The Internet has one main purpose: arguing about things that don’t really matter. I’m sure you’ve seen this, people will fight over whether a movie was good or bad, what the significance of a particular scene of a TV show was, what was the hidden theme of a book, or perhaps most notably today… should…
Author: Katya Gorecki
Call for Comments: Narratology v. Ludology
From Katya: I recently saw a TikTok from Dominic Myers (@gamestudies101) that summarizes the narratology v. ludology split in game studies. Check out their summary because it’s a good one but, simply put, ludology argues that games are a unique medium because they include interactive game mechanics that are distinct from other representational forms. Narratology,…
e171. Summertime! Time to Kick Back and Unwind
Somehow, summertime media is special. Or at least, we seem to think it is. We have summertime blockbusters. We have summertime beach reads. We have summer TV specials and songs of the summer. It definitely FEELS like there is something that makes pop culture media “summery.” But we’re hard pressed to say exactly what it…
e170. What is Serialization? Tune in next week!
In today’s pop culture landscape, serialization is everything. TV, movies, novels, comics. Addict people to your ongoing series and hope they keep paying for another installment. Somehow, despite the fact that we are 170 episodes into a podcast SERIES about pop culture media, much of which is SERIALIZED, hosted by people who literally study SERIALIZATION…
Call For Comments: Serialization Technology
From Katya: It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a game scholar, comics scholar, and Victorianist walk into a bar, they must instantly bond over their shared study of serialization. Except… we never recorded it. It’s rather astounding that we haven’t already; serialization cuts across all of our fields from comics to games and…
e169. The Subtle & Sophisticated Highbrow Culture of The Fast & The Furious
Movies are back! After a year and a half of almost total dormancy, movies came back to the American box office, and filmgoers were welcome with the very sophisticated and cultured experience of F9: The Fast Saga, the latest installment of Fast & Furious franchise. Many are joking about it, but many others are just…
e167. Considering the Fanboy Gaze
After last week’s primer on the male gaze, we wanted to spend some time thinking about the ways in which it could be complicated. What happens when we try to apply those concepts to characters not normally considered “male gazey”? What happens when a presumed male viewer is asked to identify with a female characters?…
Call for Comments: The Male Gaze and its Discontents
From Katya: This week we’re revisiting the Male Gaze. I know we’ve been here before but we have a string of guests coming up offering their own spin on various “gazes” and related subjects so we thought it was worth a revisit. (If you’d like to check out our previous conversations, check out some of…