Charli xcx, The Moment and What’s Making Us Happy

Remember Brat Summer? Charli xcx has turned the aftermath of her mainstream success into a movie called The Moment. It’s a hyperpop faux documentary commenting upon the intense response to her album, Brat, and Charli’s fickle relationship with stardom. Can Charli keep the Brat momentum going? Does she even want to? The film also features Alexander Skarsgård, Hailey Benton Gates, and Kylie Jenner. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/letterboxd.com/nprpopculture http://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/NPR.

• 0:20Aisha Harris?

  Remember Brat Summer? This was, of course, 2024, the year when Charli XCX's Brat album catapulted her into the mainstream.

• 0:29Stephen Thompson?

  Now she's turned that moment into the movie The Moment. It's a hyperpop, super meta faux documentary commenting upon the intense response to Brat and Charli's fickle relationship with stardom. Along for the ride is none other than Alexander Skarsgård in a great comedic turn as a concert filmmaker who's totally not Brat. I'm Stephen Thompson.

• 0:50Aisha Harris?

  And I'm Aisha Harris. And today, we're talking about The Moment on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is NPR music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Hey, Isabella. Howdy. Great to have you. Also with us is journalist and host of the movie review podcast Seated, Travell Anderson. Hey, Travell.

• 1:09Speaker 03

  Hello, hello.

• 1:11Aisha Harris?

  So great to have you. So, look, The Moment stars Charli XCX as a version of herself in the immediate aftermath of the so-called Brat Summer of 2024. She's feeling intense pressure to capitalize upon her newfound mainstream success and reluctantly goes along with her record label's shrewd business plans. Those plans include shooting a concert film of her Brat tour, and the label insists she hire a director named Johannes to helm the project. He's played by Alexander Skarsgård. Johannes's mainstream vision clashes with both Charli's party girl aesthetic and her creative director Celeste, who's played by Hayley Benton-Gates.

• 1:46Speaker 04

  Are you familiar with light-up wristbands?

• 1:50Aisha Harris?

  Um.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  Wristbands?

• 1:52Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  That light up?

• 1:53Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  And the audience? Whereas then, and then we can program the wristbands to react to the music, to the beat. When you see it live, it'll blow your mind.

• 2:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:04Aisha Harris?

  The movie's central question is this: can Charli keep the brat momentum going? And more crucially, does she even want to? The moment is a feature debut of director Aiden Zamiri. He directed Charli's music videos for 360 and Guess, and it's in theaters now. Travell, I'm gonna start with you. Were you living in this moment?

• 2:24Speaker 03

  You know, I'm gonna go with yes, Ayesha. Let me start by saying, though, I am deeply in my auntie era. I don't know nothing about this lady in real life. Okay? I don't know the music. I know Brat Summer, and I know it was a thing, but you know, I'm still listening to R&B hits from the early 2000s. You know, I'm a little behind. So, going into the film, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was along for the ride. I found it quite a different approach to the mockumentary style. It's funny, but not, you know, laugh out loud.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  It do go on just a little too long as a movie overall, but I left it being like, huh, that wasn't bad.

• 3:15Aisha Harris?

  Well, I'm actually really happy to have someone here who is not all up in the Charli XCX lore, because I did wonder how that would play for someone who, like you said, is not checking for Charli in that way. So it's good to have that opinion here. We have a great group here. Stephen, I'm gonna ask you, were you living in this moment?

• 3:36Stephen Thompson?

  Well, I mean, who's more brat than me, right?

• 3:38Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, seriously. I don't know. I have no idea.

• 3:41Stephen Thompson?

  A 53-year-old man. I was very much in Brat Summer, maybe not of Brat Summer. Loved the record, loved the videos, glad to see the director of several of those videos directing this, because I think he has a really good sense of her sensibility and this kind of meta-satirical vibe, which, as Travell said, is not laugh-out-loud funny. This is not, this is Spinal Tap, this is not Pop Star Never Stop Never Stopping. It is not a mockumentary classic in that way. Oddly, what it is, is I think it's more illuminating than a straightforward artist-produced kind of self-hagiography.

• 4:19Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Stephen Thompson?

  I felt like I got to know Charli XCX more than I would have with one of those kind of stage-managed Taylor Swift's many self-hagiography documentaries, or any number of pop stars who have done this. I felt like taking this approach to it, where you're kind of constantly questioning, I know this is fake, but is this real?

• 4:40Aisha Harris?

  Right.

• 4:41Stephen Thompson?

  I think that vibe permeates this movie in a way that I think is really consistent with what she is all about. And I really appreciate the fact that they made a satire that feels more real than a straight-ahead tour movie.

• 4:56Aisha Harris?

  Yes, absolutely. I would have to completely agree with that point of view of this not being laugh-at-love funny. And the movie does do, I think, a really good job of sort of making it very clear that it has its thoughts about those concert documentaries. And in fact, it references at some point, like, the reason that they're even doing this is because, like, that's what sells right now. Like, that is what is getting butts in seats. Isabella, though, I am so, so curious to hear your thoughts on this, especially as someone who is, I think you're, you're a little bit closer in age to Charli XCX, or like, that era, and also you cover music. So, please tell us, how do we feel about this moment?

• 5:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I was all in on Brat Summer. I listened to the album. I know the Apple Dance. I went to the Sweat Tour, which was like her real tour promoting Brat alongside Troye Sivan. They did a whole co-headlining thing.

• 5:45Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 06

  I was not a big fan of this movie.

• 5:48Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 06

  I think it touched on really interesting concepts that have percolated throughout Charli X's career, especially as it relates to the tensions between true artistic vision and capitalism and label pressure. And I thought it tried to make really interesting points. I'm not sure they really landed for me all the way. I think part of it is just that the mockumentary felt like it dragged a little bit. Like, sometime during the middle, I was like, oh, my God, when is this going to end?

• 6:13Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 06

  Which I don't think is a great indication. But there were really good laughs, and I do think ultimately... I liked the Charli sensibility of poking fun at herself being in the situation, more so than a melodrama of like, it's so hard to be a pop star. So I think that the relatability factor of it worked really well and just how ridiculous of a situation this is for anyone to be in.

• 6:34Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes, absolutely. I also had a moment, not too many moments, but I did have one moment in particular. I will say, a cameo pops up in the middle of this film. I won't say what the cameo is, but it-

• 6:45Stephen Thompson?

  You and I are in agreement here, I can tell.

• 6:47Aisha Harris?

  Yes, it is a cameo of a very famous person who is also like Charli XCX extremely online, has grown up extremely online. And they have this whole exchange that I think is supposed to be sort of, it is a catalyst for the last, the back half of the film and Charli XCX's choices and it sets her off to be in the same room as this person. And that scene felt like it went on for about three minutes too long. It may have been only four minutes, but it should have only been like 30 seconds. Yeah. And I think that the economy of time is something that this movie doesn't quite, it's a first time director sort of issue, I think, right? Aiden Zemiri, this is his first feature debut. But I have to say, like, I kind of loved this and, you know, I didn't go to the most

• 7:30Aisha Harris?

  recent tour for this album, but I will say, I'm gonna, you know, throw out my Charli XCX bona fide here, because I can't often say this about musical acts, but I've been with Charli since almost the beginning. Like, I've seen her five or six times, starting in the small little clubs in 2013 that she was playing in New York, up to like, more recently, the Crash Tour. So, I love her. I think that she is one of our most interesting pop stars right now and, you know, so many people have said this before, but she is someone who really understands online language and uses that in her music in ways that I find fascinating. And I think this was the only way that she could come out of brat, feeling still like

• 8:12Aisha Harris?

  herself or the self that we know her as, which is like, she's always been uncomfortable with the fame aspect. It's clear she has aspirations of wanting to be famous, but you also get the sense that she's constantly denouncing her previous albums after the- Felicity Ron is done and she's like, oh, I'm leaving that behind. And the fact that Brat was an album where she couldn't quite leave it behind. Right. And she's wrestling it with now in this way, I think, works so well. And I also think the way that she incorporates Johannes, the Alexander Skarsgård character in here as sort of the foil, the villain, we should say, to her creativity and what Brat is and what Brat isn't. And just how Brat kind of got out of control. Let us never forget Kamala is Brat was a thing.

• 8:59Stephen Thompson?

  Kamala is Brat, even after all this time.

• 9:02Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes. But I do think Charli is not just as like a mockumentary, but I think as an actress. And I will say, I saw Charli XCX in no fewer than three different movies at Sundance, including this one. And I also saw her in two movies at the Toronto Film Festival. So she's like out here trying to act. I think this is by far her most successful bid so far as a performer. And I think it really sort of shows in certain moments where you can't quite tell the line between herself and where the movie itself goes. But Stephen, what were you gonna jump in and say?

• 9:32Stephen Thompson?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting, Aisha, that you refer to Alexander Skarsgård's character as the villain. He is definitely the villain and he's definitely a slime ball. But he's not the only force kind of pushing her in this kind of more hyper capitalistic direction. She is also willingly entering into this horrifying deal for a Brat credit card, which is, you know, definitely satirizing. And, you know, this is not the first music mockumentary satire to make hay of this particular kind of corporate crossover. But I think the fact that those lines are blurred in every way, right? Between art and commerce. But he just kind of comes in and personifies it in this particularly grody and funny way.

• 10:18Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, yeah. Travell, I'm curious to hear a little bit more about like what your experience was watching. Like, do you feel like you came out of it getting a sense of like who this person is? Or was it more just like, oh, this was fun?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Good question. I feel like I have an idea, right? Like the Charli XCX character. Is kind of positioned as warring really with herself and her creative desires and kind of the broader industry that wants to make this moment continue as as long as they can. Say what we want, but pop stars are human too.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  And I feel like that is kind of the thing that the film is trying to push and trying to showcase. It obviously is not new in in doing so, but I I did feel like Charli had a little on screen presence. I was like, I would check her out in something else. I did not know she's been in all these movies, Aisha.

• 11:21Aisha Harris?

  She's been in a lot of movies.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  I was like, I'd watch again, you know? But I think the thing for me that kind of set the tone is the beginning of the movie. It starts in what was for me a jarring kind of way, but really sets the tone for, I think, the world that they're trying to create. And apparently this world of Brat and Charli XCX that I assume the fans are super familiar with, but I wasn't. And so it immediately kind of forecasted the wild, chaotic, kind of harried journey we were going on, but I was with it overall.

• 12:02Aisha Harris?

  I think also like for me, one of the the more funnier moments, one that like I actually kind of laughed out loud at was a scene that I think sort of encapsulates everything about Charli's whole thing, which is she's she's in a car or whatever. And the driver is like, oh, are you famous? And and they have this whole back and forth where like he just pulls up her video. I've seen those moments play out before. I know how that works. It's like, oh, you like your little thing, you do your little thing and like, but it's like.

• 12:30Stephen Thompson?

  Well, he immediately pulls up Charlie Puth. That was very funny.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  Always the punchline, never the star, Charlie Puth.

• 12:38Aisha Harris?

  Exactly. But I enjoy those little moments. Isabel, I'm curious to hear a little bit more about like, just like, what wasn't working for you exactly?

• 12:47Speaker 06

  I mean, I think part of it, going back to how you were saying, she's acting in all of these films right now. I think the way that this mockumentary is trying to grapple with overexposure, while at the same time, she continues to be in a space in her career where it feels like she is a little bit overexposed this year. Like, we have all of these projects coming from her. She's doing the Wuthering Heights soundtrack, she's in all these other films. Like, it felt hard to wrestle with because it was like, we're actually not getting a break from her in any real way.

• 13:13Stephen Thompson?

  True.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  And in a way that I think, you know, we say this a lot about certain pop stars, but it's like, sometimes it's good to maybe like, go away for a little bit and like, let things sit and then come back. But I think also, part of it was, for me, the direction at certain points tried to build this sort of like, Safdie-esque anxiety as we're sort of trying to see Charlie's anxiety and mental state, trying to figure out which direction to take with all this pressure coming at her from all these different angles.

• 13:40Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 06

  And those scenes, to me, felt particularly dragged out. So I feel like it kind of had the opposite effect of maybe what it was going for. But I guess maybe also, there were moments in this film where I had to remind myself that it was satire and not real. And I think that's also intentional. Like, I think maybe there was also a moment where like, it's supposed to feel a little bit annoying that she's having such a hard time, like, making these decisions, I guess. But, um, but there were really good laughs. And I really appreciated Alexander Skarsgård's role here as sort of like, the normie, hyper-capitalist, like, cringey guy, just bringing things up and having them turn around and be like, what are you even talking about? Who are you and why are you here? Like, those laughs did land really, really well for me.

• 14:24Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 14:24Stephen Thompson?

  One thing that I think really worked about the tension created by the introduction of the Alexander Skarsgård character is, I've seen a lot of the kind of music documentaries that this film is parodying. And, you know, they tend to feature either Taylor Swift or Beyonce. And one thing that those movies are so careful to state over and over and over again as text and as subtext, it's that the The artist is in charge of their creative vision and the artist is obsessed with their creative vision, every single angle on it. You know, you see Beyonce in rehearsal and she's obsessed with everything. You see Taylor Swift and she's, you know, she's Taylor Swift. She's fussing over

• 15:06Stephen Thompson?

  every little detail. And one thing that I liked about this film and one thing that I thought this film kind of did pretty subtly for a movie that is otherwise not very subtle, is that Charli XCX is largely checked out of the creative vision of this tour. She literally leaves, she literally just wanders off and just goes on vacation while a chunk of these creative conflicts are happening. I found that to be a really kind of funny and self-aware approach that made this very unlike so many of the movies that it's parodying.

• 15:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a good point because I do feel I appreciated the fallacy of sort of the singular auteur vision in the sense that you realize so much of this is like there's these massive teams behind these stars and oftentimes they're at odds with one another and the last person anybody wants to hear from is the actual pop star. She was kind of like a sidebar throughout this whole thing. Right.

• 15:55Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. Also, what's interesting and I also think Skarsgård is amazing here. I also think Hailey Benton Gates as Celeste.

• 16:02Stephen Thompson?

  Very funny.

• 16:02Aisha Harris?

  Is very, very good here, especially the tension between Johannes and Celeste is very fascinating.

• 16:08Speaker 05

  It's supposed to feel like a nightclub. That is what we do. That is what we are good at.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  Totally respect that opinion, obviously. But I have to say that I think we're slightly misaligned here. I'm trying to tell a story here, okay?

• 16:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  And a nightclub is not a story.

• 16:27Aisha Harris?

  And what I found interesting about it is that it had sort of like that story that we've seen over and over again where it's like the pop star starts off like their own thing. Maybe they bring their best friend along and Celeste is supposed to be also sort of her best friend as well. So there's that complication between both being her best friend, but also being someone who is helping her career and is in charge of her career. And I thought that it was really interesting to see that, especially given that like so much of what I think we often know about Charli XCX is that, yes, she has her like writing partner. She has those people she leans on. But she's also someone who like, literally just started making stuff on her own computer. She is of like the extremely online tumblers generation.

• 17:08Aisha Harris?

  I think the movie does a pretty decent job of finding that tension between like Charlie, the rebel, the like, I'm doing, like, this is all coming from me, this is who I am, versus like Charlie losing absolute control over like what she used to be. And we don't usually see concert documentaries. I mean, I have, I definitely have not seen as many as you have, Stephen. But like, I've seen enough and you don't usually see them when they're on that sort of precipice. It's like usually when you've already ascended, maybe you have something to prove, but it's not necessarily that you have to prove like, oh, I'm still me. It's like, oh, I am, I am Beyonce, I am doing homecoming, like, this is me, I'm gonna, this is my thesis statement. And Charlie doesn't really have a thesis statement, except like, I'm trying to be brat.

• 17:53Aisha Harris?

  Like, and I don't mean that in a negative way, I just think the thesis statement is a little more muddled and unclear, and I think that's what drives this. But also, Isabella, I agree with you that the Saff D-esque, it feels like it's aiming for Saff D-esque and it can't quite get there on that tension. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a good observation. Well, tell us what you think about The Moment. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/NPRPopCulture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description. And up next, what's making us happy this week?

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from ProLon. With their five-day fasting-mimicking diet, a clinically-developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Learn more at prolonlife.com/NPR. This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/NPR. This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0.00 with eligible trade-in.

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• 19:25Aisha Harris?

  And now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy? Travell, I'm gonna start with you. What's making you happy?

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Okay, what is making me happy? Now, I have recently discovered this show called Moonshiners. Okay? Apparently, the show has been around since like 2011 or something. But I just found it. And it is a docu-series, as they say, about these people who are making moonshine up in like the Appalachian Mountains and like, you know, North Carolina and Virginia and, you know, all of those places. And I was like, this is just the kind of drama that I like to see in my reality series. It is just such a slice of life that I kind of feel familiar with

• 20:17Speaker 03

  because I'm from South Carolina, in case you can't hear it in my tone.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  But also very much different than me and mine. And so what's making me happy is this show, Moonshiners. You can check it out on HBO Max, on the Discovery Channel, if you have that.

• 20:34Aisha Harris?

  Okay, I have not heard of that show before, so that is good to know. Thank you, Travell.

• 20:41Aisha Harris?

  All right, Isabella, what is making you happy this week?

• 20:44Speaker 06

  What is making me happy is the novel Heart the Lover by Lily King. It was published in 2025. I just read it, thanks to my book club. It's a fictional story about this love triangle between three college students who are best friends. And there's this sort of drastic time jump into the future as their grown-up selves sort of reflect on the repercussions of all of these entanglements between the three of them and what that looks like as you get older. It's kind of a sad novel, I will say. I stayed up reading the end of it, sobbing in my room. But I love a book that can get me to be that emotionally attached to the characters that like I feel their feelings so, so deeply. And I hadn't had that experience in a very long time, so I highly recommend it. It's called Heart the Lover by the author Lily King.

• 21:29Aisha Harris?

  Great. I mean, look, sometimes we all need a good cry, so.

• 21:32Stephen Thompson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:33Speaker 06

  This will deliver.

• 21:34Stephen Thompson?

  I don't know anything about that, Ayesha.

• 21:37Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, sometimes it just feels nice to feel something, anything.

• 21:43Aisha Harris?

  But enough about me. Stephen, what is making you happy this week?

• 21:47Stephen Thompson?

  Aisha, my pick made me cry too.

• 21:49Aisha Harris?

  Oh, good. Well, that's not surprising.

• 21:52Aisha Harris?

  I know you would have.

• 21:53Stephen Thompson?

  So I needed a little bit of a come down after the Safdie-esque intensity of the Charlie XCX movie. And so I was just like sitting on my couch scrolling Blue Sky when I came across an old fashioned prompt from someone calling for people's favorite song with a long title. And the replies are fantastic. It sent me down a rabbit hole. And for me, that rabbit hole ended with one of my favorite songs of about a decade ago. It's by a band from New Zealand called Tiny Ruins.

• 22:21Speaker 07

  I await the day.

• 22:25Speaker 07

  When I work at the museum.

• 22:31Speaker 07

  With you across the way.

• 22:36Speaker 07

  In the winter gardens.

• 22:40Stephen Thompson?

  That is Me at the Museum, You in the Winter Gardens. It is just a perfect, soft, dreamy little bit of scene setting. Perfect for drifting into the weekend. Look, it is a loud time right now. The world is loud. The Charlie XCX movie is loud. The Super Bowl is gonna be loud. I'm trying to make sure I make time to exhale a little bit. Anything to soothe my raging anxiety is what is making me happy this week. So that is a wonderful song with a very long title. Me at the Museum, You in the Winter Gardens by Tiny Ruins.

• 23:15Aisha Harris?

  Ah, thank you. That does sound like cozy up, get a quilt or a blanket, sit on your couch and eat soup. Kind of song.

• 23:22Stephen Thompson?

  This song is a mug of cocoa.

• 23:24Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 23:24Stephen Thompson?

  For your soul.

• 23:25Aisha Harris?

  Yes. Well, thank you, Stephen. Well, what's making me happy this week? Well, we recently recorded our 2026 Sundance episode wrap up of some of our favorites there. And of course, whenever we record these episodes, we always say, we hope you'll be able to see these movies. And they get distribution because a lot of the movies don't have distribution. So what's making me happy is a movie that I saw at In 2023, and it is Mila Sutondo. This is a documentary directed by Mila Sutondo Bangela, who is a South African filmmaker. And it's basically like she brings her own personal essays brought to life onto the screen. She uses home movies, interviews, tons of some really striking archival footage

• 24:08Aisha Harris?

  where she's excavating the lingering effects of, you know, South African apartheid on herself and her friends and family. She's a millennial, so she's kind of like, she was of a young age when, just a kid, when Nelson Mandela was freed and eventually became president. And she talks about that. She also questions what it means to have white friends in South Africa, which I find very illuminating. She has a really fantastic conversation between herself and her friend, who's also a producer on the movie, Marion Isaacs, who is white. And it's one of the most blunt, real, challenging conversations I've heard between a black person and a white person about what their relationship means to each other.

• 24:50Aisha Harris?

  It's unlike anything I've ever seen before, and I really hope people seek it out. Absolutely worth talking about, and especially in this era where so much of history is being erased. It's nice to see this perspective done in such a well-done way and in such a moving and affecting way. So that is Mila Sutondo. It is streaming on the Criterion Channel. And that is what is making me happy this week. Also, one last thing before we go. We are pulling back the curtain and letting Pop Culture Happy, our Plus supporter, sit in virtually a la live episode taping. This is so exciting. I'm very excited. Basically, you'll get to see how the show is made and experience this episode before everyone else. We'll be talking about something Oscars-related, which is one of our favorite topics.

• 25:33Aisha Harris?

  It's all happening over Zoom on Friday, February 13th at 3 PM Eastern, noon Pacific. If you're not a Plus supporter yet, you can go to plus.npr.org/happy. Again, that's plus.npr.org/happy. If you're already a Plus supporter, thank you. And yeah, just scroll back in your feed to January 22nd to learn how to register for that taping. That brings us to the end of our show. Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, Trevel Anderson and Stephen Thompson. Thanks so much for being here. This was fun.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  Thank you, Ayesha.

• 26:02Stephen Thompson?

  Thank you.

• 26:03Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 26:04Aisha Harris?

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Carly Rubin, Kayla Latimore and Mike Katsif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kim Min provides our theme music. And thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris. We'll see you all next week.

• 26:23Speaker 07

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.