Every ethnic group has a mythology... Until 'Roots'... there was nothing in the popular culture to refute the paragraph in elementary school history class that said, 'Slaves picked the cotton, were happy and life wasn't so bad.'
When I wrote 'The West Wing,' the juice behind it was that in popular culture, our leaders in government are generally portrayed as Machiavellian, or as idiots. I thought, well, how about writing about a group of hyper-competent people?
The experience of being on a show that is very much in the center of popular culture is exciting. You really feel like you're reaching people.
From sublime affairs of state to the stark and vulgar popular culture of our own contemporary lives, let's make this descent into the lower registers together and recognize the good, nasty fun of 'Gone Girl,' Chicago writer Gillian Flynn's novel about the mysterious disappearance of a clever and deceptive young Midwestern housewife.
For all of her influence on popular culture, and the remarkable performances she left behind, perhaps Farrah Fawcett's greatest legacy was her raw, intimate, honest portrait of a woman fighting for her life - against cancer.
I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies - what else is there to write about than love and loss?
If there is a person behaving more destructively in popular culture than Mario Lavandeira, I cannot think of one. He has used cruelty as a crass mechanism to build up his own celebrity and has utilized political correctness to protect himself while using it as a weapon to dehumanize those he doesn't agree with.
'Vogue' has a history of picking up on various TV shows that reflect a moment in popular culture, whether it's putting Lena Dunham on the cover or Sarah Jessica Parker.
I'll be, like, grocery shopping or doing something totally mundane, and once a day, you'll hear a Cyndi Lauper song on the radio. It is astounding what an icon she is, not just in popular music but in popular culture.
From the age of 17, I lived the life of a hermit and dedicated myself to gym life, first in the South Bronx and then back in England. I was in a bubble and I bypassed a lot of popular culture.
