The opening scene of Showtime’s The Curse, starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone, perfectly sets the stage for the themes the show aims to explore by referencing the manufactured tears of William Hurt’s Tom Grunick in 1987’s Broadcast News.
The Curse Restages Broadcast News’ Staged Tears
Audiences first meet romantic partners and Flipanthropy hosts Whitney and Asher Siegel while they’re filming a segment for their upcoming HGTV show. The couple’s stated mission to give back to the community of Española, New Mexico, is initially demonstrated through this scene, where they secure a job for a local man burdened with his mother’s mounting medical bills. However, the couple’s announcement does not elicit the camera-ready reaction that they anticipated, promoting their producer to step in with a water bottle to create fake tears for the program.
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Though Stone’s Whitney expresses her appall at this ploy afterward, it’s not enough to make her pull the plug on the show entirely, but the same could not be said about Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. The discovery that her boyfriend and rising star anchor Tom Grunick manufactured tears during an interview thrust Hunter’s Jane Craig into a dilemma that pits her heart against her morals. Ultimately, the new producer’s pervading sense of journalistic integrity brought an end to her romantic relationship. By referencing this pivotal Broadcast News moment, The Curse likewise tees up its own exploration of ethics by jumpstarting its narrative at a point already well beyond Jane’s threshold.
The Curse Modernizes and Doubles-Down on Broadcast News’ Themes
The Curse’s opening reference to Broadcast News immediately places the two works in conversation with each other. James L. Brooks’ 1987 film pre-dated the 24-hour news cycle, painting Jane’s strong-willed objections to Tom’s actions as almost quaint to modern audiences. However, The Curse invites Broadcast News‘ central theme of journalist ethics into the realm of reality television, specifically the more innocuous-seeming house-flipping genre.
Where shows like UnReal and I Love That for You tackle the more obvious moral pitfalls of reality television as a platform to entertain or sell products, The Curse questions how far someone will go to curate a public image as an altruistic person. The uncomfortable tension of the opening scene not only harkens back to Broadcast News‘ classic exploration of journalist ethics but also prepares its audience for a series that tackles social discomfort and human hypocrisy.
