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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained.

Today’s special guest is Shan Wang, The Atlantic’s programming director. Shan has written about why it’s a mistake to write off Korean-language TV series as sappy melodrama, and offered 19 ways to think about the heat. She’s currently watching a distressing yet compelling K-drama, drowning in snacks from an Asian grocery-delivery service she recently discovered, and begging everyone in her life to stop quoting Zoolander at her.

First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

Retailers bet wrong on America’s feelings about stores. Take a wife … please! What adults forget about friendship

The Culture Survey: Shan Wang

The upcoming entertainment event I’m most looking forward to: It’s a doubleheader for me: Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts and V of BTS’s Layover (both out September 8). Perfect voices, no notes.

The entertainment product my friends are talking about most right now: Still Barbie. I was personally unmoved, but I’ve learned a lot about how my friends feel about men, motherhood, and Michael Cera through their reactions to the movie—views they previously had trouble articulating in casual conversation. [Related: The surprising key to understanding the Barbie film]

The television show I’m most enjoying right now: Having watched a lot of 16-episode romance K-dramas lately, I pivoted and have been savoring D.P. (the title stands for “deserter pursuit”; a second season was released on Netflix this summer). In it, a young private, An Jun-ho, is recruited to a special squad that tracks down soldiers who have deserted. Each episode—deviating from K-drama tradition, D.P. has only six per season—is the story of a deserter, their sorrows and circumstances chipping away at Jun-ho’s rigidity about doing the “right” thing within a system that violates people’s humanity at every turn.

The show can be distressing to watch; its main notes are bullying, abuse, and social alienation. But well-timed humor and the relationships between characters keep it from descending into total darkness. At a time when more and more conversations are happening in the open about how troubled young men turn into violent ones, D.P. has its own unsparing view. [Related: The secret to a good K-drama]

My favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: I am required by law to rewatch all three Lord of the Rings movies every few months so that I can brush up on some of the most important dialogue in cinema history, such as “What about second breakfast?” and “What’s this? Crumbs on his jacketses!” The effects remain impressive and the storyline satisfying. What more does one need?

Even though I don’t think I can stomach a second viewing, Park Chan-wook’s slow-burn romance slash murder mystery Decision to Leave is my favorite art movie I’ve seen recently. I do like feeling out the edges of my comfort zone, and Decision to Leave is halfway between sexy and disturbing. [Related: Decision to Leave is this century’s first great erotic thriller.]

Something I recently rewatched, reread, or otherwise revisited: The Elena Ferrante (and translator Ann Goldstein) fan club is large, and I’m an active member. Every so often, I revisit parts of My Brilliant Friend, the first in a four-book family epic centered on the coming-together and coming-apart of childhood friends Elena and Lila, who grow up in the poor outskirts of Naples. When I’m feeling uneasy—usually because there’s a family dynamic I haven’t properly excavated or a social norm I feel I’ve breached—the novel is my other therapist. These books are for anyone who’s ever left a place or a person, and for anyone who’s ever shamed themselves into trying to be a different way.

A quiet song that I love, and a loud song that I love: Quiet: Colde, “I’m Still Here.” Loud: Sleigh Bells, “A/B Machines.”

A cultural product I loved as a teenager and still love, and something I loved but now dislike: Throughout my life, I’ve unfortunately discarded various cultural products out of a desire to be “cool.” An exception: I watched Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 animation, My Neighbor Totoro, for the first time when I was 12 and have loved it steadily ever since (it’s my Wi-Fi name). The movie is about bravery in all of its forms, and the friendly woodland spirits that aid the main characters are the cutest things ever created. Something I am ejecting from my life, however, is Zoolander. Please, no one quote it at me ever again.

My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: I’m trying to rein in my shopping to only pre-owned stuff (because, well, this, this, this, and this), but the constraint means I’ve become an absolute Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing group monster. Free plastic bucket?! Gimme.

An online creator that I’m a fan of: My name is Cecilia, and I live on Svalbard, an island close to the North Pole. I discovered Cecilia Blomdahl during lockdown, when she showed how cozy life in a tiny cabin just outside Longyearbyen could be despite its months of polar night. Her videos are cheerful, controversy-free (knock on wood) curiosities about the small excitements of life, such as a nice grocery-store vegetable or tidying up a modest home.

Something delightful introduced to me by a kid in my life: The first time I encountered Bluey, an Australian animated children’s series about an anthropomorphic cattle-dog family, I was with a 3-year-old watching an episode called “Copycat.” Like most episodes in the series, this one is about encountering a difficult subject (death) and then processing big feelings through play. As my colleague David Sims has written, the show “trusts that its young audience will be able to understand stories that are about the foibles and insecurities of parents too.” People without children in their life can still appreciate the same about Bluey. And adults could stand to learn a few things from kids about the foundation of good relationships. [Related: In praise of Bluey, the most grown-up television show for children]

A good recommendation I recently received: A friend introduced me to an Asian and Hispanic grocery-delivery service called Weee! (three e’s), and after resisting online ordering for the past 10 years, I now drown myself weekly in Asian snacks. I’m so excited to be able to buy food from my childhood, such as canned fried dace in black-bean sauce and braised gluten in a box. My Proustian madeleines, except venture-backed and delivered within 48 hours of purchase.

The last thing that made me snort with laughter: The chair-pants episode of Jury Duty. I shan’t elaborate. [Related: Jury Duty is terrific TV. It shouldn’t get another season.]

A favorite story I’ve read in The Atlantic: We published James Baldwin’s short story “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon” in our September 1960 issue. It was later included in his 1965 collection, Going to Meet the Man. I stumbled upon it recently while doing some research in our archives. It’s wonderful down to the final sentence:

“I open the cage and we step inside. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘all the way to the new world.’ I press the button and the cage, holding my son and me, goes up.”

The Week Ahead

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, the third installment of the romantic-comedy franchise written and directed by Nia Vardalos (in theaters Friday) Guts, Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album (out Friday) Holly, a new novel by Stephen King (out Tuesday)

Essay

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Scott Dudelson / Getty / Youtube.

The Real Men South of Richmond

By Spencer Kornhaber

In an era of artificial wonders, authenticity—or at least the illusion of it—is only going to become a more coveted commodity. Perhaps that’s one reason country music has ruled the highest reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 for most of the summer. And no one is selling authenticity like Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker from Virginia who was totally unknown until his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” hit No. 1 two weeks ago. His rise is surprising, but it also fits with a long pattern of audiences cherishing—and power brokers exploiting—figures who seem like the real deal.

Read the full article.

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Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.

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