A look at pop culture year
Hellos, goodbyes
By Jocelyn Noveck
were goodbyes (Jon Stewart, David Letterman, “Mad Men”) and hellos (Adele!). “Star Wars” reawakened, and a ballerina and an unheralded Founding Father both hit the zeitgeist. But the pop-culture moment that fascinated us most? That had to be the emergence of Caitlyn Jenner.
Herewith, our annual, very selective trip down pop culture memory lane:
January: Remember we began the year talking about North Korea? At the Golden Globes, Tina Fey welcomes the TV audience to honor “all the movies that North Korea was O.K. with” a reference to the SONY hacking story striking fear across the land (or at least La La Land.) But by next month, we’re talking about....
February: ...#OscarsSoWhite. The Twitter hashtag protests the fact that all the Oscar acting nominees are white; “Selma” director Ava DuVernay is snubbed along with star David Oyelowo. At the ceremony, prominent honorees speak out for voting rights, gender equality in Hollywood, and privacy from government snooping. Meanwhile on TV, the swift downfall of “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams begins when he’s suspended for making misleading statements about his role in news stories.
March: We’ll still have our nightly Join Stewart fix ‘til August, but we learn that a littleknown, 31-year-old South African comic, Trevor Noah, will succeed him. In Hollywood news, Harrison Ford, 73, crashes his vintage plane into a golf course. Luckily for him and for “Star Wars” fans dashing Han Solo will make a full recovery.
April: “I’m a woman.” With those three words to Diane Sawyer, former Olympian Bruce Jenner begins a public transition that will captivate the country.
May: After seven seasons, “MAD MEN” ends, with suave ad man Don Draper (Jon Hamm) having an epiphany at a yoga retreat. David Letterman says goodbye after 33 years on late-night TV (“Our long national nightmare is over,” proclaim a succession of presidents in a joke montage.) Across the pond, baby Charlotte arrives. Tom Cruise hangs off a plane (really!) in the new “Mission Impossible” flick. Rihanna, wearing a ginormous fur cape.
June: Her name is Caitlyn: Jenner makes a smashing entrance with a corset, a brand new name and a fascinating story to tell on the cover of Vanity Fair. Ballerina Misty Copeland launches a banner year when she stars in “Swan Lake,” then is named the first black female principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s 75 year history.
July: Seems like we’re always talking about Taylor Swift. This month she brings her own “squad” the U.S. women’s soccer team onstage, days after their stirring World Cup win over Japan. In literary news, many fans of Harper Lees’s iconic “To Kill a Mockingbird” are stunned when that novel’s hero, Atticus Finch, is given a makeover as a racist in the author’s “Go Set a Watchman,” seen as essentially an early and very different version of “Mockingbird.”
August: Jon Stewart ends 16 years at the “Daily Show” with a reminder to his fans to be vigilant against falsehoods er, dishonesty er misinformation (we’re still not using his word of choice.) And on Broadway, in a transformation as unlikely as it is refreshing, onetime Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton the guy on the $10 bill becomes a pop culture star, thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash musical “Hamilton.”
September: It’s a major year for comedian Amy Schumer: she signs a memoir deal in the high seven figures, a reflection of her rapidly escalating fame. On CBS, Stephen Colbert launches his “Late Show” with the declaration that “I will be covering all the presidential candidates ... who are Donald Trump.” He then promptly falls into an Oreo-cookie coma as he consumes one cookie per Trump joke. By year’s end, with Trump dominating headlines, Colbert might want to consider a bulk order. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton mimics Trump on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show,” but a few months later, she’ll tell Seth Meyers: “I no longer think he’s funny.” (AP)