Trump Returns, and So Does His TV Spectacle
The New York Times
The president’s second inauguration began with somber pageantry and ended with a reality-TV document signing.
Donald J. Trump has always tried to choose his own stage settings, be it looming over a built-for-TV boardroom in “The Apprentice” or descending down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. For his second inauguration, nature did the choosing for him: Subfreezing weather in Washington prompted the event to move indoors, to the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
With the ceremony moved from a massive public mall to an intimate chamber, TV was even more than usual the best means for most of us to secure a ticket. A traditional outdoor ceremony doesn’t just allow more citizens to attend; it creates the theater of openness. The incoming president meets the people under the wide sky; the crowd provides a backdrop and a collective response — the symbol, at least, of the people’s democratic voice.
The inauguration ceremony on Monday, held before a select crowd in the ornate and hushed chamber, felt more like a celebrity wedding (or funeral) or a black-tie gala, a small V.I.P. event that the masses could glimpse only through TV’s window.
This feeling of exclusivity was underscored by the who’s who of guests (Joe Rogan! Jake Paul!), whom the cameras picked out as if on a red carpet. The dais in the Rotunda was dotted with billionaire tech and media moguls, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. If a presidential inauguration is the Super Bowl of American politics, this time we were watching the event from the vantage of the owner’s box.
The day’s wall-to-wall news coverage treated Mr. Trump’s second inauguration as something both familiar and highly unusual. (The event was, as Anderson Cooper said on CNN, “a shift from the old to the new, which is also the old.”) There was not the sense of stunned crisis that poured from the airwaves in 2017. But neither was there the ho-hum, dutiful lassitude that usually accompanies second inaugurations, like Barack Obama’s in 2013.
Part of this, of course, owed to the setting and the dark memories it evoked. Just over four years ago, the same networks covered live as a crowd of Trump supporters tramped through the Rotunda, having attacked police and breached the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
The director developed such a distinct style that “Lynchian” became a go-to term for any sort of surrealism onscreen. These scenes from his work get to the heart of what that term embodied.
With support from Dan Campbell, the Lions’ wildly popular head coach, Detroit Army’s apparel has emerged as an unlikely alternative to the team’s licensed gear.
Larry Pennington, a fashionable former educator, was looking to share some advice on home décor and thrifting. He became an unlikely social media darling.
The director himself came off as almost performatively normal. Masterpieces like “Eraserhead” and “Mulholland Drive” said otherwise.
Eleven years ago, Spike Jonze’s tech drama imagined a budding romance between a man and his virtual assistant. If anything, the film was holding back.
In “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You,” the singer and songwriter outlines the personal and professional challenges that have shaped her career.
His new clothing collection has words and letters in a foreign language, the message of which is unclear. But people are buying it.
After roles in “Memento” and “L.A. Confidential” made him famous, Pearce turned his back on Hollywood. At age 57, he’s returned in “The Brutalist.”
Are the most intense scenes in “Nosferatu,” “Anora” and “Babygirl” supposed to be funny? If not, why are people cracking up?
Our fashion critic offers a young reader debating whether modesty is compatible with current trends advice on navigating personal style preferences.
A visual style originally meant to make TV series appear epic and distinctive has become awfully familiar
First came the Hadids. Then Bradley Cooper. Now, with luxury inns going up, the area around New Hope, Pa., has become a rival to the Hamptons.
Whether it’s Elphaba in “Wicked” or Celie in “The Color Purple,” the star doesn’t choose parts “frivolously”; she wants roles that stay with viewers.
In the three years since her breakout role in the fantastical series, she ran off to join the circus — twice. Season 2 may raise her profile even more. What’s next?
President-elect Donald J. Trump becomes part of the club. Melania Trump joins the first ladies.
Daniel Harding scaled the heights of classical music. Then he set out to conquer the skies.
Archivists from the Kinsey Institute are helping the family of the sex therapist Ruth Westheimer with a common quandary: How much of someone’s stuff do you keep?
Burlap & Barrel, a spice company that sources directly from farms around the world, has become a secret ingredient used by celebrity chefs and home cooks alike.