22 February 2025
Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post) and Noreen Malone (The New Republic)
On Critic Proof, Alyssa and Noreen compare New Girl creator Liz Meriwether with Girls creator Lena Dunham, especially in terms of their presentation of sex on TV. Alyssa describes how New Girl has grown on her despite her apprehensions about star Zooey Deschanel. She also discusses Mindy Kaling’s show The Mindy Project. Why are the breakout characters on the new crop of female-centric comedies mostly male? Is charm on the decline among men? Is the “unromantic comedy” on the rise? Are traditional romantic comedies bad for women? Turning back to New Girl, they suggest that romcoms could succeed by becoming more realistic about love and life.
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Alyssa Rosenberg
Noreen Malone
Noreen’s profile of Liz Meriwether in TNR
Emily Nussbaum on Lena Dunham in NY Magazine
Benjamin Schwarz’s piece on the decline of charm in The Atlantic
NY Magazine piece on the decline of movie stars and rise of pop stars
Tina Brown’s biography of Princess Diana
Jezebel post on the decline of romantic comedies
Alyssa on the rise of the unromantic comedy
Megan McArdle’s case for getting married young
Critic Proof | Jun 3, 2013 | Alyssa Rosenberg & Noreen Malone
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Trump: Peacemaker or Chaos Agent?
Connor Echols and Robert Wright discuss the president’s big, complicated week on Ukraine—and what it could signal for the future of US foreign policy. Plus: The latest on Musk’s whirlwind makeover of Washington.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Interpreting AI’s Acceleration
Robert Wright and Nora Belrose of EleutherAI discuss the pace of AI development and its impacts. Plus: how chain-of-thought works, AI “thinking” vs human thinking, how near we are to singularity, and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
The Perils of a New Cold War
Connor Echols and Van Jackson, co-author of The Rivalry Peril, discuss the US-China “cold war”—its origins, its consequences, how it echoes the mistakes of the first Cold War, and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Canada vs Trump, OpenAI vs Google (and Musk)
Robert Wright and psychologist Paul Bloom discuss Trump’s unifying effect on Canada, a (game) theory of Musk, the Super Bowl’s AI ad champion, and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Why Wokeness Failed
Robert Wright and Musa al-Gharbi, author of the book We Have Never Been Woke, discuss the rise of wokeness, its role in Trump’s victories, alternative messaging the left should pursue, and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Trump’s Shock-and-Awe: Madness or Method?
Connor Echols and Robert Wright discuss the USAID cuts, Trump’s plans for Gaza, OpenAI’s new Deep Research function, the impact of Trump’s tariffs on US power, and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
The Truth About DeepSeek
Paul Triolo of the Albright Stonebridge Group and the AIStackDecrypted newsletter tells Robert Wright what the West has gotten wrong about China’s advanced AI model.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
Trump vs International Law
Mark Leon Goldberg of the Global Dispatches newsletter and Robert Wright discuss how global governance could look under Trump 2.0. Plus: highs and lows of the post-Cold War UN; ICC and ICJ 101; why the WHO matters; and more.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
The China AI Panic
Robert Wright and Connor Echols discuss recent news involving the Trump White House, AI, and China. Plus: Connor talks to national security law expert Elizabeth Beavers about Trump’s use of terror designations.
Nonzero (The Wright Show)
DeepSeek-R1: Salvo or olive branch?
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