by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy Friday. Welcome back to CultureCow, I apologize for the hiatus last week, but I promise it was for a very good reason.  Last week marked the second annual Youth-Led Climate Strike that the intrepid (and Alternative Nobel prize winner) Greta Thunberg started a year ago.  This was before she sailed around the world, led a global movement to raise the alarm about the coming apocalypse, and made an impassioned speech before the UN, back when she was just a small Swedish activist.

I participated in this strike and marched on the Capitol along-side thousands of activists, like-minded folks, and most of all: kids. It was inspiring to see so many young people mobilize to challenge the errors of their parents and their parents’ parents.  They’re the ones that are going to inherit this Earth and they want to ensure it’s not a steaming pile of ash by then.

Check out this Washington Post article for the statistics about what our youngest generations are doing to combat the ridiculous inaction by our government for a little inspiration this weekend.  Just because the older generations ruined this planet, doesn’t mean we can’t fix it (but we’re running out of time!).

It’s almost Oscar season, which means we’re about to be bombarded with washed up artists trying to dazzle us with boring period pieces out the wazoo.  But before that happens, were always treated by my favorite awards show of the year: the Emmys.  The Emmys manage to stay relevant, light-hearted, and best of all, surprising in an era that’s increasingly more predictable (as far as awards seasons are concerned). 

The Emmys have a new system of voting that allows for a much larger voting pool to avoid the pretentious “Academy” from running the show, which means underdogs have a much better chance of winning.  This was on full display when the ultimate Emmy darling, Game of Thrones walked away without smashing their own award record like the “experts” predicted. 

They still snagged an insane number of trophies (including Best Drama Series, which they robbed from Pose), but people knew what I spouted all year: this final season is terrible.  The Emmys weren’t done with their well-curated choices there: they also chose Billy Porter as the Best Lead Actor in a Drama series for his marvelous work in Pose, thereby making him the first openly gay person of color to win the category (unfortunately, outside of sexuality the Emmys were criminally lacking in diversity). 

The broadcast was funny, it kept moving at a steady pace, and it was overall a pleasant three hours. The greatest moment of the night came when they announced Best Comedy Series and Leading Actress in a Comedy, however, when the current queen of comedy Phoebe Waller-Bridge took the cake for her masterpiece of Fleabag.  Fleabag is the best show of 2019 in all of television and in what was supposed to be a dogfight between Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and perennial favorite Veep, it was amazing to see a small budget, but no less brilliant, show win it all.

Speaking of great television, when you’re done catching up on Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag on Amazon, swipe slightly to the right to find a new treasure in Undone. Undone is technically a cartoon, but uses a style called rotoscoping that you’ll have to google if you’re looking for a better definition.  Basically, the actors act out the scene like any other show, then cartoonists draw over the frames to make the final image.

The end result is a beautiful and eerily lifelike animation that keeps the normal perspectives and physics we’re used to seeing in the real world, that the scene can quickly detach from if it demands it.  Instead of jarring special effects or CGI, the fantastic things the characters do looks just as real as everything else. It’s not just the art that makes this show special though. The story carries its own weight by following the protagonist, Alma, after a car crash that allows her to “view time in a non-linear fashion” as its explained to her by her deceased (to everyone else) father.  From there, she tries to learn how to control her pseudo-time travel powers to investigate her dad’s death without completely ruining her present. Undone is an incredibly unique show in both style and content and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Finally, if you grew up in the age of color television and video games you are no-doubt aware of the institution of Pokémon and its legendary hero Ash Ketchum.  While I still play the handheld Pokémon games, I must admit I haven’t seen the show in years, but something monumental happened last week: Ash finally became the Pokémon League champion.  Ash has been a 10-year old boy obsessed with this one goal for over 20 years and the fact that everyone already did the same thing at the age of 8 never deterred him. This story is very silly and most people couldn’t care less what Ash Ketchum is up to these days, but anyone like me who grew up with these games and watching this (arguably immortal) preteen on screen was happy to see him finally get there.

Meme of the week

I unfortunately can’t look at every meme that dominates the internet every week, so if you see a meme and think it should be the meme of the week please send it to: SumnerCultureCow@gmail.com

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