The daily gossip: March 19, 2020

(Image credit: The Hallmark Channel.)

Jump to category:

1. The Hallmark Channel is going to air Christmas movies all weekend
2. Gal Gadot got a bunch of famous people to sing 'Imagine,' because coronavirus
3. JoJo rewrote 'Leave (Get Out)' to be pandemic friendly
4. The Good Doctor, The Resident donate medical supplies to hospitals
5. Evangeline Lilly is apparently refusing to self-quarantine during the pandemic

published 19 March 2020

1. The Hallmark Channel is going to air Christmas movies all weekend

Hopefully you have hot cocoa in your stockpile! The Hallmark Channel announced Thursday that it will air Christmas movies all weekend long because yes, things are really that bad out there. "You asked and we heard you!" Hallmark tweeted. "We agree that we all need a little Christmas now." The unseasonal movie marathon starts Friday with Candace Cameron Bure's A Christmas Detour and culminates 27 movies later on Sunday with Lacey Chabert's Christmas in Rome. You can check out the full schedule here. Oh, and uh, happy first day of spring!

Apparently singing our way through the coronavirus outbreak is going to be … a thing. Late Wednesday, Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot posted an Instagram compilation of two dozen celebrities joining her in a socially-isolated rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine." Crooners included Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo (phoning in from bed?), Will Ferrell, and Sia, among many others. Gadot explained she'd been inspired by a video of an Italian trumpet player serenading his neighbors with "Imagine," and "there was something so powerful and pure" about it. There is maybe something slightly less powerful and pure about a bunch of famous people's largely off-key calls for world peace, but you can nevertheless watch it here.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Speaking of quarantine songs, JoJo is out here keeping her fans safe with brand new lyrics to her hit song "Leave (Get Out)." In a TikTok posted Wednesday, the 29-year-old singer debuted "Chill (Stay In)," which reverses the message of her 2004 hit to urge, "Stay In! Right now! Do it for humanity!" Keeping beat on her dining room table, Jojo added, "Tell me why you're acting so confused/When the CDC laid it out for you/C'mon, I know you're not dumb." The full version will reportedly be available to stream later today — as JoJo puts it, "just doin' my part, y'all."

TV medical dramas tend to have some pretty farfetched plotlines (remember that insane Demi Lovato episode of Grey's Anatomy?), but there's nothing fictional about the threat of the new coronavirus. In response, Fox's The Resident and ABC's The Good Doctor and Grey's Anatomy spin-off Station 19 are donating masks, gloves, gowns, and other badly-needed medical items from their sets to nearby hospitals. "Yesterday, I had a serious discussion with the residents about how … a magical shipment of masks is unlikely to arrive," wrote rheumatologist Dr. Karen Law, who works at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. "And yet, a magical shipment of masks DID arrive, in the form of this very generous gesture [from The Resident] … We needed this kind of good news today."

Evangeline Lilly wouldn't let Vanessa Hudgens be the only celebrity to get into hot water with a bad coronavirus take this week. The Ant-Man and Lost star came under fire after wrongly claiming on Instagram that the COVID-19 coronavirus is just "a respiratory flu" and complaining it doesn't justify "the all-out, global lockdown, control, pandemonia [sic], and insanity we are experiencing." Lilly claimed she is still going about #businessasusual despite she and her father both being "immune compromised at the moment." Her fans were quick to urge her to take the outbreak seriously: "Social distancing is the only way to protect the most vulnerable," one wrote. "We are all in this together."

Explore More

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.