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TUESDAY, MARCH 1 , 2022. SECTION C

The Ukrainian president’s

performing past has been

a benefit in handling crisis

EMILIO MORENATTI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Before becoming the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, seen performing

i n 2019, had a career as an actor and comedian.

BY TRAVIS M. ANDREWS AND ASHLEY FETTERS MALOY

Zelensky, from

w himsy to world stage

mind, in potential if not in actual

achievement — was rewarded for her

scholastic compliance with an elevator

ride to the stiflingly cultured middle

class.

An epic about female friendship and

rivalry against a backdrop of social

change, political turbulence and mob-fu-

eled instability, “My Brilliant Friend” is a

series of rare sweep and extraordinary

accomplishment. (Not for nothing, it was

my favorite show of 2020.) The produc-

tion and scenery are gorgeous; the score

(by Max Richter) lush and haunting; the

direction grand, immersive and occa-

sionally hallucinatory; the performances

seldom not pitch-perfect.

SEE TV REVIEW ON C5

tal sociological experiment was set into

motion when Lila and Lenu, the two

smartest students in their class, diverged

in their education. Lila’s parents stopped

paying her tuition after elementary

school, while Lenu’s encouraged their

daughter’s academic pursuits, which cul-

minated in her college graduation and

the publication of her best-selling debut

novel shortly thereafter. But the friends

— now 20-something women in the

Italian-language drama’s third season —

were always meant to go their separate

ways. Iron-willed and insouciantly self-

possessed Lila ignored the rules of reality

until she was forced to run away, while

self-disciplined and approval-seeking

Lenu — always second to Lila in her

BY INKOO KANG

The dual protagonists of “My Brilliant
Friend,” the HBO adaptation of Elena
Ferrante’s celebrated novel series, were
born to escape. Blessed with intelligence
and aspiration, childhood friends Lila
(Gaia Girace) and Lenu (Margherita Maz-
zucco) grew up on the outskirts of a
war-torn Naples in the 1950s, besieged by
poverty and violence. The latter, especial-
ly, was terrifyingly relentless: in stores,
from rapacious gangsters; on the streets,
from inflamed militants on the left and
the right; and in the home, from angry
husbands and fathers.
School seemed the most obvious way
out when they were girls, and an acciden-

TV REVIEW

‘My Brilliant Friend’ is still brilliant television

EDUARDO CASTALDO/HBO

Gaia Girace, left, as Lila, and Margherita Mazzucco as Lenu in Season 3 of “My

Brilliant Friend.” The performances are seldom not pitch-perfect.

BY EMILY HEIL

Ukrainian people crossing into neigh-
boring Poland as they flee the violence
from the Russian invasion of their coun-
try face an uncertain future.
But first, they’re being greeted by cups
of hot tea and chicken-and-vegetable
soup, as chef José Andrés and his World
Central Kitchen operation have mobi-
lized to feed the thousands of refugees
streaming into Poland, Romania, Moldo-
va and, beginning Monday, Hungary.
Nate Mook, the group’s chief execu-
tive, on Monday described a chaotic
scene and freezing temperatures at the
border crossings in Poland, where he was
helping to marshal an “ad hoc” group of
volunteers. In the few days since the
invasion began, upending life for Ukrai-
nians fleeing the Russian forces, Mook
had seen a group of farmers handing out
eggs and kielbasa along a road. A ramen
food truck was ladling out soup. One
volunteer he met was a young man from
London who had traveled to the area to
join the fight against Russian troops in
his native country.
“He had never fired a gun in his life,
and he decided the best way to fight was
to serve meals,” said Mook, who spoke
from the town of Ustrzyki Dolne. “We’re
seeing people who are passionate about
helping.”
World Central Kitchen, which deploys
resources around the globe to areas hit
by natural disasters and conflict,
planned to serve 10,000 hot meals Mon-
day, Mook says, and 25,000 Tuesday.
“We’re ramping up really quickly,” he
said.
SEE MEALS ON C3

Warm meals

for fleeing

Ukrainians

BY SARAH ELLISON

AND TRAVIS M. ANDREWS

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked

the world as the largest cross-border

European conflict in decades. But some

observers see a troubling tone creeping

into how some media outlets have

attempted to contextualize it, describ-

ing Ukraine as more “civilized” than

other countries, such as Iraq, Afghani-

stan or Syria.

In one notable CBS News segment,

senior foreign correspondent Charlie

D’Agata, reporting from Kyiv, said Fri-

day that Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all

due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan,

that has seen conflict raging for dec-

ades. This is a relatively civilized, rela-

tively European — I have to choose

those words carefully, too — city, where

you wouldn’t expect that or hope that

it’s going to happen.”

The statement went viral, and D’Aga-

ta, a veteran war correspondent, issued

an apology Saturday, saying he had “used

a poor choice of words” that he regretted.

“What I had hoped to convey is that

what’s unique about the fighting under-

way here is that this country has not

really seen this scale of war in recent

years, unlike some conflicts in countries

I’ve covered that have tragically suffered

through many years of fighting.”

But D’Agata was just one of many

correspondents and commentators us-

ing offensive comparisons in their effort

to explain Ukraine’s plight.

ITV News correspondent Lucy Wat-

son reported from a train station in Kyiv

that the “unthinkable” had happened to

SEE MEDIA ON C2

A troubling

tone in conflict

coverage

circulating on social media, including his

winning Ukraine’s first season of “Dancing

With the Stars” and voicing Paddington Bear

for the local cuts of the movies. While they

might seem jarring in light of the current war,

his years as an entertainer seem to have

prepared him for this moment. Since Russia’s

invasion, Zelensky has continued posting vid-

eos meant to inspire and rally Ukrainians —

and the rest of the world — to great fanfare.

“I think Zelensky’s past as an actor and

comedian is integral to his management of the

situation at hand right now. He’s used to being

in front of a camera. He’s used to performing,”

said Samuel Woolley, an assistant professor in

the University of Texas at Austin’s school of

journalism. “While before this conflict his poll

numbers were pretty low, they’ve skyrocketed.

And that’s because he’s been able to use his

strengths during this conflict.”

Woolley pointed out that there’s a lengthy

history of successful TV or film stars going on to

succeed in politics, including former presidents

Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, and former

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Politics, particularly politics today, is a game

SEE ZELENSKY ON C2

The video, posted the day after Russia

launched an invasion of Ukraine, is lit in sepia

tones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

stands in the middle of a street in his war-rattled

nation with several other Ukrainian officials.

“We are all here, defending our independ-

ence, our country. And it will stay that way,”

Zelensky says in Ukrainian. “Glory to the men

and women defending us. Glory to Ukraine.

Glory to the heroes.”

The clip, which went up Friday and has been

endlessly shared, looks like something out of an

action flick — particularly the version that has

been overdubbed with “Shook Ones, Part II” by

rap duo Mobb Deep, which has been viewed

more than 6 million times. Noted one Twitter

user, “I can just see the movie version of this

video in my head.”

That may not be coincidental. Before Zel-

ensky became the president of Ukraine in May

2019, he was a comedian and actor, something

of an all-purpose celebrity in the country. Now,

he’s become a wartime hero, a leader who

refuses to flee his country despite the Russian

onslaught of the capital city, Kyiv, in the biggest

European conflict since World War II.

Video clips from his past life have begun