Recession Hits Your Burrito--Chipotle Shrinks Portions?, How Public School Ruins Reading for Boys, Google Spits on WWII Vets & Casualties (The Five for 06/07/24)
Plus, 300 and Narnia rebooted as TV shows. A music biopic...told only with Legos? This actress turns in a surprisingly great debut album.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter.
Before we dive in, episode 2 of The Idea Podcast just dropped…a pt. 2 with Allie Cluffalo, who’s quickly becoming one of the most clear, reasonable voices pointing towards hope in love, marriage and family in a world wrecked by Red Pillers, dating app burnout and...well, just a lot of angry, jaded people.
Although I’m personally 10 years into a great marriage with two kids…the dating world concerns me for society, in part because of the economic fallout. The fact that people are not dating, marrying and having kids means a population drop, which is a doom signal for a nation’s economy—everything from housing, to public schools and colleges—to consumer goods is negatively affected.
If young people stay in their parents house and never find love, we are all indirectly affected. The first episode with Alli got more than 10,000 views on Twitter, so jump into this one and see what the hype is about :)
With that being said, let’s get into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Yesterday, Google honored Lesbian journalist Jeanne Cordova (who, in fairness, did have an interesting life). For 29 out of the 30 days of the month of June…this would not be news. In 2023 or 2025, this would not be news.
But yesterday was the 80th anniversary of June 6th, 1944…the day we sent 37,000 young men to horrific deaths on the beaches of Normandy to beat back one of the most evil empires this world will ever know. The majority of the dead were 18 and 19 years old, who bled out on the battlefield before they ever married, owned a home, cradled their young children. You are reading this older than they will ever be.
You know who would probably hate that? Military brat Jeane Cordova, who was born on an Army Base in Germany. She was not born, died, or did anything of significance on June 6th, so Google could have honored her on ANY OTHER DAY. And you know what else? If the Nazis had succeeded in taking over the world, Cordova would not have been a journalist, she would have been sent to a gas chamber for being a lesbian. So although she's deceased…it's safe to assume she appreciated the Allied Victory of WWII.
It helps to put faces to the dead that Google dishonored. The “Filthy 13” was a unit of paratroopers in the 101st Airborne Division, who were tasked with blowing the bridges to cut off Nazi reinforcements. They were told to expect 80-90% casualty rates, and jumped anyway.
Sgt. Jake McNiece, a Choctaw Nation citizen, painted the men in the warpaint of his people…so they could die like warriors. And die they did. Some of the men in this video did not see another sunrise.
Jake went on to jump into (and liberate) The Netherlands, spilled blood at the Battle of the Bulge, and made fought all the way into Prum, Germany in 1945. Comically, he was kicked out of the army in 1946 for fist fighting MP’s. He went home, worked for the USPS, and became a young widower just two years into marriage.
Odds are, you’ve never heard of Jake. And you didn’t yesterday, because the workers at Google either can’t use Google to Google things, or just didn’t care.
Both are equally tragic and stupid.
If you’re looking for a song to commemorate the occasion, I check out this song by the (sadly disbanded) House of Heroes, about a pair of Canadian brothers who invaded France, one of whom dies in his brother’s arms, as the pair swear to reunite in the afterlife:
I'll be by your side
On the other sideAnd through the cloud of death
We find our way back home
And though I hold your hand
All must go alone
And when you see the face of our Maker
You don't have to be ashamed
He knows
The promises we made
[two]
One fast food chain has allegedly shrunk their portion sizes so much…customers are now using social media to document it.
From Market Watch:
Hundreds of people on social media in recent months have filmed Chipotle workers preparing orders as a way to protest what they say are smaller portion sizes.
One TikTok video last week with over 13 million views showed a Chipotle restaurant employee preparing a burrito bowl with several cameras and lights trained on him.
Many Chipotle employees took to social media themselves to complain about customers filming them as they are preparing orders.
A Reddit thread titled “Stop f—ing recording us,” in which some Chipotle workers have voiced their opinions about being recorded while at work, has over 1,000 comments.
“No, you won’t get bigger portions. The only thing you’re going to get is kicked out of the store. The issue is above us and I’m just trying not to get fired,” one comment read.
“Had this happen to me today. Felt terrible,” another commenter said about being filmed.
And it’s not just Chipotle (allegedly). Snickers bars are smaller in 2024 (although, as a person allergic to peanuts, I don’t mind that one), and there’s evidence household cleaning products contain 9.8% less volume than in years past. Bags of coffee have 7.2% less beans, and gum and ice cream containers have 7% less product as well (source for all that).
But hey, the economy is great. As long as you make over $150,000, you’re not struggling to pay bills, and as long as you can live with less soap and ice cream for higher prices, and pretend to be full on smaller burritos…what’s the problem?
Of course, with Chipotle in particular…the complaints could just speed up the elimination of jobs for automated burrito robotics, which the company is already testing. “See you complained, so not only is your burrito smaller, but your neighbor is out of work.”
Awesome.
[three]
Ever since social media was invented, piling on to people with insults for no other reason than they’ve succeeded at something…gets continually worse.
Maya Hawke has accepted the term “nepo baby.”
The Stranger Things star, daughter of actors Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, recently opened up to The Times of London about her path to Hollywood, acknowledging that she’s had an advantage because of her parents.
While considering whether she deserves the success she’s received in the industry, Hawke said, “‘Deserves’ is a complicated word. There are so many people who deserve to have this kind of life who don’t, but I think I’m comfortable with not deserving it and doing it anyway. And I know that my not doing it wouldn’t help anyone. I saw two paths when I was first starting, and one of them was: change your name, get a nose job and go to open casting roles.”
Hawke said she’s “comfortable” choosing the second option and embracing her nepotism, even if it leads to jokes.
“It’s OK to be made fun of when you’re in rarefied air. It’s a lucky place to be,” the Do Revenge actress added. “My relationships with my parents are really honest and positive, and that supersedes anything anyone can say about it.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hawke recalled comments she made to The Hollywood Reporter in 2019 regarding her role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — one of her first major projects.
“I got an audition for the project through the normal channels through my agents,” she said at the time. “I did an audition in my bedroom with my dad. We sent in the tape to Quentin and I got a callback.”
Hawke was later teased for her remarks, which implied that she was cast in the movie based on skill alone. However, she’s now clarified her comments, admitting that nepotism played a part.
“I’ve been wildly made fun of for this clip when I said, on the red carpet, that I auditioned,” the Maestro actress said. “I never meant to imply that I didn’t get the part for nepotistic reasons — I think I totally did”.
The idea that this is something people get upset and offended over is absurd for a couple of reasons:
A) There are two very significant wars going on in the world right now, that, almost without warning, could turn into larger continental conflicts in Europe or the Middle East/North Africa.
And the hill some people want to die on is the particulars of how a minor character on Strangers Things got the part?
B) “Nepotism” is just a fancy word for…how the world works, often because parents passed down valuable skills and business assets to children. My cousin Derek farms the original plot of land purchased by our Great-Great-Grandparents…but nobody corners him and screams “why are you farming land that was purchased back when ground was $42 an acre and now it's $25,000 an acre? You didn't even bootstrap this, YOU'RE NOT A REAL FARMER.”
That would be absurd, right?
Why is it only absurd when it's against a farmer, but totally fine to do to an actor who's a young twenty something and still getting her feet under her? It's cruel, and senseless.
C) It used to be that audiences would just show up to theaters for medicore movies. Due to the rise of streaming, that's no longer the case.
Directors can't just cast their friends’ kids as favors…audiences are too picky, too knowledgeable, and too loud.
UPDATE: Not exactly a “Nepo Baby” accusation, actress Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) is being accused of being a “slap in the face to artists who ‘paid their dues’” by releasing her debut album, because she has a built-in audience from her acting career. I really like it, there’s a lot of 70’s rock/soul/country here, and Hudson’s smokey vocals remind me of Joss Stone, Duffy and Mandy Moore.
Again, she wouldn’t have an audience if it was a bad record...LOADS of celebs have tried to do music and flopped (Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Tyra Banks come to mind—all released singles or albums that actually tanked).
The “Nepo Baby” narrative has gone so far off the rails that it’s now just a great case study on how much jealousy there is in modern American society.
[four]
It’s no secret boys are not doing well in school, with male students earning fewer master’s degrees, MD’s and JD’s than their female counterparts. Men’s workforce participation rates are down 10%, and of the workforce dropouts, 44% are taking pain killers. In high school, 2/3 of the top 10% of high school classes are girls, 2/3 of the bottom 10% are boys (source: iwf.org).
It’s great girls are doing so much better academically, but there’s been a lot less attention on boys…and one of the major overlooked areas…is what books are being assigned.
From the Institute for Family Studies:
As recently as 2023, a study by Emil Smith and David Reimer showed that girls spend more time reading outside of school than boys; starting in 4th grade, girls read 100,000 more words than boys, which adds up over time. Without anyone intending it, there are policies that affect this outcome, specifically in curricular decisions about reading: schools overwhelmingly assign fiction books.
There is research on reading interest in school-age children that explains the problem of over-assigning fiction. A 2021 study by Chantal Lepper, Justine Stang, and Nele McIlveny showed that girls were more interested in fiction than boys, and boys were more interested in non-fiction books than fiction (though both boys and girls were equally interested in non-fiction). Boys were more interested in war, comedy, sports, and science fiction, and more excited about informational texts, whereas girls preferred narrative books and romantic stories. According to Deloitte, boys are also far less likely to read books by female authors or with female protagonist, but girls were willing to read books written by men and with male protagonists. Lepper, Stang, and McIlveny’s findings showed the same pattern, and actually showed that girls ranked higher interest in books with male protagonists than boys!
As for what is being read in schools today, it is overwhelmingly fiction. I used Renaissance’s What Kids are Reading: 2024 Report, which shows the top books for grades K-12 in every state, to analyze what is being read, looking at the breakdown between fiction and non-fiction works in the top 10 for grades 5-12 in each state. Overwhelmingly, there was little-to-no non-fiction on offer. Only two grades in the entire country had five non-fiction books in the top 10. Six grades had four non-fiction books, seven grades had three, 35 had two, and 90 had one non-fiction book; 213 grades had only fiction in the top 10.2 Of the non-fiction books, it was overwhelmingly memoirs, featuring a narrative structure more appealing to girls.
Considering readers earn $1 million more in the average lifetime, we’re robbing boys of more than just education.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
Seventeen years after it’s release, the Gerard Butler led historical epic 300 has a prequel series in early development. Director Zack Snyder may or may not return, but his wife and collaborator, Deborah, signed on as Producer. No word yet on if the show will focus on a younger King Leonidas, who famously died fighting the Persian invasion, or a new main character.
Two years after the straight-to-Hulu sci-fi/western mashup Prey was an unexpected hit as a prequel to the seminal 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle Predator, the series will continue forward, with writer/director Dan Trachtenberg (The Boys, Black Mirror) continuing to guide the series. This time around, Elle Fanning (Super 8, Maleficent) will play the lead. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but rumors point to this one being set during WWII. There’s also talks of Prey 2, set in the 1700’s Comanche nation.
American Gladiators, a game show in which super athletic men and women participating in…a bunch of random stuff, originally ran from 1989-1993 (and was a big highlight of my elementary school years), then enjoyed a 2 season reboot in 2008 on NBC. Now, Amazon is giving the concept another go, with a third reboot of the game show/athlete concept.
Netflix is doing a Chronicles of Narnia…TV show. I’m not sure the writer of Disney’s Coco and Greta Gerwig of Barbie fame (which I never saw, so I have no thoughts one way or another about that film) is the pair I would have picked…but here we go. Gulp. Hope it’s not horrible.
Sony has more misses (Morbius, Madam Web) than hits (the animated features Across the Spiderverse, Into the Spiderverse) in their extended Spiderman universe. However, 2018’s Venom raked in $850 million, although the sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage didn’t move the cultural or financial needle in 2021…but it was in the middle of COVID.
Now, Tom Hardy (Inception, Warrior) returns for a final outing as Eddie Brock, the investigative journalist who shares his body with a goo-ey alien life form. As someone who is absolutely burned out on comic book fare….I’m in for this one. Catch it 10/25.
This one looks like loads of fun. Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Glass Onion) plays a hitman who is being hunted by every other hitman. Yes, that’s the exact plot of John Wick 2-4. No, that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Oh, and director J.J. Perry had a hand in crafting the 2011 cult classic MMA film Warrior (Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte), so let’s just say I’m highly anticipating.
In theaters 09/14.
My interest in animation as an adult is practically zero (X-Men ‘97 being a notable exception), but the latest adaptation of the Tomb Raider IP is…probably worth a look. Originally released in 1994, the ripping-a-lot-off-from-Indiana-Jones franchise features a wealthy orphan, Lara Croft, discovering treasures of the ancient past…and usually more about her family’s deaths, a la Bruce Wayne/Batman. On Netflix in October.
Pioneering artist and producer Pharrell is doing a biopic of his own life…exclusively told through Legos. Featuring Timbaland, Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg…all in Lego format. In theaters 10/01. Soundtrack is sure to be epic.
[new music]
It’s summer, so let’s dive into some windows-down pop music.
Halsey is one of of those pop artists I’m happy to throw on a playlist now and then, but wouldn’t consider myself a fan. But dang, the Jersey-born songwriter’s latest, allegedly inspired by her battle with both Lupus and a rare blood disorder, cuts deep.
Brittany Spencer’s profile was elevated as a guest vocalist on Beyonce’s dance-record-pretending-to-be-a-country-album. Her song “First Car Feeling” recalls days when…teenagers still wanted to drive, sadly.
Windows down. Volume up.
Until the next one,
-sth