The Take
This is the Take. It's where you come to understand more about your favorite movies, shows and culture. Our video essays make the story worlds you enter richer and deeper. Think: Endings Explained, Character Studies, Hidden Messages and Symbols Revealed, Actor and Director Profiles, and more.
We want to share our love of visual culture with the world. So here's our Take.
376
Sydney Sweeney - The Serious Sex Symbol for Gen Z
Sydney Sweeney is putting a Gen Z stamp on the sex symbol. Here's our Take on how Sydney has deconstructed and rebuilt the sex symbol in a more serious way:
9 min
377
How We Overcorrected the Damsel in Distress Trope
The damsel in distress character has fallen majorly out of fashion – and for good reason – but have we overcorrected against her?
14 min
378
The Bad Female Leader - Why Film and TV are Obs...
Why is Hollywood so against women being in charge?
14 min
379
Nepo Babies are the symbol of our broken merito...
Nepo babies are everywhere in entertainment these days – from Maude Apatow to Dakota Johnson to Nicolas Cage, one of your favorite actors is probably related to the Hollywood elite. So what do these stars really say about inequality in entertainment, and in America more broadly?
12 min
380
Girls' Hannah - Why the millennial antihero was...
Hannah on Girls was widely deemed one of the most annoying TV characters of the 2010s, but was she just misunderstood?
12 min
381
The "Dead Girl" Story - Why It's Dangerous to S...
So many stories center around the mystery of a beautiful dead girl who is often flattened into a symbol and treated as a mystery to be solved. Here’s our take on the dead girl story, and the loss she really represents in our culture:
13 min
382
Beyoncé v Kelis - Who's Right, and The Bigger ...
Beyonce may have quietly removed a portion of her song Energy that interpolated Kelis’ Milkshake… but did she do anything wrong in the first place? Here’s our take on the drama, where the line is drawn, and why maybe even if you don’t legally deserve a credit, maybe you still deserve respect.
12 min
383
How Freaks and Geeks gets youth culture right t...
Freaks and Geeks taps into 80s nostalgia (from a late 90s perspective) – but in a genuine, complex way. The show got youth culture right - and it still resonates now.
15 min
384
How Barbiecore Turned Feminism Hot Pink
Barbiecore is the fashion trend of the moment, but the fun act of reclaiming this hot pink femininity can still be so fraught with controversy, debate and criticism.
10 min
385
The "Rich Guy" Lie - Why Tinder Swindlers and R...
Why do women often fall for the rich guy – even when there are a lot of red flags he’s a total fraud? It’s not fair to blame these victims or sim ply assume they’re shallow and materialistic when there’s a much bigger cultural problem at play here.
12 min
386
The Manifesting Trend - When it's a lie and whe...
Manifesting is everywhere these days, especially in the cultural collective of gen z. But today’s mainstream resurgence of manifesting also hints at a larger feeling of powerlessness in the face of bigger, systemic problems out of our control.
11 min
387
How Clueless's iconic fashion actually told the...
Did you ever think about the meaning behind Cher Horowitz’s most memorable looks in Clueless? Are all those perfectly curated clothes an expression of power – or are they actually hiding a teenage girl who feels powerless?
17 min
388
The Daddy’s Girl Trope - Why Our Culture Fetish...
The daddy's girl onscreen is an idealized – but stunted– version of femininity, who is seen through the rose-colored glasses of a father who never wants her to grow up. Here’s our take on the daddy’s girl, and what happens if she doesn’t outgrow seeing her dad as the greatest guy in the world.
12 min
389
Rebel Wilson and the Dark History of Forced Out...
Rebel Wilson’s attempted outing at the hands of an Australian newspaper was a shocking and revealing window into our current moment. Here’s our take on why it might prove we’re finally moving on from the shocking history of tabloids targeting LGBT people for profitable scoops.
13 min
390
Cassie’s Euphoria Season 2 looks and their hidd...
In season 2 of Euphoria, Cassie goes through some major changes, and so does her style. So what’s the secret emotional meaning underneath each of Cassie’s looks?
9 min
391
Why Gen Z is already burning out (and how to cope)
Gen Z is just getting started with adult life. So what does it say if the youngest adults are feeling burnt out already – and will the kids be alright?
12 min
392
Stars' Second Chapters - Why They Give Us Hope
So often we’re led to believe that, after a certain age, people are just stuck with their lot in life, however bad the job or relationship is. But the celebrity-starting-over trend is here to give us hope!
11 min
393
How Fight Club Predicted Today
Fight Club has long been a cult classic, and today Tyler’s complaints about the spiritual costs of turning ourselves into consumers instead of people feel more prophetic than ever – so do any of his solutions make any sense, too?
13 min
394
How the Manipulative Victim Trope Shaped the De...
Stories about women being deceptive or manipulative have been embedded in our culture for millennia, dating all the way back to Adam and Eve. Here’s our take on how narratives around the Depp-Heard trial draw on the tropes of the perfect victim and the devious manipulative woman, and how both of these fictional ideas fuel dangerous societal misogyny.
12 min
395
The It Girl - What Makes Her "It" In Every Era
The “It” girl represents something indefinable — a quality, charisma, or spark that makes her stand out and captures something of her time. So what truly makes a generation’s It Girl?
11 min
396
House of The Dragon - A Targaryen Deep Dive and...
Three years after the end of Game of Thrones, we’re heading back to Westeros. But what can we expect from HBO’s upcoming House of the Dragon?
12 min
397
The Cougar Trope - Why this joke is outdated
The Cougar used to be a punchline, but has the joke of an older woman preying on younger men stopped being funny? And was it ever?
16 min
398
Donnie Darko - What's the Meaning of Life?
For all its confusion and ambiguity and humanoid rabbits, what major takeaways did Donnie Darko leave us with?
16 min
399
The Handmaid's Tale - What's Come True and What...
Is America truly becoming Gilead? How much of The Handmaid’s Tale’s terrifying fiction has already come to pass? Maybe more than you’d think.
13 min
400
Euphoria Rue - A modern portrait of the addict
What is it about Euphoria’s portrait of Rue and her addiction that feels so honest?
16 min