The Beckhams, Grief Porn & 2016

Hey EICapulets! To Brooklyn, or to Beckham? That is this week's question.

There was simply no way of doing this episode without discussing the biggest news of the week, which is a pretty big statement, all things considered.

On Monday evening, Brooklyn Beckham took to his Instagram and posted a series of stories stating that he does not want to reconcile with his family. This comes after years of speculation about a rift between the Beckhams and Brooklyn and Nicola, a lot of which started after their 2022 wedding.

We discuss how and why this has taken the internet by storm, and what we make of it all.

Next up! Chloe Zhao's Hamnet is based on Maggie O'Farrell's novel of the same name. The fictional story follows Agnes Hathaway (played by Jessie Buckley) and William Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal) as they lose their son Hamnet to the plague- and how this tragedy births the play Hamlet. Very little is known about Shakespeare’s life, so this story has been compared to fan-fiction. But just a lil fact check: several other plays, including two comedies, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It came between the death of Hamnet and the creation of Hamlet, according to The New Yorker.

Since the film’s release there’s been a lot of claims it's "grief porn". We get into it.

And lastly, whoever is doing 2016’s marketing needs a raise, after a nostalgia-based trend caused what feels like the entire internet to look back a decade to the days of Pokemon Go, Brexit, Beyonce’s Lemonade, Trump 1.0, Kylie lip kits and chokers to name but a few big moments and trends. For those of us who were old enough to own phones and participate in the culture and social media back then, throwbacks are aplenty. For those who missed it the first time around, FOMO is in full force. Harper’s Bazaar has called 2016 the “last good year”, and Glamour suggested it might be the last time we felt “hopeful”. According to TikTok, searches for 2016 surged by 454% in the first week of the new year and about 229 million posts have been made using their 2016 filter. But why?

We hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review & subscribe!

Thank you to Cue for the edit.

Beth's been loving: The Silence Of The Lambs (the book), Emily In Paris. Ruchira's been loving Stranger Things and Dying For Sex & Oenone's been loving A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms, The Night Manager

Brooklyn Beckham's statement

Ignore the awards – Hamnet is artificial and manipulative Shakespeare fan fiction"HAMNET" FEELSELEMENTAL, BUT IS IT JUST HIGHLY EFFECTIVE GRIEF PORN?Maybe You’ll Hate This MovieWas 2016 The Last Good Year?

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