Ella Dorn

Ariana Grande’s music video for “Petal”, which depicts a thin starlet taking revenge on casting agents who criticize her weight, is presented as an uncomfortable response to the intense scrutiny of Grande’s own body. Observers have accused her of emphasizing her weight loss and engaging in “body checking”, while her team says she intends to finish her tour before taking a break from public-facing work. She has also withdrawn from the Barbican’s planned 2027 production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George”.

Charli xcx’s Music, Fashion, Film draws on rock, grunge, Britpop and indie music while continuing her longstanding interest in artificiality, repetition and mass-produced celebrity. The album uses John Cale, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground as historical reference points, and tracks such as “Rock Music”, “SS26” and “No One Lasts Forever” deliberately expose the constructed nature of fame and genre. Although it lacks the transcendent highs of brat and her earlier electronic work, the record is presented as a successful and distinctive new direction for Charli and her circle of pop collaborators.

The University of Exeter plans to cut 150 teaching and support jobs, with humanities staff disproportionately affected and the English faculty potentially shrinking by a third. Critics argue that heavier teaching loads would undermine research, Exeter’s Russell Group standing and its long-term finances, while questioning why cuts are needed when the university reported an £8.2 million operating surplus, stable finances and continued domestic demand. Exeter says the proposals are driven by financial pressures and are being pursued through voluntary measures, while denying ideological motives or plans to close departments. The article places the dispute within a wider crisis in UK higher education, driven by capped domestic tuition fees, falling or uncertain international recruitment, government policy and reduced funding for lower-priority subjects. It concludes that Exeter’s humanities cuts appear particularly difficult to justify and could damage the university’s reputation and research capacity.

Marilyn Monroe’s enduring image is presented as a fragmented construction of films, publicity, photographs and sexual symbolism rather than a coherent understanding of Norma Jeane. The article argues that Monroe became a major star just as the studio system collapsed after the Supreme Court dismantled Hollywood’s theatrical monopoly, audiences moved to the suburbs and television weakened cinema’s business model. Studios increasingly reduced actresses to marketable sex symbols, while Monroe’s recurring “dumb blonde” roles denied her agency and limited her development as a performer. Films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot offered her greater comedic and human range, but The Misfits is identified as the late work that finally makes sense of her talent and the costs imposed on her. Her legacy is connected to a continuing culture of commodified, sexualised blonde celebrity, suggesting that Hollywood’s midcentury contempt for women remains influential.

The article examines the baseless “Rent Boy Theory”, which falsely claimed that men arrested for arson attacks on properties linked to Keir Starmer were sex workers involved with him. The conspiracy was amplified by figures including George Galloway and Tommy Robinson, despite evidence that the theory emerged before the alleged modelling profiles were discovered. BBC reporting instead linked the principal arsonist to a Ukrainian operative taking orders from Russia. The piece argues that Starmer’s opaque and unremarkable public persona encourages conspiratorial speculation, while scandals involving figures such as Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein make paranoid narratives feel superficially plausible. Social media ecosystems continue to reward these claims despite their lack of evidence.

A satirical account of London's AI Summit portrays an industry driven by investment, corporate jargon and exaggerated promises. Exhibitors promote digital twins, AI agents, humanoid robots, smart glasses and AI-enabled healthcare, while government and industry representatives offer vague claims about AI sovereignty and transformation. The writer argues that many businesses are investing in poorly defined or unnecessary automation, and concludes that the summit was less about meaningful innovation than marketing visitors into believing in an increasingly hollow corporate vision of AI.

The article argues that Married at First Sight prioritizes manufactured drama over successful relationships and participant welfare. A BBC investigation reported allegations from three former contestants of sexual abuse, including rape, assault and threats, while former participants and experts described inadequate safeguarding and therapeutic support. The show’s casting process reportedly seeks dramatic personalities rather than compatible couples, and its format pressures contestants to remain in unsuitable relationships and treat intimacy as expected. Channel 4 has removed the programme from its streaming services, though related clips remained on YouTube, prompting the article to question whether the franchise should continue.

PinkPantheress’ mixtape Fancy That and the video for “Girl Like Me” construct an idealized, heavily mediated version of Britain shaped by mid-2000s television, fashion and pop culture. The piece connects this aesthetic pastiche to Mark Fisher’s theory of hauntology, arguing that PinkPantheress’ work both reflects and challenges the idea that contemporary culture is trapped in nostalgia. Her Gen Z audience finds in the Blair-era imagery a sunny, pre-Brexit utopia, while the artist’s carefully maintained pop persona reflects a broader contemporary fixation on celebrity identity and cultural lineage.

The dispute between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over the production of It Ends With Us ended without either side receiving money, after nearly two years of litigation and intense online scrutiny. Lively accused Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and associated parties of sexual harassment and of using Tag PR to coordinate a campaign of defamatory online narratives, allegations that Wayfarer denied. The controversy attracted hostility from both conservative and left-leaning audiences, illustrating how celebrity gossip can become politically and morally charged. Citing similar alleged bot and trolling campaigns involving other celebrities, the piece argues that social media, coordinated public relations and the desire to portray cruelty as righteous create conditions in which women can be publicly persecuted regardless of their fame or power.

The alleged AI authorship of Mia Ballard’s novel Shy Girl exposed weaknesses in traditional publishing’s vetting systems after the book was acquired by Hachette imprints and later withdrawn. The scandal has intensified frustration among authors and readers, while agents report more repetitive and inauthentic AI-generated submissions. Publishers are also using or considering AI for administrative work and marketing copy amid staff reductions and overworked editors. The article argues that an industry increasingly organized around commercial tropes and comparable titles has made itself vulnerable to AI, and calls for renewed staffing, stronger detection and transparent disclosure rules.

The family-vlogging industry routinely turns children’s private lives, humiliations and injuries into monetized entertainment, often without their consent, financial rights or meaningful protection from predators. The Ruby Franke abuse case exposed the most severe consequences, while families such as the McKnights and LaBrants demonstrate how children can remain part of an influencer brand across generations. The article argues that audiences use these ongoing family narratives to replace older forms of communal storytelling, but that this narrative appeal encourages invasive scrutiny and can turn possible abuse into spectacle. Although some US states have introduced protections for child influencers, the article concludes that stronger measures—and a replacement for the industry’s cultural role—are needed.

AI-generated content is transforming online entertainment and political propaganda alike, with Iran using childlike Lego-style imagery to depict war and accuse the United States and Israel of atrocities. The piece argues that Donald Trump’s social-media operation employs a strikingly similar AI aesthetic, linking both sides to the same commercial platforms, franchises and visual conventions. Unlike the distinctive propaganda styles of the Cold War and revolutionary Iran, generative AI flattens cultural differences into an incoherent, melodramatic visual language. The democratization of propaganda has therefore produced not greater ideological clarity or soft power, but nihilistic imagery in which neither side can convincingly articulate what it is fighting for.

The Netflix adaptation of Julia May Jonas’s Vladimir is presented as part of a renewed Hollywood fascination with Russian characters and aesthetics. The piece argues that this interest is less a response to the war in Ukraine than a delayed attempt to profit from an earlier online Russophilia built around Russia’s perceived mystery, anti-authoritarian appeal and racialized status as both white and exotic. Vladimir also exemplifies Hollywood’s growing focus on older women desiring younger men, which the article links to the entertainment industry’s responses to #MeToo and ageism. It concludes that Hollywood values Russia as a convenient sexual and cultural shorthand more than it values Ukraine, and that these productions may outlast the war they have failed to meaningfully address.

Paul Fischer's The Last Kings of Hollywood uses the careers of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to chart the transition from the studio system to New Hollywood and, ultimately, the return of corporate control. The filmmakers initially pursued creative autonomy, location shooting and personal authorship, but Lucas's Star Wars and Spielberg's blockbusters helped establish the franchise-driven model that later empowered executives such as Michael Eisner. The review praises Fischer's treatment of Hollywood's interpersonal dramas, especially the marginalization of women such as Melissa Mathison, Eleanor Coppola and Marcia Lucas, while faulting the book for offering too little analysis of film style.