The VoxPopcast
We’ve all had a discussion or an argument about popular culture. Sometimes it happens on Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter. Maybe it was in a literature, history, philosophy or psychology class in college. Perhaps it was at the local comic book shop. Or maybe it was at a bar and you ended up stabbing someone with a bottle or bludgeoning them with a pool cue. All of these discussions are exactly the same. The tenured professor at an academic conference deconstructing Batman through a Derrida lens is really doing the same thing as a bunch of teenagers passing a joint around in their mother’s basement. One just uses bigger words and the other swears more. Honestly, though, we’re not sure which. So why not bring them all together? Vox Populorum is a blog and podcast devoted to pop culture criticism. We believe that the best way to understand culture is to discuss it. Please join our weekly round table of media critics, academics and fans for engaging discussion about movies, novels, comic bo
From Broadway to London, music has been a part of the history of drama for over a thousand years. The genre is enough of a part of American pop culture that it’s major award, the Tony, has become part of the EGOT, the grand slam of acting. And yet somehow, it has always seemed somehow …
Continue reading "e140. Why Do We Suddenly Love Musicals?"
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Christmas movies have been a seasonal spectacle almost as long as there have been movies. A couple years ago, we did an episode speaking to the recent trend of Lifetime, Hallmark and now even Netflix creating a a veritable factory of streaming Christmas content. Those films were aimed at viewers who simply love delightful feel …
Continue reading "e139. The 22 Reviews of Christmas (Cheesey Christmas 2)"
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It’s the holiday season. In the United States we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and in the coming weeks that will be followed by Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, Pancha Ganapati, Yule, Festivus, Saturnalia, Slackernalia and probably 1000 other winter holidays that get celebrated somewhere around the world. These holidays are often commemorated by coming together with …
Continue reading "e138. Holiday Tradition and Ritual in the Time of COVID"
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Ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, people the world have been forced to spend more time meeting and communicating virtually. As different communities have implemented differing levels of lockdowns, quarantine restrictions, and work from home protocols, and distance learning, life has increasingly taken place over Zoom. Socializing over FaceTime is the new …
Continue reading "e137. Think Virtually, Live Locally! Our New Virtual Reality"
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In a world where four podcasters are exhausted from the never ended horrific news cycle of politics, racial tensions, pestilence and death that has been the year 2020, these weary souls decide to take one week away from serious pseudo academic pop culture analysis with drinking and swearing and do… goofy pseudo academic pop culture …
Continue reading "e136. Describing 14 Films We Haven’t Seen"
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As most of our regular listeners are probably aware, the United States had a little election last week. Barely worth mentioning! And in that election Joe Biden and Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump and Mike Pence for the presidency of the United States. And again, if you’ve listened to more than 10 seconds of our …
Continue reading "e135. Election 2020: So Now What?"
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On last week’s show, we investigated the comedic world of horror movies. This week, we wanted to go a different way… the reality of horror. Yes, of course there are horror movies that feature monsters and demons and other supernatural horrors. But what do we make of films like Deliverance, Jaws, Psycho and Cujo? What …
Continue reading "e134. Reality of Horrors!"
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Halloween Season is upon us! As scary as 2020 has been in general, we are finally at the part of the year where we are supposed to be scared… or at least watch a lot of scary movies. But 2020 has been scary enough… and so this year we want to focus on the funny …
Continue reading "e133. Comedy of Horrors!"
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A global pandemic, rampant racism, social unrest, the fall of American democracy, the deaths of celebrity and political icons, feral hogs and murder hornets, and an asteroid is hurtling towards the earth. All of this and it’s only October. 2020 has been a hell of a year. So much so that some have speculated that …
Continue reading "e132. Is 2020 the Darkest Timeline?"
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It’s rare that a tiny little foreign market indie film gets any mainstream media attention at all. It’s even rarer that it actually trends on social media, creating calls for the public to boycott the world’s largest streaming service and results in court investigations of that company. And yet, Netflix’s new film Cuties managed to …
Continue reading "e131. Cuties: Eroticizing the Innocent and Infantilizing Sexuality"
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Way back at beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown — what seems like a million years ago — we did a special episode where we talked to Tristyn and Sophie, two graduating seniors who had their final year of high school interrupted by the sudden worldwide pandemic that we now all find ourselves still dealing with. …
Continue reading "e130. Freshman Year in Quarantine"
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The corset might be one of the most fascinating garments in the history of fashion. On one hand, it’s simply underwear. It is a garment that provides a specific function. On the other hand popular culture has made it a symbol forever associated with everything from the Victorian Age to 80s pop music to burlesque …
Continue reading "e129. Corsets: Enhancement, Imprisonment, Empowerment, & Empresses"
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Pop Culture is a double edges sword. The more we love a certain type of media, the more of it we absorb. But the more we absorb, the more we notice some of the tropes that are frequently repeated. And the more we notice those tropes, the more likely we are to eventually get annoyed …
Continue reading "e128. 9 Popular Culture Pet Peeves We Hate and Why"
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In our contemporary moment pop culture is controlled by two forces. A focus on so-called “geek culture” and a push for more inclusive diversity across media forms. While there is certainly a long way to go, in many cases, leaps and bounds of progress have been made in the last several years, with greater attention …
Continue reading "e127. Dungeons & Diversity"
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Ever since the mid 1980s and the publication of Watchmen comics, their creators, and their fans, have been obsessed with the idea of “deconstruction.” Director Zack Snyder is extremely fond of the term. He argues that he is “deconstructing superheroes” every time he gets the chance. But what does that really mean? To most fans, …
Continue reading "e126. Reconstructing Deconstructed Superheroes"
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It’s 2020 and the world is ending… or maybe it’s not… or maybe it ended months ago and we just can’t tell anymore. Honestly at this point it’s pretty much just impossible to tell. With what seems like one disaster after another shaking the planet, we decided to take a look at apocalypse and disaster …
Continue reading "e125. It’s the End of the World as we show it…"
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If you’ve been following the show for the last several months, you know that in our COVID pandemic quarantine imposed death of media, we have turned our constant starvation for content to the internet and become big fans of Jelle’s Marble Runs, a YouTube channel featuring athletic competitions between… well, marbles. What started as a …
Continue reading "e124. Marveling Over Marble League!"
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Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone on the Internet and they tried to prove their point by forwarding some meme that was a quote of a famous person for historical figure that seemed to vaguely relate to their point in the most perfunctory possible way? When this happened, did you think to …
Continue reading "e123. Culture, Context, Protest, and Memefication"
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There are a lot of television shows and movies about teenagers, both comedies and dramas.There always have been. And yet, actual teenagers on television are extremely rare. Teens are typically played by twenty-something actors (or older). This is especially the case when it comes to teenagers in shows with a heavy sexual or romantic components …
Continue reading "e122. twentysomethingteen"
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We’ve had such a long string of super serious shows lately with some very heavy topics that we’ve been wanting to try and do some things that were more fun, laid back and… well, silly! This week is Mav’s birthday, and rather than sit around and discuss any of the dozen ways that the world …
Continue reading "e121. The Improv Story Game"
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Let me tell you a story, children. Way back in the before time, in the long long ago, before the plague came, we used to have this stuff we called content… media… shows. Back then, if we wanted entertainment, we would turn on our magic picture boxes and marvel at the wonders that displayed before …
Continue reading "e120. Quarantine Comfort TV"
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A few weeks ago, we released an episode about “copaganda.” On that show we started out talking about the TV show Paw Patrol and internet calls to have it and other cop shows cancelled in the wake of the #DefundThePolice movement and heightened scrutiny on law enforcement in the United States (Note from Mav: And …
Continue reading "e119. Copaganda II: Going Rogue"
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We live in very interesting times. The world around us is changing every day… and with the internet if feels like it’s changing ever rapidly. With everything from #COVID-19 to #BlackLivesMatter to #MeToo to #DefundThePolice to #Resist to #LoveIsLove, the social media sites have given every one of us the ability to advocate for what …
Continue reading "e118. #activism"
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There was a weird story that broke a few weeks ago when people discovered that episodes of the 2012 teen sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place had “censored” the cleavage of the mother on one episode by placing a blur over the actress’s chest on the Disney+ streaming service. After some investigation, it turned out that …
Continue reading "e117. Post-Release Censorship and the Disney Vault"
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One of the most interesting side effects of the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests sparked off by the George Floyd murder has been the #DefundPolice movement gaining national attention. Obviously that’s a big complicated issue that goes beyond shouting hashtags online (or probably should). Some jurisdictions are beginning to take the call seriously, but in the meantime …
Continue reading "e116. Copaganda, Cartoons, and You"
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Every story (well most stories) have a protagonist that we follow throughout the narrative. Usually we are meant to identify with them; they are our link to the plot and the world of the story. Typically, their worlds are fleshed out by any number of supporting characters that they interact with: friends, lovers, enemies. These …
Continue reading "e115. Why Do We Love Minor Characters?"
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A few years ago, in an interview with Stephen Colbert, Will Smith said that he believed that racism isn’t getting worse — it’s getting filmed. While it may be hard to quantifiably judge the first part of that statement, the second part is certainly true. In the last couple of weeks, the public availability of …
Continue reading "e114. Your Black Friend is Tired"
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A couple of weeks ago, in order to placate the masses during a worldwide quanrantine, Facebook released their new “Avatar” system — a tool to allow users to create little cartoon characters of themselves for use in profile pics and stickers. Other technology companies have similar system. Apple has one built into its messaging system …
Continue reading "e113. Cartoons vs. Avatars"
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If you’re unlucky enough to live on the planet Earth, you probably know that it’s not doing terribly well lately. We’ve had a global pandemic sweeping through every corner of the globe that has largely shut business and commerce to a halt, tanking the economy. And if you live in America, and the people dying …
Continue reading "e112. Social Media and Free Speech"
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Some things are hard to get over. Your first love. The death of a beloved pet. That time your team lost the Super Bowl. And… apparently that season finale of Game of Thrones last year. We probably can’t help you with those first three, but the last one is kind of our thing here. Why …
Continue reading "e111. STILL Not Over It!"
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Way back on episode 23 we did our first syllabus episode. We got a bunch of comic scholars together and asked the question “if we wanted to teach a class about comics and graphic novels, from scratch, what would be on it?” One of the ideas we had back then was “what if we wanted …
Continue reading "e110. Comic Studies-350: X-Men Course Syllabus"
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What makes a good soundtrack to a movie? What makes a good score? And actually, what is the difference between a score and a soundtrack anyway? The answer to that question may not be as clear as you think. Sometimes a great soundtrack is one that you find yourself singing for weeks after you see …
Continue reading "e109. Scores & Soundtracks"
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Way back on episode 86, our four hosts got together and talked about “Good Things We Hate” Hannah, Katya, Wayne and Mav discussed the idea of taste and high brow and low brow entertainment and talked about a selection of books, movies, TV shows, music and other media that is commonly accepted as great but …
Continue reading "e108. Bad Things We Love"
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As we continue this never ending battle with COVID-19, a lot of our socializing takes place on the internet… even more than it already had been. As such, there’s been an uptick in memes as people grab on to … anything… just to have something to make a human connection. One of the memes you …
Continue reading "e107. Senior Year in Quarantine"
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We live in strange times. Obviously, the number one problem right now is that we’re in the middle of a global pandemic that has ground the WHOLE DAMN PLANET to a halt. This is a big problem for everyone in and of itself. As the whole world is basically under “stay at home” orders (or …
Continue reading "e106. COVID-19 & the Death of the Comic Shop"
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If you’re listening to our show, chances are you live on the planet Earth (and if not, welcome!) and so that means for the last few week, you have likely been dealing with the near worldwide ramicfications of COVID-19 pandemic. That means social distancing, self quarantine, staying inside and… and playing video games . Right …
Continue reading "e105. Animal Crossing & Cozy Games in Worldwide Pandemics"
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If you live anywhere on the planet Earth — and if you’re listening to this podcast, we assume you do — then you’re probably aware that we are currently in the midst of a global pandemic… the worst that the world has seen in at least 100 years. For a large portion of the planet, …
Continue reading "e104. 5 Victorian Parlour Games for Worldwide Pandemics"
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All across the world, everyone is trapped in their homes riding out the COVID-19 pandemic. Movie cineplexes are shut down. Sports, Concerts and other Events are being cancelled. TV shows are running out of new episodes. Just this week, we learned that comic books are going to stop shipping. We’re running out of pop culture. …
Continue reading "e103. Birds of Prey and the Fantaboulous Deconstruction of one VoxPopcast"
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Newspapers are a dying breed in the twenty-first century. This isn’t a new thing; it’s been happening for a while. But at this point, more than just newspapers are dying. Even news programming is dying. Sure, cable news networks are huge. And sure… they’re on the internet as well. But, the problem is that on …
Continue reading "e102. News by Meme"
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So first some notes… we’re in a weird place. As we recorded this episode, we were on the cusp of much of America (where all of our hosts are located) just beginning to prepare (too late frankly) for the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Now, as we post this 4 days later, we are deep into it. …
Continue reading "e101. Not the Next Big Thing"
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Think about your favorite book, video game, or comic. Who do you think should play the protagonist in the movie? Chances are you have a pretty good idea. Chances are also that if someone already has adapted your favorite character into a film, they didn’t pick your perfect choice. Maybe it turned out great, maybe …
Continue reading "e100. Hollywood vs. FanCasting"
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We live in a content driven world: Movies, Books, Music, TV, Comics, Video Games, and even Podcasts. “Content is king!” or so they say. But of course, different types of content are appropriate for different audiences. Anyone who has watched a movie in the last several decades knows that they have ratings, that is, a …
Continue reading "e99. Pseudo-Academic Content: Listener Discretion is Advised"
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We have a weird question for you. Which would you rather have a free Ferrari or an all expenses paid, one month trip around the world staying in luxury hotels? Ok, what about this one? Would you rather have every 5000 albums or front row tickets to see your favorite band perform at a sold …
Continue reading "e98. Experience vs. Consumer Culture"
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Happy (Belated) Valentines Day! You know what that means? It means time to do a “very special episode” where we somehow try to tie in the holiday concept to the kinds of stuff we normally do. Academic cultural analysis of popular culture… but with beer! Last year we talked about the “shipping” and the secret …
Continue reading "e97. Fictional & Celebrity Crushes"
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In the 21st century, when we think of masks, we think of superheroes. But the idea of superheroes as a concept is only about a century old. Masks have been around forever. They have a long history in theatre, professional wrestling and costume balls. Beyond that they have a cultural tradition that dates back to …
Continue reading "e96. Mask Theory"
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Welcome! Everything is fine. Well, almost everything is fine. Except The Good Place is no more. This week was the season finale of one of the most unique shows ever — a broadcast sitcom based on deconstructing moral philosophy in the afterlife. If you’ve listened to our show before you know that we’re big fans …
Continue reading "e95. The Good Place and Philosophy"
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After being disappointed by last year’s Oscars, Hannah swore that we would never do another show about them. But then she started thinking about it and wanted to take a different approach. It seems like every year during Oscar season, from the announcements all the way through the picks, more people are upset than happy. …
Continue reading "e94. Why Do Award Shows Suck?"
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If you’re at least a casual comic book fan you probably know the terms Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age and Modern Age. If you’re a massive comic geek, you probably even know when those ages are. But why do they exist? What’s the relevance of splitting things up like that? What the cultural relevance …
Continue reading "e93. Golden Age of Comics"
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Somehow it’s 2020. I don’t get how that happened. 2020 isn’t a year… 2020 is what you make up if you’re setting some science fiction story in the future and you’re too lazy to pick an interesting sound year like 2027 or something. But somehow it actually is 2020, which means the start of a …
Continue reading "e92: 2010s Decade in Review"
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Happy New Year! And with a new year, we have a whole new year of movies to look forward to. And for our show, that means the return of the Box Office Game (shamelessly stolen form the Protagonist Podcast… credit where credit is due). On today’s show, Hannah, Katya, Wayne and Mav invite back Stephanie …
Continue reading "e91. 2020 Box Office Draft"
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Happy New Year! It’s the end of 2019, and that means it’s time for all good podcasts to do a year in review episode. The thing about a show focused on pop culture like ours is that we have already devoted episodes to all of the biggest pop culture events of the year. We know …
Continue reading "e90. 30 Good Things You Missed!!! 2019 Year in Review"
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If you’ve been anywhere on the Internet in the last few days… honestly, if you live anywhere on the planet Earth, then you probably know that after forty-two years in the making, Star Wars is finally complete. Certainly if you’re the kind of person who listens to our show you know that. Of course, you …
Continue reading "e89. Star Wars: Epic Retrospective"
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Christmas time is nearly upon us and that means… well, actually it means a lot of things. Maybe to you Christmas is about family, or love, or religion, or presents. Maybe you don’t celebrate Christmas at all. But one thing is for sure this time of year… you can’t escape Santa Claus. He’s everywhere. Santa …
Continue reading "e88. Yes, Internet, There is a Santa Claus"
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As we move toward the holiday season, there is one thing for certain that we will see: more and more cheesy Christmas movies. You know the type… they’re on Lifetime, Hallmark Channel, and Netflix. Romantic stories about someone giving something up but then discovering the true meaning of Christmas is family or love or something… …
Continue reading "e87. Sentimentalism: Punching Them in the Feels"
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(Repost! This is a repost of an earlier posted blog that was lost in a server crash and upgrade) Taste is a funny thing. Whether it’s books, movies, tv shows, music, sports teams, food… whatever. We take our tastes personally. When we enjoy something we want other people to enjoy it too. We try to …
Continue reading "e86. Good Things We Hate"
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(Repost! This is a repost of an earlier posted blog that was lost in a server crash and upgrade) We live in the future. We live in a world where we carry supercomputers in our pocket, we have cars that talk, and we can bring long dead actors back to life to star in movies. …
Continue reading "e85. Digital Acting (and Deep Fakery)"
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Live from MAC Charity Con 2019. Comic book conventions stopped being about comic books a long time ago. In fact, the comic book subculture stopped being about comics a long time ago. Today, it’s more “geek culture” and it includes comics, sci-fi, fantasy, role-playing games, and many other things. But somehow, there are many pop …
Continue reading "e84. Comics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy: What is Geek Culture?"
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Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen is one of the most popular comic books of all time. It’s been a best seller since 1987, has never been out of print, has been adapted into a movie, video games, role playing game, and now a TV show. It is the single comic book appearing on Time …
Usually our show looks at pop culture produced in the relatively recent past. However, that’s not what “popular culture” really means. Really, what this show is about is looking at massive cultural influences and analyzing how and why they happened. And some of that media was produced at longer periods in the past. And some …
Continue reading "e82. Love, Politics and Jane Austen"
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It’s Halloween. And in classic podcast fashion that means it’s time to do a theme episode. Halloween is about many things, but one thing it’s about is horror. Horror movies. Horror books. And the master of horror, is Stephen King. Or at least that’s what everyone says… for some reason… But why? What makes Stephen …
Continue reading "e81. Stephen King and Horror"
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A couple of weeks ago, the movie Joker was released in cinemas. Even before it came out, there was a lot of concern and controversy about the tone and message behind the movie. Would it cause violence from copycats? Isn’t it just an homage to classic films by Martin Scorsese? Are those problematic too? Does …
Continue reading "e80. Irredeemable Characters"
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Technology has allowed us to live in the future. We live in a future where creators and artists can market their product directly to their fans, cutting out the middle man, by using innovative online software to… ummm… be a different middle man?!?! That can’t be right? But it sort of is. Between crowdfunding sites …
Continue reading "e79. Crowdfunding Creative Culture"
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Happy October! it’s the beginning of Halloween month so we have something a little special. Just over a year ago, we had a show where we invited a bunch of academic friends who teach comics and we developed a course syllabus for a theoretical comics studies course on the air. It was a lot of …
Continue reading "e78: Monster Studies-201: Course Syllabus"
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We live in a society and there are rules of polite behavior. But what are those rules? Well, that’s not exactly clear. For the most part the basic ones like saying please and thank you, most of us know. And then there are others like where do you put the forks when setting the table …
Continue reading "e77. Pop Culture Etiquette"
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You know what the best music is? The music we listen to. It’s obviously better than everything else and everyone agrees. And the stuff we don’t like is trash. We can all agree on that, right? The problem is… none of us agree on what music WE listen to. Why does that happen? Why is …
Continue reading "e76. Music Back in MY Day…"
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It’s fall and if you’re a television fan that means you know that we are on the cusp of dozens — or these days maybe even hundreds — of new shows hitting the TV airwaves. And every new TV show starts with a pilot… an episode that introduces you to the show and tries to …
Continue reading "e75. Judging a Show by its Pilot?"
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At this point it’s pretty safe to say that the Harry Potter book series is one of the most defining pieces of literature in a generation. Love it or hate it (and if you actually hate it, what’s wrong with you?) you absolutely know what it is… especially if you’re a millennial. But like all …
Continue reading "e74. Harry Potter and the Politics of Wizardry"
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How do you read? Do you do it on a computer or a tablet or do you prefer good old fashioned paper texts? Do you listen to books on tape or use an audible subscription? Do you prefer to watch movies or videos? Do you like audiobooks? Do those even count as books? What about …
Continue reading "e73. Reading Practices"
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The Internet has two main purposes: porn and cute kittens. The reason people like porn is obvious… or if it isn’t… well, that’s a different show. But what about the kittens? Why do we like cute things so much? The answer isn’t as obvious as it seems. For one thing, cute is a complicated concept. …
Continue reading "e72. The Power of Cuteness"
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There’re two ways that kids learn about college before they go. Either they talk to parents or high school counselors and they learn about all of the hard work and studying and how it’s important to take it seriously and avoid all the horrible dangers of drugs and sex and alcohol that the “bad kids” …
Continue reading "e71. Back to School"
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Live from Wizard World Pittsburgh! Shows like ours and… well, a lot of the rest of the internet are hopelessly devoted to popular culture: Comic books, movies, music, video games, sports, TV. All of the stuff that sophisticated people will tell you is rotting your brain and wasting your life. We like to think we’re …
Continue reading "e70. Does Pop Culture Matter?"
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A couple of weeks ago, many Americans were surprised to turn on the news and learn that protests had seemingly suddenly erupted on the island of Puerto Rico demanding the resignation of the governor. This went on for several days until the governor relented and stepped down and then the story all but vanished from …
Continue reading "e69. So, let’s talk about Puerto Rico…"
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You ever notice that thing that happens when a movie studio releases a movie and then another studio releases a movie with pretty much the exact same premise at the same time and they’re so close to each other that it seems like neither could have copied from the other? It happens a lot! What …
Continue reading "e68. Parallel Media"
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Back on June 23rd, a popular social network took a bold stance for 2019. It decided to pronounce all support of Donald Trump or his #MAGA campaign as hate speech and white supremacy and for the most part ban it from its network. Oddly enough the network that took this stance wasn’t Facebook or Twitter. …
Continue reading "e67. Social Justice Knitting"
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Did you hear about the thing a couple weeks ago where a Christian watchdog group started a petition to get Netflix to cancel the hit TV show Good Omens because Satan, and the internet got a big huge laugh out of it, because that show isn’t even on Netflix? That was great. But it makes …
Continue reading "e66. Fandom Petitions"
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(Note: an earlier version of this podcast had an audio problem. It has now been corrected. Please redownload if there is an issue) If we’d asked the question “do you play AR games?” five or ten years ago, we’d have a very different answer than we probably do today. It used to be very much …
Continue reading "e65. AR Gaming"
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If you live in the United States of America, then this week is Independence Day, the day when we patriotically celebrate the greatest of our heritage and the foresight of a bunch of men in breeches, wigs and stockings decided to create a perfect nation… or so we tell ourselves. If you live outside the …
Continue reading "e64. Mythologizing the Founders"
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Recently Mav witnessed something fascinating on the internet. Several men arguing on a message over whether or not it was appropriate to post transgender cosplay models and to talk about how sexy they were. This isn’t to say that they were concerned about whether or not it was appropriate to objectify women — that was …
Continue reading "e63. Transcosplaphobia"
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Did you know comic books used to be produced almost entirely for children? Yeah! It’s true. Ok, maybe you did know that, but there was a time in America where given the popular idea of what a comic book was, that was hard to believe. Of course, there was also a time in America where …
Continue reading "e62. Comics! You know… for the Kids!"
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We seem to like stories we already know. Not just rereading or rewatching an old favorite. We seem to derive some sort of pleasure in seeing a new version of an old story… a version with a “twist.” What if Superman was a horror story? Well, lets explore that in Brightburn! What if Lizzie Bennet …
Continue reading "e61. Narrative REMIX!"
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Have you ever been perusing Facebook or Twitter and run across a meme that maybe seemed a little funny at first, but when you thought about it, you just thought “hey, isn’t that just making fun of people for being poor?” Maybe the meme wasn’t funny at all…. maybe it was just a forward from …
Continue reading "e60. Poverty Shaming"
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Well, the Game of Thrones finale has come and gone and of course we have to talk about it. The internet had opinions and so do we. But this is this show so we’re not going to just stop there. Mav, Hannah and Wayne are joined by returning friend of the show, Michael Chemers, to …
Continue reading "e59. Game of Finales"
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History does not look upon tyranny with favor. The Persian Empire, The Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, The Qing Dynasty, The British Empire. In our modern contemporary moment we tend to think of all of these as affronts to freedom and democracy… and with good reason. That said, there are a surprising number of games …
Continue reading "e58. Gaming an Empire"
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If you’ve listened to the show before you know that Hannah and Mav have an ongoing argument about how Riverdale is the best show on television and Hannah is incorrect in thinking that The Good Place is instead (and you can probably tell which one of us wrote the copy for this episode from that). …
Continue reading "e57. You Kant Like That!"
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So, if you’ve ever listened to our show, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re doing an episode about Avengers: Endgame. Honestly, this week, pretty much every podcast is doing an episode on Avengers: Endgame. So, if you haven’t seen it yet… honestly, it’s the most popular movie on the planet… there’s no way you …
Continue reading "e56. Endgame Analysis"
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If you’ve been listening to the show for the last few weeks, you know that all four hosts have been preparing for PCA2019, the national conference of the Popular Culture Association in Washington DC. In fact, episode 52 and episode 53 featured previews of our papers. The conference was from April 10 to April 13, …
Continue reading "e55. PCA-2019 Recap"
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Do you remember all of those great Batman supporting characters of color. You know… Batman’s black, latinx, asian and other ethnic sidekicks and villains like… errr… uh… you know… yeah… ummm…. It’s actually hard to come up with some, isn’t it? Well, there’s probably a reason for that. There are actually several, and have been …
Continue reading "e54. The Unbearable Whiteness of being Batman"
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On last week’s episode, Katya and Hannah shared the topics of their papers for this year’s upcoming PCA/ACA. Now it’s Wayne and Mav’s turn to do the same. As we prepare to head off to the conference this week, Wayne shares the basics of his topic, a Jungian psychological evaluation of the Kevin Matchstick, the …
Continue reading "e53. PCA/ACA 2019 Preview: Comic Studies"
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If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, then you’ve no doubt heard us mention the PCA/ACA conference that all four of us are attending in a few weeks. It’s a place where academics get together and share their work on popular culture. In fact, it’s a while lot like this show and …
Continue reading "e52. PCA/ACA 2019 Preview: Game Studies"
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We’ve been talking a lot about subcultures on our last couple of episodes. And the terms comes up a lot on the internet — usually negatively — to refer to everything from hipsters and punks and goths and geeks to Republicans and Democrats to Christians and Muslims to … uh… MAGA hat wearers. Often if …
Continue reading "e51. So What Is Subculture Anyway?"
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Somewhere along the line, when they were making the show The Big Bang Theory, someone said “hey, this guy is a geek. Put him in comic book T-shirts, and everyone will know.” And then wardrobe was done with Sheldon. Next they decided to dress Penny and they said “Umm, she’s a hot actress. Make sure …
Continue reading "e50. Are You What You Wear?"
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Recently Steven Spielberg allegedly implored the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make it harder for films distributed primarily through streaming platforms to win Oscars. Or maybe he didn’t. The details are actually kind of fuzzy. But moreover, we’re not sure it really matters whether he did or not. The very idea of …
Continue reading "e49. Cinema vs. Streaming"
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In the current age of Trump, we’ve noticed a peculiar trend. People yearning for the days of an earlier president… a great orator… a wise statesmen with decorum… a calming presence on television. Not Barack Obama (well, maybe he too). We’re talking about Jed Bartlet, fictional president on television’s The West Wing. Of course, he …
Continue reading "e48. Political TV and Nostalgia"
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It seems like it happens every day lately. Your favorite writer, comedian, singer, actor, sports star, politician or whatever suddenly hits the news because it turns out he’s a racist, rapist, sexist, homophobe, murderer or otherwise deplorable person. Particularly in the #MeToo era, we’re seeing this more and more with the likes of Bill Cosby, …
Continue reading "e47. Milkshake Ducks & Problematic Artists"
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(Note: This episode initially contained a corrupted audio file. It has been cleaned up and reuploaded. The current uploaded version should have better sound. Sorry for the inconvenience) As we close out February and Black History month, we thought that it would be a fun idea to talk about the importance of representation, diversity and …
Continue reading "e46. Black Superheroes and Representation"
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This weekend is the Oscars and if you’re a movie junkie like Mav and Hannah, then in a way, this is kind of the Super Bowl of movies. And if you’re not an Oscar fan… well, don’t you want to be able to impress your friends by making all the right picks in the office …
Continue reading "e45. Game of Oscars"
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Happy Valentines Day! We thought we’d celebrate by exploring the most romantic of all pop culture genres… no… not RomComs… Monsters of course! Today, Wayne, Hannah and Mav are joined by a returning Michael Chemers and Heather Duda, our resident monster experts to talk about the romance, love and sexuality that is implicit in the …
Continue reading "e44. Young Monsters In Love"
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Remember that one time in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Hermione and Harry had sexy? No? How about that one time in Star Wars where Luke and Leia had sex? You don’t? Really? Well, surely you remember that time in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Sam and Steve had sex? Maybe? …
Continue reading "e43. Sexy Ships & Head Canon"
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Chances are if you listen to this show you consider yourself a geek about some pop culture media or another. In fact there’s a good chance that you geek out about several forms of pop culture media. And if that’s true, you’ve probably come to realize that in any long term franchised intellectual property, that …
Continue reading "e42. Diss Continuity"
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You turn on the internet and you see that everyone on social media is talking about a new Netflix Original film. You know what’s coming next. Sometimes a piece of pop culture comes around that’s so big, it feels like the whole world is talking about it. When that happens, it’s a sure bet that …
Continue reading "e41. Snatching Banders?"
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In an interesting and rare moment, two period dramas about European royalty, The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots, are at the top of the US box office right now. Well, maybe not the top… they’re #12 and #14, but that’s still pretty damn good for historical fiction. They’re never going to be blockbusters. And yet, there’s been historical …
Continue reading "e40. Favourite RoyalTV (and movies)"
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Once any TV show is on the air for long enough, a curious thing happens. It amasses enough devoted fans that watch it every week that they begin to turn on it. They constantly rave about how they now hate the show… it’s not like it used to be… but they’re still watching it anyway. …
Continue reading "e39. Media Addiction"
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Do you think we can review every movie coming out next year… before we’ve seen any of them… with no real knowledge…. in one hour? Well, just you wait! Welcome to the 2019 Box Office Draft Special! Back before we started this show, Mav decided that no matter what he wanted to steal the yearly …
Continue reading "e38. 2019 Box Office Draft"
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It’s that time of year when everyone gets together and does the most Christmasy thing ever. They complain about stuff. Specifically, for the last few years we’ve had people complaining about the problematic nature of the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. The song has always been problematic on some level, and recently, especially in the …
Continue reading "e37. Problematic Christmas Songs"
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If you’re Hannah, Christmas means one thing… watching cheesy Christmas romantic movies. She’s not alone. Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, and now Netflix have carved out a niche for themselves producing dozens of new low budget Christmas movies every year. They’ve become insanely popular. But why? Mav and Hannah are joined by Hannah’s sister Mary and Mav’s …
Continue reading "e36. Cheesey Christmas Movies"
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Ever since the rise of the Internet we have all lived in constant fear of all of our favorite movies, books, TV shows and every other media being spoiled by some jerk who just wants to be the first to ruin everything for everyone else… or maybe he’s just an idiot. It doesn’t matter… once …
Continue reading "e35. SPOILERS! (and Mystery Boxes)"
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When we recorded the following podcast, or rather the bulk of it, we were avoiding work, sitting in front of a computer, several feet any roommate, in homes we rented, in North Carolina, avoiding work by talking about farms earned by the labor of our hands only… on a computer keyboard. FarmSims are amongst the …
Continue reading "e34. FarmSims: Digital Transcendentalism"
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If you live in the United States, it was Thanksgiving last week, and that means spending time with family. And lately, it seems that a big part of spending time with family for the holidays is discussion politics…. in detail… disgusting, gross, bloody, racist, misogynist detail… with your drunk uncle who got all of his …
Continue reading "e33. Thanksgiving Politics"
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Albert Einstein once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, honestly he probably never said that… or at least didn’t say it first, but the internet says over and over that he said it, so it must be true. Anyway, if this is something …
Continue reading "e32. Reboots, Remakes, Revivals"
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The antihero… just like the hero… except he can kill. Wait… heroes kill too now. In fact they always have. Well maybe it’s that the antihero swears… Actually, heroes swear now too. Is it that the antihero operates outside of the law? Nope, that’s true of heroes too. Well what is it then, and why …
Continue reading "e31. Heroes, Villains & Antiheroes"
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Way back in August we recorded our first Monster Mash episode where we discussed the place of the Monster and the Monster Hunter in popular culture. That was a great conversation that went all over the place and we swore right then that we would pick it up at a later time. For our final …
Continue reading "e30. Monster Mash 2: Breaking Twilight"
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“In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” At least, that’s what Mean Girls would have us believe. The …
Continue reading "Episode 29: Sexy Halloween"
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What’s your favorite scary movie, listener? Well, chances are if the answer isn’t something super obvious and popular, Mav probably hasn’t seen it. That said, he’s fascinated with the basic concept of horror movies, especially slasher ones and since Halloween is fast approaching, it seemed like a good time to educate him on why the …
Continue reading "Episode 28: Slashers and Final Girls"
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In 1967, literary critic and semiotician Roland Barthes wrote an essay called “La mort de l’auteur” that is in many ways foundational for the field of literary studies. It describes the way that literary interpretation works — both why and how. Since we do a lot of that on this show, figured it would be …
Continue reading "Episode 27: La Mort de l’Auteur"
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Last week David Reddish, a former writer for Sesame Street, announced that he’d always thought of Bert and Ernie as gay… and the internet exploded. Some people were happy… some people were sad… and some people just asked “why does anyone care?!?!?” Well, that’s what this show is for. Wayne and Mav are joined by Josie …
Continue reading "Episode 26: The Secret Lives of Puppets"
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Just about any parent in American who has a five year old girl knows about the Disney Princesses. Between Frozen, Tangled, Moana, and the others, the “House of Mouse” has stumbled upon a multi-billion dollar industry from films and toy sales alone, and far more when adding in other merchandising sales. However, there may be …
Continue reading "Episode 25: Sex and the Disney Princess"
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At best, “genre fiction” often seems to be taken as synonymous with “popular” or “exciting”. At worse, it is often used a pejorative meaning “low brow” or “garbage”. But what is genre anyway? And why is the word used that way? Wayne and Mav are joined by a returning Hannah to sift through a discussion on …
Continue reading "Episode 24: Genre in General"
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When everyone knows that you are a comics geek, it turns out people ask you quite often “so what should I be reading?” When your job is literally “be a comics geek” or moreover “teach other people to be a comics geek” then you get this question pretty much constantly. Since Wayne and Mav are …
Continue reading "Episode 23: Comic Studies-301: Course Syllabus"
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A couple of weeks ago, a protest at the University of North Carolina resulted in the toppling of “Silent Sam” a statue that stands at the university to commemorate Civil War era Confederate soldiers. A week later, another protest at the site resulted in police using mass pepper spray on the student population. Confederate monuments …
Continue reading "Episode 22: Monuments and Memories"
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If you live in the United States, then it’s almost football season. Even if you’re the kind of non-fan that likes to unaffectionately refer to it as “sports ball” you’re likely aware of the current President of the United States’ ongoing war with players — led by blackballed former quarterback Colin Kaepernick — who have …
Continue reading "Episode 21: Sports, Patriotism, and Social Justice"
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“The Monster” and “The Monster Hunter” may be among the oldest figures in popular culture. It is the most basic of stories. Some great evil is threatening the community. Someone go kill it! It is a theme that has played out in countless books, movies, tv shows, comics and video games. The monster is a …
Continue reading "Episode 20: Monster Mash"
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It’s pretty well accepted in contemporary geek culture that “representation matters.” At least, it’s accepted by everyone except for the evil corners of the internet that we don’t really care about. And thankfully, because of this, recent years in geek culture have seen the addition of many diverse characters that have become cosplay favorites at …
Continue reading "Episode 19: Cosplayers of Color"
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If you happened to see a mid-tier 1980s cartoon superheroine get a costume update that was less objectifyingly sexy for a modern day reboot of the series in the last couple weeks and you were shocked to see a bunch of angry middle-aged men complaining about it… well then, “hello there! You must be new …
Continue reading "Episode 18: She-Ra and the Male Gaze"
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Wayne loves music. Do you love music? Yeah, we get it, everyone loves music. But Wayne really loves music! Why is that? Why do we connect so strongly with music, especially the popular music of our teens? Why do bands make covers songs? Why is your generation’s music better than the sucky stuff your parents …
Continue reading "Episode 17: Music, the Soundtrack of our Lives"
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Way back on episode 3, Mav, Katya and Abby discussed violence in video games and the conversation segued into talking about video games with sex in them. We promised to do a follow up episode exploring that. Well, Wayne is away doing cool kid stuff this week like going to bars and listening to concerts, …
Continue reading "Episode 16: Sex in Video Games"
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Remember that one fight in the Matrix that kicked ass? Wait, those all kicked ass. What about that fight in Kill Bill that kicked ass? Actually those all kicked ass too. Well what about that one time that Bruce Lee… Ok so I guess when you think about it, a lot of movie fights kick …
Continue reading "Episode 15: Cinematic Violence & the Impossible Body"
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This week, the United States of America (or what currently passes for it) celebrated it’s birthday. Of course, if you’re a longtime geeky comic book fan, you might also know that July 4th is also the birthday of Steve Rogers, Captain America. Abby certainly does! And because she is essentially a human encyclopedia of geeky …
Continue reading "Episode 14: Captain America – Patriotism & Nationalism"
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Some stories are timeless: Homer’s Odyssey, the legends of Hercules and King Arthur, the fairy tale of Snow White. These are stories that have been repeated so often that everyone knows them. They are part of the cultural consciousness. So, if that is the case, why do we feel the need to keep repeating them? …
Continue reading "Episode 13: Mythic Reboots"
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Dear Mr. Vernon, It was the summer of 2018 and it was the best year of our life. We spent that summer podcasting with… (you know, it’s really hard to get the effect of a voiceover narration in text. Oh well. Just pretend that was in the voice of a middle aged Daniel Stern looking …
Continue reading "Episode 12: The Coming & Going of the Coming of Age"
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As great as internet is for creating a safe place for people to enjoy all manner of geeky hobbies, there’s a dark side of fandom. From Gamergate to 4chan, there are some segments of geek culture that have a reputation for being toxic. A reputation hat sadly threatens to tarnish the public perception fo geek …
Continue reading "Episode 11: Toxic Offenders & the Dark Side of Fandom"
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To some the world of fan fiction is the ridiculous hobby of geeks. To others it is a massive repository of erotica and pornography. But to many, it is a safe haven for Othered communities that have been kept from the mainstream — a place where they can be given a chance to express and …
Continue reading "Episode 10: Sex, Gender & FanFic"
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Today we change focus and discuss something a little more serious than most of our topics. Mav is away on vacation this week, so Wayne is joined by Marcel Walker of the Holocaust Center in Pittsburgh, PA and Rochel Gasson of Duquesne University to discuss a very important and personal project that Wayne and Marcel …
Continue reading "Episode 9: Chutz-Pow! Superheroes of the Holocaust"
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Earlier this month Duke University appeared in the news amid a minor controversy where a school administrator was offended by the rap music playing in a campus coffee shop and complained resulting in the employees (an African American woman and a Caucasian man) on duty getting fired. Later in the same month an African American …
Continue reading "Episode 8: Academia & Viral Social Justice"
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Live from 3 Rivers Comicon! Comic book conventions began in 1960s as small specialized gatherings of science fiction fans clubs who met to trade magazines. Over the past several decades they have grown to become a staple of the the media landscape with their unique own culture: vendors, media releases, artist signings, cosplay contests, panels …
Continue reading "Episode 7: Comic Con Culture"
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When we started this podcast, one of our first goals was to make sure we did and episode about the CW reboot of Archie comics, Riverdale. The show reimagines the classic Archie characters in a adolescent soap opera world of mixed genres: hardboiled detective, film noir, goth horror, teen romance, erotic thriller. To us it is …
Continue reading "Episode 6: Sex & Drugs & Riverdale"
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It’s the obligatory Avengers: Infinity War episode! Well, sort of. Infinity War is, as one might expect, the biggest movie in the world right now… and by certain metrics, the biggest movie of all time. So of course, every podcast has to talk about it. This week, Mav and Wayne are joined by Nicole Freim …
Continue reading "Episode 5: Infinity Franchises & Cinematic Universes"
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Never argue about politics or religion on the internet! Well, really, they’re the same thing. But so are arguments about atheism. And comics. And sports. And movies. And unix text editors. It’s not really religion; it’s religiosity! Wayne and Mav are joined by Danny Anderson of The Sectarian Review Podcast to discuss the way in …
Continue reading "Episode 4: Losing My Religiosity?"
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Do video games make you violent? Probably not, but if so why is there so much controversy surrounding them? This week, Mav is joined by Katya and Abby — both of whom are far more knowledgeable than him on the subject — to discuss video games, mass shooters, psychology, the military industrial complex, headshots, zombies …
Continue reading "Episode 3: Violence in Video Games"
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Today we talk about nostalgia porn. No… not that kind of porn… though I guess it might be interesting to do a whole episode devoted to talking about vintage pornography (“This one’s a talkie!”). This is a whole episode about media that references the past as a key feature of the media. Your Stranger Things. …
Continue reading "Episode 2: Do You Remember Nostalgia?"
The post Episode 2: Do You Remember Nostalgia? first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.
At long last, it is finally here. Welcome to the first episode of the VoxPopcast, “Origin Stories.” Here, Wayne and Mav, joined by special guest John Darowski, explain the concept Vox Populorum and then debate the usefulness, purpose and significance of origin stories in comic books, movies and TV shows. Let us know what you think. …
Continue reading "Episode 1: Origin Stories"
The post Episode 1: Origin Stories first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.
