There is one work that captures the spirit of this strange year, from its claustrophobia to the perpetual state of limbo
In the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it, once and for all
There are plenty of contenders for the artwork that most astutely captures 2020, with its putrid cocktail of ennui, sadness, claustrophobia, fear, exhaustion and death. Some are more obvious than others. The 2011 film Contagion was so accurate in its depiction of a global pandemic that it rocketed to Netflix’s 10 Most Watched as lockdown first reared its head. The Simpsons has a proclivity for prescience, having predicted that Donald Trump would run for president, and for 2020 it was no different with an old episode featuring both a flu pandemic and, pre-empting 2020’s murder hornets, some killer bees.