you put a phone case on it? A two-piece case? Apple care won’t be cheap. It’s an iPad mini… just buy an iPad mini? OK apparently the camera zoom only goes to 2x. iPhone 17 and 18 pro phones go up to 8x. The on-screen camera is mainly for face time. Battery will drain quickly.

Oh and, it’s truly ugly.

Now, if this is something you want, then go for it, go get it. This is not about whether one should buy an iPhone Duo or not – it’s about what the existence of this piece of tech says about where we are in the culture.

All smartphones at this point work well enough or excellently to do what they were designed to do. So, at what point are upgrades for upgrades sake enough? How does the iPhone Duo help our experience for what we need in a phone?

Most fiction author will tell you it’s important to have something that moves the plot forward in a story. Let’s use that analogy what does the iPhone Duo do to “help the plot move forward” for how we communicate and interact with each other?

I can tell you right now – absolutely nothing. It’s another step forward toward making our lives more miserable in the long run, a misery disguised in entertainment.

Last month, Meta agreed to a $17.1 billion settlement with nearly all US states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed with addictive features that harmed young users. Manufacturers of the technology, the screens we experience those platforms through largely haven’t been sued in this way. Not yet.

Again, this is not about telling you what you should or shouldn’t buy. If you want to spend the money on the new iPhone Duo you can. My point is, be clear with yourself. You don’t need it and you don’t need to keep up with what the world tells you is necessary for you to own.

Smartphones and the internet have done incredible things for society and humanity. But sometimes the incredible can become destructive on a personal and global level.

My question is this, at what point will we realize that we are going too far towards nowhere. And also, why does it be so ugly?

Her intricately applied layers explore themes of fertility and decay, memory and anticipation, and the balance of life and death. Fascinating for me when I experienced her work during her solo exhibition House of Pearls at Third Line Gallery was the fusion of tension and union in each painting.

Somewhere between abstraction and figuration, the organic and the cosmic, Sora has developed a unique visual language of vibrant colour and complex compositions that simultaneously reference the histories and mythologies of both the ancient and contemporary world.

This makes sense when Sora told me that she doesn’t believe that “ideas arrive fully formed.” For her ideas are cumulation of a multitude of things including memory, conversation, travel, history, science, and mistakes.

In this week’s edition of Great Big Questions, Sora discuses not fighting the feeling of being stuck, the less glamourous side of being an artist, and which cultural figure would leave her with more questions than answers after their fictional dinner.

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What’s easier, starting or finishing a project?

Starting. A painting begins with possibility. Finishing asks for restraint. The hardest part is knowing when the work has stopped asking questions and starts repeating itself.

How do you know a work is done?

Usually when I can no longer tell whether I’m looking at the painting or the painting is looking back at me. At some point it develops its own internal logic, and my role becomes listening rather than insisting.

What is your biggest distraction from creating work?

The administrative side of being an artist. It’s necessary, but it asks for a completely different kind of attention than painting does. I try to protect long stretches of uninterrupted time in the studio because the work needs a slower rhythm than the rest of life.

What do you do when you feel stuck?

I don’t try to fight it anymore. Sometimes I travel, sometimes I read, and sometimes I simply practice stillness. I’ve learned that feeling stuck is often part of the process rather than an interruption to it. A painting needs time to breathe, and so do I. Stepping away lets me return with fresh eyes.

If you could own any artwork in the world, which one would it be and why?

Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I by Ibrahim El-Salahi. Every time I stand in front of it, I discover another rhythm, another figure, another conversation unfolding beneath the surface. It’s one of those rare paintings that never seems to stop revealing itself. I could live with it for a lifetime.

Which creative person would you most like to have dinner with?

I’m torn between John Berger and Etel Adnan. Berger for the way he taught us how to look, and Adnan for her extraordinary ability to move effortlessly between painting, poetry, storytelling, and writing about the work of other artists with such generosity. If I had to choose one, it would be Berger. I imagine I’d leave with more questions than answers, and that’s my favourite kind of conversation.

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Where do you think ideas or creativity come from?

I don’t think ideas arrive fully formed. They accumulate through memory, observation, conversation, grief, travel, history, science, and mistakes, often things that don’t seem connected until years later. In the studio, I’m working through those fragments physically, layer by layer, until they begin to find relationships I couldn’t have predicted.

What is the best advice you received about art, creativity, or the process of working?

No single piece of advice changed me as much as realizing that the painting usually knows before I do. The studio has taught me that certainty closes a painting far sooner than curiosity ever does.

About Great Big Questions

What does it really mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? Can creativity be taught? The Culturelist’s artist interview series, Great Big Questions, asks every artist the same eight questions, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences and the deeply personal philosophies behind a life devoted to making art.

Last week I attended a wonderful talk on Letters in the Age of Speed: Has the Form Changed, or the Essence? which took place at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Library

The panel featured three writers who discussed the importance and influence of letter writing in their personal life and in their work.

Novelist Avni Doshi described how her first interaction with letters was from the story of her parents sending each other love letters before they were married. She had wondered what her parents thought of each other’s handwriting. Writer and poet Deeba Salim Irfan detailed how the actual act of sitting and holding a pen and thinking about how your recipient would receive your words can really help you connect with other people as well as with yourself. While author Daniela Tully spoke about the difference between letter writing and today’s digital means of communication.

“I’ve received many letters that have made me think. I’ve never received a WhatsApp that’s made me think,” she said.

The talk made me think about my own relationship with letter writing.

From those secret letters many Iraqis would send back to the motherland through the trusted hands of travellers to the first letters I wrote to childhood friends when I migrated to New Zealand, as well as epistolary novels that greatly influenced me like The Colour Purple and Dangerous Liaison.

Those early exposures to letter writing also greatly influenced how the stories I wanted to explore in my own novel writing.

Why do words on paper, the physical act of pouring oneself through ink intended for only one person feel incredibly intimate, romantic, significant, and most of all, more precious than an email.

I’m aware that by describing this through a newsletter, who some might claim is a modern way to send letters, is ironic. And I would also like to point out that while letters and emails are definitely not the same, and the intention behind a letter and a newsletter are also vastly different, I do feel that one can be as open and vulnerable in a newsletter.

It perhaps, will never feel as personal as opening an envelope and unfolding a window that reveals the traces of someone’s thoughts, feelings and experiences marked on paper, but there is still a soul here in this digital interface.

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While I cannot give that exact experience through The Culturalist, I do believe that modern forms of letter writing from WhatsApp voice notes to newsletters and essays can feel, at least in their tone, in the honesty of the writer, just as powerful.

For me here at The Culturalist, I am as thoughtful as my overthinking brain can be about the curation (I’m so sick of that word) of stories, of culture through my lens, my interests, my voice, to share with all of you.

And so, this week I discuss as per usual the many facets of culture that fascinate me and are relevant in the world right now.

It’s not a handwritten letter, but it’s definitely always from the heart.

Enjoy,

Maan Jalal

This Week on The Culturelist

Is It Okay to Ghost a Book?

I wasn’t planing to inadvertently give dating advice while talking about books, but here we are at an intersection I never thought would make so much sense.

Read the full story…

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Why Trivia Is the Superior Form of Gaming

We need to get off our phones, get together and play games. Why? Because the skill of educated guessing is severely underrated. I test that skill with the new, brilliant, general trivia game the Nerd Herd Trivia Wars. Also, you can win one of three games The Culturelist is giving away!

Find out more here….

Great Big Questions: Athier Mousawi

Bold, vibrant, immersive and multi-layered. This week on Great Big Questions, British Iraqi artist Athier Mousawi talks about optimism, fatherhood, loud music, and the advice that has stayed with him.

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The Voice Note

Dolly Parton’s Storytelling Legacy, Harry Potter HBO Trailer, John Galliano’s Met Gala Exit

Listen to the biggest cultural stories from this week now on The Voice Note.

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The Culturelist Recommends

One of the most interesting arguments for, well, stealing ideas.

Robert Shore’s delightful coffee table-esque book is full of ideas and nuggets about the art of “stealing” art.

Throughout the chapters he challenges the culture of originality and the idea that the artist is responsible for inventing something entirely new. Nothing I believe has stunted the creative flow more than that silly notion.

Shore sites plenty of artists who borrow, copy, quote, appropriate, remix, reappropriate existing art, images and cultural material to create something unique. The book asks the question of where the boundaries lie between influence and homage, appreciation versus plagiarism, and, in fact, whether or not we should have these boundaries at all.

You can buy the book here

One List Thing…

This Week’s Quote

With the death of the writer and activist Gloria Steinem the newsfeeds have been inundated with quotes by her.

And while there are so many to choose from that speak of her work, legacy, and beliefs, I found this one most interesting. It speaks to the concept that I’ve always felt more aligned with when it comes to how culture works – there is not one but many, who inspire many more.

“People are always asking me, ‘Who will you pass the torch to?’ The question makes me angry. There is no one torch – there are many torches – And I’m using my torch to light other torches.”

This Week’s Question

Given that I’ve been thinking a lot about letter writing as a way to connect and a medium of creativity, it only makes sense that I pose this question to you:

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As always thank you for your continued support and subscribing to The Culturelist.

See you next week,

Maan Jalal

This week on The Voice Note:

• Dolly Parton’s legacy which is almost impossible to summarise.

• HBO’s now Harry Potter series trailer – and people’s visual criticism which makes no sense to me

• Another enormous cultural loss to discuss with the death of Yayoi Kusama,

• The Future Library project where writers are creating manuscripts we won’t be allowed to read until 2114

• John Galliano has pulled out of his planned Met exhibition, reopening a much bigger question: who gets culturally rehabilitated, when do we forgive them, and who gets to decide?

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  Listen to last week’s episode of The Voice Note

• Hayden Panettiere’s Death, Princess Diana Book, Marc Jacobs Sale

• John Galliano Met Exhibition, Barbie 2 Salary Standoff, Children of Blood and Bone Fallout

• Banksy’s £150K Bill, Zendaya’s Mystery Brooch, Netflix’s Stolen Nicolas Cage Film

Whether we admit it or not, we have all had that hot desire to shut a book closed and hurl it across the room, never to think of it again.

I have indeed, in my frustration, in my boredom at the story I was forcing myself to consume, threw it so hard that it hit a framed drawing of a scene from Arabian Nights, sending them both crashing to the floor.

I didn’t regret it, and no I won’t be divulging the name of the novel.

I left the novel on the floor for a few days, felt I should have picked it up, attempted to revive something from our time together. I didn’t. Maybe it would get better, maybe there is an exciting incident, an element that I missed, that would be unforgettable after one more chapter, something incredible waiting for me.

Nope.

It’s best to cut off all communication, without warning, no explanation. The act of ghosting, with a books anyway, should come with a guilt free label.

It’s mystery to me why we feel guilty about giving up on a novel and ashamed to admit to people that we have.

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This is especially the case when it comes to the novel of the moment, a popular bestseller, a book everyone is praising that’s sweeping all the literary awards. The next are the classics that we are, as writers, bibliophiles, or intellects, expected to have read with pleasure and can discuss at length.

No. I refused a long time ago to be part of this intellectually, readerly, farce.

I’m an advocate for giving up on a book if it doesn’t engage you. Sure, it was difficult at first, but in the wise, slightly menacing words of the Marquise de Merteuil, brilliantly portrayed by Glenn Close in the film Dangerous Liaisons (1988):

“You’ll find the shame is like the pain, you only feel it once.”

This was edited from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos published in 1782 (a novel I did finish) where he wrote: “The shame caused by love is like its pain: one experiences it only once.” I find the original, though translated from French so a little clunky, truer to the feeling as it involves the concept of love.

If you read novels, you love reading.

An extension of that love means you have more novels you want to read than time to read them. It is the curse of every book worm. And we love it.

For the sake of both savouring the time we want to spend with good stories and not waste time with the ones we want to escape from, we must give ourselves grace and free ourselves of reader’s guilt.

You are allowed to give up on reading a masterpiece. Or any book for that matter. I hear your gasps through the screen by the way. But bear with me.

As a writer and a big reader, I’m always asked:

“Do you always finish the novel you’re reading? Do you ever feel like giving up? Or do you just get through it, finish it, even if you don’t enjoy it?”

People are often seeking permission for themselves to quit a book that makes them feel as though they are dragging their bodies across the Empty Quarter or are cursed to read the same sentence over and over until the idea of squeezing a lemon into their eye would be more stimulating.

Many people are riddled with guilt about starting a book and not finishing it. Somehow they feel it’s more appropriate to suffer.

My answer to this conundrum often surprises people. It’s this: If you’re not enjoying a book, stop reading it.

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This shouldn’t apply to children by the way. It’s important for children and young adults to be bored by some books and figure out ways to make the reading experience more interesting. That’s for another essay though.

Most people are relieved by my answer. Reading shouldn’t feel like torture, this isn’t a trial in The Hunger Games. There is this idea out there that reading isn’t supposed to be for pleasure, that reading is studying, something we must persevere though in order to finish the last chapter and somehow become “better people.”

A laughable notion.

Reading, and especially reading novels, is meant to be enjoyed.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to reading. A novel’s first three chapters are there to entice me, captivate me, grip me, pull me into the narrative and through, until the end of story. This applies to novels, smaller novels, mammoth classics, something on my kindle, and audio books.

If I’m bored, struggling to understand, uncompelled to continue by the third chapter, I move on. For some this seems harsh, but believe me, in the past when I’ve preserved the story never got any better. In fact, forcing oneself to read a book that is bringing them no sense of curiosity or satisfaction can in fact put you off reading all together.

And this is what we don’t want to happen – imagine, being put off by reading because of one book.

There is no point being in the company of a story, exploring its world when it doesn’t spark any emotion other than regret.

In the words of the great Kim Cattrall in an interview with The Guardian in 2019:

“I don’t want to be in a situation for even an hour where I’m not enjoying myself.”

No truer words have ever been said.

The first three chapters of a novel are equivalent to a first date. I could flesh out this analogy and say the first three chapters are the equivalent to a three course meal on a first date or even, the first three chapters equate to the first three dates with someone.

You can tell a lot from the first ten minutes (sometimes less) of a first date.

Specifically, if you have the desire to keep looking at this person’s face for one more second or if you want to do as Beyonce tells us in Single Ladies and act ‘like a ghost, I’ll be gone.’

If a date is terrible, most people have no problem ghosting or even blocking someone.

It’s the same for me when it comes to a book.

Now, I’m not advocating ghosting people. I’m pro-ghosting books, and actually anti blocking those same books. More on that a little further down.

Truth is, there are simply too many books I want to read.

A toppling TBR stack spreading like clusters of mushrooms across my apartment means I can’t waste another word, page, or chapter on a book that I’m done with.

Often I find myself inspired to repeat Tiffany Pollard’s effortless monologue about her housemate Gemma Collins on Celebrity Big Brother UK when referencing the frustratingly boring book I’m about to ghost:

“Somebody lied to her several times and told her that she was fly, hot and sexy and beautiful and she's nothing like that. She's nothing of the sort."

I write these words not only as a reader but a writer. If I haven’t done my job as a writer to keep you engaged and connected with my story, then that’s on me. So, don’t feel guilty about not finishing a book, it’s usually not your fault.

Usually.

Sometimes a good book finds you at the wrong time. Not a revolutionary theory by any means, but one we don’t consider enough.

Whether it’s a new writer, genre or sometimes you’re coming back to reading after a busy period in your life, or after reading a novel that absolutely floored you, or sometimes for no reason at all - if you’re just not connecting with the story by the third chapter, it may be that this isn’t the right time for you and this book.

So, ghost the book, don’t block it. Just ghost it for awhile.

It’s happened to me multiple times, where I’ve returned to a novel that I once abandoned, more than once, only to find that this time around, during a different phase of my life, I’ve fallen in love with it.

I wouldn’t advocate this method yo-yoing when it comes to dating, but with a novel it can yield better, less toxic, results.

So, not connecting with a novel doesn’t necessary mean that the novel is bad. Well, sometimes it is actually a really bad novel, but that’s another essay for another time. Not one where I explore bad novels but one where I’m asking what a bad novel is and why we should be reading them.

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I love a bad novel. A bad novel can be excellent, but there’ no excuse for a boring novel.

Again, if we pivot back to dating, I’m not advocating a bad boy here, boring boys are a safer bet - but a boring novel can go right back on the shelf.

Important to point out here, there is a difference between a novel that challenges you and one that bores you. And again if we’re talking about dating, a bad boy is not a challenge, he’s a waste of time.

A real challenge, especially in the story sense, test our grasp of writing, our values, concepts of reality, the force us to explore issues we don’t want to face. Those are novels we should continue reading especially if they are taking us out of our comfort zone.

There are also the big books, often classics, I’m talking hundreds of pages, small fonts, door stoppers of books - Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, Gone with the Wind, The Far Pavilions, East of Eden, The Count of Monte Cristo – the epics are big and intimidating, and may take a while to read them, and so approach them, especially the first three chapters, slowly. Don’t expect to be whisked away within the first paragraph – they aren’t a reel where the hook means everything.

Aside from these two points, and somehow also including them, a boring read is a different thing to challenging read. And, no, we must never be bored reading novels.

An antidote, if you find yourself in that compromising position where you want to scream into the pages of the novel hoping the writer will hear your rage and regret ever having created such a mind numbingly dreary text, is as simple as my three chapter rule.

Buy as many books as you can. That way you always have options when one novel fails to sweep you away, you have a trove to choose from. I feel the same about dating, keep your options open and let them filter themselves out of your life until you find the best fit.

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Important to also remember that the novels sitting on your bookshelf are not items on a grocery list that you’re expected to cross off as you consume them. This isn’t a list of obligations, responsibilities, and tasks you must complete. When you buy a book, you haven’t signed a legally binding document to read it from start to finish, you aren’t married to a novel.

I suppose it’s only fair to point out here that a date with someone is also not a contract. Aside from a contract to meet said date and spend a some time with them - a drink, a meal etc - there is no lasting obligation. A kiss isn’t a contract either, but again that is another essay altogether.

A novel on your bookshelf is the potential for a good time – a love affair, deep friendship, a fling, a marriage, an obsession, a fascination, an escape, a forgettable encounter, a toxic relationship, and, yes, sometimes, a date that is so dull you’re screaming for someone, for anything to happen to make it all end as quickly as possible.

Well, I hear your cries and I’m giving you a lifeline. Shut the book. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Let it go. Move on to a better story.

One needs only to observe the British Iraqi contemporary visual artist’s work for a moment to feel his accumulation of inspiration, from multiple sources and references, that exist together on an immersive plain simultaneously frothing with dynamism and stillness. Not an easy feat.

Through his large-scale use of bold colours, multidimensional compositions, hard edged geometric shapes existing on the same plane as fluid organic forms, Mousawi portrays many things.

Elements of his homeland along with notions of the often-complex diasporic relationship with home and, of course, how nostalgia warps that which we remember, are living through, and see over the horizon. It’s done through with an effortless approach, rich in layers of symbolism and candour.

In this edition of Great Big Questions, Mousawi details his interesting perspective on the highs and lows of starting and finishing a work, to start and his biggest distraction her shares with a full heart.

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What’s easier, starting or finishing a project?

There are highs and lows to both. When you begin a project, there’s an infinite optimism, a feeling that you’re about to embark on a visual exploration of an idea you’ve become so obsessed with that it can no longer be contained.

Finishing a project can feel cathartic. You’re confronted with all those manifested ideas. They’re no longer inside you contained within the purity of ideas. Suddenly, they exist outside for everyone to see and of course. The harshest critic will always be the artist.

In short, both starting and finishing are equally wonderful and equally difficult.

How do you know a work is done?
When I can no longer add to it without taking something away from it. A work is finished when it begins to speak for itself and no longer needs me.

What is your biggest distraction from creating work?
Being a father, and I say that with a heart full of love.

What do you do when you feel stuck?

I take a walk, go for a run, read, and listen to loud music.

If you could own any artwork in the world, which one would it be and why?

Probably Under Fire (2008) by Moataz Nasr. It holds so much tension and severity through such a simple idea.

Which creative person would you most like to have dinner with?

Samia Halaby or Victor Wooten.

Where do you think ideas or creativity come from?

Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

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What is the best advice you received about art, creativity, or the process of working

Become obsessed with your practice. Believe that what you’re doing is important, and believe in the urgency of your voice. The feeling that you’re creating or exploring an idea that has never been created or explored before is a privilege. The best thing you can do is honour that feeling.

About Great Big Questions

What does it really mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? Can creativity be taught? The Culturelist’s artist interview series, Great Big Questions, asks every artist the same eight questions, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences and the deeply personal philosophies behind a life devoted to making art.

If you’ve ever played a board game with me, you’ll know that beyond ability, talent or natural aptitude for the skills needed to play said game, I am above all incredibly passionate.

About winning.

That’s just a more hyperbolic way to say that I’m extremely competitive. It’s actually a problem. Being competitive, I feel, is a form of confidence (or insecurity a friend pointed out, but we won’t explore that here) – and what is more inspiring than being confident that one can win a game they have no businesses winning.

Hello, that’s me.

But here’s the thing, even if one was naturally attuned into the particulars of a board game, even if they had played it so often, they understand the rules, pitfalls, and strategies to win, they still must rely on something out of their control.

The roll of the dice, instructions on a hidden card, some secret rule. The element of luck can completely thwart what should have been a clean trajectory to wining and bragging rights.

This is why I have always felt that trivia games and quizzes are the superior form of games. When asked a question one might not be familiar with, you have the opportunity to turn luck into an educated guess. Instantly it feels that destiny is in your control and beating the odds only requires some thinking and making clear connections.

The win no matter how small here, becomes so much sweeter than if you happened to roll the right number you need. The victory in a trivia game is based on knowledge, intellect or careful consideration. And even if you lose in a trivia game, you actually win, because you’re learn. I know, I know, it’s not the same as actually winning, but you you’re winning in the long run, and that actually does matter.

And above anything else, my favourite kind of board game is the ones that teaches you. Enter Nerd Herd Trivia Wars.

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Nerd Herd Trivia Wars

Now, everything I have described is packed in a wonderful pink box that contains more than 1,000 questions to test your skills across films music, geography, history, sport, pop culture and so much more.

Nerd Herd Trivia Wars by QuizBiz is a quick, punchy general trivia games that is incredibly addictive. The team sent me one game to try out, and I played it with my friends, god children and, even once or twice, with myself. The game is good for its simplicity balancing general knowledge along with more niche questions that will teach a fair bit about history, maths, and facets of pop culture that we millennials should intimately know.

How to Play

It’s very simple, you’ll need at least three players, one host and two contestants. Each contestant gets five Nerd coins that are placed in front them in a row, pink side up. The gold coin (or any prize of your choice – I went for a giant chocolate cookie) is placed at the end of the two rows.

The host them reads a question out loud and the two contestant race to answer – in me and my friends’ case, we “answer” by pushing each other out of the way and screaming the answers, even though this game requires no physical contact. Please note: Don’t do as I do.

The first contestant to answer correctly, one Nerd Coin from pink to white – however I have to say, in my case, I just grabbed the coin and collected them in the palm of my hands – stress management?

Once a player has flipped all of their five coins, you get one more question and win the grand prize, gold coin of chocolate cookie.

Question types are:

• On the Big Screen: movies, TV shows, actors, characters, famous scenes, iconic moments from the world of film and television.

• Around the World: countries, capitals, landmarks, cultures, traditions, and global geography from every corner of the planet.

• That’s so Random: anything goes. Weird facts, unexpected knowledge, and questions that don’t fit anywhere else.

• Music to my Ears: songs, artists, lyrics, bands, and memorable moments from music across all genres and eras.

• Blast from the Past: throwback trivia from past de: old tech, retro trance, childhood memories, and historic pop moments.

• Back to School: class classroom knowledge, covering maths, science, history and the fundamentals we should all remember.

• Word Puzzle: word puzzle cards, give you clues to a song title, movie, title, or artist name, using synonyms, antonyms, and obfuscations.

At times you’ll scream the answer before the host finishes asking the question, other times you’ll need a moment to collect your thoughts, and sometimes, believe me, this is just as good, you’ll turn around and say – I never knew that!

Nerd Herd Trivia Wars is also a live game across pubs in Dubai, so you can enjoy the glory of winning in a public space and the physical game is available to purchase for AED 99. You can find out more and purchase the game below.

Discover Nerd Herd Trivia Wars

Win a Nerd Herd Trivia Wars Game!

Here’s a bit of exciting news. The Culturelist is giving away three Nerd Herd Trivia Wars games and you can win one.

All you have to do to enter is subscribe to The Culturelist, take a screenshot confirm your subscription and send it to us via direct message, along with your answer to this Nerd Herd Trivia Wars Game:

Come one, don’t Goggle the answer, use your educated guess skills! Entries close on 21 September. Three entries will be selected at random.

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The common cold -seemingly debilitating, generally dramatic. I have mostly recovered, thanks to a concoction of remedies made up of good old pharmaceutical drugs, homemade brews (I’m surprised how much drinking very hot water is actually very helpful), a little superstition, and of course binging old comforts.

It’s challenging to read in midst of sneezing fits, and despite the guilt, I forced myself not to do any work because I knew it would be slow, bad, and that the best remedy for a common cold is actually to do nothing.

But one can still do nothing while watching something – somethings. Here’s the list:

• Howl’s Moving Castle Hayao Miyazki’s work of genius adapted from Diana Wynne Jones incredible novel

• One Fine Day – massively underrated romantic comedy

• Season one of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – I was having withdrawal symptoms now that House of the Dragon season three is over

• Season one of Dune: Prophecy – such a brilliant show that I’ve seen before but I want to get reacquainted as season two is out late this year I believe, and of course the film in December

• Season one and two Rings of Power – I will go on the record to say that the first episode of the first season is actually a perfect first episode of anything

I know that’s a lot of stuff to have watched and I truly believe more that medicines, bone broths, and ginger, vitamin C, honey, mint liquids I drank and inhaled, watching good stories on the screen also helped with the healing.

The downside to all this of course was that this week’s newsletter isn’t as meaty as I would have liked. I had some exciting stories planned that will have to wait and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to record The Voice Note this week. It definitely wouldn’t have been a pleasurable experience for you to hear me discuss culture while sipping on honey water and sound like I’m crying.

Also, it goes without saying the loss of another two great culture icons, dearest Dolly Parton and the force that was Yayoi Kusama. Goes without saying that I will have something on both soon. Dolly in particular is something I don’t want to rush.

Regardless of the dreaded cold, I persevered writing and editing on various projects while breathing through one nostril and also managed to put something together for you all.

Enjoy,

Maan Jalal

This Week on The Culturelist

Remembering Sliman Mansour: 10 Artworks by the Palestinian Master

The great Palestinian artist died this week leaving behind an incredible legacy. I curated a short list of works that have always spoken to me while honouring this great master’s passing.

Read the full story…

More from The Culturelist

Great Big Questions: Hassan Hajjaj

Bold, powerful, innovative portraits that have influenced a whole movement. Pioneering Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj explains the surprisingly simple way he knows a work is finished.

Read more…

Vibes of the Month: August

Here’s everything that stopped me doom scrolling over the last month, making me ponder, discover, and feel inspired.

See here…

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I implore you all to watch Howl’s Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki.

Sophie is a young unassuming milliner who is turned into an elderly woman by a witch, a curse she’s unable to speak of. Against the backdrop of war with another kingdom, Sophie meets a wizard named Howl and gets caught up in his refusal to take part in the war while trying to free herself of the curse.

Howl’s Moving Castle is such an interesting point for Miyazaki as a storyteller and director. What he does with notions of love and sacrifice is as fascinating to me as well as his depiction of war, power, and violence.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen any of his work or if you’re “not into animated films” this goes beyond all of it.

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This Week’s Quote

I hardly read this week and when I did pick up a book I chose, of all things, Alexandre Duma’s mammoth 1,243 page The Count of Monte Cristo (Penguin edition).

While flicking through, I came across a paragraph that caught my attention simply because of its clarity, clean description, and the way it left me wanting to keep reading this great undertaking.

Meanwhile, the master had taken off his shirt and jacket, and secured his trousers around his waist; as he was barefoot, he had no shoes or stockings to remove. Once dressed – or, rather, undressed – like this, he put his finger to his lips to show that they should observe complete silence and, after slipping gently into the sea, swam towards the shore, but so cautiously that they could not hear the slightest sound. His path could be followed only by the phosphorescent trail he left in his wake. Soon even this disappeared, and it was clear that Gaetano had reached land.

This Week’s Question

It obvious what I’ll be asking you this week, cause we all have a list, or at the very least one film or show we come back to when we feel like we need a bit of healing. So I pose this question to you:

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As always thank you for your continued support and subscribing to The Culturelist.

See you next week,

Maan Jalal

Summer is almost over and I found that the images that spoke to me over the last month were fantastical paintings of epic scenes and stories (no surprised there), photographs that reveal how much media and how we consume media has changed, and delicate images where the artist’s hand is crafting elements of nature or rendering the environment and eerily realistic ways.

Vibes of the Month is a listicle of images, works by artists known and unknown, curated by me, for you, as a means to sift through the fodder of the internet.

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A stunning art framed door frame in an apartment decorated by Antoine Billore

Close up of the Italian conservator Lorenza d’alessandro working on the restoration of the tomb of Nefertari in the late 1980s. She looks so lovingly at the wall while she works.

Peggy Guggenheim shot by Man Ray in 1925 (ish). She’s wearing a cloth-of-gold evening dress by Paul Poiret and a headdress by Vera Stravinsky - something about this is so dark and mysterious in the best way.

A solid cast sculpture of of a striding figure with ibex horns, raptor skin draped around his shoulders and upturned boots from 3000 B.C. Mesopotamia. It feels strangely fashion forward and avant-garde - it’s giving Rick Ownes.

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Canadian Artist Colette Stubbings creates what she calls ‘rose armour’ which is exactly what you see. They are sculpture like, fashion inspired pieces that use real plants and flower petals.

They don’t make fashion campaigns or editorials like this anymore. Penelope Cruz in Ralph Lauren’s FW campaign in 2000. It’s sultry, intriguing, feels like a story and nothing about it looks over done.

Nature Unbound by Farnaz Nylander - luscious work.

Obsessed. Tony Liu’s 1920s Brooklyn co-op, the colours by Patrick O’Donnell from Farrow & Ball. The colour combination is like a painting.

The now viral image of the cafe Bussy Cat in Zakaria Ahmed Street in downtown Cairo, Egypt is delightful on so many linguistic and bilingual levels.

Beautiful. A vase by ceramic artist Tatiana Cardona.

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Every time I see The Apparition by Gustave Moreau (1876-1877) I’m mesmerised by what he could do with watercolours.

A close up of the beloved and iconic Toyota Building in Dubai set to be demolished early next year. I wrote about the history of the building and what it has meant to people in Dubai for Architecture Digest Middle East. You can read that here.

From photographer Simon Upton’s book Simon Upton: A to Z Interiors, a wonderful volume on how we live in our spaces. Worn out candy pink, wine red and stacks of books is absolutely perfect.

Egyptian belly dancer, actress, viral queen, meme muse, Fifi Abdu photographed by the artist Youssef Nabil in 2000. Titled Fifi with Cigarette in Her Mouth, Cairo, the image evokes all the troupes of over the top glamour associated with a particular era in the Arab world but in a restrained way.

Not sure where this is from. I really hope it isn’t AI and there is indeed a small stone tile somewhere reminding us how might it once was.

I love hand written messages and annotations in a book, this one of Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism is particularly intriguing for both its warmth and vaugness.

To dearest Manal:

“Suhaib, O sweetest woman, [a] heart cannot help but love her.”

With my deepest affection…

Not sure where there is from but I assume it’s probably Leda. She’s been through alot poor Leda.

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Delicate and so gorgeous - Drool Jewel by Olina Music.

Recently discovered Ryan McMenamy, an incredible artist on the intersection of fashion illustration and painting.

A photo of Mohamed Aziz who has been selling books from his second hand bookstore Bouquiniste El Azizifor more than 50 years in Rabat, Morocco.

A Rodin bronze sitting beautifully under a Picasso drawing. Elegantly designed by Marshall Watson and photographed by Luke White.

A charming tourism poster for Istanbul, Turkey.

Desperately hoping this too isn't AI. So true and clever.

From the Iksel Decorative Arts instagram, the post is focused on their "Governor’s Visit wall paper, but I’m sorry I can’t concentrate on that when that stunning chez lounge is right there.

Kurt Vonnegut writing. No other image will make me stop scrolling and inspire me to go read or write.

Photographer, designer, and filmmaker Hajjaj has been a pioneer in helping to create and popularise a very particular visual language where elements of Arab visual culture has fused with the hip-hop aesthetic.

This maximalist approach, which also takes inspiration from the height of pop art, has over the years found a firm place in the visual canon of the region and the diaspora. Graphic, poster, or furniture design, film, painting, and digital aesthetics, Hajjaj’s influence is undeniable.

Hajjaj was one of the first to take Moroccan culture, a world already rich in recognisable and bold pictorial elements, and fusing it with the urban energetic ambiance of hip-hip.

Through photography in particular, Hajjaj created a unique, some might even call it eccentric, style of character portraits.

His subjects are photographed as exaggerated versions of themselves, as seen through Hajjaj’s metaphoric and literal lens. The work is then framed ornately with everyday items which can be found in grocery stores and markets.

From cans of regionally branded tomato sauce or sausages to the globally recognisable branding of soda drinks such as Coca Cola and 7Up, the bright corporate language, the products themselves are transformed into art accessories simply by being placed within the frames that border Hajjaj’s photographs.

Aside from being visually compelling, surreal, and instantly recognisable, Hajjaj’s work is strangely universal.

When asked how he knows that a work is finished, Hajjaj’s response was quite obvious, “When I decide what cans go around the frame.”

All of Hajjaj’s answers for this week’s Great Big Questions were direct and economical – a pleasure to edit to be honest. This was fascinating to note for an artist whose work is multilayered, opulent and yet whose approach is fairly straightforward.

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What’s easier, starting or finishing a project?

Finishing the work.

How do you know a work is done?

When I decide what cans go around the frame.

What is your biggest distraction from creating work?

The rain is the biggest distraction, as all my shoots are done outdoors.

What do you do when you feel stuck?

When the sun is out, it means I can do my shoots.

If you could own any artwork in the world which one would it be and why?

Horace Ové. He was a friend, pioneer, and a very important artist, the first Black filmmaker in the UK.

Which creative person would you most like to have dinner with?

With my friends, Zak Ové and Blaize.

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Where do you think ideas or creativity comes from?

Imagination, as well as what I grew up on and around.

What is the best advice you received about art, creativity, or the process of working

To see hip hop in my work as told to me by Fab 5 Freddy.

About Great Big Questions

What does it really mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? Can creativity be taught? The Culturelist’s artist interview series, Great Big Questions, asks every artist the same eight questions, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences and the deeply personal philosophies behind a life devoted to making art.

“The final chapter has been written.

With hearts heavy beyond words, we share that our beloved father has passed away.

To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched. But to us, we lost a father, our source of love, strength, and home.

Though his journey in this world has come to an end, his spirit, his work, and his love will remain with us always.

May he rest in eternal peace, surrounded by the light and beauty he gave so generously to this world.”

I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to interview him in The Culturelist’s series The Great Big Questions and get his thoughts on creativity and art.

In the interview he mentioned that his current illness has been a distraction from his work, and it was amazing to me that he was indeed, still producing intricate and epic imagery of which he is so fondly known for.

How lucky are we to have had such a sensitive and creative force who showed us the meaning of strength, poetry, beauty, pride, story, and also resistance through art.

Mansour understood the power of the human figure in its erect, graceful, proud posture, in its aching, hunched, suffering stance, all while being defiant and hopeful.

Equally he cherished geometry, the land, materiality (how can he not?) using earth as material into his work to speak, remember, capture his homeland.

When I asked him where he thinks creativity comes from, the answer I got was simple and perfect:

“Creativity and ideas come from thinking deeply in a topic for a long period of time.”

Every work he created reflects this ethos - traditions, culture, stories, a world he reminded us about, he reimagined for us weaving in splendour and pride, a result of his deep thinking which I’m sure was deeper than we will ever understand.

To honour his legacy, I wanted to share ten of Mansour’s art works that have left a lasting impact in the landscape of Arab art and on me personally. I have decided not to write descriptions for these works, because in so many ways, Mansour’s work speaks for itself, and needs to be experienced on a pictorial level where he combines imagery and symbolism to tell a story.

Rest in peace great Sliman Mansour, you have left the Arab world with a body of work, a timeless legacy like no other which we will forever cherish and strive to honour.

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The Carrier of Hardships, 1973

Sad Tunes, 1977

The Daughter of Jerusalem, 1978

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A Woman Carrying Jerusalem, 1979

Jerusalem Hoash, 1980

Symbol of Hope, 1985

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Shrinking Object, 1996

The Immigrant, 2017

Holy Family in an Olive Grove, 2020

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From the River to the Sea, 2021

This week I bought eight new novels. I really have no businesses buying any more books, but here we are. And this morning I found myself jotting down three new books that I “need to get.”

This is not a unique problem (is it a problem though?) – many readers and bibliophiles are watching their TBR stack grow into behemoth stacks.

Hoarding? Impulsive shopping addiction? I rebuke these labels. This is cultural collecting. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

It doesn’t matter if I never read any of the new books joining my always growing home library. They are there waiting with the promise of stories that at some point intrigued or excited me.

Distraction is a concept in the arts that I’ve been laser focused on for a few weeks. A concept that affects artists, audiences, and the ecosystem of the media in ways that makes a digital detox sound less like a spa treatment and more like a necessity.

This is probably why I (and many others) collect books. They are a sanctuary from the all the distractions of the world, distractions that are becoming vigorously more difficult to control.

For this writer, a digital detox is very much waiting for me at home, going through the books on my shelves, whether I read them or not.

Enjoy,

Maan Jalal

This Week on The Culturelist

We Are at War: Will Distraction Kill Art?

Never in history has distraction been so accessible. Not only is it affecting how we experience art but how artists create work. Can we combat the attack on our attention spans? Will this force artists to make better art?

Read the full story…

More from The Culturelist

Great Big Questions: Alymamah Rashed

Her work is vibrant and surreal, her process includes distraction. The Kuwaiti artist tells us what being “stuck” during the process can really mean for an artist.

Read more…

The Voice Note

Hayden Panettiere’s Death, Princess Diana Book, Marc Jacobs Sale

From the tragic death of a talented actress to a new book about an iconic figure, and what happens to your name and legacy when you decide to move on? The biggest cultural stories from this week now on The Voice Note.

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Jeff Vandermeer is an incredible storytelling who has taken the sci-fi genre into new and fascinating areas combining the best of literary and commercial writing.

In Bourne, we are in a far-off dystopian future and our protagonist Rachel, a resourceful scavenger who lives with Wick her drug dealer partner in a city ravaged by war and where biotech experiments hide in the shadows.

One day Rachel comes across Bourne a creature both (or neither) a plant and animal. As their relationship grows, the balance of Rachel’s world shifts and nothing she thought she believed is what it seems.

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One List Thing…

This Week’s Quote

Slightly controversial when she started in the 1960s, Elaine Sturtevant is an artist whose perspective on art and originalist is one worth examining. The quote below from her 2012 retrospective, Sturtevant: Image Over Image, at the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm, feels timely as we continue to drown in the digital forays.

What is currently compelling is our pervasive cybernetic mode, which plunks copyright into mythology, makes origins a romantic notion, and pushes creativity outside the self. Remake, reuse, reassemble, recombine – that's the way to go.

This Week’s Question

Given this week’s focus on art in the age of distraction, it only makes sense that I pose this question to you.

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As always thank you for your continued support and subscribing to The Culturelist.

See you next week,

Maan Jalal

The talk was part of a series of creative dialogues taking place at the Avid Learning Centre for Culture and Creative Expression in Al Khayat Avenue in Al Quoz in Dubai.

Obviously, I said yes, obviously I was excited, obliviously I had a lot to say.

Distraction is the final frontier. There is no bigger topic, no greater distraction in our present day from all the incredible experiences we could be having, should be having if it wasn’t for being constantly distracted by that handheld sleek window into every corner of the universe.

While there are many ways to be distracted today, I wanted to focus on the most accessible and convenient distraction of the algorithms taking us away from the immediate, from all forms of art in our present and real world.

Yes, I know, the internet itself, from memes to content and alter egos, the whole thing is a performance piece, small works of art part of a greater museum archiving our lives. But I’m not going to get into that debate, defining what art is, because it will turn into a running series that no one has time for – and if I’m being frank, I have no interest in discussing anymore.

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My interest and concern at the talk, of which I want to elaborate in this essay, is art in the present and physical world. Right here and now be it in an art gallery, museum, movie theatre, the stage, pages of a novel, this is where we are losing.

We have lost the art of being with a work of art, wholly and completely in tune with it for longer than a few moments. No, it’s not enough to fleetingly engage with work, and yes, I very much blame our phones.

I don’t want to define what art is, but I’m happy to define what distraction is.

Distraction, and distraction from the arts, isn’t a 21^st century problem. It wasn’t born when we conveniently found the internet a swipe and few taps away.

Distraction has been an ever-present dark force seducing humanity away from whatever was deemed ethical and moral across a many cultures and eras.

Art was considered a distraction from religion, family, and work. There are many fables and tales whose moral foundation is based on the idea of being distracted by power, beauty, fame and riches. Here distraction was a sin, punishable by the loss of love, of all that we hold precious, of the things that make us human.

Photography was a distraction from painting, radio from reading, film a distraction from books. In the Matrix films, we live in an assimilation, in the greatest of distractions.

Distraction is one of the oldest concepts in existence. It only feels incredibly pertinent now, because it is aggressively prevalent. There is no other recorded time in history where distraction is accessible to us at any second, any moment of the day or night.

With all that in mind, my definition is straight forward. True distraction is the thing, anything, that takes us out of the present moment.

If I’m having a conversation with somebody over dinner, is my phone flipped up or is it flipped over?

If I’m watching a film, do I pick up my phone and search for one of the actors on IMDB?

If I’m reading, do I keep looking over at my phone to see if someone has messaged me?

If the present falls into the periphery, transforms into an illusion because of blue light and pixels, distraction becomes the destruction of a moment that should be sacred in the ritual of experiencing art.

Yes, experiencing art is a ritual, a moment that can feel absolutely transformative.

I recently did a video about how to make time to read. And I said there, what I’ll write now. The answer is simple but hard. We need to put our phones on silent and away from us.

We need to give our mind, our imagination, ourselves some space away from the thing, the dangerous and wonderful thing that that drags us down the ultimate rabbit hole.

Yes, I know, we are but human beings, designed to be distracted by pretty, shiny things. There was Eve and the apple and now there is us and our phones, us and the memes.

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The internet, our phones, can do some wonderful, glorious, amazing things. But we need to conjure the discipline, train our minds to ignore those wonderful, glorious, amazing things, and put our phones down and away.

We are up against giants, this I know, engineers of distraction who understand and continue to refine the art of gamifying every element of our interaction with the internet, grooming us for addiction.

And now, it’s our greatest spiritual warfare, the struggle for self-mastery, to put down our phones and experience present reality.

Call me naïve, but the truth is when it comes to art that if the experience, be it painting, sculpture, novel, film, a play, if the art is good, if you are engaged and are connected with a story, you will not think about your phone.

You will not be distracted.

This puts great pressure on artists. But what inspiring, time defying works of art that baffle our consciousness, set our senses ablaze, than the great works of geniuses, made through pressure.

Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, Frida Kahlo’s whole legacy, George Orwell’s 1984, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Virgina Wolf’s Mrs Dallaway, Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier – I could go on.

We are on the precipice of a great war for attention. It is a battle to maintain the balance of true storytelling, one that has two sums – the storyteller and the audience.

If the audience is being whisked away from stories, a core means through which we navigate and exist in this world, because of distraction we need to as artists to work harder to make good art. Yes the pressure is and should be great, but we can meet it.

Artists themselves are of course audiences, and I don’t discount myself from the temptation of distraction. I’m still figuring it out.

My godson grabbed my arm and shook it when we he was showing me a mini camera on a key chain that prints “actual real photos” that he was gifted on a recent trip to Japan.

“You’re not listening to me. I’m talking. You’re looking at your phone, or you’re talking to whoever.”

This was a moment that felt deeper than the instantaneous guilt clawing at me. I realized, and these realizations are embarrassingly obvious, that beyond missing out on art, we are missing out on actual life, small moments, core memories, all of which fuel, feed art and our reading of it.

Mindfulness is key. When someone tells you with their words, actions or non-actions, that you aren’t with them it’s time to reassess, what really matters.

When I was a child rushing my chores, my homework, a meal down my throat so I can read my books or go out and play, my parents always said the same thing in different ways.

“The sun will be there tomorrow; your books will still be her later. They won’t disappear. Don’t rush, don’t ignore. Do it right no matter how long it takes.”

The internet will be here tomorrow, memes will be there later. They won’t disappear. Let’s not rush art, let’s not ignore life, no matter how long it takes, because in truth, life is too short to be distracted.

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Also interesting to think about this week is the concept of the artist being separate from their art - their art becoming bigger than them, for better or fr worse.

A note of hope (for me anyway) - a “bad” animated film, a five year mother and son project is making millions in China.

Jump in and listen and then scroll down to read the thoughts I didn’t share in the podcast.

Enjoy

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Hayden Panettiere Dies at 36 After Apparent Overdose

This is so tragic. I’ve been reading and watching interviews of Hayden Panettiere and the many beautiful tributes from fans and people who have worked with her and I can’t help thinking about how this terrible thing keeps happening to inspiring, talented young women.

The first time I saw Panettiere on TV was in an episode of Ally McBeal and I remember distinctly thinking, wow she’s a great actress. There is just something about some people on TV - they are compelling to watch, they have an energy and spirit, uniquely theirs, that some how connects to all who watches.

Despite the tragedy of this, I hope she is at peace.

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Princess Diana’s Brother Charles Spencer to Publish New Book About Her Life

Swan Song refers to the final work or performance given by someone before they retire or die.

It is an appropriate title for Charles Spencer book about his sister Diana.

I can’t even imagine how much he has been hounded over the years to share thoughts and memories about her. A book is an apt way to put all his thoughts and feelings in one place especially as we come to the 30 year anniversary of her death.

There are so many books about Diana, but this is the one that I think will give a deeply interesting and fuller account of who she was - Spencer is probably one of the very few people in this world who knew Diana, truly knew her, from childhood and into the unbelievable circus that her life eventually became.

Will definitly be reading this.

Four Renaissance Artworks Stolen From Sicily Museum in Major Heist

Why is everyone stealing famous art when it’s almost impossible to sell? In one week four works attributed to Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina were stolen while masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse, and Cézanne were recovered from Italy and Brazil.

It’s made me think about the reason these crimes happen and just as interesting how an art work can be elevated when it is stolen.

Marc Jacobs, the $850 Million Sale and Who Really Owns His Name

I found this story fascinating. If Marc Jacobs were to leave Marc Jacobs after the sale of the company, his name would be associated with a brand that he has no creative control (and perhaps interest) in what so ever.

Fashion is so interesting to me for this reason, one of the very creative field where creativity and commerce really need to work together to make a successful brand.

Low-Budget Chinese Animated Film Niu Lai Becomes Surprise Box Office Hit

One of the best stories of the week. People are rushing to the cinema in China to watch this film, Niu Lai, because its bad. I’m still unsure if the narrative story is bad, but the animation has come under scrutiny for how “crude” it is.

This gives me hope that people are more interested to see somethign that feels human made even if its flawed as opposed to watching hyper realistic, perfectly glossy CGI, AI animated special effects.

Listen to last week’s episode of The Voice Note

• John Galliano Met Exhibition, Barbie 2 Salary Standoff, Children of Blood and Bone Fallout

• Banksy’s £150K Bill, Zendaya’s Mystery Brooch, Netflix’s Stolen Nicolas Cage Film

Connecting the personal to the universal, these stories sit on the intersections of identity, memory and how the natural word blooms, seeps, weaves into the realities of being human.

Womanhood is the facet through which the Kuwaiti artist sifts through regional folklore, floral and botanical growth, and the beauty of the banal, the every day. Merging Eastern and Western perspectives, Rashed takes all these elements channeling them into each to create arresting, dreamlike imagery that feels as intuitively present as they are when she was creating them.

Aside from exhibiting internationally, Rashed’s unique aesthetic has caught the eyes of lucury brands including Dior and Piaget of which she was collaborated with.

In this week’s of Great Big Questions, Rashed tells The Culturelist how “every work begins with a seed of intention,” why she doesn’t really believe in distractions, and what being “stuck” during the process of making art can really mean for an artist.

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What’s easier for you: starting a project or finishing one?

It isn’t really a question of whether starting or finishing is easier. Each stage is rewarding in its own way.

Beginning a work feels like planting the first seed and breathing its first spirit into existence. It is a space of intention, but also one of chance, surprise, and discovery. The seed is the seed of intention, yet what grows from it often exceeds what I could have imagined at the start.

Finishing a work is about gathering all of those planted seeds and witnessing the forest they have become. It is a moment of arrival, where I can reflect on the conscious and subconscious decisions that shaped the work along the way. In many ways, completion is an act of understanding how those two forces met each other to create something larger than either one alone.

How do you know when a work is done?

I know a work is complete when I feel that I have reached a destination of fulfilment. It is a deeply intuitive feeling, one of arriving at the place I intended to reach or sometimes blooming into something beyond what I originally imagined.

Completion is not necessarily about resolving every detail but about recognizing a sense of inner fulfilment and wholeness within the work. There is a particular joy that accompanies that moment, a feeling of arrival. It feels as though the work has found its own home, and in turn, I have arrived at a newly born home within it.

What is your biggest distraction from creating work?

I do not really think of anything as a distraction from my practice. Instead, I believe it is important to allow for moments of pause within the studio.

Often, these pauses take the form of listening to music from my vinyl collection or simply getting up to turn the record over and begin the next side. These small gestures create moments of reflection and breathing space within the process.

I have come to realize that these pauses are not separate from the work itself. They contribute to the final result just as much as the act of painting. The moments between making are often where ideas settle, transform, and find their place. In that sense, every pause becomes part of the journey and ultimately contributes to the work’s arrival.

What do you do when you feel stuck?

I usually see it as a sign that I need to step away from the work for a while. Rather than forcing a resolution, I often begin creating something new and allow the original work to rest.

I return to it when the calling arrives naturally. Over time, I have learned that every artwork has its own lifespan and rhythm. Some unfold quickly, while others require months or even years of reflection and revisiting.

The process is never fixed or concrete, and that is part of its beauty. Each work reveals its own pace, and my role is to listen to it rather than rush it toward completion.

If you could own any artwork in the world, which one would it be and why?

I would probably choose a work by Khalil Gibran. His drawings and paintings are deeply concerned with the relationship between the body and the spirit, how they unite, separate, and continually seek one another. His work captures a profound sense of human fragility, and I find myself returning to that tenderness and vulnerability again and again.

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Which creative person would you most like to have dinner with?

I would have loved to have dinner with Etel Adnan. May her soul rest in peace.

I think she is one of the few Arab artists who engaged deeply with the philosophy of beauty and treated it as a serious intellectual and artistic inquiry. Through both her paintings and her poetry, she brought beauty into a critical and thoughtful light. I would have loved to hear her speak about art, landscape, language, and the ways they shape how we move through the world.

Where do you think ideas or creativity come from?

I believe ideas and creativity come from intuition. The challenge is not simply having an idea, but committing to it, trusting a vision enough to bring it into reality.

Creativity requires taking chances, accepting the possibility of failure, and being willing to excavate an image until it reveals itself. For me, every work begins with a seed of intention. No matter how small or humble that seed may seem, it carries a sense of urgency and charge. The creative process is about nurturing that seed and allowing it to grow into something that did not exist before.

What is the best advice you have received about art, creativity, or the process of working?

The best advice I have received is to trust and commit to your intuition.

There is a power and purity in your own voice. Certain images, ideas, and experiences will resonate with you in ways they may not resonate with others, and your role as an artist is to bring those things into the light. The same is true for every artist. We each notice different things, and that diversity of vision is what makes art so vital.

To commit to your intuition is to trust that what moves you is worthy of attention, and to have the courage to follow it wherever it leads

About Great Big Questions

What does it really mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? Can creativity be taught? The Culturelist’s artist interview series, Great Big Questions, asks every artist the same eight questions, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences and the deeply personal philosophies behind a life devoted to making art.

I’m a day late. I know. But there’s a legitimate reason. The internet.

I’ve had some serious connectivity issues that left me backed up with work - not fun. But I made it. Internet issues resolved (I believe) and it only took 40 hours of screaming.

The week has been particularly intense as after watching a delightful viral clip of Anne Hathaway talking about her favourite memes of herself, I spiralled into tangents of research on how the publics entitlement to celebrities faces, bodies, and lives. It’s a fun piece I promise, with lots to think about - scroll down for more.

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Also, big news! I’m so excited to launch a new series here on The Culturelist, one that I’ve been thinking about and planning for a while. Great Big Questions is a new weekly artist interview series that explores some of the most fundamental questions about creativity.

What does it mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? What is the most challenging part of the process?

Every week I ask the same eight questions to different artists across disciplines, mediums, and styles, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences, and the deeply personal philosophy behind a life devoted to making art.

I’m honoured that the artist featured in Great Big Questions is the legendary Palestinian painter and sculptor Sliman Mansour. His body of work has become synonyms with contemporary Palestinian art and a people’s visual identity and culture. I was really fascinated by his answers - both straightforward and profound,

Read the full interview below along with all the usual bits and pieces.

Enjoy,

Maan Jalal

This Week on The Culturelist…

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Listen on The Culturelist…

The Culturelist Recommends…

Virgina Wolf’s Orlando is such a vibe.

It is one of the strangest, most fascinating, and intriguing literary ventures about love, the self, and societal structures. It’s was beautifully adapted into stunning film that really feels like a novel starring Tilda Swinton and directed by Sally Potter. If you haven’t read it yet, I implore you to spend some time with it.

Buy this book

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This Week’s Quote…

I don’t often have this week’s quote come from the recommendation of the week, but I couldn’t help it. While reading Orlando this quote struck and has stuck with me:

“Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.”

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This Week’s Question…

Given my mini drama this week, it feels only fitting to pose this question to you:

As always, thank you for you subscription to The Culturelist.

See you next week.

Maan Jalal

There was Mother Mary in April a compelling film that didn’t get the attention it deserved, then we had the long awaited (whether you enjoyed it or not) The Devil Wears Prada 2 in May followed by the epic critical and commercial success of The Odyssey in June, and now the recent release of the sci-fi survival film The End of Oak Street, and in October, Hathaway will star in the Colleen Hoover psychological erotic thriller Verity – give me a minute I need to catch my breath, did I miss anything?

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Oh yes, she also announced that she is pregnant with her third child in a super cute Instagram video in June.

This is not even including what projects Hathaway is working on now – Princess Diaries 3 (will be huge) and Yesteryear the trad-wife thriller based on the hugely successful (and polarising) novel by Caro Claire Burke.

Aside from the obvious, (booked, busy, refusing to stop impressing us with her work ethic) Hathaway, has also done an excellent job at entertaining the internet through the many memes she has inspired.

Meme Muse

Here is where Hathaway rises a distinct notch or two above the rest. I wouldn’t be wrong to dub her one of this generation’s most inspiring meme muses.

The memes come forth in a plethora.

There is her excellent work in the first two Princess Diary films and The Devil Wears Prada (the sequel is yet to yield anything meme or viral worthy), a collection of looks and poses on various red carpets, there is also the one of her holding a champagne glass from the film The Hustle, and the promotional photo from the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night – I could go on.

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My personal favourite is when Hathaway went viral in 2023 for dancing to Lady Marmalade at the Valentino after-party at Paris Fashion Week. That was peak “Ren-anne-aissance” building up from a year where her style revolution had shifted thanks to stylist Erin Walsh, from which she went forth and entered into what fans dubbed the Hathaslay era.

Collective culture propagating on the internet truly is a fascinating thing, a collection of language, content, and movements, that tsunami over us before receding back into the horizon.

Wondrous really.

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Often or not though, we never consider or know the story behind a meme.

Like a cultural archaeologist brushing away the dust and debris of the internet’s reframes, revisions, reshares, and of course the comments, discovering the origin story of a meme can be satisfying and enlightening. The circumstances in which an image has become relatable enough to millions of people online when the framework behind the original is rearranged can be unexpected.

In some instances, the story is a telling reflection of facets of culture that feel frustratingly unfair.

Last week, Hathaway sat down with Ewan McGregor as part of the press tour for the aforementioned film The End of Oak Street. The Esquire video conversation between the two has since gone viral for one of the questions McGregor asked Hathaway – what is your favourite meme of yourself?

Hathway had two. Below are the memes and her response:

The Cupcake Meme

“So, there was this one where I was walking down the street. I was early to go to the gym, and did I get on a piece of cardio equipment? No, I didn’t. There was a bakery around the corner, and I bought a cupcake. And they gave me a bag, and I thought, OK, that’ll be my reward after I work out. And mind you, I’m seven months pregnant.”

She continues:

“I’m walking down the street, I’m like, I’m just gonna eat the cupcake now, and then I’ll burn it off!” she recalled. “I start eating the cupcake, only to realize I’m having my photograph taken by a pap.”

Hathaway adds that she looked at the photographer and made a disappointed face, which was then memed as, “me realizing I ate all the cupcakes.”

The HR Meme

The origin of the meme is when Hathaway made a virtual guest appearance on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

“It was during the pandemic. I was doing this Zoom, and I had a panic attack. I just flushed from here to here,” she points toward her neck and face. “I started sweating, and my hair got really matted to my head, and I just smiled. And somebody made me, like, the forever face of HR telling you you’re about to be fired. Because the smile goes nowhere near my eyes.”

Hathaway discusses the two memes and the stories behind them jovially, the internet generally praising her for being a good sport. And Hathaway is a good sport, an excellent one really.

But why does she have to be?

Behind the Meme: Portraits of Control

While one can’t deny the interest in listening to the story behind any meme, and to be fair Hathaway’s explanations here were entertaining, my thoughts focused out towards more big picture stuff. And the view was rather bleak.

The two meme’s Hathaway chose were the two that to me follow a theme of control. One letting go of control the other an attempt to harness it.

Convincing oneself that they will work out, that they deserve a prize for sweating it at the gym, and then eating the prize before the work out, is rooted in relatability. Add the pregnant, dressed in workout clothes, munching on said cup cake, along with the “aw, no more cupcakes?” expression, the story then speaks to different sets of very specific groups of people.

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In an incredibly normal moment of existence, a moment that may have only last a few seconds, Hathaway shed the glamorous aspirational Hathaslay alter ego to be every person, every woman. While she wasn’t acting, Hathaway became a character many can relate to, an avatar of experience that we are already familiar with.

The cupcake meme, in truth reveals a woman letting go of control, prematurely rewarding herself, having a very mundane and yet human moment. This is why the meme works so well.

The HR meme however, while hilarious, feels darker.

Hathaway was having a panic attack while filming. A panic attack in any circumstance is an absolutely claustrophobic and horrendous experience. Having to control it and you spiralling while performing would feel worse.

The public obviously had no idea that Hathaway was suffering from a panic attack (and one has to also question whether they would care if they knew) and her dead pan smile triggered a familiar image across corporate life.

Through Hathaway’s desperate attempt to control herself in a moment of mental anguish, a portrait of something much more sinister, and unfortunately, relatable, emerged.

The veneer of joy, warmth, civility stretched across something hollow, unfeeling, descending.

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Does the analysis of these memes warrant a conversation on whether or not Hathaway is allowed agency on how her face and person is being used in the online public arena?

Does celebrity status mean that we are allowed to praise, drag, or use a person as per our whimsy?

I hate rhetorical questions, but here we are.

Lest we forget, Hathaway was not always as beloved as she is in this moment, not always able to speak about less flattering images of herself in cheerful and breezy cadence.

From Hatha-hate to Hatha-slay

Between 2011 to 2014, Hathaway was the target of public scrutiny and hate.

It began after her heavily criticised Oscars hosting gig in 2011 where she was perceived as too eager next to her co-host the then super cool (now super cancelled) James Franco.

The hate campaign reached an extreme peak during the 2013 awards season. At the time Hathaway was promoting films such as The Dark Knight where she played Catwoman, a role many thought she wasn’t “cool” or “sexy” enough for (I’m glad to report those haters were dutifully proven wrong), and then Les Misérables where her role as Fantine was gaining a lot of critical acclaim, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

“It came true…”

Were the first words of Hathaway’s winning acceptance speech at the Oscars – a reference to Fantine’s song I Dreamed and Dream. Hathaway then ended her speech with:

“Here’s hoping that someday in the not-too-distant future, the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories and never more in real life.”

This, it seems, was too much for the public to handle.

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Social media abuse was relentless as Hathaway swept the award season where her interviews and speeches were dissected by a small but loud and influential group of irritated (and sad) people online that felt she was too keen, too affected, too Disney, to stand.

Looking back now, Hathaway was a delight compared to some of the antics we’ve seen on press circuits over the last few years. A few highlights:

• A Star is Born 2019: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper baiting the public into making us believe they were having a romantic tryst, as Gaga repeated the “there could be 100 people in a room and 99 don’t believe in you” line over a dozen times in interviews.

• Madame Wed 2024: Where Dakota Johnson was completely detached in her interviews while promoting the film with rumours circulating that she thought the film was bad and wanted nothing to do with it.

• It Ends With Us 2024: Blake Lively’s oddly cheerful floral fashion, info commercial focused approach to marketing a film that involved domestic abuse. I won’t go into the all the details of the complicated mess of the Justin Baldoni of it all – it’s had enough media attention.

• Wicked 2024: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s overly emotional press tour full of crying and intense displays of gratitude were bonkers it must be said but the “holding space for the lyrics of ‘Defying Gravity’” moment was an absolutely joy to witness.

• None of these instances received as much vitriol as Hathaway did in the early 2010s.

Hathaway’s perceived personality, whether genuine or not to who she actually is, was taken to task gathering momentum and speeding towards Hathahate station. Hathahate became a shorthand to disliking Hathaway for no specific reason, expect for an imagined inauthenticity or a vibe that she was cringy. The phenomenon was covered extensively in legacy publications and affected Hathaway’s mental health as well as well as her career.

In a 2024 Vanity Fair interview she explained:

“A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online. I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of. I don’t know if he knew that he was backing me at the time, but it had that effect. And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”

Hathaway is referring to Nolan casting her in Interstellar. That was the second time Nolan cast her in a project, the first was The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, and their latest was The Odyssey this year.

In an appearance on The Ellen Show in November of 2014, Hathaway discussed the experience:

“I listened at first. I couldn’t help it. You try to shut it off and I couldn’t. And then I realised why I couldn’t was I hadn’t learnt to love myself yet, I hadn’t gotten there. And if you don’t love yourself when someone else says horrible things to you, apart of you is always going to believe them. So then I was like OK. I don’t want to believe these people, I don’t want to agree with them on any level. I’m going to figure out who I am, I want to learn who I am.”

Hathaway took a short break and before appearing in Ocean’s 8 in 2018, then Hustle in 2019, and We Crashed in 2022 and has been on a steady upward trajectory, helped enormously by her style evolution, ever since ombreing from Hathahate into Hathaslay.

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The Price of Fame

Why does this matter? Hathaway’s journey as an actress isn’t unique one can argue. Many celebrity women have been fed to the cyber wolves and the salivating clicks of the paparazzi, before, after or while being hailed as an icon of their generation. Hello, Lauren Hill said it best in Superstar:

“They’ll hail you then nail you, no matter who you are, They’ll make you now then take you down.”

She is a public facing person and so the argument there is that she has no choice on when and how her image and story is used in public discourse.

While some celebrities, particularly in reality TV, relish a viral moment that could propel or enhance their career, even going as far as to clip farm themselves while on camera in the hopes of being memeified, some famous people aren’t interested in becoming the butt of a joke.

Is this allowed? Sorry another rhetorical question.

And while we can take the Ricky Gervais route of:

“Let’s get this in perspective: They’re the wealthiest, most privileged people in the world. Offence is taken, not given. It’s your choice.”

A perspective that was shared long before by Joan Rivers when speaking about her show Fashion Police she said:

“The key is let’s not take it so seriously. It’s people walking around on red carpets and they’re all making millions of dollars. You can take a little flack.”

It’s a line of thinking the public gets behind, one that can create a path which smashes through blind celebrity worship.

But at some point, a celebrity’s personhood can’t completely be up for consumption. In bursts, waves, or cycles, fame functions now like an affliction. The more famous someone is the less honesty they are, the less human we perceive them.

Even now, in the midst of the public inhaling Hathaway like she’s the last oxygen mask in a nuclear fallout there is extreme conspiracy theory ridden disapproval of her, her body, her intentions.

Hatha-hate Never Really Left

At the world premiere of The End of Oak Street last week, Hathaway showed off her bare baby bump in a silk crop top and low-rise jeans. The bump, from what I gather, looks exceptionally ideal as far pregnancy bumps go.

This seemed to have sparked a lot of questions and outrage, and like a storyline from Desperate Housewives, rumours began circulating that Hathaway’s bump and her whole pregnancy were fake.

I’d like to point out the obvious here. If one was indeed faking a pregnancy, I highly doubt they would put themselves in a situation where their prosthetic belly was on full display in front of dozens of cameras.

Hathahate may have dulled but it never completely left.

The rumours were addressed by Hathaway through a video recap of the red-carpet event on Instagram along with a simple caption: “Fake hair, real bump.”

It feels like Hathaway has learnt who she is, as she described was her priority in that Ellen interview over ten years ago. I also understand that for her part, this is a strategy, an act, another phase of the public persona that she has had to cultivate since the days of Hathahate.

The question here shouldn’t be how “genuine” is it and how “authentic” she is, but more what personas Hathaway and other female celebrates have to inhabit in order to navigate the land mine of public life on the internet. Part of that is talking about her favourite memes of herself - whether the intention is to explain, laugh about, or stay afloat of the conversation.

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It was pointed out to me in a conversation with a friend on this topic that there was a chance that Hathaway, who is probably media trained within an inch of her life, chose those two memes on purpose. She wanted to explain away toe of most unglamorous images of her.

Probably, potentially, maybe not. So?

I find the argument that any person, particularly a woman, using every arsenal at her disposal to control her public image a thing by which we should judge her, seeped in some misogyny. The fact that she was hated for no reason, when many men have performed atrocities and have been forgiven, is in fact the problem here.

Not every woman can be a chilled-out gal and not care what others think of her. It’s human. I don’t have enough time to go through the list of women who have had to go in hiding under strict, maniacal measures to control their public personas as a means to protect their humanity.

OK, I have a little time – Jennifer Lopez, Meghan Markle, Taylor Swift, Victoria Beckham to name a few.

We Are All Always Watching

Beyond Hathaway, the boundary blurs between how we interact and use celebrities more every day. Every refresh of the algorithms, every update of newsfeeds, every new AI invention, affords us more intimate ways to watch celebrities across their work and to speculate on their personal lives. In turn, the parasocial relationship intensifies.

I won’t go into the invasion of privacy the paparazzi committed while photographing Hathaway without her consent in cupcake meme. It goes generally without saying that if it were up to Hathaway she most likely would have preferred not to have been photographed scoffing down a cupcake. Conversations on paparazzi tabloid culture unfortunately seems less pertinent these days especially when we AI glasses are rapidly invading people’s privacy celebrity or not.

It’s nauseating to think about how much access and entitlement we have to how famous people exist, regardless of if they are welcoming us into their lives or not.

It allows for the parasocial to mutate out of the petri dish and metastasise, engulfing culture in a relentless all-consuming grip. The effects of the cycle of loathing and loving, hating and hailing can not only be detrimental to a celebrity on an individual level but also to us as a culture.

Even if you think the world of celebrity somehow exists in a parallel universe, a place of fiction, it’s ignorant to assume it doesn’t affect us on a granule level. Even the happenings of the Gods on mount Olympus influenced the lives of mortals.

This to me is one of the reasons why the close observation, study, and critique of pop culture is crucial. Through that lens, from meme to headline, to red carpet interview and fan led movements, an Instagram caption and thousands of comments, patterns emerge in pop culture. Connecting them paints a moving portrait of how we interact with the world and each other.

I am not disconnected or above the cultural zeitgeist movements or vehicles of the moment. Memes bring me a lot of joy.

There is no obvious answer or remedy to me here no one particular individual or group to blame. But there is the inherited systems and our own tribal instincts that we should always be questioning.

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There is also irony. I can’t help but think about it.

We had one of the world’s most famous women disguising her panic attack on a reality show that explores alter egos, constructed personas, and the relationship between a performer and the characters they conjure. It was a smile “that didn’t reach the eyes” that became one of the most widely shared memes in recent history, that says so much and yet not enough about who we are.

Here’s one thing that I find sad about Hathaway’s Oscar acceptance speech. It was the last line, hopeful, naive and feels a bit sad.

“Here’s hoping that someday in the not-too-distant future, the misfortunes of Fantine will only be found in stories and never more in real life.”

I by no means want to compare the tragedy of Fantine life from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables to that of the issues that affect celebrity lives. But it must be said that the struggles of women, whether in the public eye or not, when it comes to how they should act, disguise themselves, pretend, behave, sounds exhausting.

And I’m afraid there is no chance in the near future that they will only ever exist in stories.

It’s been a manic week. Internet connectivity drama, deadlines, and the end of summer, and the final of House of the Dragon has made it almost impossible to get this episode out.

By the way, the final of House of the Dragon episode was a long one, a real deep analysis of the episode and of the whole series thus far and where we can expect to go in season four so make sure you check it out.

The stories this week felt random to me at first but funnily enough, me being me, found a running thread throughout them… the mysterious.

Jump in an listen to the episode straight away or scroll down to read some of the thoughts I didn’t share on the episode.

Enjoy!

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Why Banksy Artworks Have Cost UK Taxpayers Nearly £150,000

If you want your story to go viral write about Banksy. Believe me, I know first hand the power of the Banksy name when it comes to search engines. People love to read about him. I’ve come to the conclusion (no revolutionary in any way) that the conversations, the stories about Banksy are more the art work than the art work themselves.

And while the Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Timothy is furious that tax payers money is being wasted in removing or protecting three of Banksy’s work that have appeared on government buildings and areas, I think the more public figures like him are outraged the more people will find it funny and cheer him on. People love a rebel, especially a mysterious one.

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Why Poetry Sales Are Booming as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Revives Homer

Are you reading poetry? Do it now. I recapped an article by The Guardian that profiled poets Lucas Jones, Hollie McNish, Nikita Gill, Lemn Sissay, and Len Pennie, in the episode, read a couple of their works, and plan to buy their books.

It’s honestly a thrill that poetry is having a moment and I hope the moment lasts forever, especially in this moment in time where AI and slope in particularly is seeping into our newsfeeds.

Also, this story proves why having adaptations of classics is so important for the ecosystem of reading, literature, and publishing.

Who Made Zendaya’s Spider Brooch? Inside the Chopard and David Webb Mystery

This feels like the beginning of an enticing mystery. This story is really about creativity, where it comes from, who is influenced by whom, why some people wouldn’t credit an inspiration.

Who actually made the diamond spider? It kind of doesn’t matter now. The spider is attached to a story, a lore that will propel it into a realm that’s more interesting than putting a name to who first designed it. I hope they don’t figure out who actually designed it and this story can keep living in infamy.

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Why Netflix Is Being Sued for $105 Million Over a Stolen Nicolas Cage Film

The fact that studios are sending streamers like Netflix their films through a hard drive is insane to me. Insane. I thought they would have a much more… sophisticated? method of sharing films.

More shockingly, I discovered that Nicolas Cage has been continuously making films and TV shows for the last 16 years - nonstop! Who is watching these films and shows? Why does no one know about them? I have not heard of one, not one!

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Why Anne Hathaway Had to Deny Her Pregnancy Belly Was Fake

People are seriously insane for thinking Hathaway was taking part in soap opera, Desperate Housewife narrative just because she looked good on the red carpet. I’ve written an in-depth piece about the public entitlement (and audacity) over celebrities’ faces, bodies, existence etc

It all started with a meme and got me spiralling with thoughts that become over 3,000 words about how we all need to just chill.

Listen to last week’s episode of The Voice Note

• The Voice Note: John Galliano Met Exhibition, Barbie 2 Salary Standoff, Children of Blood and Bone Fallout

Through a career spanning more than five decades, Mansour has documented the history, struggles, and identity of the Palestinian people through powerful imagery from now viral works such as his panting Camel of Hardship, to expressive landscapes and his dedication to the symbolic nature of the olive tree.

Mansour has also been incredibly influential in establishing important Palestinian artistic institutions as well pushing the boundaries how people can make and experience art. From using locally sourced materials in his work to leaning into the viral nature his images have taken over the last few years, Mansour continues to push his ideas and approach to art and being Palestinian through traditional and contemporary means.

In this, the first edition of Great Big Questions, Mansour tells The Culturelist how he knows a work is finished, respecting the viewer as a participant of the work, and why creativity is more than a burst of inspiration.

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What’s easier, starting or finishing a project?

Finishing the project.

How do you know a work is done?

The inner feeling tells me so; it’s like a feeling of satisfaction just like getting full after eating. Simply, it’s when the result feels aesthetically pleasing and successfully conveys the idea I want to express.

What is your biggest distraction from creating work?

Distraction varies by time, now my biggest distraction is my medical condition and the pain it carries. Previously, the quarrels with artists, and long time ago girls were the major distraction.

What do you do when you feel stuck?

When I feel stuck in a certain artwork, I simply leave it and work on a different one. However, if I’m stuck as an artist, I change the technique and start a new adventure.

If you could own any artwork in the world which one, would it be and why?

If I were to own any artwork in the world, I would choose one of Paul Gauguin’s works painted in Tahiti, because it reflects a deep appreciation for colour and form. It also carries a sense of mystery through the interplay of light and shadow. Also, it is compelling in its exploration of themes and human relationships such as love and sexuality.

Which creative person would you most like to have dinner with?

I would like to have dinner with El Greco. He lived in Toledo and his artistic world was shaped in part by the Andalusian cultural environment.

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Where do you think ideas or creativity comes from?

Creativity and ideas come from thinking deeply in a topic for a long period of time.

What is the best advice you received about art, creativity, or the process of working?

The best advice I’ve ever received concerning art, is to respect the viewer wherever they are and regardless of where they come from.

About Great Big Questions

What does it really mean to be an artist? Where do ideas come from? Can creativity be taught? The Culturelist’s artist interview series, Great Big Questions, asks every artist the same eight questions, revealing surprising similarities, striking differences and the deeply personal philosophies behind a life devoted to making art.