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
The Con Artist Trope - Why Lying Doesn’t Matter...
The Con artist is all over today’s film and TV – so are we supposed to be appalled by this figure, or are we actually… impressed?
16 min
377
The Biggest Hollywood Clichés - What’s Really B...
So often stories resort to lazy, easy shortcuts we’ve seen a million times before. When are they effective or timeless, and when is this just a boring lack of imagination?
10 min
378
Succession - The Strange Tragedy of Roman Roy
Roman Roy is an exhibitionist, but his kinkiness doesn’t just make him a memorable treat of a character. His particular perversities outline the Roy family’s psychological pitfalls.
16 min
379
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
380
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
381
The Bad Female Leader - Why Film and TV are Obs...
Why is Hollywood so against women being in charge?
14 min
382
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
383
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
384
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
385
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
386
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
387
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
388
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
389
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
390
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
391
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
392
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
393
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
394
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
395
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
396
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
397
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
398
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
399
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
400
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