Irish It Boy Barry Keoghan is back in the public eye to promote Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man and he’s in the midst of playing Ringo Starr in the cursed The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, so he’s understandably looking a little different. The public response to his new look is extremely hateful. 

On his press tour the comments on every clip — the viral clip economy strikes again — are full of “disgust” at his appearance often with a side of bashing Sabrina Carpenter for ever dating him. When users are called out for their cruel comments, they justify it by vaguely stating he’s a “bad guy.” 

It’s reached the point where Barry told SiriusXM, “There’s a lot of abuse of how I look, and it’s kind of past the point of — you know, everyone goes through that … It’s made me really go inside myself, not want to attend places, not want to go outside.”

And I’m not preaching to the choir because I have a parasocial relationship with the gorgeous and proud nation of Ireland. Aaron Taylor Johnson, another actor once praised for his looks, stepped out for the premiere of Fuze clearly having done something to his face. No longer viewed as attractive, the public immediately railed him for his appearance and dropped their concern over how he met his now wife when he was a teenager and she was in her 40s, typically a rallying point for his fans. 

As Chase texted me, “People online can hold sympathy, complex thoughts, and defensive postures only for those deemed morally perfect or incredibly hot — often those two things are one in the same.” As soon as you’re viewed as less than perfect, anything can be weaponized to justify appearance-based hatred. 

Part of the issue is the way projects are promoted, unprecedented exposure allows for unprecedented hate, but it’s also a reflection of a looks-obsessed culture that conflates beauty with goodness. 

I recently read Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert, an examination of the particularly nasty strain of retaliatory misogyny present in the 2000s. Gilbert argues that “postfeminism,” a term coined by sociologist Rosalind Gill, defined the 2000s. A core tenet of postfeminism Gilbert writes is the “obsessive monitoring of one’s own and other women’s bodies.” Twenty years later, men, too, are subjected to the obsessive monitoring of their bodies. 

With intensifying male beauty standards over the past decade, vitriol that was once reserved for women’s appearances is lobbed at all genders. This isn’t the kind of equality feminists asked for! When Harry Styles is caught listening to The Daily’s episode about “Looksmaxxing,” you know we’re cooked. 

OSCARS RECAP At this point the Oscars are irrelevant, but such is the case with a biweekly newsletter. Timothée Chalamet Ethan Hawke lost Best Actor (boo!) and Michael B. Jordan won (yay!). 

But more importantly, it was a night about Lewis Pullman reaching new audiences. Lewis presenting the award for Best Film Editing with his father, Bill Pullman, was a perfect opportunity to inform nascent Pullman-ators at your Oscars watch party that he’s the guy from the Marvel no one watched and the musical about the religion that doesn’t fuck. 

Vulture’s Oscars scene report featured some great tidbits including Joe Alwyn “looking almost tan” and an anecdote about how Jacob Elordi entering a room shifts “the gravitational pull.” 

Rare shoutout to the New York Times for engaging in what I can only describe as Y/N photography of Jacob Elordi. 

In a surprise to no one, Joe Alwyn charmed on the red carpet.

THE MUSICIAN TO ACTOR PIPELINE A piece in The Cut posits that the recent influx of musicians, like Charli XCX, Dijon, Role Model, and SZA, onscreen is part of Hollywood renegotiating what it means to be “a star” today. “Studios and networks are trying creative ways to populate their stories,” a CAA agent told the publication. Actors don’t have the pull they once had, so studios turn to popstars for a built-in audience. Bleak! 

THE SELFIE POLICE If I was the Subway Takes guy, which thank God I’m not, I would say, “100% agree” to Slate’s piece on the only cool ways to engage with celebrities on the street that uses Harry Styles as an example: “a 10-second interaction with your fav … that doesn’t ask for his time and remains a nice moment between people.”

PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT HEAD SCRATCHERS New segment alert! 

Logan Lerman and Emily Bader (a to die for duo!) are starring in a “reboot” of 13 Going On 30 for Netflix. It’s super crazy how this movie called 13 Going On 30 already exists! When we begged for the return of the rom-com, I didn’t know we needed to specify that we wanted original IP. 

Maya Hawke and KJ Apa are starring in “a Shakespeare-inspired rom-com” exclusively on Audible. What exactly does it mean for a rom-com to be on Audible? Rom-com is perhaps the wrong word for an “audio-only” production… 

Are you guys streaming the new Charlie Puth? I hope so <3