Will I ever stop thinking about TikTok musical Dolly Parton Taco Bell Mexican Pizza?

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter, The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by Senior Entertainment Reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here.

In this week:

• I thank God/Oprah for that Chop is back.
• Probably forever vacillating on this Dolly Parton/Taco Bell news.
• Some important films to watch.
• Some important Netflix information to think about.
• I thank God/Oprah for Christine Baranski.

Hollywood Mad Libs has gone insane again

Sometimes you wonder if you’re just online too much. (Those times include: the moment I wake up, to the moment I pass out, phone in hand and still autoplaying Instagram stories, with the three-minute exception each day being the sacred time to be in who drops Kelly Clarkson’s new “Kelyoke” from her talk show. )

The endless scrolling and flickering summarization of information can make you dizzy in a murky and nonsensical fog of buzzwords, headlines, and viral phrases, to the point where you can’t calm yourself enough to determine if what you’re reading is what you’re reading , possibly possible is real. Welcome to 2022. It’s all crazy, but it’s all real.

All of this leads to my astonishment, my amazement, my utter refusal to take the news I had just seen at face value. Every few hours since I first read it my body will suddenly spasm, like when you’re having one of those dreams where you fall. The memory of what I have read manifests itself instinctively, a reaction that can only be physical because the words presented in order are so absurd – and therefore so activating.

Here they are: Dolly Parton is set to star alongside Doja Cat in a TikTok musical about Taco Bell’s Mexican pizza.

This is actually happening. The newly inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee confirmed the news with the shittiest sentence I’ve ever seen. On her Instagram, Dolly Parton posted, “I’m doing #MexicanPizzaTheMusical with @TacoBell.”

The brief background is that Taco Bell removed Mexican pizza from its menu a few years ago. Singer Doja Cat was instrumental in making people like my friend Maddie feel whole again, like the world was finally right by putting pressure on the chain to bring them back. Sometimes creative people stage musicals on TikTok. And then some cosmic force put all those facts in a blender and added the words “Dolly Parton” and –boom, crash-here we are.

The musical will premiere on May 26th. More importantly, pizza returns on May 19th.

Just some must see movies

Speaking of absolutely nothing horrible and shameful and, socially and humanly speaking, apocalyptic that’s going on right now — we’d never address politics — here are three films I insist every American watch right now.

The first is new. It’s called occurrence. It is, as my colleague Nick Schager wrote, “a historical piece, as timely as it gets”. Set in 1960s France, it follows a young university student’s lonely, desperate journey to obtain a legal abortion.

Another came out in 2020. never seldom sometimes always is a horror film in that it isn’t fantastic or over the top, but is harrowingly rooted in reality. It’s about a young girl who lives in a rural area where she’s unable to obtain an abortion, so she and her cousin embark on a harrowing and dangerous journey to New York. It’s absolutely brutal.

The other is the movie Dirty dancing. Remember that movie, the swooning crowd pleaser with the funny songs, Patrick Swayze’s abs and the cool lift? The entire plot, this iconic romance, exists because of a cautionary tale about what can happen when a woman doesn’t have access to a safe and legal abortion.

Anyway, I don’t know why these films come to mind or why you might want to watch them right now. Who could tell?

I’m sorry… What is Netflix doing now?

Not long ago, Dave Chappelle released a Netflix special that drew criticism for posing a real danger to trans people’s lives as transphobic rhetoric, especially from a platform as big as his and the streaming service.

As far as I can remember, no major LGBT organization called for the special to be censored or removed, but they have rightly pointed out the potential for harm and raised questions about what responsibility Netflix might have as a host of this content, which Chappelle paid tens of millions to host of dollars to make it. Netflix’s own employees have gone on strike in response to how the company has dealt with the concerns.

Anyway, I thought you should know that this is the company’s next step now: an update on its corporate culture memo, stating that the company will never censor artists, and if there is content that “you consider harmful feel,” then basically hard noogies. “If you’re having a hard time supporting our breadth of content, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

It’s not a joke, it’s actually in the memo. Just something to keep in mind while streaming The ultimatum.

Christine Baranski saved us once again

I had to look this photo collage by Christine Baranski, who was reacting to a picture of her giving Elon Musk a death glare at least three times a day for the past week to muster the will to move on.

What to watch this week:

Chop: A dip of perfection is still very high quality. (Now on HBO Max)

love in the spectrum: The best – and maybe only good ones? – relationship show. (Thursday on Netflix)

conversations with friends: Or the answer to the question: What did Taylor Swift’s actor boyfriend actually do? (Sun. on Hulu)

What to skip this week:

The Lincoln Attorney: Matthew McConaughey isn’t even in it! (Fri. on Netflix)

fire starter: I am beg: Someone save Zac Efron’s career! (Fri. in theaters and on Peacock)