All Hail Philomena Cunk, the Perfect Fake Newswoman for Our Age of Ignorance

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Netflix's 'Cunk on Cinema' proves that Diane Morgan's proudly idiotic TV presenter character has never been more relevant ...

In the future, when some documentary series in whatever medium succeeds television looks back at the current decade in public discourse, it might name our era the Age of Ignorance. The crank shouting nonsense from atop a soapbox is, of course, nothing new. What’s unique to our time is how vast the audiences for these bloviators have become. We’ve got Alix Earle, with about 15 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, bragging about never having read a book.

To which Philomena Cunk says: “Hold my snake oil.” The world-famous British TV presenter described by the Guardian as “iconically stupid” is back on Netflix and BBC Two with Cunk on Cinema, a six-part docuseries in which she gripes that reading subtitles makes it impossible to concentrate on one’s phone and pronounces D.W. Griffith’s KKK mash note The Birth of a Nation a “typically woke Hollywood fantasy.” (In what may or may not be a nod to viewers’ short attention spans, episodes top out at 15 minutes and can be binged in less time than it takes to watch most films.) Cunk is so incompetent, it’s hilarious.

She may not be a real human being, but Cunk has had the kind of rise broadcast journalists dream about. After making her name in 2013 as an astonishingly dim yet opinionated commentator on Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker’s BBC Two comedy news show Weekly Wipe, she leveled up to hosting mockumentaries like Cunk on Shakespeare and Cunk on Britain, all helmed by Brooker. Like the other thought leaders we trust to guide us through complex topics on screen, in her solo efforts, Cunk combines her own explanations and analyses (“If the Tudors were the Kardashians of their time, this was their Kim: Henry of Eight”) with real expert interviews.

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