Merkel, Mescal and the madness of the modern press tour

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Angela Merkel, once the most powerful woman in Europe, has written an autobiography. Called Freedom, it’s a substantial 700-pager that adds personal expression to her early life and the years between 2005 and 2021 when she was German chancellor. As is customary when one has something to promote, she is currently doing press. As is unusual by today’s standards, she has dictated the terms of that promotion, scaling back all appointments except for a scant few interviews.

Merkel’s approach has been very old-school. She offers robust insights about her experiences of working with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and the tiniest impression of her private life. Her “self-righteous — and occasionally self-satisfied — tone can occasionally be trying”, writes this paper. Those hoping for more candour about her two marriages will have to look elsewhere.

Merkel is a retired politician and has therefore been extended gracious dispensation when it comes to doing the media. Not for her the sofa chat show or the TikToks, and she hasn’t been popping up on podcasts and daytime radio. Her name and mythic status are presumed sufficient to secure the sales: she has been spared the fandango that now accompanies most press tours.

Not so for other people. Anyone hoping to win an Oscar, for example, must face a slalom of insane media challenges that would give Jason and the Argonauts some pause for thought. In recent weeks the awards race has begun in earnest, and with it a breathtaking assault course of tasks decreed to get one in the bag. The tent-pole interviews once commanded by broadcasting legends such as Michael Parkinson (in the UK) or latterly Jon Stewart (in the US) are now occupied by two huge YouTube stars: Amelia Dimoldenberg, whose Chicken Shop Dates contrive a “refreshingly awkward” romance with her subject over deep-fried poultry; and Sean Evans, the Chicago broadcaster behind Hot Ones, who conducts his illuminating interviews over a succession of increasingly toxic chicken wings.

The formats have become incredibly successful, because they disrupt the normal, banal chat-show repartee. Unfortunately, they’ve proved so successful that every publicist has since devised a same-same format to try to steal back market share.

The result? Wild overexposure, not to mention the confusion that, although you have watched endless clips of someone flirting and eating chicken, they have not become your friend. In the frenzy for viral moments, the press tour has become a barrage of “moments”, each one seeming slightly more unhinged. Witness Nicole Kidman talking about her love of techno at warehouse raves. See Paul Mescal, doing his Gladi-banter, again, again, again.

No wonder they get exhausted, or flame out and leave the public eye. When Adele wrapped up her 100-show residency in Las Vegas last weekend, her only plan was to take “a big break”. The singer has long grieved the loss of anonymity that has accompanied her fame. Chappell Roan became an “overnight” sensation when the world discovered her last Easter. By the summer she was already burnt out. The singer and LGBTQ activist was getting into spats on social media, cancelling performances and tearfully explaining why “it’s really hard to keep up.”

The press system deals very differently with men and women. It’s rigged for boysy banter and a lack of seriousness: all attempts at earnestness are front-page news or a subject for parody. When Saoirse Ronan interrupted a lads’ convention on the sofa with Graham Norton to make a succinct point about women and self-defence. Her retort: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time” became a breaking news story, as though she were expounding some fresh theory on fourth-wave feminism. And Lord knows, maybe she was.

Likewise, in recent days, the two leads of Wicked, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, have been widely mocked for their behaviour on a press tour that has seen them holding each other’s fingers and regularly bursting into tears. The weirdest moment came last week when a broadcaster told the actors, both dressed in full witch apparel, how audiences were taking the lyrics of that film’s only banger, “Defying Gravity”, and “really holding space” with it. The subsequent exchange has since been lampooned as an example of deepest woke. The joke’s on us, however: Wicked flew into cinemas last weekend to conjure $164.2mn in global sales, slaying Gladiator: hold space with that, I say.

In the cacophony of today’s media, I admire those like Erivo and Ronan who refuse to play by the new rules. So do I admire Mescal, who has an enviable talent for wearing tiny cardigans, and being kind to those who ask him to perform so many inane media asks.

I also admire Merkel for going old-school and protecting both her dignity and her mystique. At least so far, she hasn’t sat on Norton’s sofa. Nor nominated her Letterboxd “Four Favorites”. Nor answered questions while seated on the floor with a litter of puppies around her feet. I guess we’ll know that sales are really tanking when we see her chomping spicy chicken wings.

Email Jo at [email protected]

Find out about our latest stories first — follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen