11 Things Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2021
Nicolas Cage hosts the history of swearing. Lorde writes a book and Julie Mehretu takes over the Whitney. This new year has to be better, right?
Credit...María Medem
Dec. 31, 2020
As a new year begins, our critics highlight the TV, movies, music, art and streaming dance and theater they anticipate before summer.
Jason Zinoman
Sure, the new Netflix series “
History of Swear Words,” which premieres Jan. 5, features a cast of comics like Sarah Silverman, Joel Kim Booster and Nikki Glaser working as talking heads, breaking down the meaning, impact and poetry of six major bad words, which mostly cannot be published here. An exception is “Damn,” which, you learn from this show, used to be much more taboo than it is today. And there are also some very smart academics who will explain such history, some of it hard fact sprinkled in with a few questionable legends. Etymology really can be riveting stuff. But let’s face it: The main reason to be excited about this show is the prospect of its host,