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Nobody expected what just happened on Friday Night SmackDown. The WWE universe was waiting for the big announcement: the contract signing between John Cena and Cody Rhodes. But it all ended in a mess.

The developments at San Antonio, Texas, divided the opinions of WWE enthusiasts. Whether or not Cena retains his title at SummerSlam 2025, the pivotal turn in the storyline has established the fact that Cena’s vow to ruin wrestling is right on the agenda for the creative heads of the company.

Cody Rhodes Is Closer to Turning Heel Than Ever Before

The mood was different during the latest episode of Friday Night SmackDown. The central point of the blue roster today was the high-stakes contract signing, which would’ve sealed the match between John Cena and Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. Everything was going around expected lines until Cena came and dropped a bombshell.

The 17-time world champion argued that the faceoff between him and Rhodes is not possible, given the mental and physical exhaustion he is currently facing. He cited a movie shooting for Netflix as the reason behind his unavailability to compete at SummerSlam.

Frustrated at the loss of the promised opportunity, he earned by becoming the King of the Ring. Cody Rhodes decided at that moment that he had heard enough from Cena and decided to take matters into his own hands.

Consequently, Rhodes bid farewell to his virtuous side and attacked Cena from behind while he was leaving the arena. After a brief exchange of jabs, John Cena came up with the title belt to attack in his familiar style ever since he turned heel, but the American Nightmare was quick to escape and attacked Cena with the Championship belt, which eventually got tossed into his hands by Cena.

The moment was consequential in the sense that during his second WWE run, the former WWE Champion had hardly ever used unfair means to attack a rival, which he did at this point.

This shocking turn of events sent waves through the WWE Universe, leaving fans stunned at Rhodes’ decision to abandon his long-standing moral code. Known for his pride in being a symbol of honor and legacy, Rhodes’ actions marked a definitive shift in his character, signaling a darker, more aggressive approach moving forward.

The attack was not just a physical statement; it was symbolic of the internal transformation Rhodes was undergoing. Many speculated whether frustration over being sidelined or overshadowed played a role in his sudden shift. To make matters worse, Cody Rhodes will have every opportunity to get his hands on the 17-time World Champion as the match between them at SummerSlam will be a street fight.

Thus, Rhodes has established the fact that virtue will be on the back seat during his clash against Cena at the PLE event. How he forced signatures of Cena on the contract after a splash through the table on the veteran wrestler displayed the kind of hunger he has for the silverware and the extent to which he can drop down to win the clash against Cena.

With the attack on Cena, Rhodes is now closer to turning heel than ever before. Given how he unleashed an assault on Cena at SmackDown, the chances are that The Rock has somehow gotten into the brain of the American Nightmare, with the final boss more likely to get what he wanted from Rhodes all along.

How the Loss of Virtue Between Cena and Rhodes Will Ruin Wrestling

In recent times, the WWE universe has revisited the moment when John Cena turned heel at Elimination Chamber and sold his soul to The Rock. The moment was crucial given the fact that one of the greatest superstars in professional wrestling turned against the people who made him the face of the company for more than a decade.

The build-up to that moment was equally important. Cena was never the first choice of the final boss, who is now a board member of the TKO group, the owners of the WWE. He had first offered Cody Rhodes to become his champion and assured the American Nightmare that it would open unimaginable doors of possibility for him.

At that moment, Rhodes listened to his inner conscience and paid heed to the numerous voices of WWE fans who told him not to accept the offer of The Rock. That is how Cena was chosen; the entire facade of Cena vowing to retire as the last real champion of the WWE started. Fans have time and again questioned time and again whether his resolve to ruin wrestling was his intentions or the desires of The Rock, manifested inside the ring by Cena.

In any case, Cody’s denial of The Rock paved the way for Cena, and he subsequently became the WWE Champion for the 17th time at WrestleMania 41.

Months later, the WWE universe has gone back to square one. Cena and Rhodes are still poised against each other. But the vibe around this clash feels completely different now that Rhodes has attacked Cena with intent and ferocity never seen before from the former WWE Champion.

Now that the face-off between Cena and Rhodes is official. More questions loom in the minds of the WWE fans: Was this attack from Cody Rhodes more symbolic rather than frustration from the American Nightmare? Will the clash between Rhodes and Cena mark the ultimate victory for The Rock? Only time will tell.

What are your thoughts on the latest development that occurred during Friday Night SmackDown? Do share with us in the comments down below.

You’re the boss of a travel company, it’s early summer and your brand is going viral. Millions of people are watching and sharing social media clips of people on holiday, the soundtrack to which is your company jingle.

It sounds like a PR dream, but is it?

That’s the question no doubt being pondered at the headquarters of Jet2 – the budget travel firm that has found itself at the centre of a runaway TikTok meme which shows the less glamorous side of British summer holidays.

The trend began as a joke: Jet2’s relentlessly cheerful jingle, Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand, played over the most cheerless summer holiday footage found on social media.

Plane fights, water sports accidents and drunken disasters are all soundtracked by the theme tune as the tagline “Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday” is announced the saccharine voiceover.

The line has become social media code for travel plans gone wrong, with users pairing the audio with clips of holiday mishaps, minor chaos and anything that falls short of the usual polished posts.

In one TikTok video with more than 1.6m likes, a woman almost drowns in waist-high water and has to be saved by a lifeguard after coming out of a water slide in Tenerife.

Another post set to the sound with 16k likes shows a man laying on a sun lounger by the pool as rain drenches him. More than 1.3m other videos have used the sound and the hashtag #nothingbeatsajet2holidays has more than 25.5k posts.

Jet2 has not commented on the trend, but the company has leaned into it on social media, posting its own clip using the same audio and launching a challenge, offering a £1,000 holiday voucher as a prize.

Zoë Lister, the voice actor who utters the now famous line, and singer Jess Glynne have both weighed in. Glynne posted a TikTok video miming the voiceover, and Lister has appeared on radio re-enacting the famed slogan.

Campaigns like Jet2’s challenge show how brands are trying to meet users where they are, but doing so means learning to speak the platform’s language, said Dr Andreas Schellewald, a researcher in digital culture.

“From a brand point of view, this is still tricky terrain and more tactical rather than strategic. This definitely adds great reach for the Jet2 brand – at the same time, brand marketing is not just about awareness but also resonance and reaction, for which I assume brands usually still prefer to have more control over how they are perceived publicly”, he said.

The advert may have found new life as a meme, but its social media DNA was there from the start, according to Adam Gordon, a social media strategist and co-founder of the social media agency a Friendly Bunch.

“The original Jet2 TV ads were deliberately social media led – the hold my hand line was always married to an on-screen POV shot of someone holding someone’s hand – a classic Instagram holiday shot – so the seeds were sown early, and deliberately.

“The irony is that the Jet2 ad was born out of the old glossy age of Instagram perfection, but this meme has dragged it into the messy imperfection of the TikTok era. A crystal clear sign of the times in the world of social media,” he added.

by Davide Brambilla

«Even though we nuns are supposed to be invisible, God still gave us eyes and ears», says Sister Agnes with pointed clarity. She is the nun in charge of managing Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican. She is surrounded by cardinals who are divided among themselves and guilty of scandals and deceit, in Conclave (2024) by Edward Berger. It’s a role composed mostly of glances and just a few, carefully measured words, one that earned the legendary Isabella Rossellini her first Oscar nomination.

And this aura of “invisibility”, which more often than not goes hand in hand with a watchful, discreet, and indispensable presence in the life of the Church, has not prevented cinema from portraying these figures of female consecration, be they nuns, sisters, or abbesses, real or fictional, and giving them due prominence, often thanks to the performances of great actors who, at times, rose to fame precisely through such roles.

If we look at how saints have been represented, we see a variety of interpretations, such as those of Saint Clare of Assisi, the founder of the Order of Poor Clares. From the idealized portrait in Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) by Franco Zeffirelli to the revolutionary and feminist version by Susanna Nicchiarelli in Chiara (2022). Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was portrayed by then-debutante Catherine Mouchet in Thérèse (1986) by Alain Cavalier, a fairly free interpretation of the life of the French Carmelite. Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern gave life to Edith Stein during the most difficult years of her search for meaning and purpose, which she ultimately found in total surrender to God, consecrating herself as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, in The Seventh Room (1995). Mother Teresa of Calcutta, still alive at the time, was portrayed by Geraldine Chaplin in Mother Teresa (1997), and more recently by Juliet Stevenson in The Letters (2014), based on the nearly fifty-year-long correspondence between the founder of the Missionaries of Charity and her spiritual director. What stands out in these portrayals of saintly women is, above all, the attempt, which has been more or less successful, to highlight the most unique and lesser-known aspects of their relationship with the Church of their time. This aspect achieved without omitting the deeply human dimension of personal fragility and struggle, whether internal or with a society often depicted as male-dominated.

The protagonists who appear more compelling are the ones in fictional works, or those loosely inspired by real vents, that stand out for their narrative complexity and psychological depth. The Nun’s Story (1953) by Fred Zinnemann is based on the life of Marie Louise Habets, formerly a sister of Charity of Jesus and Mary, portrayed here by Audrey Hepburn. Sister Luke struggles with the rigidity of convent rules and obedience, despite freely entering religious life against her father’s wishes. After seventeen years, spent partly in a sanatorium in Antwerp and on mission in the Congo, she eventually leaves the religious life to dedicate herself more fully to helping the suffering. In Lilies of the Field (1963), a traveling African American labourer encounters a group of poor German nuns in Arizona. The sisters, welcoming the man with evangelical hospitality, eventually witness him building a church for the nearby Mexican community. Lilia Skala’s Mother Superior is an emblem of strength and resilience, trust in divine providence, hence the title, which evokes the famous passage from Matthew 6:28–29, and missionary zeal grounded in hospitality and sharing.

Two nuns are at the center of Agnes of God (1985), portrayed by Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly, who grapple with the mystery of a newborn’s death in a convent, which is an apparent case of infanticide. One must also remember Sister Helen Prejean, who is still living, of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille, portrayed by Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking (1995), a role that won her an Academy Award. Called to serve as spiritual advisor to a death row inmate, her faith grants her the clarity to reconcile compassion with justice and help the man confront the consequences of his actions. Conflicted nuns appear in both the American film Doubt (2008) and the French Agnus Dei (2016). In the former, Amy Adams’ character inadvertently fuels the suspicions of her superior, played by Meryl Streep, who is determined to accuse a priest of abusing minors. In the latter, the nuns of a Polish convent, torn between their natural identity as women and their chosen role as brides of Christ, seek to find in motherhood, the result of wartime rape, a new and unexpected answer to their vocation. In addition, in the Polish context, another noteworthy film is Ida (2013) by Paweł Pawlikowski, whose protagonist Anna, a novice on the verge of taking her final vows, is sent to visit her unconventional aunt. This visit reveals long-hidden wounds from her past.

Another area that is not to be underestimated is that which deals with scandalous and deliberately provocative -if not outright provocative- themes. Associating the “virginal” or otherwise chaste figure of a nun with sexuality, whether in romantic storylines or erotic narratives, inevitably stimulates the viewer’s voyeuristic curiosity. In Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), directed by John Huston, a Marine corporal is shipwrecked on a Pacific island during World War II, where he meets Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), who has remained alone after the native population fled fearing invasion. The soldier gradually pulls her off the straight and narrow, leading her toward temptation and inner conflict. In Viridiana (1961), the first film Luis Buñuel made after his exile, Silvia Pinal plays a novice on the verge of taking her final vows. During a visit to her uncle, she tries to uphold her ideals by performing acts of charity, yet ends up embroiled in morally ambiguous and transgressive situations. The Devils (1971) tells the story of Sister Jeanne of the Angels (Vanessa Redgrave), mother superior of the Ursuline convent in Loudun, whose hunchbacked figure reflects her inner turmoil. Secretly in love with Father Urbain and jealous of his affection for the gentle Madeleine, she unleashes all her power and influence to destroy him. Moving to Dark Habits (Entre tinieblas, 1983), an early work by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, the audience is taken into the fictional convent of the Redeeming Humiliated, a congregation of nuns who, in order to better understand and save lost souls, also willingly partake in sin themselves. Among more recent examples is Benedetta (2021), in which Paul Verhoeven brings to the screen, teetering on the edge of blasphemy, the true story of 17th-century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini and her carnal and emotional relationship with the young novice Bartolomea.

When it comes to scandal, Catholic Ireland stands out, with films that portray, sometimes with brutal intensity, the harsh, often sadistic severity of nuns dealing with young unwed mothers, as seen in The Magdalene Sisters (2002), Philomena (2013), and Small Things Like These (2024).

Two other diametrically opposed genres, where nuns have played central roles are comedy and, more recently, horror. Beloved titles that fall into the former category include The Bells of St Mary’s (1945), The Sound of Music (1965), The Singing Nun (Dominique, 1966), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), the Sister Act films (1992 and 1993), and Like a Cat on a Highway – Return to Coccia di Morto (2021). On the other end of the spectrum, it is nuns that have unsettled audiences in horror films like The Conjuring 2 (2016), along with its spin-offs The Nun (2018 and 2023), The Crucifixion (2017) and Immaculate (2024).