Naomi Fry: This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. Vinson Cunningham: I'm Vincent Cunningham. Alex Schwartz: And I'm Alex Schwartz. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. Hello? Hello. Hey, what's up critics? How are you doing? Naomi Fry: Spring is springing. Vinson Cunningham: It's warm. It's not, I mean, Alex Schwartz: it's feeling good. Naomi Fry: Lots of cats on the way to the subway today, standing at the door of the bodega greeting customers as they come in and so on. but yes, Alex Schwartz: A wonderful sign for us all. But forget about the bodega we’re leavint the big city behind and we’re heading to the suburbs. This is our topic for the day because it’s the setting of a new show we’re talking about called DTF St. Louis on HBO. It stars Jason Bateman as Clark Forest, a weatherman living outside St. Louis, who has a totally nice average seeming prosperous nothing to write home about life. And heap befriends a sign language interpreter. They hit it off, they strike up a friendship and they both sign up for a sex site called DTF St. CLIP: DTF trailer At the end of the first episode, Floyd is dead in a presumed murder. And then the show becomes a, who done it? But I would argue, and we'll get here, that it is more of an existential who done it even than, uh, the practical kind. Yes. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: So This show is a suburbs text. It's all about life that looks good from the outside, but inside is cracked and peeling and does not have that perfect veneer that maybe others would assume It does. And it occurred to me, and I think to all of us, that the suburbs is rich terrain. What are some of your favorite works about the suburbs? If I may ask you to just kick it off, guys. Naomi Fry: Oh God, there's Mad Men. Oh yeah, of course. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: one of Mad Men's precursors, the works of, uh, John Cheever. Mm. Mostly as short stories, some of which appeared in this very magazine. Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Speaking of this very magazine, also, the stories of, um, and novels of John Updyke. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: Absolutely. Vinson Cunningham: Similarly, suburbs focused. Naomi Fry: Yeah, Alex Schwartz: absolutely. Um, the, the films of Douglas Circ often about trying to defy the conformity of that is being pressed down by the society as exemplified by the suburban setting of some of his most amazing films, such as All That Heaven Allows. Mm-hmm. Um, desperate Housewives Guys remember that. Vinson Cunningham: Desperate Housewives, of course. Alex Schwartz: Yes. I think it's actually kind of great. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: So today we are gonna be talking about the suburbs as a backdrop for American life and American art. DTF St. Louis is one of a handful of more recent texts to depict the suburbs for modern audiences. There's also last year's film friendship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd and the new docuseries neighbors. And one thing that does occur to me is that the suburbs have long been used, as a kind of met for the society where everything seems hopeful, families are intact, that dads are going off to work with their briefcases. The moms are staying behind to do whatever they do from nine to five And yet right now the composition of the suburbs is changing. The suburbs have become less white in the last 10 or 20 years. They've become more diverse. They are not anymore the kind of white picket fence vision that we think of. So I am wondering what do the suburbs mean to us now? So that's today on critics at large, the cracked veneer of the suburbs. ________________ So let's just lay our cards on the table as we love to do. We are recording this episode from One World Trade Center in New York City. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: The three of us live in New York City. Vinson Cunningham: Yes. Alex Schwartz: We are not suburban people, but One thing that does strike me about the suburbs is even if you have not grown up there, if you have been a consumer of American media in any form, you really have. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: The mall. Did I spend time at the mall? No. I couldn't spend time at the mall. I mean, sometimes I would visit my camp friends and then I would Whoa. Naomi Fry: What was it like for you when you visited the mall? The Alex Schwartz: sensory explosion. The scent. Naomi Fry: The scent. Alex Schwartz: Suddenly you're in a closed emporium with scent pouring at you perfume. Cinnabon. Naomi Fry: Auntie Anns. Alex Schwartz: Auntie Ann's, absolutely. Naomi Fry: Anthropology. Alex Schwartz: We need it is what I'm saying. We need, we all need, we need the suburbs as friend and as foil. Naomi Fry: I mean, speaking, speaking of the mall, you know, my, my very own daughter, a 14-year-old who has never has grown up in Brooklyn her whole life. takes the bus with a friend down to like the Brooklyn Vinson Cunningham: mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: To go to the one mall she can get to because she wants to kind of like browse hot topic in Spencer's gifts like God intended as a, she's God given, right. As an American. That's right. Goddammit. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Love it. Or leave it. Alex Schwartz: So with that in mind, let's turn to DTF St. Louis. There we go. This is a miniseries airing on HBO. As of right now, five episodes are out and there are two left to air. It was written and directed by Stephen Conrad, and we were initially clued into this show because Vincent, you wrote a piece about it. I did. And why did you choose this as a subject? Vinson Cunningham: I chose it because it stars one of my favorite TV actors of all time. Jason Bateman, who is always, it seems to me, acting as a sort of surrogate for the audience. And in so doing kind of gestures at this creature, the average American male, uh, who almost by definition, at least in his representations, I'm not really talking about real demography, but in his representations, is a white guy who lives in the suburbs. Has some level of prosperity but also some level of en we and dissatisfaction. And he plays that I think Bateman does to a T in DDTF St. Louis. It was for me another classic Bateman performance. It is the, the season is, the first season is still unfolding. Um, and I thought that it was a really great way to talk about abatement, but to also talk about this idea, of pure prosperous averageness and its discontent. Which is, you know, a suburban idea Alex Schwartz: I wanna get into the show, I wanna talk to you guys about it. Let's just set it up first for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. What's going on in this show? Who are the main players? Naomi Fry: Okay, so we have, as the, you know, we lead of this show, one of the two main leads we have Jason Bateman. As, uh, Vincent said he plays Clark Forest. He is a weatherman on the local news, uh, in a suburb of St. Louis called Twila. the average, you know, middle class American, he has a wife, he has two kids, it's all fine. Nice house. He has like, he's a little quirky. He has like a recumbent bike that he takes out on little rides. Everything seems to be going swimmingly until he meets Floyd Smy niche. Uh, played by David Harbor, who is an American sign language interpreter. And they meet, when they do a broadcast together. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: You know, they begin working together and then off work as well. They begin to hang out and they become friends. The kind of the plot begins to thicken. When Clark Forest meets, uh, SMY Niche's wife, when they all have this sort of like social neighborhood gathering where they play cornhole. Alex Schwartz: It's a cornhole party. Naomi Fry: It's a cornhole party. Yeah. Which I've never heard of before. I dunno if this is like a real thing or not, but anyway, there is Vinson Cunningham: parties work. Cornhole is present, but certainly not a cornhole party. Naomi Fry: It's a called, they keep calling, referring to it as a cornhole party. Alex Schwartz: I'd like to see you investigate. Naomi Fry: I know whether or not Naomi Fry: this is a common, this is, this is now my, this is my, my life's my life work now. Work, work now. Yeah. Um, let's gonna Alex Schwartz: sign that one for you. Naomi Fry: So Clark meets Floyd's wife Carol, played by, uh, the lovely Linda Cardini and they begin an affair. Meanwhile. Clark convinces Floyd to join this hookup app called DTF St. Louis. Yep. Which is a kind of like an Ashley Madison type app where like married people are looking for a little bit of fun outside the marriage, et cetera. CLIP: DTF St. Louis Okay. The first episode, after all of this is set up, the first episode of the series ends with Floyd's body being discovered. He is dead. Dead. As a doornail. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: And then, and then the show kind of becomes like a, who done it? Like who killed him? The main suspect is Clark. You know Clark, it is quickly discovered, was having an affair with Carol. And so this is kind of the setup. Was that okay? Alex Schwartz: I thought that was beautiful, lovely, concise, yet informative. Vinson Cunningham: You did it all. Alex Schwartz: It was great. Naomi Fry: Wow. Alex Schwartz: And now we're equipped to ask the question, what'd you guys think? Vinson Cunningham: I love it. The description really can never do justice to the actual kind of fabric of the show, which is totally bizarre. Uh, the characters speak in this sort of baby-ish repetitive, almost crow magnan language. They say weird stuff like, yeah, I, I, I, I fucking love it. In stuff one person says to another when they're describing, you know, the joys of their affair, uh, a lot of odd repetitions like DTF St. Louis, like down to fuck DTF, or, or we are from the St. Louis area, they say these really strange things that almost make this a kind of like anthropology. It's got this really alien texture that make the kind of, I don't know, loose strands of desire and boredom and, and, and will, I guess all seem, seem all the more basic, I guess, sort of. Forced into being by childish urges, et cetera. So I, I think it's kind of, it's got the surrealistic edge that I really enjoy and can't really even put my finger on. I really enjoy it. Alex Schwartz: Naomi, me. Vinson Cunningham: What do you think? Naomi Fry: Okay. This show drove me crazy. It drove me bananas. I totally understand. It is an odd tone. It is a surrealist kind of like environment and cadence and, and, but it felt unearned to me. I was like, I understand that it's supposed to be the sort of like, damn good coffee, you know, sort of like lynching. Let us put a kind of like blandly smiling face mm-hmm. On the unspoken desires and angers and you know mm-hmm. All of the things that trouble us in our kind of boring day-to-day life. But I just didn't buy it. I didn't buy it. I was like, why are these people, what is the connection between any of these people? Why are they doing anything that they do? The kind of like the heightened surrealism of it didn't connect to me to the actual story at hand. It was like fake eccentric to me. You know? I, I sort of didn't buy the gam. That's fair. Yeah. The gambit of it. But I will say that I do think for our purposes that it is a good suburbs text I do think there's a lot to say in this, the gap between like, everything's fine, uh, you know, we're doing great here, Heidi, hoe neighbor, you know, like diddly do neighbor, you know, you know, whatever. Uh, and the, the kind of actual truth of the dissatisfaction and the troubles that simmer within. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. How about you, Alex? Alex Schwartz: Love it. This show just scratched such a deep itch for me. A deep, a itch. I didn't even know I had. I love it. I love watching it. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: I wanna continue watching it. I've seen four out of five episodes and I can't wait to get home and watch the fifth. Naomi Fry: Oh my God, Alex Schwartz: what's happened to me? What's going on? Naomi Fry: Well, that's just great. Alex Schwartz: Well, part of it does have to do with this tone that Vincent was describing, this comic ironic tone, where, of course, the setting is in a very ordinary suburban place and, and there is something obvious about the ironies of the tone. There's a lot of, it also comes out once the investigation is un underway. There were two detectives involved. One is played by Richard Jenkins, who's just a fantastic actor. Mm-hmm. I Naomi Fry: do like Alex Schwartz: And then his much younger. I would say competitor, but they start working together at some point. Um, Joyce Sunday, the actress Joyce Sunday plays Jodi Plum, who's a special crimes officer from the Twila, Missouri Police Department, and they start getting into it with these characters, I, the thing I liked most about the show are the performances. I think there are three amazing performances anchoring the show. Jason Bateman, who Vincent talked about the surprise of a lifetime for me is loving David Harbor's performance. Vinson Cunningham: He's brilliant. Alex Schwartz: Was ready to hate that man. Because of Lily Allen, I was ready to be opposed. And then he plays totally against life type. I think since he was the villain in the Lily Allen breakup, album breakup period, he plays this soft-hearted, deeply lovable man. And that's where the show got me. Yeah, because it's a show about problems with marriage, all the usual suburban complaints, but it also is a show about male friendship, a kind of inexplicable love between these two totally unfulfilled guys who actually have no other love interest in their lives. guys. I was touched. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, Alex Schwartz: I was moved. Vinson Cunningham: It's, it's, it's a very moving, he's got a, a soulfulness and also a strange, and the, the show actually exploits this. He's a very big man, but very kind of graceful of body. He's got that kind of, it's, it's like Chris Farley, how he had those like ballerinas feet. Yeah, totally. And could really kind of, dance Harbor is very similar. He's got this grace that I, I don't know. He's a wonderful performer. Alex Schwartz: So this show takes place in the St. Louis suburbs. A fact that is brought up repeatedly. And I wanna ask what makes this a suburban text? Let's, let's get into it. Naomi Fry: one thing I did like, um, it's showing how being of the suburb sometimes can mean hanging on by your tippy toes to a certain level Vinson Cunningham: mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: To a certain class perch. You know, the other side, the, if one side is like, there is this promised, you know, kind of, uh, security prosperity, the other side of it is a kind of like keeping up with the Joneses, uh, thing. And And there's, there's a scene where, um. Floyd's car is dead. It's like 14. It's too old. It wouldn't, it doesn't start. He leaves it, they still have Carol's car, but then they have to, both of them have to go get to work. Both of them have to share the car. He tries to start it and the car doesn't start. It catches. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: And there is a moment, there is kind of this I did like because this seemed to me kind of real and like my, my heart kind of like stopped a little bit. And he's like, oh shit. Oh shit. And you can see her being like, oh, not this now, you know, this fucking loser. I'm saddled with, how will we get to work? What will we do? We only have, and you know, that sort of terror, which is kind of, um, telegraphed in a very kind of small minute way that is kind of like for me. The terror of the suburbs in a way. How will we get somewhere if we don't have a car? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Like Vinson Cunningham: that's it Naomi Fry: the most. That's it. Yeah. We're done. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: And I think the show does a good job of that and I think that's a very suburban thing. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And, and, and it, I think it does that also to reinforce this sort of classic suburban texture is it, does a lot of that work through the figure of Carol Floyd Smirch, his wife Alex Schwartz: mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Who I think is played amazingly by Linda Cardi. Alex Schwartz: Totally. Vinson Cunningham: Um, something that happens in a lot of suburban texts that I can think of at least, especially the ones that, uh, concern themselves with the domestic life is a surface prota of men. But then actually all of the themes and the dangers and this kind of peering over the edge of a kind of social death happens in the figure of the woman. You know, at first it's these two guys who are friends, et cetera, et cetera, and Carol kind of just emerges slowly. First, she's a, an object of sexual desire. Mm-hmm. Uh, Clark, you know, you can see from the beginning at the cornhole party, oh, he kind of likes her and mm-hmm. Of course it, it, in the fullness of time it is revealed that they are having an affair. But then all of this stuff, trying to keep the family together, we come to see her using the affair with Clark as a way to reinforce her own family economically. Uh, but we see the sort of keeping things together, the backstage work mm-hmm. Of suburbia mm-hmm. Lands on her. I think that is done brilliantly. And there's one moment that I really love where there on a swing set talking about DTF St. Louis, uh, the two men are in this very childlike scene and Clark, we see him go up and down, up and down. And at the, at the zenith of the, sort of the top of the, the tippy, top of the swings, uh, motion. You can see he's kind of like creep, looking at this young girl across the fence Naomi Fry: doing like yoga or something, Vinson Cunningham: doing exactly some very classic like young woman thing. And this is his little glimpse and it just a similar thing where all of the desire and aggression and weirdness ness of the men lands on just the body of a woman. I'm like, yeah, that's what this show's about in Alex Schwartz: a minute. How the suburbs went from American dream to American nightmare. Critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back. :: MIDROLL :: Before we start talking about the suburbs cannon and building up our suburbs cannon. Mm-hmm. I just wanna talk about the history of the suburbs a little bit, because I was looking into it recently, even before we were doing this show. And it's fascinating to me. I think the, the first true suburb is often considered to be Levittown. Do you guys know about Levittown? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. On Long Island? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, where all the houses were built. Vinson Cunningham: Abraham Levitt and his sons. Alex Schwartz: Yes. Vincent. Mm-hmm. Speak to it. Tell us about it. Vinson Cunningham: Well, it, as is often the story when we think of cultural items that are meant to symbolize. The American way of life, and especially the free market. Actually, it was a great plan of subsidy, uh, building these Levitt towns, the the iconic one being very close to here in Long Island. Uh, in the wake of World War ii, it was a place for the military, the gis, to come back, um, and start a life. It was a heavily subsidized. Zone of almost reward for, um, people who had fought in, in the great war. So, a space that needed to be filled for a specific purpose. Alex Schwartz: Yes, absolutely. I mean, there were versions of suburbs before, but Levittown was the first planned community, gave the image for the post-war suburb. It provides us with the kind of white picket fence, each identical house occupied by an identical family that forms our image of the suburbs and the backdrop to a lot of what we're gonna be talking about. And they exist in response to the chaos of war. Mm-hmm. You're out there fighting, you're in this men's world, and then you're expected to come home and assume this domestic placid experience. And I think the crackage is just built into that premise. Vinson Cunningham: That's right. Alex Schwartz: It can't stand. So having said that, what are some depictions of the suburbs from early on that come to mind when we think about classic suburban works? Naomi Fry: I feel like, I'm like, has there ever been an art, a representation of the suburbs that wasn't problematized in some sense? Right. Because I'm like, okay, Chi is pretty early. You know, like early sixties, you know, like mm-hmm. A story like The Swimmer for, for instance, like published in this very magazine, the New Yorker in 1964, later made in 1968 into a movie starring Brit Lancaster. Um. And I'm like, okay, this is like posts. I mean, it's heading there, but it's posts like the sort of late sixties revolutionary foment and, and you know, the, the sort of deeper involvement in Vietnam, et cetera, et cetera. And, and certainly women's lib and, and all of that. And yet the whole story is about how actually the kind of the, the placid dream of the suburbs is in fact something that is not graspable : mm-hmm. Naomi Fry: In actual life, uh, that is, is, is, is kind of maintained through, uh, lots of alcohol and sort of like bland niceties and maybe some clandestine affairs that end badly. To Prop up a kind of facade over the roiling dissatisfactions that lie in the heart of man in, in the case of the swimmer, but also surely women, which we get to maybe a little bit later. I'm thinking about like, you know, I'm, as I mentioned in last week's episode, I'm reading the new Judy Bloom biography by Mark Oppenheimer. Was reminded of her very racy book wifey from 1977, which is all about a kind of like nice upper middle class housewife in the New Jersey suburbs. Uh, who is sick of the kind of imprisonment of being like a nice girl, Sandy Pressman, who was married to Norman, who has a thriving dry cleaning business. And she's like, fuck this. You know, I wanna have fun. I wanna like, have sex with like various people. I wanna have affairs. I wanna be bad, you know, because I'm feeling like I'm sick of being at home. I'm sick, sick of taking care of my like annoying kids, you know? And so. the incursion of, of feminism into the whole picture of, of the suburbs also builds a critique of it. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. It's, it's so funny that, that question is such a good one, Naomi, maybe because it seems like the portrayal of the suburb, uh, becomes problematized or not almost in parallel motion to the larger spirit of the age. If you think about when was the, when, what is the most. Positive portrayal of the suburbs. And you would have to say it happens in the eighties. Right? Naomi Fry: In the eighties. And I wanna say, I Vinson Cunningham: have Naomi Fry: a lot to Vinson Cunningham: say, John, the John Hughes movie, the Naomi Fry: John Hughes movies Vinson Cunningham: comes into being Yes. At the same time as like Wall Street and these other things. Yeah. Is the whole political economy Naomi Fry: Absolutely. Um, Vinson Cunningham: moves in parallel motions. Naomi Fry: I have, I have thoughts about that for sure. I mean, I think the desire to return to a past that never was. In the Reagan eighties. Mm-hmm. It's like, it's, it's my theory about like Robert Zume back to the future is basically that, like my theory, I dunno, I'm sure it's been said, I want to hear your by by other people, but like, it's 1985 going back via the, the sort of time machine ofan to 1955. And the idea is let's erase the sixties and seventies, the decades where it all went wrong. Yeah. And go back to the suburb of the fifties before things got fucked up. Yeah. And our family became like a downwardly mobile, like loserville kind of example of kind of, you know, all of these people who had dreams that didn't come to fruition. Let's go back, let's teach dad to be a man. Let's teach him to like punch Biff in the face. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Naomi Fry: The bully who's been ing him forever. The mom will like also, you know, gain respect Vinson Cunningham: Right. Naomi Fry: For her, you know, by inhabiting her role perfectly, by inhabiting her role perfectly and not be a kind of like slutty. Drunkard and, uh, and, and going. And he goes back to the eighties. Yeah. And they have, their house is really nice. They have a BMW. They have like, the brother is working on Wall Street. The sister has dates. CLIP: Back to the future It's all good. Yeah. You know, the suburb has been restored like a re enchantment, a re enchantment with a prosperity and security and promise of the American dream. Alex Schwartz: Couldn't love that theory more. Just couldn't love, Naomi Fry: you'll read about it. It in my forthcoming book. Okay. Which yet to be written. Alex Schwartz: It was sounding very cohesive. It definitely, it definitely seemed like thought, thought had been given to it prior to this episode. Um, I'm, I'm all for it. So this actually brings up something that's been on my mind, which I think this retro idea that starts in the eighties and absolutely has cropped up again with maga, um, is the idea that 1950s was the fulfillment of America as America. Right. That is what America should be. It should be a husband and a wife, and 2.5 children in every home. Mm-hmm. And the husband is going to work on the commuter train and coming back and the wife is holding down the, you know, the house and all of this stuff and. the stuff that's getting made about the suburbs in the fifties is dark. Yes. Yes. It's dystopian to begin with. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. it's not like we wait until Mad Men to find out that that was a totally cracked situation. Actually, you can just watch the Extraordinary Melodrama, all That Heaven allows by Douglas Cirque, This is from 1955. I rewatched it recently blown away. Wow. Naomi Fry: I need to rewatch. Alex Schwartz: We have Carrie Scott played by a Relend, Jane Wyman, who, since we're talking about Reagan, was his first wife married to Ronald Reagan. Oh, yes. So crazy. And she's supposed to be old. She's a widow. Mm-hmm. I should say she's a widow of two adult children who are in college and she falls in love with her gardener, Kirby, who is a total do it yourselfer in a different American tradition. CLIP: All that Heaven Allows He is self-sufficient and he doesn't need to keep up with the Joneses. CLIP: All that Heaven Allows Alex Schwartz: The drama of the movie is about whether Carrie Scott can allow herself to try to experience happiness or whether she must continue to live with a social death. That is her lot in life as a widow of a successful businessman. But the thing I wanna bring up, which I think is really fascinating, is this scene, can I just show you guys the scene for a sec? Please? She's sitting by herself. She has a glass of a cocktail, and she just happens to notice Walden. next to her. CLIP: All that Heaven Allows Alex Schwartz: So she has an absolute revelation because she happened to come across this key clutch passage in Walden. Vinson Cunningham: Swelling strings. We should Alex Schwartz: say. Oh, I mean, swelling. This is a melodrama. Naomi Fry: She's ready to toss away her pearls. Alex Schwartz: It's, it's, it's just, it's, it's absolutely spectacular and it is presenting a different vision of America. Another slightly difficult, problematic one of total self-reliance, you know, as we all know. Okay, thorough. Kind of fake that. You have these two American dreams clashing in the space of the suburb. Last thing I'll say on this is, fast forward to 2004, what should be premiering. But Desperate Housewives, another absolute classic. I'm watching the pilot guys the other day as you do, because I'm thinking, let me remember what this thing was all about. I was kind of young, Naomi Fry: stunning comeback. Alex Schwartz: Very hatcher and just, and just guys, take a look. Take a look at what Terry Hatcher says. Says that her husband said to her, CLIP: Desperate Housewives Alex Schwartz: good for you, Susan! We got, we got Thoreau in the burbs. Naomi Fry: God. What a cast. Alex Schwartz: What? What a cast. Naomi Fry: Nicola Sheridan. Evil Longoria. Alex Schwartz: But I wanna go back to this idea, Nomi, of that you brought up of the suburbs and the suburbs and art as a kind of retro fantasy coming back in the eighties. It occurs to me like, I feel like in the nineties, uh, that continues through the nineties and the early two thousands, especially where teens are concerned. Yes. Mm-hmm. Like the classic vision of American life, of what it is to be an American teenager is the suburbs. It is American pie from 1999. It is. Wow. Naomi Fry: American Alex Schwartz: pie. I mean American pie. Hugely influential to a generation. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Huge mine. Vinson Cunningham: Sort of like silly teen comedy, the likes of, which really doesn't get made so much anymore. Naomi Fry: Chris Klein. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. Naomi Fry: Tara Reid. Alex Schwartz: I mean, it's, it's Natasha Naomi Fry: Leone. Alex Schwartz: It's, it's, it's there, it's out there. Let me tell you. It's still out there. Um, super bad. Vinson Cunningham: Super bad. Big one, Alex Schwartz: huge one. Naomi Fry: Of course. Vinson Cunningham: Here's another one though, I think sort of a little earlier than the ones that you're mentioning. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Alex Schwartz: Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Which is like all about someone who wants to live a normal suburban life and can't, because she's the one who can recognize the monstrosity of the scene in the way others can't. It's, you know, it's almost a literalization of, you know, there's something dark that others can't see, but it takes a special kind of protagonist to kind of x-ray it. Naomi Fry: They just won't let her. I was thinking about teen movies and of course I was thinking about John s and 16 candles and, and you know, pretty and pink. The Breakfast Club. And The Breakfast Club, yeah. Club and Ferris Bueller, of course. And another movie, this is not a John Hugs movie, but it's another teen movie from the eighties that I loved Adventures in Babysitting. I don't know if you guys, I know that one Strangle Elizabeth Chu. Vinson Cunningham: I, I know of it. I haven't seen it. Naomi Fry: Like Elizabeth Chu is a babysits for her neighbors. Mm-hmm. Prosperity enjoyment. But they have to go into the city because her friend is like stranded mm-hmm. In the bus station and the scary bus station with the homeless people and the crazy people and the black people. And all the things that happen in the city are what create the, the meat of the movie. But at the end of the movie, with the parents, none the wiser they return, you know, Elizabeth Chew and the kids return just in time. To the beautiful suburb and everything's okay. And it's as if nothing has ever happened, thank God. Alex Schwartz: And is it a happy ending? Naomi Fry: It's a happy ending. Yes. Or is it Alex Schwartz: a horror ending? Naomi Fry: No, no, no, no, no. It's a, it's a, it's a really satisfying sweet, like, funny teen movies. Alex Schwartz: That's so interesting. I mean, I do, I do feel like suburban, the suburban setting has these kind of two functions very often in some of the stuff we're talking about, especially the more recent stuff. Naomi Fry: Mm. Alex Schwartz: For kids, it's kind of the teen movie setting, the par excellence, the big high school, the house party, the running around. And then the second is the suburbs used when it's an adult focus used as a scene for horror, for murder or for horror. There’s the lynch kind of horror of something that lurks between the surface. There’s also ,horror horror, nightmare on elm street horror, you think that your nice house is oging to keep out a psychopath? Think again. Or a totally different kind of horror, home alone. Naomi Fry: Scream, scream 7 just came out. Alex: We salute you, I will never see you Scream 7. Well this is, Can I take it back to achiever for one second please? So we got another Naomi Fry: kind of horror Alex Schwartz: I got. Well, it is horror. That's the thing. It's horror. It's Naomi Fry: horror. Alex Schwartz: Nomi, you were talking about the swimmer. I wanna talk about the story, the 5 48, which the New Yorker published in 1954. Again, right in the heart of all of this, and this story is about an executive in New York City, who's had a one night stand with his secretary. The next day, he arranged for her to be fired, it's sad, it's upsetting. We read about what he did to her and then there's a kind of like jump scare, um, which is to me one of the more devastating things I've ever encountered. He's sitting on the commuter train and we learn that the, one of the women in front of him is his wife's confidant. And a few weeks ago he came home and he found that his wife had not made dinner. She was clearly drunk. And then we get this line, he had gone into the kitchen, followed by Louise, that's his wife, and he'd pointed out to her that the date was the fifth. He had drawn a circle around the date on the kitchen calendar. One week is the 12th. He had said two weeks will be the 19th. He drew a circle around the 19th, I'm not gonna speak to you for two weeks. He had said That will be the 19th. That line, that idea, the cold viciousness of it Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Is horrifying and is so like suburban as motif. And of course the suburbs, like were, were thrown a lot at the suburbs, but I think they're, they're strong enough to take it so much about the suburbs in the fifties and thereafter is about making sure that women stay at home and that men get to commute out and go into the world and return back, and then the attendant miseries of that. So I feel like that's still a legacy that is being worked through. Naomi Fry: Absolutely. Alex Schwartz: In a minute what the suburbs mean to us today. Critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back. :: MIDROLL :: So we threw it back to the fifties, we journeyed to the eighties, we took it to the nineties and the early two thousands. And now here we are, we're in 2026. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: And for this episode, we've spent some time with some more recent depictions of the suburbs. And I wanna ask you guys, what is the picture of suburbia that we're getting today? Naomi Fry: It's looking bad. I think what I find when I think about like the depiction of the suburbs today is, um, that kind of like, there's a kind of dec declines narrative. So there's all of the problems that have happened before, but now also there none of like the perceived upsides. If we think about like a show like HBO's Neighbors, which was six episode docuseries that just finished airing. It's about neighborly disputes and neighborly disputes, and mostly suburban. Areas. I feel like a lot of these, um, fights between next door neighbors are often so petty. For instance, there are two women living in West Palm Beach. CLIP: Neighbors And what they're fighting over is a tiny, like a very narrow strip of grass, strip of lawn The stakes could not be lower in kind of the material sense, and yet they couldn't be higher in the kind of like level volume. Of, of, of dispute and the, the level of violence that it, it seems to be reaching, both of them have guns as many or almost all of the protagonists in the show do. Um, they, they're like, we're gonna kill, kill each other. It's we're gonna kill each other. Yeah. It's, it's like, it's very, very depressing. Vinson Cunningham: But that's, this is the thing though. They are small stakes, but of course everything that, um, uh, is quintessentially American property Naomi Fry: Yes. Vinson Cunningham: The right to violence. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. The right to protect, Vinson Cunningham: the right to protect land. Mm-hmm. And its many meanings are all sort of intensely operative in this space, more than in any other. Arrangement that you can imagine if you're really in the country, there's a lot of uncontested woods, you know, that, that, that serve as a buffer between person and person. Mm-hmm. In the city, we don't expect any of this stuff. Mm-hmm. I, I just hear your whole life through the walls. Naomi Fry: Right. Vinson Cunningham: Suburbs, it's like there is this privacy and security and there is very little sort of outside the, the kids today call them third spaces or whatever, so privacy, land, territory, it's all always happening down to this. Shrub is mine, Naomi Fry: the shrub, Vinson Cunningham: this branch is mine. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: The roots are yours. But as it comes over my lawn, you know, the law is such a big thing in the suburbs, you know, stand your ground is a very suburban concept. It's like, okay, no, no, no. If you come here and I see you on my ring camera, by the way, again, another hallmark of the suburbs, I can shoot you. Alex Schwartz: Mm-hmm. Vincent, how about you? Have you seen some more recent depictions of the suburbs that, that add to this thesis? Vinson Cunningham: One that I have recently gotten into, uh, a show that actually came out last year is all her fault. Okay, tell us more. It's a, it's a mystery thriller starring to me The Radiant. I mean, she's just amazing. I love her in everything she does. Sarah Snuck, she plays a woman named Marissa Irvine, who, she's a, she's a very successful finance person, and so is her husband, and she goes to pick up her child from what she thinks was a play date. As it happens, the person who lives there is not the person, the friend whose house that she thinks she's picking the child up from. It turns out that she's been sent a fake. Text message from someone who has absconded with the child. Alex Schwartz: No. Vinson Cunningham: Um, Alex Schwartz: no. Vinson Cunningham: And so the first, first of all, the first couple of minutes of this thing are unbearable to watch. Yeah. If you've ever been even rounded child, the panic, the fear, the worry, this child could be anywhere. It is the wor it's almost a relief when it just turns into a whodunit But the way that it then plays out, you know, the sociality between the moms who of course are doing most of the work, of making sure there is a sociality between the children and, uh, play dates and pickups and this and that, such that everything that has gone quote unquote wrong. Did you vet this nanny whose nanny is this? This is why it's called All Her Fault. And I think this goes to your point about the gender prison of the suburbs. So much responsibility, so much household responsibility falls on the shoulders of the women such that any tragedy can be sort of pointed at them. And you see this hot potato of blame be passed around between the women. It is a really fascinating subject and again, I think deals with a kind of legalism that I think is sometimes epitomized by this kind of, this way of life. when you think about the, the, the suburbs, another thing that comes to mind is really. The notion of an estate of some kind of, of whatever size, you know, ownership of a, of a territory, and somebody has to be the Lord and the lady of this space. And if something goes wrong, it, somebody pays for it. Naomi Fry: And then another thing, you know, to, to speak to Alex's earlier point about horror, A lot of contemporary shows see the suburbs as a place for like violent crime. You know, we have the show, the Apple Show, your Friends and Neighbors, which has like John Ham as a kind of, uh, finance guy in a very wealthy suburb who loses his job and, and begins to, to steal from his various friends and neighbors. We have big little Lies where these, these women, you know mm-hmm. Played by like Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, et cetera. Laura live in this like very lovely beachside community in California and much like in DTF St. Louis, there's a murder that starts, starts the series and then it devolves into this who done it. Um, there there's a sense that there is kind of that, that darkness. Finds its voice in, in actual crime. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. So it's, it's fascinating and I think that what you're describing has been a trope of, of art made about the suburbs for a long time. Mm-hmm. The crime. And that there's a secret, you know, as opposed to this idea of urban crime that, that it's, it's, it lurks beneath the surface. I mean, that's, it's to the point of cliche, frankly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And one thing I do find interesting about talking about the suburbs now is that their composition has really changed. The suburbs were a white phenomenon for decades and decades and decades. And actually the 2020 census showed us that a lot has changed about the racial composition of the suburbs. Mm-hmm. Um, there's some interesting headlines I'm reading from a Brookings Report, can you Even Believe, believe that your friend Alex Schwarz is reading from a Brookings Report on our podcast. But stay with me now. In 1990, roughly two out of 10 suburbanites were people of color. This rose to 30% in 2040 5% in 2020. So this is a consistent upward trajectory where these places are becoming more diverse, less of the totally lily white facade of American life that mm-hmm. That a lot of these suburbs techs have put forward. This seems to me like, you know, a really positive development for the suburbs. Like a lot of the things that we're saying that the suburbs represent, unsurprisingly, could function as autonomy for the country at large. Like increasing division anger over small things, inability to talk to neighbors, obsession with personal property, and like dehumanizing of the other because of a sense of incursion. Like all these really, I don't, I don't think it's a surprise at all that MAGA reads as, even though, I wouldn't say maga as a suburban phenomenon, but it depicts a kind of suburban fantasy of the 1950s as an ideal for return. Mm-hmm. As a very powerful symbol. So like. There does seem to be room for a different depiction. And in fact, one of the things that I like about DTF St Louis that I think is cool about it is that yes, okay, murder is there. And that's again, the, like, we've seen a ton of this Big little lies, as you said, and on and on and on. But the other thing that's there you actually find this sweetness beneath the surface. I think that's the thing that's appealing to me about the show that you find where you don't expect it, this kind of sweetness and generosity that really just surprised me. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Mm-hmm. It felt really idiosyncratic and, uh, and sincere and that, um, that's what got me about that show. Could it only happen in the suburbs? I don't think so necessarily, but I think that what makes the show work is this sense of isolation and finding that through isolation. It's not like you have so many options out there. Yeah. Like the chance that friendship doesn't come along very often because everyone's set in their patterns. Like the suburbs give this impression of adult life that is just totally static. You've made it. All you need to do is maintain it. You're done now. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: Forever. Naomi Fry: Forever, forever, Alex Schwartz: forever. Naomi Fry: I mean, Vinson Cunningham: speaking of friendship, didn't you? Didn't you watch a different show Nomia that maybe? Naomi Fry: Yeah. It's not a show. It's, it's the movie Friendship, uh, that came out last year, um, written and directed by Andy Dega. And it's Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd. And interestingly, Paul Rudd, much like, uh, Jason Bateman in DTF St. Louis plays a weatherman Mm. Who moves into a kind this kind of suburban neighborhood and meets his neighbor Tim Robinson. but being Tim Robinson, something is wrong with him, you know, he's like too, he's like too eager. He really is lonely. He really is lonely. And so he's like, I'm gonna befriend this guy. Gonna get in there. Yeah, I'm gonna get in there. And it OO obviously ends up being bad. He, it's, it's, everything that can go wrong goes wrong. But to your point, Alex, there is something sweet about it. It does talk about kind of like a desperate, but kind of like graspable understandable need for connection between people, which the kind of suburban enemy, you know, we often talk about urban enemy, like, oh, I, I don't know my neighbors, you know, he's lived across the hall from me for, you know, 17 years. We've never said hi or whatever it is. Yeah. But I think in, in this movie, you get a sense of like, I'm, I'm living in the suburbs and I have no community. I'm totally alone and I wanna have a friend. And especially because I'm a man and men don't have friends. Vinson Cunningham: That's right. Naomi Fry: You know, Vinson Cunningham: famously, Naomi Fry: famously, famously, I mean, obviously some men have friends, but you know, it's a problem. Alex Schwartz: They could all use more. Naomi Fry: They could all use more. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: This has been critics at large. Alex Barish is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Kby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kuman, and we had engineering help today from Pran Bandy with music by Alexis Quadra. You can listen to all of our episodes anytime at New yorker.com/critics.