NPR
Eric Deggans is a TV critic for NPR and the author of Race-Baiter: How Media Wield Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation.
PROFILE
Eric Deggans
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FROM Eric Deggans
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Why the 2018 Emmys were not must-see TV At Monday night’s Emmys, there were a lot of jokes about the lack of diversity in TV; many awards for Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel;” and a marriage proposal. We get a recap.
To the Point
'Fake news' is everywhere. How can journalism keep up? By now we're all familiar with how deliberately wrong information can dominate social media and online searches -- when it comes to politics. But even after such tragedies as the recent hurricanes and the Las Vegas mass shooting, conspiracy theories have spread like wildfire. About 45 percent of Americans use Facebook as a primary news source or conduit. Yet, it doesn't have a traditional media operational structure -- newsrooms, fact-checkers in the traditional sense. And that's adding urgency to the question of how we can separate real news from fake. Guest host Jamil Smith asks, are Google, Facebook, and other tech companies doing enough to stop it? What about readers?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Highlights of Sunday's overtly political Emmy Awards Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue was full of Trump jabs, and Sean Spicer made an appearance. There were many firsts: Donald Glover was the first black man to take home the award for directing for a comedy series; Riz Ahmed was the first male actor of South Asian descent to win an acting Emmy.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Is Hollywood out of touch with this political moment? During her speech at Sunday’s Golden Globes, Meryl Streep said, “Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.” She went on to excoriate Donald Trump. We look at the awards, speeches, and whether they reflect America.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The lowdown on Netflix's 'The Get Down' Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann explores the birth of hip-hop – 1977 in the South Bronx – in the new Netflix series The Get Down . Luckily, the series employed an impressive list of collaborators and consultants, including Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow, who weren’t just there for the birth of hip-hop – they fathered it. Link to Eric Deggan on twitter
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
BET Awards Gets Political Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar wowed the crowd with a joint performance at the BET Awards Sunday. Tributes to Muhammad Ali and Prince moved the audience and viewers at home. But actor Jesse Williams, who played Dr. Jackson Avery on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, stole the show with an eloquent civil rights speech after accepting the Humanitarian Award. “If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those to those who do. Sit down,” he said. The annual event celebrating African Americans in the arts and entertainment is consistently the highest rated awards show on cable, and it’s BET’s highest rated show.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
The Relevance of the 'Roots' Remake Nearly four decades ago, the ABC miniseries Roots was a cultural sensation. Half of all households with televisions tuned in for the finale. Airing a decade after the Civil Rights Movement, for many whites it was the first time they really understood slavery on a visceral level, and the lasting effects it had. A new version of Roots is airing this week on the A&E’s History channel. How does the remake compare with the original? How does it depict slavery differently from the 1977 original?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: Can HBO Remain Supreme? HBO had a big weekend. Beyonce dropped a surprise hour-long visual album on Saturday. On Sunday, its popular shows Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley returned. Looking ahead, though, HBO may be in some trouble. Girls is ending, as is The Leftovers; and the big budget show Vinyl has been disappointing. Amazon and Netflix are getting a lot of attention for their original shows. Can HBO remain supreme in the premium television realm?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup It’s time to talk TV! Girls is back this week from a break and so is the Duplass Brothers show Togetherness. And back from the 1980’s is the sitcom Full House. After reading a new USC report about diversity in Hollywood, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the main characters on all those shows are white. That and more in our regular Monday TV roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup The People v. O.J. Simpson and Grease: Live: The latest TV events sound like headlines from the past. We get the latest in small-screen news in this week’s Monday television roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: 'The Big Bang Theory,' 'Fargo,' and more Like a spaceship door opened to the emptiness of space, ‘Star Wars’ has sucked the air out the movie business this week. But there’s plenty to talk about in the TV world. We discuss ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ‘Fargo,’ ‘Luther’ and more in our regular Monday TV roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Debuts, Empire Returns It might be summer weather outside, but fall has definitely come to TV. New shows debuting, old favorites still crushing it. It’s a busy time of year for TV critics, but we’ve snagged two of our regulars to talk about what’s going on.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: Colbert, Political Ads and More Donald Trump hasn’t spent a dime on TV advertising so far in his campaign. Why? Because of all the free publicity he gets from the media’s Trump frenzy. In general, the 2016 race is looking very different for candidate ad buys than past campaigns have. How so? Also in our weekly TV roundup, how was Stephen Colbert’s first week hosting The Late Show?
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: Empire Spin-off and More If you loved the TV show Empire, you’re about to get even more from the world of Cookie and Lucius than you could have ever imagined. Fame, fortune and spin-offs. That and more on our TV roundup.
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
TV Roundup: Shark Week, Comedy Central's Diverse Roster, and Colbert Shark Week is back on the Discovery Channel, along with the requisite media feeding frenzy. A few of today’s headlines include TIME.com’s “ This Gruesome Video Will Get You Pumped for Shark Week ” and USA Today’s “ Justin Bieber is not a fan of Shark Week .” Despite the link-bait, Discovery Channel is promising more science this time around. Also, we discuss diverse programming at Comedy Central, and Stephen Colbert’s surprise appearance hosting a public-access show in Michigan.
Recommended
Film Reviews
The Girl In the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story “The Girl In the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story” is a reference to the terrific series that started years ago with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” The central character in the new installment has the same name, but she’s changed and a lot around her has changed, none of it for the better.
Nocturne
Stay Warm, Be Careful This crazy thing happens in NYC as night approaches – as rush hour picks up and the streets get evermore hectic than normal, delivery men on bikes start racing through the streets to get people their restaurant food while it’s still hot.
Bookworm
Brian Phillips: Impossible Owls The restless imagination of Brian Phillips brings lyrical essays to a narrative border in his debut book, Impossible Owls.
Opening the Curtain
Being a Ghost Story of Christmas When you enter the Geffen Playhouse for “A Christmas Carol” it feels like you may have entered a victorian funeral home. The lights are dim, there’s a waft of fog blowing on stage and what appears to be a coffin surrounded by black floral arrangements. It’s spooky. It feels like you’re about to hear a ghost story. Which you are.