Is TV enough neutral ground to get you through the holidays with people you don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time chatting with? If things get dicey, just talk about something easy like Ted Lasso and avoid the big stuff (money, religion, politics) long enough to escape to your childhood bedroom.

 

Now I’m not trying to petty a few days before Christmas (just kidding, yes I am) but I want to follow up on the Brooklyn Beckham cooking show story from a few days ago. The Beckhams and the Ramsays spent a lot of time together as their kids were growing up, traveling and attending events. They were very tight. And now that Brooklyn has a cooking show, it stands to reason that his de facto uncle, who happens to be one of the most famous chefs in the world, would be a guest, no? Maybe he is and the episode hasn’t dropped yet. But there’s no interaction about it.  

 

An insignificant but maddening argument about the use of the word “gaslight” in Being the Ricardos that is going down on Twitter pretty much sums up the tone of 2021. I’m on the side of Roxane Gay, who sparked the conversation with a now-deleted tweet pointing out the oddity of the word being used in conversation in the film. Andy Cohen and critic Matt Zoller Seitz have agreed with her, and I agree with them. Why are we trying to pretend people in the 1950s (in this case, Lucille Ball) used the term “gaslight” in the same way it’s been used in the last couple of years? Yes it was a movie title and yes it may have been used sparingly, but not in the widespread way it is used today. Can we blame Aaron Sorkin for all of this? I think so.  

 

Onto a less controversial take on Christmas content. We all have our preferred rotation (for me: The Last Holiday, The Holiday, Scrooged, Love Actually, The Family Man, The Office Christmas episodes) and ones we don’t f-ck with (The Family Stone, I deeply dislike this film)(Lainey: lololol, The Family Stone is a Duana favourite, she was just texting me last night while she was watching it; we all have different holiday flavours!) . Can I recommend adding one more? Dash and Lily, an underrated new classic (and if you don’t believe me, believe Meghan O’Keefe at Decider).  

As we wrap up for the holiday break, I’ll be extending my time off for a few weeks into the new year. With that, I’m ending my last column of 2021 with words from Liam Gallagher. Hope he gets his Christmas miracle (being in the same room with his brother).