Ben Sixsmith

There is a classic Simpsons episode in which young Bart falls down a well. Local celebrities, with the aid of guest star Sting, decide to band together to do something about it. Their magnificently useless contribution is to band together to perform a song in which they ‘send their love down the well’. ‘We can’t get him out, so we’ll do the next best thing, go on TV and sing, sing, sing.’I am surely not the only person who thought of this scene when Gal Gadot, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman and others performed a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

Artie Lange has disappeared. His gigs are canceled. His podcast is on hiatus. His social media is hardly being updated. The legendary comedian is apparently ‘sick’ but fans suspect that something else might be going on. You needn’t be Sherlock Holmes to be suspicious about his absence. Lange has been flitting in and out of rehab for the past 25 years.God knows I hope that Lange is sick. The comedian has emerged out of the depths of an addiction so dramatic that his nose imploded like an overripe tomato after years of snorting cocaine and heroin. (According to Lange, the obliteration of his beak was the result of snorting drugs mixed with broken glass.

The aim of the documentary Taylor Swift: Miss Americana is about as subtle as a knee to the groin. The pop star, the film would have us think, was once constrained by her innocent and rather folksy image, but has seized control of her own destiny and become a far more political, outspoken and independent artist. As she has been doing so, of course, the viewer is meant to realize, America itself has been forced to abandon its pretensions to innocence and embrace a more radically progressive future. ‘Americana’ is less about charming rural quirks and more about self-expression and activism.Since abandoning her image as a purer than pure country warbler, Ms Swift has dabbled with styles.

Boris Karloff, the master of early horror films, used to dress up as Santa Claus to deliver Christmas presents to disabled children. Onscreen, Karloff was a brooding, terrifying presence. In real life, he was the consummate gentleman. Onscreen, John Wayne was a bold war hero. In reality, Wayne had somehow avoided signing up to fight in World War Two.We know better, then, than to judge our actors by their roles. Villains of the cinema may be heroes in their homes, and heroes of the cinema may be, well — less heroic than their image might suggest. There is no point conflating the life with the work. Even if Jimmy Stewart had a more impressive wartime record than John Wayne, we all know that the Duke was a far more convincing and compelling leading man.

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. The first Star Wars trilogy enraptured by blending classic drama with science fiction. There was Luke Skywalker the fresh-faced hero, emerging from obscurity to save the day. There was Vader the villain, who had once been good but had embraced the dark side. There was the Emperor, the twisted puppeteer. There was the daredevil pilot Han Solo. There was Leia, the princess who had to be saved. There was even that essential companion on any voyage: a bumbling upper-class Englishman. All of it was familiar from classic cinema and adventure stories, but all of it had the strangeness of science fiction. The villain lurked behind a fearsome mask and choked people by mind control.