New York City is a melting pot of diverse cultures and walks of life, and what better way to capture its essence than through unscripted conversations between everyday New Yorkers? Bar Talk is a new docuseries created by Mauricio Gonzalez-Aranda and Andrew Mullen that aims to portray the city in all its glory through casual, intimate and long-form conversations.
The show is all about rekindling conversation and community, as the creators believe that a decade of political polarization, a global pandemic, and a departure from urban centers has led to a loss of both our social dialogue and sense of togetherness. Bar Talk attempts to fill that void by giving viewers an opportunity to listen in on the conversations happening a few seats down at the bar and gain a glimpse into the daily frustrations, dreams and conspiratorial musings of everyday New Yorkers.
The concept for Bar Talk came to the creators on a night out as they were discussing literature at the bar. They began to dream and ramble and philosophize, leaving behind the particularities of their work as writers, and as the night went on, they became curious about the kind of conversations other people might have when they reached that tipping point. A few drinks and insightful points later, Bar Talk was born – an archive of all those conversations happening in NYC.
Gonzalez-Aranda and Mullen aim to make the series as representative and true to the city as possible. The show’s guests run the gamut from performance artists to identical twins co-writing a novel, from grunge rock bandmates to NYU’s Dean of Humanities Una Chaudhuri.
Bar Talk is recommended for people who enjoy adjacent art forms like podcasts, interviews, and documentaries, and given its anthropological element, it also makes for excellent source material for academics and researchers interested in post-pandemic society.
The creators believe that the show “exists in this strange nebulous zone where it is all of those things—podcast, interview, documentary—and none of them. It’s just real people hanging out together with time on their side,” they said. “We don’t really give any guidance before we start rolling. Whatever format the conversation takes is entirely in the hands of our guests,” they added. The series appears in two distinct forms; long-form episodes released every week on YouTube, which run from 30 to 40 minutes, and short-form highlights published on Instagram and TikTok.
Overall, Bar Talk is not just a docuseries; it’s an invitation to step into the world of everyday New Yorkers and discover the stories, perspectives and emotions that make the city come alive. On top of that, it serves as a reminder for all of us that an authentic community is possible if we simply take the time to listen to and understand one another.
As co-creators, Mauricio Gonzalez-Aranda and Andrew Mullen are on a mission to bring a cross-section of NYC to the screen and create a space for empathy, exploring the stories of their guests, and discovering the beauty and complexity of the city and its people, one conversation at a time.
“We’re just two humans interested in the stories we all tell at bars, and we’d like to capture as many of them as possible,” they left off.
