Every once in a while we like to step away from our usual serious… well… serious-ish, pseudo-academic intellectual pursuits and just do something a little fun. This is one of those weeks. Last week our friends at the Protagonist Podcast debuted a new game that they called “the Fives” and this week… well, we are…
Author: Monica Geraffo
e386. Unpacking Long-Running TV: From Sitcoms to Soap Operas
They don’t make TV like they used to. They quite literally just don’t!. There’s lots of business reasons for this and culture changes and just an over abundance of content vs what there used to be. But for better or worse, the day epic 20+ season runs of several hundred episodes are probably behind us,…
e384. From Vanderbilt Glam to Oscar’s Shades: The Gilded Age Deep Dive
In 2022, a show premiered on HBO that was perhaps tailor made for us. The Gilded Age was a 1880s period drama from the creators of Downton Abbey with sexual and gender politics, racial dynamics and a treatise on the invention of class dynamics, all thrown together with a collection of Broadway’s finest actors in…
e380. Monica in Paris: The Tropes of Study Abroad
Eagle eyed (eared?) listeners might have noticed that it’s actually been a little tricky to get Monica booked on the show for the last couple of weeks because of a time zone issue. She’s currently living in Paris on a research fellowship for her dissertation. This means that she’s basically doing the bulk of her…
e376. Deconstructing RomComs: Genre, Trope and Capitalism
Last week, A24 released a new movie called Materialists starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal and directed by Celine Song. Critical praise was high, but audience reaction was… it’s probably fair to say mixed. Common wisdom here is that this is largely because the film was marketed as a modern romcom and when…
e375. Floppy Disks and Fast Cars: Technological Nostalgia in Media
Last week Monica saw the most recent Mission Impossible movie and was fascinated by a plot detail wherein the characters need to use ancient technology from the — shudder — 1990s! Just after that, John Oliver did an expose on air traffic control towers where he noted that they often still run on software from…
Call For Comments: Retro Technology Worship
From Monica: Probably surprising no one who has listened to our many episodes about super spies or franchises with nine-plus installments, I love Mission Impossible movies. Tom Cruise can build new elaborate ways to not kill himself and I’ll eat it up every time. But perhaps because he is so insistent on doing things “for…
e372. MCU 2025: Exploring the Current Marvel Cinematic Landscape
When we started this podcast we were very cautious that we didn’t want it to be too much about the MCU, even though we loved it and it was, at that time, obviously the biggest thing in pop culture.. There are plenty of other shows that do that and we wanted VoxPopcast to be something…
e371. Retro Revivals and Cinematic Sequels: Summer 2025 Preview
As the school year wraps up and summer begins it’s time for an annual pop culture tradition, the summer movie season. And, as we’ve done the last couple of years, Mav, Hannah, and Monica are ready to discuss the upcoming summer movie season filled with nostalgia, sequels, and potential hits. What are we excited about,…