Dear Meteor readers,

This past weekend, we had the pleasure of hosting our annual event, Meet the Moment, at the Brooklyn Museum. As we sit in the middle of global crises—regular attacks on our rights, rising antisemitism and Islamophobia, war and conflict—the whole idea of meeting the moment has never felt more crucial. Amidst all this grief, we focused on hope. As Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said in conversation with Ilana Glazer, “I wake up every day and think, ‘How can I be useful?’… and pace myself with bad news, because it doesn’t change what I need to do.” A lesson to us all.

In today’s newsletter, we offer a bit of that bad news, some not-so-bad news, and writer Scarlett Harris’s unsentimental thoughts about the 20th anniversary of Love, Actually.

Ready to meet the moment with you,

Samhita Mukhopadhyay

WHAT’S GOING ON

• OL Reign winger and soccer legend Megan Rapinoe left only six minutes into her last-ever NSWL professional game on Saturday after injuring her ankle. Her team lost to FC Gotham 2-1. Never one to mince words, she told the press that the injury was the “worst possible outcome” and joked it was “proof” that God didn’t exist, predictably stoking right-wing ire. Never change, Megan!

• Black trans activist and Meteor collective member Raquel Willis’s memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom, is out today. The book tells the story of Willis feeling loved but isolated in a Catholic family in Georgia, discovering her true identity during college (with a little help from a drag show), and eventually becoming one of America’s most prominent trans activists. Read an excerpt here.

• Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, ceased to function over the weekend in the midst of power outages, fuel shortages, and Israeli strikes in the area. Its collapse became the latest example of the devastating civilian cost of the region’s humanitarian crisis—and the latest source of horrific images of dead or wounded children flooding social media. (Al-Shifa was home to a neonatal unit.) In The New York Times, Lydia Polgreen questioned the longstanding norm of not publishing graphic images like these, arguing for the moral necessity of seeing the truth. These photographs, she wrote, force a question: “What set of arrangements, what assumptions, must be overturned to answer for this tableau of death?”

• Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver, initially thought to have been held hostage by Hamas, was confirmed to have been killed in the October 7 attack at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel. Since her disappearance, Silver’s two sons have been grappling with her legacy, wondering whether Hamas’s attack would have shifted her “peacenik” politics.

• Iconic feminist website Jezebel shut down late last week after 16 years of transforming the way we talk about women and gender online. The conversation Jezebel started “makes some people uncomfortable,” wrote the site’s founder, Anna Holmes, in a New Yorker piece published the week before the shutdown, “in part because it involves women expressing their anger in public and sustained ways.” RIP to a real one.

• Thousands of people marched in Mexico City demanding answers about Jesús Ociel Baena, Mexico’s first non-binary magistrate, who was found dead in their home (alongside their partner, Dorian Herrera) after receiving death threats. Many suspect that this was a hate crime meant to intimidate LGBTQ+ Mexicans. “I’m not scared, I’m angry,“ one protester told the AP. “I’m here to make myself visible.”

MORE ON “MEET THE MOMENT”

At the intersection of advocacy, representation, culture, and politics, we heard from leaders like:

ALLIE PHILLIPS ADDRESSES THE CROWD (PHOTO BY MONNELLE BRITT)

• Allie Phillips, the Tennessee woman who was denied critical abortion care in her home state and decided to run for office. “We’ve let men have their moment to shine,” she told Abortion, Every Day founder Jessica Valenti. “But that moment is over. And it’s our turn.”

• Civic engagement superstars A’shanti Gholar and Deja Foxx, who talked about how young people can and should get involved in politics. “Gen Z has been showing up,” Foxx said. “But now I’m looking to older generations to say: How are you going to keep us engaged?”

12-YEAROLD SPORTS JOURNALIST PEPPER PERSLEY (PHOTO BY MONNELLE BRITT)

• 12-year-old reporter Pepper Persley, who talked to Olympic swimming legend Casey Legler about overcoming bullying.

• And from the not-a-dry-eye-in-the-room files, poet and psychologist Hala Aylan, who asked us to “bear witness” to the crisis in Gaza. “The most beautiful task of an ally,” she told the audience, can often be to say, “‘I see what you see.’”

Our final conversation, between Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Ilana Glazer, brought a levity I’ve taken with me, including this tidbit:

ROM-COMS OF CHRISTMAS PAST

Love, Actually is Bad, Actually

Twentieth-anniversary thoughts about the much-memed rom-com

BY SCARLETT HARRIS

Love, Actually, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary this month, became a classic for its star-studded cast, British sentiment, and Christmas vibes. Over the years, it has inspired endless memes and spoofs. But the bloom has been off the rose for some time now.

Sure, plenty of rom-coms don’t hold up when revisited in the stark light of the 2020s—the catfisher’s playbook You’ve Got Mail and the statutory-rapey Never Been Kissed come to mind—and even modern takes like Happiest Season, Sierra Burgess is a Loser, and Marry Me sometimes rely on lazy stereotypes and outdated tropes.

Still, when it comes to gender roles and relationship dynamics, Love, Actually is in a cringeworthy class of its own.

The 2003 British anthology rom-com, directed by Richard Curtis, follows an assortment of lovelorn Brits making the worst relationship decisions imaginable. Everyone, take a deep breath: Harry (Alan Rickman) is cheating on his perfectly nice wife Karen (Emma Thompson) with his vampy assistant, Mia (Heike Makatsch). Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is in love with Juliet (Kiera Knightly), the new bride of his best friend Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor, one of only two people of color in the entire cast). The recently-jilted Jamie (Colin Firth) falls in love with his Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), with whom he can’t communicate due to their language barrier. And the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) engages in sexual misconduct at his workplace when he pursues his young, naive aide, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon). This behavior looks saintly compared to his professional rival, the United States President (Billy Bob Thornton, doing his best Bill Clinton), who sexually assaults Natalie later in the movie.

To quote the Black Eyed Peas: Where is the love?

Many of these supposedly romantic scenarios occur in the workplace, but even if they don’t, little airtime is given to the power dynamics involved. Whoever decided it was dreamy for Mark to show up at Peter’s house to accost his wife with placards spelling out his true feelings was seriously disturbed. Ditto to Jamie proposing to a domestic worker he employs without ever having exchanged a word. The least problematic relationship could have been cold, rigid Harry cheating on long-suffering Karen were it not for Harry’s sketchy workplace romance.

When the female characters aren’t getting fat-shamed, they’re being objectified. Most of their storylines center on how hot they are, or aren’t. Jamie falls for Aurelia based on physicality alone. There’s not much to Mia besides luring Harry to cheat through her feminine wiles. Since Mark spends the movie avoiding Juliet, one must conclude that he’s primarily drawn to her looks. The same goes for elementary school student Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), who’s apparently had so little interaction with his crush that he’s surprised she knows his name. Sam’s stepfather, Daniel (Liam Neeson), is dating his own crush, played by thee Claudia Schiffer. (Why wouldn’t he be, when every over-50 and/or schlubby guy in Love, Actually gets the girl?) Laura Linney’s Sarah pining after Rodrigo Santoro’s Karl is one of the only connections that gives a woman agency and a sense of desire—though, it must be said, they’re still colleagues.

The movie’s most egalitarian relationship is that of two body doubles filming a sex scene, John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page). I’m guessing their scenes are an excuse to incorporate some nudity and sex gags amidst a cast with the least sexual chemistry in rom-com history. Still, the actors’ meet-cute is surprisingly effective. Even while naked in front of the cameras, they talk to each other like respectful, normal human beings. If only the rest of the movie could have taken a cue from their dynamic.

Watching Love, Actually now seems particularly jarring given the evolution of the romantic comedy over the last 20 years, both in its depiction of relationships and its stars. There’s still a long way to go, but rom-coms like Rye Lane; Red, White & Royal Blue; and Good Luck To You, Leo Grande are paving the way Love, Actually wishes it could have. If you’re itching for some simple Christmance spirit this year, throw on a Lifetime or Netflix movie instead of Love, Actually. It might be just as problematic, but at least it won’t be pretending to be something it’s not.

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