Arts
michigandaily.com — The Michigan Daily 
18 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020

This article is a part of the Daily 

Arts “Canceled” b-side. For a full 
look at our b-side pieces exploring 
this theme, visit our site.

Season four of Netflix’s “The 

Crown” opens with a lunchtime 
conversation 
at 
Buckingham 

Palace. Queen Elizabeth II (Olivia 
Colman, “The Favourite”) sits at 
the end of a long table stacked with 
food and flower arrangements as 
she inquires about her eldest child: 
“No Charles?” she asks. The Queen 
is surrounded by other members 
of her family — husband Philip 
(Tobias 
Menzies, 
“Outlander”), 

sister Margaret (Helena Bonham 
Carter, 
“The 
King’s 
Speech”), 

daughter Anne (Erin Doherty, 
“Call the Midwife”) and in-law 
Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance, 
“Game of Thrones”) — but Charles 
(Josh 
O’Connor, 
“God’s 
Own 

Country”) is notably absent. 

The group proceeds to gossip 

over the Prince’s personal life, 
reviewing a list of women whom 
he may hold in contention for 
marriage. It’s 1977, and the pressure 
for the heir apparent to find a bride 
is reaching a tipping point. 

There 
was 
one 
woman 

photographed by the newspapers in 
a bathing costume, says the Queen, 
and another that Anne describes 
as a “heck of a horsewoman.” Then 
there is Camilla Parker-Bowles 
(Emerald Fennell, “Killing Eve”), 
who is already married but still 
mysteriously close to the Prince.

“Oh, he’s not still seeing her, 

surely,” the Queen says. “After all 
the lengths we went to,” referring 
to her concerted efforts to keep 
the Prince and her monarchy away 
from unwanted scandal. 

“No, none of these,” says Lord 

Mountbatten, who was famously 
close with his nephew. The latest 
acquaintance is Sarah Spencer 
(Isobel Eadie), elder sister of a 
woman 
named 
Diana 
(Emma 

Corrin, 
“Misbehaviour”). 
The 

camera cuts to a car driving down 
a wooded countryside far outside of 
London — Charles is at the wheel, 
on his way to the Spencer estate. 
He’s on his way to meet Diana 
Spencer. 

Much of the following nine 

episodes centers on the infamous 
story of this relationship — of the 
teenager 
who 
married 
Prince 

Charles in a crinkled masterpiece 
of a taffeta ballgown when she was 
only 19 and he was 31. Show creator 
Peter Morgan tells a complex 
narrative of two faulted individuals 
bound to a marriage that was 
broken from the start. The season 
follows Diana’s personal battle 
with bulimia and depression that 
is exacerbated by a lack of support 
from her new in-laws. On top of 
this, she faces explosions of jealousy 
from 
Charles 
whenever 
her 

presence takes too much attention 
away from him and battles with her 
own dejection as it becomes clear 
that the Prince’s relationship with 
Camilla never truly ended. 

“Camilla is who I want!” Charles 

screams at Diana toward the end 
of the final episode. “That is where 
my loyalties lie,” he says. She looks 
at him blankly, heartbroken and 
unsurprised at the same time. 

These conversations are of course 

dramaticized inferences of what 
really happened behind the scenes 
of this crumbling relationship, but 
Morgan contextualizes this fiction 
in the backdrop of history from 
the penultimate decade of the 20th 
century. Diana and Charles fight 
as Britain reckons with a growing 

resentment toward the monarchy 
while unemployment skyrockets 
under the leadership of Margaret 
Thatcher. This is the formula that 
has worked so well for Morgan’s 
first three seasons of what is 
one of Netflix’s most successful 
shows to date. Characters based 
on the Royals we know as public 
figures combat intimate personal 
turmoil as they navigate the public 
struggles written about in our 
history textbooks. Up until now, 
no one seemed to be bothered 
about where the facts ended and 
the fiction began. But as the show’s 
setting quickly approaches present 
day, the tension between these two 
is hard to ignore. 

Morgan’s 
depiction 
of 
the 

now-deceased Princess and the 
still-alive future King of England 
ignited a new wave of hatred for 
the faults of Prince Charles and his 
family. Critics have been quick to 
point to Morgan’s shortcomings in 
the show’s depiction of reality — 
that “The Crown” only shows one 
unfortunate side of Charles, that it 
fails to emphasize Diana’s role in 
the marriage’s failure and that it 
might destroy the efforts of Charles 
and his now-wife Camilla in the 
last quarter century to separate 
themselves from the hostility of the 
1980s. 

Perhaps this is true; the TikTok 

teens and Twitter trolls don’t seem 
too enthusiastic about forgiveness. 
One especially funny video started 
with a woman looking in the 
mirror as she melodramatically 
told Charles, “You better count 
your days!” The TikTok accrued 
2.2 
million 
views 
and 
was 

shared over 40 thousand times. 

Music Talks: Metalcore 

“Music Talks” is a series in which 

Daily Music Writers give their takes 
on the biggest releases in new music. 
However, this time, we picked a 
release that’s not exactly new, and 
not exactly big, but allows some 
of our writers to introduce other 
writers to a genre they normally 
wouldn’t listen to. From picking best 
and worst tracks to asking what 
makes a genre tick, the Music beat 
is here to give praise and to give shit 
to music worth talking about.

I discovered the Australian 

metalcore quintet Thornhill on 
a YouTube comments section 
I will never find again. Their 
full-length 
debut, 
‘The 
Dark 

Pool,’ immediately struck me as 
an album worth sharing, both 
entrenched in genre but also 
universally fascinating for any 
appreciator of music. Thornhill’s 
label, UNFD, is a hotbed for fresh 
and zany ideas in metal. It provides 
an interesting lens to discuss the 
band in the larger context of what 
metal is and where it’s going — 
here’s what we had to say about 
The Dark Pool. 

—Anish Tamhaney, Daily Film 

Beat Editor

This interview has been lightly 

edited for clarity and concision. 

Tamhaney: So I’d love to 

start off by just hearing — what 
are 
your 
one-to-two-word 

thoughts 
about 
‘The 
Dark 

Pool’?

Drew Gadbois, Daily Arts 

Writer: Heavy melody. 

Jason Zhang, Daily Arts 

Writer: Surprisingly lyrical.

Kai Bartol, Daily Arts Writer: 

Exhilarating. 

Nora 
Lewis, 
Daily 
Arts 

Writer: This is kind of broad, but 
I think unexpected.

Sam Cantie, Daily Music Beat 

Editor: Stressed out, in a sci-fi 
world.

Julianna Morano, Managing 

Arts Editor: I wrote down — like 
a continual beating. 

Q: I would call this album 

comfortably experimental, and I 
think that aligns with what a lot 
of you were talking about with it 
being a little bit heavy and wild, 
but also lyrical and melodic. Does 
anyone want to expand on that or 
talk about that dichotomy?

Gadbois: I think I’m gonna 

be the odd one out here, but I 
didn’t think it actually was that 
experimental. I think I had a slight 
knowledge of metalcore to begin 
with, so like, having that prior 
knowledge, I think it allowed me to 
have a little better context behind 
it. There was a way they used 
melody that felt very unique. They 
built melody around a heavy pulse 
and it adds a lot of momentum, 
but it didn’t necessarily push you 
away.

Zhang: 
Yeah, 
I 
was 
just 

surprised by how much of it was 
more of creating a soundscape, 
and them really playing around 
in what I would say is a mellower 

field. And then they would use 
juxtaposition, and they would go 
into a more intense driving melody 
and beat and then return back to 
more of a mellow zone. That made 
it continually interesting to listen 
to. 

Lewis: Yeah, I agree. I feel 

like that prevented it from losing 
intensity at harsher moments. It 
prevented it from being sort of 
watered down. 

Morano: I think something 

that I’m not accustomed to is that 
there’s not a lot of build-up up to 
intensity. It was kind of, on or off, 
sort of. And anytime there was a 
moment of silence, I was bracing 
myself because I knew it was 
going to end quickly, and I didn’t 
realize that I liked that until I was 
listening to this. 

Tamhaney: Yeah, that makes 

sense. Because I think especially 
a lot of the breakdowns on this 
album kind of come out of thin air, 
like you said. But I definitely agree 
with what a lot of you are saying: 
The pacing of this album, it feels 
really organic. And I think that 
really does just go back to melody, 
because it just feels like the 
melody writes itself, and it writes 
this whole album. And they don’t 
really stick to any structure or any 
kind of formula, it happens in this 
natural way.

Cantie: I think I appreciated 

that 
it 
wasn’t 
extremely 

experimental, like I could tell 
that you were trying to give us 
something that incorporated more 
melody to ground those who have 
never listened to metal before. 

I think something I was left 
thinking about is the relationship 
of metalcore to anger, because 
I feel like I have a complicated 
relationship with anger, and I 
don’t get angry, ever. It got me 
thinking about the ways in which 
women get angry. So I might be 
opening us up to something like, 
too big to talk about, but I’m sort 
of wondering whether metalcore 
is extremely, like, male-dominated 
in “listening-ship”? Is that a word? 
Probably not. But I think I’m just 
most astonished by the anger 
component of metalcore. 

Gadbois: That’s a really good 

point, and I think this goes beyond 
just deathcore, but what I’ve kind 
of noticed, with more aggressive 
genres in general, like industrial 
and stuff like that, a lot of the 
more upcoming female artists are 
representing a female anger and 

recapturing anger as something 
that can be female-driven. I think 
it’s a really interesting topic, 
and I think it is becoming more 
diversified. 

Tamhaney: 
Yeah, 
a 
great 

example that I’ve been into lately 
is Spirit Box, they’re another 
metalcore 
band 
fronted 
by 

Courtney LaPlante. And she’s 
incredible. I think she’s an 
example of exactly what you’re 
saying, of transforming what 
anger can look like or what it can 
sound like, even. 

Q: Let’s get into some specifics 

on this album. Are there any 
standout tracks or moments that 
you want to talk about that really 
stuck with you?

Bartol: There was one part of 

“In My Skin” that I had to write 
down because I loved it a lot. The 
main vocals that you’re hearing 

were very melodic, and very 
normal, but then they dubbed 
the words with the vocalists 
screaming the same words, and I 
loved the feeling of tension created 
between the melodic vocals and 
the screaming going on in the 
back.

Morano: Wait Kai, I think 

same. I rewound that part: I think 
that one seemed to exhibit more of 
a build up. And then an outro with 
just a repeating lyric, and that was 
something else that listening to 
this and really liking that song 
made me realize that I do, like — 
because it was such an unfamiliar 
musical experience, it made me 
think in more meta terms about 
my own listening habits and what 
I like. But yes, Kai!

DAILY ARTS WRITERS

Daily Arts Writers

UNFD

Reconsidering monolithic 
masculinity: On Brando

This article is a part of the Daily 

Arts “Canceled” b-side. For a full 
look at our b-side pieces exploring 
this theme, visit our site.

The 
clickbait-y 
corners 

of the internet are rife with 
dubious articles about closeted 
stars 
of 
Hollywood’s 
past, 

salacious stories about long-
dead 
icons 
of 
film: 
Greta 

Garbo, Montgomery Clift, Joan 
Crawford, 
Marlon 
Brando. 

These stories share an unsettling 
subtext: the intimation that non-
heterosexuality reflects poorly 
on these men and women or 
that their illustrious careers and 
contributions to the history of 
film are somehow diminished 
by their sexualities. One such 
article, 
posted 
on 
Medium 

and written under the ironic 
pretense of celebrating Pride 
Month, is particularly deplorable 
for its homophobia and tabloid-
style headlines (one of which 
calls Montgomery Clift “a fussy 
and hard to please bisexual”). 
While 21st century celebrity 
coming-out announcements may 
be met with more praise than 
condemnation, we need not look 
far into the past to find ridicule 
of Golden Age icons that borders 
on “cancellation.”

I adore Tennessee Williams, 

and Elia Kazan’s film adaptation 
of “A Streetcar Named Desire” 
will always be one of my favorite 
films. 
Accordingly, 
Marlon 

Brando, 
who 
so 
brilliantly 

inhabits 
the 
role 
of 
the 

emotionally volcanic, brutish 
and sweaty Stanley Kowalski, 
is one of my favorite actors. 
Which is why I remember a 

number of articles published 
in February 2018. It all began 
with an unfiltered interview 
with legendary music producer 
Quincy Jones in Vulture, in 
which he remarked of Brando 
that, 
“He’d 
fuck 
anything. 

Anything! He’d fuck a mailbox. 
James Baldwin. Richard Pryor. 
Marvin Gaye.” This “allegation” 
which supposedly “sent the 
internet into a frenzy,” according 
to 
TMZ, 
was 
corroborated 

by comedian Pryor’s widow 
Jennifer Lee Pryor. “It was the 
’70s! Drugs were still good, 
especially 
Quaaludes,” 
Pryor 

said. “If you did enough cocaine, 
you’d fuck a radiator and send it 
flowers in the morning.”

This story was widely reported 

by the likes of the Guardian, USA 
Today and the entertainment 
glossies. Pryor’s daughter Rain 
and Brando’s son Miko both 
denied Jones’s claims, adding 
fuel to the fire and longevity to 
the story. There is no dearth of 
Brando smut on the internet, 
which all begs the question, who 
cares? In an unsigned opinion 
article from South African news 
broadcaster eNCA responding 
to the February 2018 Brando 
brouhaha, the author accurately 
noted that “in the feeding 
frenzy 
which 
has 
followed 

Jones’s interview, we have also 
learned (once again) how deep 
the roots of heteronormativity 
and 
homophobia 
still 
run.” 

With 
particular 
disdain 
for 

Jennifer Lee Pryor’s statements 
about Quaaludes and cocaine, 
the author wrote that “We are 
asked to understand any sex 
between Pryor and Brando as the 
consequence of drugs, not as an 
aspect of the men’s exploration 
of being human. In fact, both 

men are compared to objects, 
thus domesticating the threat 
their human sexual interaction 
poses to heteronormativity.”

Jennifer 
Lee 
Pryor’s 

dehumanizing 
aside, 
the 

media obsession with Jones’s 
claims reflects a belief that 
homosexuality 
is 
aberrant. 

That there is something “dirty” 
about 
the 
secret 
that 
has 

been exposed. This is no new 
phenomenon. In the 1950s, the 
tabloid 
Confidential 
“called 

out celebrities who were in the 
closet, in rehab or having marital 
problems,” purportedly to “show 
the real image of America,” 
said journalist Henry Scott, 
an image hidden by the films 
these very celebrities created. 
But glorifying Confidential as 
breaking barriers and fighting 
Hollywood idealism hides the 
ugly truth: It was a mechanism 
for “cancel culture,” that innate 
human drive to excommunicate 
that which we perceive to be 
harmful to our society. In 1955, 
agent Henry Willson “learned 
that Confidential was planning 
to out Rock Hudson, who still 
was one of his clients,” said 
Tab Hunter, a former client of 
Willson, “so he cut a deal with 
them to keep Rock out of their 
pages, feeding them dirt on me 
instead.” The gossip magazine 
suggested 
that 
Hunter 
had 

attended a “gay orgy,” leaving 
Hunter fearing for his career. 
It took a cover story in another 
entertainment 
publication, 
in 

which he was celebrated alongside 
Natalie Wood, to blunt the impact 
of the Confidential story.

ROSS LONDON
Daily Arts Writer

NETFLIX

Did ‘The Crown’ really 
cancel the royal family?

ZOE PHILLIPS
Senior Arts Editor

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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