Cultural Reset #1
The girls talk medical dramas (it's your time, "The Pitt" fans), "Sinners," "Headphones On," and more.
Welcome to the first ever Cultural Reset — a new monthly series where we’ll be diving a little deeper into the world of books, TV, music, film, and more! Think of it as our usual “Hunter gatherer corner,” but extended. Let’s get into it!
Yes, My Comfort Show Involves an Operating Table
We can all agree that going to the hospital, or even a routine doctor’s visit, sucks. It’s mildly stressful and inconvenient at best, and scary and life-changing at worst. A little over half (51%) of Americans report having a somewhat or very negative view of the healthcare industry, and almost a quarter (23%) of Americans mistrust their PCP. Despite a fraught relationship with the real-life world of medicine, the medical drama genre persists as a beloved fixture of the American television diet. Grey’s Anatomy, the most popular iteration, is literally on its 21st season. Meanwhile, HBO’s new darling drama The Pitt is averaging 10 million viewers an episode. Below, we break down two very different kinds of medical dramas and why they work. And if you’re interested, we’d love to keep this discussion going in our subscriber chat — just click the button below to get started!
I’ve never been one for medical dramas. The sterility of the fluorescent lighting visually bores me, and the longer episode count intimidates and in my opinion, implies an inherent lack of quality. I feel the same way about Love Island and Star Wars. There’s only so many repetitions of a particular setting and array of plot points, whether it be in some sunny locale or outer space, that I can tolerate before my eyes start to glaze over.
Naturally, then, I thought I would absolutely hate The Pitt, which I threw on one evening out of extreme boredom and because obsessives on X wouldn’t shut up about it. But after the first two episodes, I also couldn’t shut up about it: the handsome and moderately damaged Dr. Robby, played by Noah Wyle (an actor previously known for his role on ER, which I had never seen because again, I don’t care for medical dramas), the drama! The action! The heartbreaking storylines moved me to tears, the one-liners made me laugh, and the thrill of seeing a resident get a big win or a patient get to go home never wore off.
Much of the show’s success comes from its 24-style format: Viewers come along for a wild ride with Dr. Robby and the team over the course of one 15 hour shift in the ER, with each episode showcasing just how much can happen and change in 60 minutes. The providers stuff down their personal issues in the bathroom or break room, argue with each other across the operating table, or come to the point of nervous breakdown, but the show must go on. Patients and their family members could be abusers or just plain assholes, unreliable narrators or emotional wrecks in need of a hug from an already strained staff. In one episode, a provider even gets punched in the face by a patient.
My friend Courtney, an emergency medicine physician assistant, says much of The Pitt’s portrayal of the ER environment is accurate. “The severity of the cases they were seeing back to back was crazy, mostly rare stuff we’d see maybe once a year. But the way the ER itself functioned, the medicine behind it all, and especially all the different personalities we work with are spot on,” she told me. “It’s why I love working in the ER: it’s the people you work with that make it.”
“The assault on healthcare workers is a real thing,” she said, stating that she has multiple friends who have been assaulted by patients at work. “It’s a difficult time to be in this field. Especially after Covid, patients have less and less tolerance, but at the end of the day we’re human too and are trying our best.” She hopes that the show’s popularity will help humanize healthcare workers.
It’s the pacing of the decision making process on The Pitt that really fuels the storyline: the snap judgements and gut feelings, the time spent double checking facts or consulting another doctor that could cost a patient their life, in one direction or another. At Dr. Robby’s Generally Woke Hospital, things can be pretty corny and cheesy in the name of representation and the like, which is hard to complain about considering the world right now, though admittedly it can come off as predictable and pandering. Still, it’s a digestible dose of normie TV. It’s supposed to pull on your heartstrings, gesture at The State of Things, and let you roll into the next episode without too much bothering you after (besides of course, the gore, which I did get used to after a little bit.)
Over time, Courtney says she’s learned not to let her work consume her life outside of the hospital. “Sadly, you get used to it fast. I remember one of my first weeks on the job, we had a patient code. We ran active CPR and life sustaining medications for two hours,” she said. Similar to a striking scene where the anxious Dr. Dennis Whitaker loses a patient, Courtney remembers that she and her coworkers also took a moment of silence and said a few words about the patient and the team’s efforts. “Those moments always help, and there’s always a counselor around to talk with too,” she said.
In another episode, a teary-eyed patient asks Dr. Mel King, a neurodivergent-coded second-year resident, how she “deals with so much death and carnage.” Despite the scene’s seriousness, the swelling intensity with which it’s played did make me audibly snort. But it’s based in a very true reality for emergency room workers. Dr. King can be seen chanting the lyrics to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” to herself just to stay calm, or playing games on her phone in a stairwell. Courtney says for her, it’s important to try to relax after work with TV or doomscrolling on TikTok.
“No matter how late at night it is, I need to sit and relax, because if I go to bed right away, I’ll have dreams I’m still at the hospital.” — MF
…
While everyone else is watching The Pitt redefine the medical drama genre, I’m… way over here because I’m too scared of the gore — and I’m happy to settle for the classic med drama tropes. I’m not alone. One friend I spoke to (who I would characterize as someone who doesn’t spook easily) told me that he only got through 15 minutes of the first episode. “They showed someone who fell on the train tracks, and it was pretty graphic,” he said. “I started thinking: I take the train everyday! This could happen to me!” He prefers more classic med dramas, like House — a Sherlock Holmes-esque drama that was more about the mystery of solving complex cases than the actual medicine behind it all. The titular doctor is presented as a cold, calculating genius — a common trope for surgeons and other high-level TV docs that deifies and dehumanizes them, turning their characters into vessels for miracles.
Unsurprisingly, that’s how a lot of us (myself included) like to see our doctors. It’s one reason I like Everwood, a sleeper CW hit from 2004 that’s about 5 percent medical drama and 95 percent small town sitcom. It focuses on widower and master brain surgeon Dr. Andy Brown, who decides to leave the stress of the NYC hospital grind behind to become a family doctor in a tiny mountain town. When he’s presented with seemingly impossible surgeries and medical cases to solve, he’s able to make magic happen.
It’s a similar story on Grey’s Anatomy, the holy grail of medical dramas (and an incredibly popular “comfort show”). Dr. Meredith Grey is the emotional, moral, and intellectual backbone of the show, and viewers feel like they can learn from her over and over again along with the rest of her team. (As one Grey’s fanatic who I talked to put it, “I don’t think people would really want to watch 'just okay’ doctors.”)
There’s also a meditative aspect to the classic medical drama. They’re often procedural (a genre I’ll loosely define as “process + flair”), like Grey’s or House, and incredibly long — episode-count wise. When you’re watching a medical drama, you don’t just get to see the doctors-as-heroes trope. You get to bang yourself over the head with it — over 444 episodes, in the case of Grey’s, 177 with House, or 89 if you’re watching Everwood with me. Plus, as is often the case in procedurals, the cases tend to be contained to their episodes. “In Dr. House’s world,” my friend said, “things get solved” and it only takes 40 minutes to do it. How’s that work as an antidote to hospital fear? — LM
Getting Down Before The End of The World
Can Black people have heaven on earth? Sinners says yes, but maybe only for a moment. The film’s main characters are flawed hopefuls who dare to strive for more, by different means but for similar motivations. They all just want to be free, and to forget a world of pain and ancestral suffering. The juke joint run by Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan, who is possibly at his hottest in this film,) a pair of twin kingpins-in-the-making, is a reprieve from that outside world. But it also becomes home to a portal, opened by the guitar music of their cousin Sammie. Were the film’s Irish step dancing vampires enticed by Black joy and talent, or was it the trail of titular sin that snaked around the party that drew them near? It depends on your perspective, but it’s the kind of text I’d love to spend time with and analyze again and again.
Really, I should’ve seen Sinners in 70mm. The format is only available at a handful of theaters around the country, which is ridiculous for a film so beautifully shot, but I didn’t want to trek uptown. The richness of director Ryan Coogler’s 1930s Mississippi would’ve shone on a bigger screen, but it still stunned me in a packed out theater at BAM, alongside the rowdiest crowd of moviegoers I’ve maybe ever been a part of. We’ve all heard that theater etiquette is dying, but in this case I’ll try to forgive my fellow viewers: Sinners provokes a visceral reaction, and not in the ways you might think of when you hear the words “vampire horror flick.” I don’t like scary movies, but the rest of the film’s themes drew me in and cradled me from any jitters I had from the get go. It has history, magic, violence, sex, comedy, even a musical number (think Babylon (2022) if it had any cultural relevance or staying power) and maybe my personal favorite beat to see on-screen: a revenge fantasy. I won’t spoil the ending, but for a story filled with heartbreak and death, there is a satisfyingly epic finale (despite TWO after credit scenes, which I think were deeply unnecessary? It’s giving Marvel.) Eternal life is a tempting escape from the grief of Black existence, the film seems to say, but a vampire’s offer can’t outpace the limitlessness of the traditions that live on long after us, and the parts of ourselves we pass down, for better or for worse. — MF
Your Favorite Newsletter’s Favorite Newsletter
A THOUGHTLETTER by Diana — There’s a loooot of Substacks out there. Any time a market starts to get a little oversaturated, things start to blend together. I read a lot of pop culture newsletters (and obviously write one lol!), advice columns, and takes on modern dating. What I don’t read a lot of are genuinely earnest and hilarious dispatches, which is what my friend Diana is doing with her new Substack. If I ever find myself laughing out loud at a Substack, it’s hers. My favorite issues are the self-explanatory “THOUGHTS ON THE DENTIST,” the hilarious “THOUGHTS ON THE SCARY PEOPLE OF FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE…,” and the tender “THOUGHTS ON NOSTALGIA!” — LM
Single Social Studies
“Headphones On” - Addison Rae — I’ve been a Raecist for awhile. However, this new single is really not her best work. It’s like eating your favorite meal and then realizing halfway through it’s cold and slightly underdone. Like I guess I’ll finish it…but now I’m upset? I do have to give it to her though, she knows how to make a catchy song. Even though the lyrics and the beat leave something to be desired, I’ve caught myself humming to this one — and I’ve never really heard a “song” like this one. — MF
“What Was That” - Lorde — I was just talking about how ahead of its time Melodrama was, particularly “Green Light” and “Supercut,” and here comes Lorde to give us “Green Light” “Supercut” redux. Now these are some reheated nachos I’m happy to partake in (however, I was not heading to Washington Square Park on a Tuesday evening just for a glimpse of her flinging her body around. You are all insane.) While I can’t understand a word she’s saying besides the chorus, I’m vibing. — MF
When we talk about artists, we often default to talking about authenticity (or, really, the lack of it). In Addison Rae’s case, her Y2K starlet shtick and the ensuing discussions about whether or not it feels “real” have been the anchor of her debut album rollout — so much so that the question of her authenticity is a prominent theme of her ELLE cover shoot this week. She demurely refutes the idea that her latent music career is the work of a superteam who curated her every move in an effort to launch her from an industry plant to star, despite all evidence that it’s the case. It’s a question that Lorde, who unofficially launched her own career by posting her hit single “Royals” on Soundcloud as a 15-year-old, has never had to answer. Throughout Lorde’s decade of stardom, she’s preferred a stripped-down approach — rebelling against airbrushing by posting untouched photos from a shoot, eschewing press releases and opting for diary-like emails to communicate news, and most recently, releasing out her new single “What Was That” via surprise in-person concert that was announced with a text to fans (she wore a simple white button down and jeans, unsurprisingly).
It’s easy to see that, on the surface, Lorde and Rae appear to be on opposite ends of the “pop authenticity” spectrum. Still, the similarities of their album rollouts this year show the controlling hand of the industry on art. For one, both Lorde and Rae were anointed by Charli xcx during BRAT summer, with their respective feature tracks on the breakout album still in each of their top 5 most played songs on Spotify. Last year, they contributed to the songs of the summer and this year, they’re teeing up their own — both with choruses that reference smoking cigarettes (while Rae softly croons “need a cigarette to make me feel better,” Lorde energetically belts “I remember sayin' then, ‘This is the best cigarette of my life’), perfectly timed with cigarette sales increasing year over year. To really hammer it home, Rae’s single (which I had never listened to before) autoplayed after I streamed Lorde’s first the first time. Born four years apart, Lorde, 28, and and Rae, 24, scratch two different itches of Gen Z “cool” (and, by the same principles, Gen Z “authentic”). Lorde came of age as an artist when millennials were the demographic to target, and her “be yourself” brand reflects the quirks of that time period, even as her relationship with fame evolves. (See: her secret onion ring account.) Meanwhile, after finding fame on TikTok, Rae has gone all-in on the Internet and its obsession with irony. As
wrote in a recent issue of her newsletter, “Addison Rae is a robot who knows she’s a robot.” Her obvious desire to be famous, in opposition with Lorde’s desire to be real but not known, is what makes her relatable and lovable to her fans. Considering 57 percent of her generation report wanting to be influencers, what could be more real than that? — LMIf you liked this issue, put the scalpel down! Tell us your thoughts in the comments or on Instagram (@lilly_milman | @melindafakuade), and share it with the person who would drive a stake through a heart for you.