Ugh, As If! - contemporary art and culture podcast · Lisa Fevral

GRAMMYs 2025 and Degas paintings - 3x13

·1 hr 6 min·4 clips

Degas' ballet paintings repeatedly place men in black suits around dancers, and the hosts call that voyeuristic.

The hosts open by greeting subscribers, viewers, randoms, and friends and enemies all at once. They say the conversation will bounce between the Grammys and Degas, and they joke about saying Grammys like grandmas. They also flag, right away, that they are going to talk about the female nude in art. The show does not act like this is a small topic. It treats it as art history 101 that still matters. The hosts keep reminding each other to get the housekeeping out of the way. They ask listeners to like, subscribe, and leave five stars before the argument really starts. From there, the conversation leans into a specific dress or outfit and whether it reads as creepy. That question pushes them into a wider discussion of Degas and what his work actually means. One host argues that if you know his art, you start to see why the choice in question matters. They bring up the idea that some people react before they understand the context. They also admit that most people do not know much about Degas. When the topic comes up in conversation, people often look blank. The hosts do not treat that as a moral failing. They treat it as normal. They point out that liking a work is not the same as understanding it. Impressionism gets used as the obvious example. The colors and composition make it easy to like on sight. That ease is part of the problem and part of the appeal. The show keeps coming back to the split between surface pleasure and deeper judgment. One line of thought is that sculpting a body and then dressing it raises a real question about artistic logic. If the body is going to be covered, why sculpt it uncovered in the first place. That practical question opens into a larger art history argument. The hosts use it to think through Degas's priorities and the way his work handles the body. They also wonder whether the person at the center of the image knew enough about that history to be making a pointed choice. The tone stays skeptical without getting smug. The hosts keep saying, in effect, that not knowing is common. They also keep rejecting the idea that confusion is the same thing as being canceled. What matters to them is whether the work makes sense on its own terms. The conversation circles back to easy admiration versus serious looking. The episode turns a culture hot take into a blunt defense of context, craft, and judgment.

As heard by us

A messy, smart argument about Degas, the Grammys, and why some art looks easy before it starts talking back.

Ugh, As If! uses the Grammys as a way into Degas and the female nude, and it turns a celebrity flashpoint into a sharper question about how art gets read and misread.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a Grammys-to-Degas detour that opens into the female nude in art.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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