Louis Staples

Louis Staples is a London-based freelance culture writer and critic who contributes to various publications including The Cut, The Guardian, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Variety. He writes a fortnightly culture essay for Harper's Bazaar titled 'Cultural Staples'.

Biography: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/author/402030/louis-staples/

78%

The Daily's Verdict

This author has a mixed reputation for journalistic standards. It is advisable to fact-check, scrutinize for bias, and check for conflicts of interest before relying on the author's reporting.

Bias

85%

Examples:

Challengers is a hot, sweaty spectacle–one that confirms the Sexy Tennis Movie as a definitive canon.
If Wimbledon is like a warm hug, then Woody Allen’s Match Point is less so.
Sitting on the beach, a sirenlike Tashi tells an arrogant Patrick that he ‘doesn’t know’ what tennis really is, before concluding: It’s a relationship.
Tennis and sex make the perfect match–the very act of flirting can feel like a metaphorical game of tennis.
The story of one of tennis’s greatest queer champions is told in 2017’s Battle of the Sexes.
Whether it’s a movie about tennis or civil war, it’s my strong belief that any film is improved with the presence of Kirsten Dunst.

Conflicts of Interest

100%

Examples:

No current examples available.

Contradictions

85%

Examples:

Patrick and Art represent conflicting factions of Tashi’s innermost desires in Challengers.
The movie explores the complex bond among Tashi, Art, and Patrick that passes through tennis rather than physical intimacy.

Deceptions

45%

Examples:

In Challengers, tennis is a metaphor for the most basic human urge: desire... As directed by Luca Guadagnino, it’s a hot, sweaty spectacle–one that confirms the Sexy Tennis Movie as a definitive canon. Tennis and sex make the perfect match… The very act of flirting can feel like a metaphorical game of tennis.
It is the hottest scene of the hottest film of the year... Near the start of Challengers, teenage tennis sensation Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) finds herself in the dingy hotel room shared by two of her male contemporaries: Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist). The hormone-fueled besties have just followed Tashi around a party, where they ogled at her in her intensely 2010-coded royal-blue dress... Now, they’re all drinking beer from cans on the hotel room floor. Both boys eventually ask for Tashi’s number.
Speaking of which, Challengers feels remarkably queer for a film about a heterosexual love triangle... The main three characters of the new film are partially naked for a lot of it... Guadagnino leaves the specifics of their history together (and their true feelings about each other) open to interpretation. Then there is Zendaya, whose portrayal of an alpha-female tennis girlboss seems destined to spark a million lesbian awakenings.