What Madonna Knows
The artist is always one step ahead—and has a unique power to scandalize each generation anew.
Sophie Gilbert
Sophie Gilbert is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She won the 2024 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. She is the author of On Womanhood: Bodies, Literature, Choice, and the forthcoming Girl on Girl, an analysis of 21st-century popular culture's influence on women. Before joining The Atlantic in 2014, she was the arts editor at Washingtonian.
Featured
Latest
This Bad-Vibes-TV Moment Needs to End
When did television shows become so averse to having an actual plot?
Video by The Atlantic. Sources: Apple TV+; FX; Netflix. Kamala Harris and the Threat of a Woman’s Laugh
Criticism of emotional expression has long been a weapon of choice for those wanting to cut down women in political power.
Illustration by Liz Hart / The Atlantic. Source: Getty. Sorry/Not Sorry and the Paradox of Louis C.K.
A new documentary explores the comedian’s return, asking the still potent question of who commands power in his industry—and who doesn’t.
TIFF Why The Bear Is So Hard to Watch
The FX show’s commitment to its trauma plot has never tested us more.
FX The Awful Ferocity of Midlife Desire
Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer and Miranda July’s All Fours find danger in domestic bliss.
Janus Films Eric Shows Everything That’s Wrong With Mid TV
This is flat-pack prestige storytelling: easy to assemble and totally uninspiring.
Netflix The Cruel Social Experiment of Reality TV
The new Hulu film about an atrocious moment in ’90s television is shocking, but revelatory.
Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Source: Bettmann / Getty; Disney. Hacks Goes for the Jugular
In its third season, the show faces the failures of late-night comedy head-on.
Max The Story That’s Holding Taylor Swift Back
The artist is an extraordinarily powerful woman who still, somehow, feels like she has no real power at all.
Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Ashok Kumar / Getty. Is This the End for Bluey?
The third-season episode “The Sign” seems to point to an ending of sorts for the hugely popular Disney show.
Ludo Studio
