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.
151
The B**** Incognito Trope: Mean Girls Who Fake ...
She’s beautiful, charming, and sweet as pie… or, at least, that’s what she wants you to think. Whether she’s a Queen Bee we love to hate, a comedic obstacle, or a full on villain, there’s just something about her that keeps movies and shows coming back to the trope.
12 min
152
Did Friends Ever Jump The Shark? - Most Controv...
Friends is a cultural icon, but even its most ardent fans can agree that along with all of the great moments, the show has also had some duds... but did it ever truly Jump the Shark?
11 min
153
And Just Like That Finally Understands What It ...
And Just Like That has been a disappointment to Sex and the City fans since the beginning, but as it nears a second finale… is the show finally starting to get its magic back?!
11 min
154
Online Generations: How When We First Logged On...
In all of the discourse about the difference between generations, people have kind of let out the effect of 'online generations' - that is, the era in which you became a regular user of the internet. Today we're taking a quick look at how *when* we hopped online also had a huge part in shaping us.
13 min
155
How The Graduate’s Quarter-Life Crisis Lasted D...
The Graduate didn’t invent the quarter-life crisis, but it might have been the first movie to really dramatize it. It also laid the groundwork for some of our favorite more recent quarterlife crisis films!
15 min
156
Barbie's Hidden Easter Eggs & Margot Robbie's B...
Barbie had so many great easter eggs and references, both in the film itself *and* the press tour before hand! So today we're taking a look at all of the best Barbie references.
9 min
157
Bromances Are Back On Top: Behind The Trope's R...
Bromance movies exploded in the early 2000s, and then kind of disappeared for a while... Today we're looking at the evolution of male friendships onscreen, and why it’s so valuable for men to feel secure in their bromances!
10 min
158
The Amnesia Trope: When Hollywood Gets It Right...
Amnesia is often used as a plot device on screen, but memory loss in real life often looks quite different from what we see in movies & shows. So what are the real thematic reasons filmmakers keep returning to their Hollywood vision of amnesia?
13 min
159
The Snow White Controversy, Explained: How Holl...
This is the true scoop on the Snow White debacle. Plus, how can Hollywood toe the tumultuous cultural line without overcorrecting in either direction?
13 min
160
Barbie: How Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie & Co. S...
Barbie is the Blockbuster of the summer, and everyone's loving it! But the creative team did run into one obstacle when trying to make the movie of their dreams - so what *really* caused the problem, & how did they do their best to overcome it?
16 min
161
Oppenheimer, Explained: The Devastating Ending ...
Christopher Nolan’s three-hour epic Oppenheimer has managed to turn what would normally just be cinema-lover Oscar-bait into a huge summer blockbuster. But how much of the film is actually true, and what did that ending really mean?
15 min
162
Jayne Mansfield’s True Story: More Than Just a ...
Jayne Mansfield might be best known as Hollywood’s attempt at a Marilyn Monroe replacement, who also met a tragic end – but there’s a lot more to her story! So here are some interesting things you might not have known about Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield.
12 min
163
Policing Women’s Clothing Needs To Stop | FEMINISM
Have we really made it to a place where women are free to wear whatever they want, whenever they want? Don't miss our take on the history of fashion shaming, the strides women have made to escape it, and how we’re finally starting to see the light on the other side.
13 min
164
The Idol’s Original Version We Never Got To See
We've already covered everything that went wrong with The Idol, so today we're diving into what the show could have been (and how it could maybe turn things around in the 2nd season...)
13 min
165
How "And Just Like That" Lost Sex and the City'...
Season one of And Just Like That proved to be… pretty lackluster. And now it seems that even the second season won’t be able to recapture the magic of the original series. So why has the reboot been so unable to reproduce what we all loved so much about the original show?
10 min
166
Stranger Things' Queer Themes: Chosen Family, C...
Stranger Things has been immensely popular ever since its debut, its themes have especially resonated with queer audiences. Today we're taking a look at all of the underlying queer elements at play within the show.
11 min
167
Why Grey’s Anatomy’s George Isn’t The “Nice Guy...
George O’Malley often complained about being a maligned underdog, but… was the world really out to get him, or was it mostly all in his head?
11 min
168
Dark Truths of Reality TV Controversies: Exploi...
Reality TV practically runs on controversy, and as “scripted” as reality TV can be, it still illuminates something about human nature... Don't miss our new video on reality TV’s biggest controversies, & what they can teach us about both reality TV as a whole & the world beyond the cameras.
13 min
169
Better Call Saul's Kim Wexler: Always Good, Eve...
Kim Wexler quickly became a fan favorite on Better Call Saul. So, who is Kim, and what makes her so intriguing?
12 min
170
The Feminism of Hyper Femininity - More Than a ...
Modern hyperfemininity isn't just a fad, it's a movement. It aims to be a more nuanced & intentional brand of Girl Power that celebrates traditionally feminine characteristics as strengths, while being more inclusive and forward thinking.
10 min
171
How Hollywood Got Less Sexy and More Violent
American movie culture and rating systems are pretty squeamish about sex onscreen – so why do we readily accept graphic violence? Don't miss our take on the sex and violence paradox, and what it says about our culture that we hold one to a higher account than the other.
10 min
172
The Idol: Why HBO's Scandalous Show was Shockin...
The Idol was initially hyped up as a scandalous, dark, and erotic new must-see from director Sam Levinson and musician The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) but it turned out to mostly just be… a boring mess. So what went wrong? (And did anything go right?)
17 min
173
The Ingenue Trope: Innocent, Naive and On Her W...
With her youthful charm and naivete, the ingénue is a long-time Hollywood staple… but in recent years, she seems to be disappearing. So is this trope really on the way out because it no longer works in the modern day, or is it just changing with the times?
13 min
174
The Rise of Content House Cults: YouTube's Dang...
Are viral content houses a new type of cult? Today we're looking at the dark truths behind the internet’s most viral content houses.
8 min
175
The Older Woman-Younger Man Pairing: An Accepta...
It's becoming less taboo and more normalized, but there are still a lot of obstacles to the older woman-younger man pairing... Here’s our take on the rise of the older woman younger man relationship, what it offers, and what it tells us about romance in the 21st century.
11 min