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The catchy, syrupy-sweet tunes from the female pop stars of the late ’90s and early ’00s were once described by some as a major step toward female empowerment: Britney Spears showing the world how a young woman could own her sexuality, or the Spice Girls championing the power of female friendship.
But in retrospect, these acts’ shiny surfaces can also read as a slick repackaging of sexist tropes. And the ongoing reconsideration of American culture from that era, which has included everyone from Spears to Monica Lewinsky, is allowing those who lived through the years of over-plucked eyebrows, low-rise jeans and Destiny’s Child to look at it again, even as Gen Z delights in experiencing those bygone trends for the first time.
Busy Philipps, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sara Bareilles, and Paula Pell in Girls5eva
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Thursday, May 6. All times are Eastern.
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Girls5eva (Peacock, 3:01 a.m., complete first season): “The quirky humor of Peacock’s musical comedy
Girls5eva is a hallmark of series creator Meredith Scardino’s ongoing collaboration with executive producers Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Scardino previously wrote on
Girls5eva serves up the same brand of highly specific absurdist jokes that powered the Netflix comedy, along with the rest of Fey’s oeuvre. The show’s frothiness is a welcome escape, its eight-episode first season a quick binge of amusingly ridiculous running jokes and witticisms (a hilarious one about a transparent piano named Ghislaine is an early standout).
May 4, 2021 Share
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES Eight months after first debuting in theaters, Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” is finally streaming. Whereas many other releases during the pandemic have quickly detoured to streaming services, “Tenet” stuck to the traditional route. The film, the first big studio movie released in theaters during the pandemic, last August attempted to lead a return to moviegoing. For Nolan, a champion of the big screen, it was a defining moment. But the film’s release struggled with many theaters still closed. With “Tenet” now streaming on HBO Max, fans who missed it earlier can catch Nolan’s follow-up to “Dunkirk,” a time-bending sci-fi thriller that in an earlier review I praised as “a cool, brutalist refresher of the movies’ capacity for awe.” It won an Oscar for its visual e
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In “Girls5eva,” the latest sitcom to emerge from the Tina Fey-Robert Carlock combine, Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell and Renée Elise Goldsberry play the members of a briefly famous ‘90s girl group who fate, if not the public, calls to reunite. Like other shows in the Fey-Carlock canon “30 Rock,” “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” the much-improved “Mr. Mayor,” renewed for a second season on NBC it is a hodgepodge of real feeling and cartoon rhythms, deadpan reactions to crazy stuff and meltdowns over nothing, surrealist throwaways and pop-cultural satire. At once biting and heartwarming, it may mock its characters but never their feelings, of which they have many.
Singers Sara Bareilles, Renee Elise Goldsberry carry Girls5eva tunes
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Sara Bareilles said Broadway prepared her for the television show Girls5eva. File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI | License Photo
Sara Bareilles says comedy music is a challenge on Girls5eva. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Renee Elise Goldsberry says Girls5eva gives her permission to show off. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo Girls5eva star Busy Philipps says her singing is getting better with practice. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo Girls5eva members from left Sara Barelles, Busy Philpps, Ashley Park, Erika Henningsen and Renee Elise Goldsberry perform in a 90s music video. Photo courtesy of Peacock