In today’s newsletter, behind Bowen Yang’s funny faces, and then:
• Roxane Gay on growing up as a Haitian American
• At the deep-state Oscars
• Is culture dying?
Michael Schulman
Staff writer
The first step in writing a good celebrity profile is finding a great subject. I typically look for people who have an offbeat or unconventional place in the culture—performers such as Adam Driver, Elisabeth Moss, and Jeremy Strong, whom I’ve profiled in the past. I also look for people who are facing a crossroads or working through something thorny in their career or life—in other words, a quality that makes them interesting beyond just being famous.
What intrigued me about Bowen Yang, whom I profiled for this week’s issue, was not just his obvious comedic talent, familiar to “Saturday Night Live” viewers, but his rare place in pop culture as a gay Asian man. I was also interested in how his newfound fame has affected his hit podcast, “Las Culturistas.” As Tina Fey warned Yang earlier this year, “Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” How was he reckoning with that? Fortunately, he was enthusiastic and willing to give me his time—which, for a New Yorker Profile, requires participating in a series of conversations as well as allowing me to periodically immerse myself in his world. During the spring and summer, I joined him backstage at “S.N.L.,” at a spoof awards show in Brooklyn, and in Vancouver, where he was filming “The Wedding Banquet,” a remake of the 1993 Ang Lee film. Along the way, he told me about a mental-health crisis he had last year on the movie set of “Wicked” and about his teen-age experience with conversion therapy—giving this Profile an unexpectedly dramatic bent.
I’m excited to offer readers the chance to learn about the obstacles Yang has faced on his road to stardom. You will encounter him in an ambiguous place, more protective of his psyche but still searching for a stable sense of identity.
The Lede
Photograph by Joe Raedle / Getty
The Haitian Question
The history of Haitian immigration to the United States is that of politicians on both sides of the aisle fighting to keep Haitians out of the country, with equal cruelty. Roxane Gay on the story of Springfield, Ohio.
More Top Stories
In the Dark
Illustration by Emiliano Ponzi
For years, everyone thought that there were twenty-four civilians killed by Marines in Haditha on November 19, 2005. But, in the ninth and final episode of Season 3, new evidence suggests that maybe everyone was wrong. Listen now »
To hear all the episodes, view photographs, and read more about war crimes that were buried by the military, visit the series landing page.
Daily Cartoon
Cartoon by Adam Douglas Thompson
More Fun & Games
P.S. “Want,” a collection of women’s sexual fantasies edited by the actor Gillian Anderson, is out today. In August, Rebecca Mead wrote about Anderson’s pop-culture persona. “Having had the disconcerting experience of becoming a sex symbol in the nineties,” she writes, “Anderson has now attained a different kind of symbolic relevance: as an avatar of the scrupulously mindful, identity-affirming, progressive sexual politics of today.”
