e201. The Romance Show: (Hannah wouldn’t let us call) Love In The Time Of COVID

Despite the fact that it is perennially one of the best selling genres in literature, Romance is often looked down upon. Part of this is simple misogyny; as a culture we look down upon things that are seen as “for women.” However, not only are romance novels dominant best sellers, romance as a concept essentially…

e199. Nancy Drew & the Hidden Staircase to Pop Culture Immortality

Nancy Drew may be one of the most enduring figures in American Popular culture. First premiering in 1930, she predates Superman, Donald Duck, the Lone Ranger, two US states, FM radio, and the ball point pen. And yet — outside of her devoted fanbase — does not seem to garner the same respect of many…

e177. Deconstructing the Chair

It’s been a while since we devoted a whole episode to one TV show. We’ve done it with a couple of the Marvel shows as well as stuff like Game of Thrones and Watchmen. We did a show on the Queen’s Gambit, and we loved Bridgerton enough to do TWO episodes on it. We talked…

Call for Comments: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love F9

From Mav: I’m a guy who loves movies. I really love going to the movies… A LOT! Not being able to go out to the movies was actually one of the things I missed most during the last year and a half of lockdown. I remember a time early on when Chris Nolan decided that…

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…

e163. The Secret World of American Girl

Pop culture fandom is defined by a hierarchy dedication. It’s easy to watch nine Star Wars movies; how much of the Expanded Universe do you know? Anyone can watch a couple dozen Marvel movies, but “the real fan” has bagged and boarded Silver Age originals! Sure, maybe you’ve sat through all 11.5 hours of LOTR,…

e149. Let’s Talk About SuperSex

Happy Valentine’s Day! If you had a podcast devoted to pop culture with a penchant for discussing comics with some bit of regularity and a holiday came up that was devoted to beauty of love and dating and you wanted to do something nice and sweet to commemorate the holiday, what would you do? Obviously…

e147. Big Fun with Charts, Data, and Analytics!

Charts Rock! Charts are Big Fun! Seriously! Don’t you just love a good chart? Ok, maybe you don’t think you do. In fact, you might even be thinking to yourself, why is a pop culture podcast talking about charts? Well, that’s because charts are incredibly popular in modern culture. We rely on them. We see…

Call for Comments: Why Do We ƒµ¢&ing Love Charts?

From Mav: I love charts. I fucking love charts! Am I alone here? I’m a nerd, when I was a kid, I used to play with this computer program called Harvard Graphics, just for fun. All it did was make charts. Last week, working on the final chapter of my dissertation, I got to a…

e128. 9 Popular Culture Pet Peeves We Hate and Why

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…