Taken from a widely read novel by Ken Kesey, it is a prime example of how a subject which must have looked destined for the cultural ghetto of the art circuit can be hoist by its bootstraps into the commercial field and festooned with Oscar nominations. You can do this of course only by making compromises by engaging a star with redoubtable box office muscle by jollying your audience along a little before the real crunch comes.
Anti-media ideologues like Elon Musk love to deploy disempowering language like " you are the media now " to assist in their long-term project of eroding the media's institutional authority. But thinking about the media that broke through in 2025, it really was the weird and non-traditional stuff that triumphed, from the work of Lane Kiffin obsessive Ben Garrett to white nationalist Nick Fuentes lamenting the " low IQ antisemitism" of podcaster Candace Owens, thus kicking off his " generational run."