BREAKING
JOBS ARE AN IMPORTANT THING TO
“At the beginning of the show I didn’t
HAVE, and some bad jobs often hold their know how anyone was going to receive it
virtues, but even dream jobs—such as film and I wanted the possibility of being able
critic or film professor, Karina Longworth’s to hide behind irony. But as it’s evolved I
two positions prior to starting her beloved haven’t really had to do that,” she says.
podcast You Must Remember This—put
But if the show isn’t about secrets and
people in a difficult position. Nobody wants it’s not about camp, is it maybe a history
to be forced to do the thing they love once show? What’s the analogue? Listening to
they no longer want to do it. Longworth is Longworth talk about how Bing Crosby’s
obviously still in love with The Movies, but career only took off once the technology of
she now describes her time as a film critic the microphone allowed him to croon, and
the way other people might discuss a job in hearing her dissect the strange anatomy
retail. And that's because, at a certain point, of Hollywood’s celebrity culture in the late
the ability to be involved in The Conversation 1960s, I was reminded at once of shows
failed to compensate for the pain of having like Hardcore History (which is similar in
to churn out hot take after hot take for its historical scope and ambition) and
lukewarm product after lukewarm product. Welcome to Night Vale (which is similar
Or, in her words: “I tend to get burnt out and in its campy narrative thrust). Longworth,
not want to do a thing anymore.”
however,
doesn’t
seem
especially
And so she did The Other Thing. She interested in precedents or analogues from
quit. She took her show to academia. And that the podcasting world. And though podcasts
didn’t work either. So what’s a body to do when may be thriving, she’s likely right that one
it doesn’t want the thing it wanted anymore? needn’t rely on them to learn how to find—
Well, that’s where podcasts come in.
or tell—a story. There’s television and
Longworth said goodbye to all that and Broadway for that.
researched, wrote, performed, and produced
“The two things that were most
the first episode of You Must Remember This, inspiring to me recently were The People
because that was the thing she wanted to v. O.J. Simpson and Hamilton,” she says.
do. And as it turned out, that was something Both of those offer “nonfiction storytelling
BACKSTORY: The former LA Weekly film critic’s podcast, You Must Remember This, is
drawing raves from history-heads, culture-hounds, and cool-hunters alike
that other people wanted. (“There are a lot that is historically accurate, dramatic, and
of films that you can’t understand unless you [relevant to] the present.”
FROM: Los Angeles
understand the historical context,” as she
YOU MIGHT KNOW HER FROM: A twelve-part series on the Manson Family’s
relationship to 1960s Hollywood, which showed up on a lot (/all) of 2015’s best-of
podcast lists
says.) Her show’s ostensible purpose was past and disillusioned by the present. The
NOW: Writing a new book, recording more podcasts, and keeping an eye out for the
next story that she just can’t shake
of Hollywood’s first century,” and while that lines are forever ahead of us, and the grass
Longworth remains obsessed with the
to tell the “secret and/or forgotten history golden age is forever behind us, the front
mission statement remains apt, it’s clear that is always greener on the other side. And
such a definition already feels too limiting.
KARINA
LONGWORTH
that’s a valuable perspective, because the
prevailing opinion seems to be that the here
and now is already plenty good enough.
Karina Longworth and You Must Remember
This, however, are hungry for more.
O F “ YO U M U S T R E M E M B E R T H I S ”
12
FLOOD
BY DANIEL HARMON
PHOTO BY CAT GWYNN