J. Clarke articles

For decades, television treated mental illness like a twist, a joke, or a temporary crisis conveniently resolved before the credits rolled. Then something shifted. Writers stopped glossing over the mess and started showing the parts of mental health that are slow, uncomfortable, and often painfully human.

Christine McVie’s departure from Fleetwood Mac in 1998 didn’t feel like just another band shake-up. It hit like a soft heartbreak—the kind that sneaks up on you years later when a familiar song plays on the radio. She wasn’t the flashiest member, nor the most mythologized, but she was the band’s heartbeat. And when she walked away, many fans assumed the pulse had faded for good. They were wrong. This is the unlikely, long-delayed, thoroughly satisfying tale of one of rock’s gentlest comebacks.

By the 1960s, old-school Hollywood was running on fumes. The star system was wobbling, TV was stealing eyeballs, censorship rules were cracking and a wave of international filmmakers were basically sending Hollywood a memo that said: “Catch up or get left behind”. Out of that chaos came what we now call modern Hollywood—the era of director-driven blockbusters, gritty antiheroes, experimental editing, genre mash-ups and audiences who expected more than comforting happy endings. These 21 films don’t just define the 1960s; they helped build the cinematic world we still live in today.

Whitney Houston already lived in a world built of diamond-bright expectations, but when The Bodyguard soundtrack detonated into the stratosphere, selling 45 million copies, the world didn’t just celebrate her. It claimed her. That voice—once a heavenly instrument she wielded with ease—suddenly belonged to everyone else. The film-era triumph didn’t just elevate her; it locked her into a public image she could never escape.

Some movie sets run on caffeine, talent, and a prayer. Others run on caffeine, talent, prayers, and the faint hope that no one gets set on fire, eaten by a lion, struck by lightning, or sucked into a helicopter rotor. Before modern health and safety standards insisted that film crews return home with the same number of limbs they arrived with, Hollywood operated more like the Wild West—minus the union-mandated lunch breaks.

From the rural fields of Tennessee to global rock-royalty status, the journey of Tina Turner was never conventional—and her escape from an abusive marriage was the dramatic turning point. As she slipped away in the dark, carrying only 36 cents and a Mobil gas card, the world was getting ready for one of music’s most astonishing comebacks.

Some bands split like civilized adults over chamomile tea. Others detonate so spectacularly that the ash cloud blots out their own discography. Here are 21 meltdowns—spiked with egos, lawyers, lovers, and “creative differences”—where the breakup lore became part of the brand.

Once upon a time, showrunners were background names scrolling past at the end of your favorite episode. Now they’re the gods of the streaming Olympus—wielding story arcs, cliffhangers, and episode drops like lightning bolts. From slow-burn sci-fi to chaotic comedies, these twenty visionaries didn’t just adapt to the streaming era, they defined it.

Ever wished someone could turn your chaotic brain into prestige television? TV’s best narrators have been doing that for decades—turning angst into poetry, gossip into gospel, and existential dread into appointment viewing. Whether they speak from beyond the grave, the therapist’s couch, or the Manhattan dating scene, these voices don’t just guide the story—they define it.