From Megxit to Mariah, The Ringer’s Juliet Litman Breaks Down 2020’s Major Pop Culture Moments

“Well, it’s hard to believe, but the Megxit started in January,” Juliet reminded me, remembering exactly where she was at lunch in California when the Queen’s note on the matter was released. “I think following Meghan and Harry’s new path has just been so fascinating. I’d also just like to pat myself on the back that I predicted many of their moves. I didn’t see Montecito, which I honestly really should have, but they’ve kind of been following a playbook. To watch that unfold, and then have this season of The Crown come out,” has kept her entertained for months. This was also the year she began to “study” Diana, including by reading The Diana Chronicles, and said, “It’s interesting to have the royal family feel so current because of Meghan and Harry, and then this crazy serendipity of The Crown probably having its best season so far. I can’t lie: when I think of the Queen now, I think of Olivia Colman. That has really gotten in my head, which I think the royal family knows.”

“I think my opinion on all of them has definitely changed,” Juliet admitted. “As Amanda and I, on Jam Session, have begun to study them more, I’ve become a lot more critical of them. Less, ‘These are fun celebrities.’ Also, given the moment, it’s a little hard to have fun in the frivolity of monarchy when nothing really feels frivolous. But on the other hand, it’s a really fascinating study in PR and celebrity in the year 2020.”

“While I don’t think Meghan and Harry have done everything perfectly, I really find their attempts to cut their own paths really interesting. I think that Meghan tries to be really deliberate, and I admire it. Not everything she does works, and I know she’s got so many haters out there,” Juliet acknowledged, but is still on MM’s side. “Choosing to wear a Ruth Bader Ginsburg t-shirt when they did the Teenager Therapy podcast appearance. Very much being an advocate for voting and everything — those were very deliberate choices. I think, also, they set up their own photo shoots or paparazzi shots. That’s part of it. You need to control your own messaging, and that’s certainly a way. As just an absolute royal watcher, it’s been a crazy 12 months.”

And it could be another interesting 12 months ahead. I asked Juliet what she hoped would come from Meghan and Harry’s big Netflix deal and she replied, “I think she should get back into acting. It doesn’t feel like she’s going to. I love Suits, I have always loved Suits. This has been a great year for both the soap opera and the melodrama. I feel like there’s just opportunities abound for someone like Meghan, her acting background. I’d like to see that.”

Where to stream The Crown

“My celebrity of the year is probably Mariah Carey,” Juliet stated. “If you think about it, she’s been a COVID star.” She pointed to an early pandemic special, saying, “Mariah Carey set up a fan in her home studio to make her hair look wavy the way that it always does. From that moment, then leading to the press for her book, it’s just been so much fun as a Mariah Carey superfan. Now here we are in December: it’s Mariah Carey season. I adore her.  I just love her music so much. It’s really cool to see an absolute icon still commanding this attention, and just nailing the PR that she wanted to do.” I mentioned her playing along with the finale of Schitt’s Creek and Juliet said, “It shows you that she can have fun with herself, which then shows you that the things that she hates she hates with a passion, which I relate to.”

“I got really, really into comfort television, the kind of television that feels like putting on a blanket. I’m really happy Virgin River Season 2 is here. Shows like that I really came to appreciate a lot. I watched a tremendous amount of Netflix. I liked Emily in Paris, I know it was really controversial.” In fact, this Jam Session episode was one of the more eloquent breakdowns of the series I encountered this year.

Juliet also mentioned Sweet Magnolias and Never Have I Ever as 2020 binges, saying “I think this is one of the best years in television ever, and we didn’t even mention Ozark, The Queen’s Gambit. So many other shows. Netflix crushed it this year. Their volume, no one else can match it right now.”

Where to stream Emily in Paris

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata)

“Emily Ratajkowski’s essay in New York Magazine was one of my favorite pieces of the year. I love a good essay, and I thought that was incredibly brave and beautiful. And also, just showed everyone that she is more than an incredibly beautiful person who happens to be a business owner and entrepreneur. I thought that was really awesome.”

“I just became obsessed with Little Big Town. I didn’t know that two of the four members were married [to each other]. When I learned that, I was like, ‘I need to learn everything about them.’ I can’t believe how private they make their marriage, versus how public the band is. I found that truly impressive.” While Juliet has spent most of her professional life on the coasts of the country and outside of the demographic for this genre, this year she started to dig in. “I’ve spent a lot of time exploring country music; I’ve always liked it, but I’ve tried to understand that realm, in a way.”

“I think one thing with country music, it’s so dependent on the live experience. It’s been interesting to watch country artists cope with that, because they can’t tour. I’m actually really fascinated by everyone who was supposed to have a big tour this summer, and what they’re doing to compensate for it.”

And how this became a new interest for her? “Honestly, Kelly Clarkson sort of was my way into this. Her covers, she just has so many different people on. I love Kelly Clarkson. It’s clear that her guests like talking to her, so she must be a really warm person.”

And when your eyes need a break from screens, these are the books Juliet enjoyed this year. “I was thrilled to get The Heir Affair, the follow-up to The Royal We, that was awesome. Like so many other people, I also really enjoyed The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. And then I just finished an old book called Le Divorce by Diane Johnson. It’s sort of like if Henry James and Edith Wharton combined to be a 20th-century person and wrote a warped, funny book set in Paris. It’s kind of like a clashing of cultures, a “comedy of manners.”

“And to prepare for the Bridgerton show, because I just really wanted to commit to Shonda Rhimes, I read the first Bridgerton book.” She admits that it “blew her mind” and “opened a window to a world that I don’t often visit. I really enjoyed forays into parts of culture that I didn’t know a lot about as just a way of learning what else is out there.”

Juliet is right when she says “It’s an abundance of riches,” when it comes to the streaming world, but there was also a particular platform she wanted to highlight. “I love HBO Max. Love Life was one of my favorite experiences of the year, great stuff. I think HBO Max has a great catalog. Also, HBO’s on a run right now, between The Undoing and Industry, and I May Destroy You earlier in the year.”

Where to stream Love Life

“My favorite actor of the year is probably Kingsley Ben-Adir. I would like to buy all of his stock. He was amazing in High Fidelity, I was so happy to see him in Love Life, and Regina King’s [upcoming] movie, One Night in Miami. I’m a big Peaky Blinders fan, so I knew him from that. He just is in everything I really like, so I’m excited to see his career coming together. I hope he gets more famous, but still has time for rom-coms.”

And while Kinsley firmly held the Number 1 spot for Juliet, she reminded us that it was actually a decent year for crushes. “I mean, Q1 was definitely Brad Pitt, between the Oscars and going on the HGTV show. I think it’s also been a good Will Smith year. One of the other great moments of the year was when Jada Pinkett Smith brought herself to the table, and she and Will did the Red Table Talk. That was really intense. My colleagues, Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathan, did a really good conversation about it on their podcast, Higher Learning. I just think that if you study celebrity, Will Smith is as famous as it gets. To watch that unfold on a streaming program that’s already great was pretty intoxicating.” Other highlights for Juliet include Lewis Hamilton (“incredibly perfect”) and the hunks of The Right Stuff on Disney+, including Jake McDorman, Patrick Adams, and James Lafferty, “forever a dreamboat.” Oh, and 2020 isn’t over yet. Juliet warns us all to beware of the charms of Regé-Jean Page of Bridgerton, but more on that to come.

“I’ll just say that there’s a lot of really good reality this year,” Juliet said when the topic of reality TV inevitably came up. She pointed out that the year “started off strong with The Circle and Cheer,” and also mentioned The Challenge on MTV and Below Deck on Bravo as current must-watch shows. But it was truly the fact that no other genre has had to face the issues of the world today the way this one has. And while most shows and networks are doing it to mixed results, the fact that they are doing it at all signals a step in the right direction.

“I think that people like Rachel Lindsay did a lot to demand that these shows do a better job. One of the best podcast episodes of the year was Rachel talking to Becca on Bachelor Happy Hour about her experience and what it was like for her when Garrett, at the time, was Becca’s fiancé, to be engaging with the All Lives Matter side. Specifically to The Bachelor, I think a lot of people were like, ‘We need to see better and change for the show.’ It’s credit to a lot of individuals who are changing things.”

Juliet also applauds this season of The Bachelorette for candidly addressing matters such as police brutality, as well as the fact that “Tayshia is the first biracial woman to be The Bachelorette — she and Clare are both Mexican heritage. I think there’s change to be made. It’s certainly not done, I don’t think it’s ever a finished process. But I think it’s cool that The Bachelor in particular is changing.”

And they aren’t the only ones. “A lot of these reality TV shows are aware that if you’re going to engage with reality, then you can’t really avoid what’s happening. That was the thing I always heard about The Real World, that in the early seasons, the casts were told not to reference on-camera or in an interview, earlier seasons. Now, these shows thrive on the opposite. They create these ecosystems. If you’re going to do that, you have to acknowledge the real world too. I think on the one hand, a lot of shows that are an escape from COVID are such a relief. On the other hand, I really enjoyed on Real Housewives and The Bachelor seeing how COVID’s and the Black Lives Matter have affected it.”

…Not that they are all peachy. “And then there are also shows like Southern Charm, where you’re like, this is so incredibly dissonant. They’re acknowledging COVID, but they’re not acknowledging how weird it is for Thomas Ravenel to be back on the show. It’s just bizarre. It’s certainly not perfect, and I think each show is different. It’s even hard to evaluate on a network level. Every network and most shows could do a lot better, but I’m glad that in reality, there’s a real consciousness to the industry-wide shortcomings. And again, I want to emphasize, it’s a lot of people — specifically people of color — who are speaking up and pointing out these problems. We all owe them a lot.”

Where to stream The Bachelorette

“I think people are going to go crazy over it,” Juliet said of the upcoming Bridgerton series, which hits Netflix on Christmas day. “They’ve cornered the market on female-oriented soaps, for lack of a better term. Bridgerton combines so many tropes and a lot of sex! The lead guy in it (Regé-Jean Page) is incredibly dashing. I’m really interested to see the reaction to it. And long live Shonda Rhimes.”

Shonda has remained a source of joy for Juliet this year, and the Jam Session episode breaking down the creator’s big profile in The Hollywood Reporter is a good listen for any Shonda fan — which, Juliet very much is. “Grey’s is the ultimate comfort TV for me. I love it so much, even when it admittedly is not as good, though I think it’s quite good right now. I watched an hour-long video with Debbie Allen, Chandra Wilson, Ellen Pompeo, and Krista Vernoff, who’s the showrunner of this season and was in the original writers’ room. I just can’t get enough of them talking about the old seasons.”

“I’m so obsessed with the Shonda Rhimes world right now. I’m excited that her Netflix projects are getting going. I know that Katherine Heigl also has a Netflix show coming. It feels like a lot of the original Grey’s stars are coming back into the mix.”

And some in a big way, returning to the drama series that started it all. “The Patrick Dempsey reveal on Grey’s Anatomy was probably my most joyful moment of the pandemic. I was sobbing alone in my apartment. I was so happy. I was so mad about the way Justin Chambers left the show, [and this] really made up for it. Thinking about it and thinking about the joy that I experienced, I’m like, feeling emotional being with my own joy.”

Where to stream Grey's Anatomy