e342. Creepy Dolls and the Freudian Uncanny

Happy Halloween! As has been our tradition, we wanted to make sure we marked the season with a special episode or two highlighting the concepts of horror. On today’s episode, Mav, Wayne and Monica are joined by friend of the show and Director of University of California at Santa Cruz’s Center for Monster Studies, Michael…

e339. Why Do Smart People Like Trashy Reality Shows?

Do you watch reality shows? No really. You can admit it. We won’t tell. We want to let you in on a secret. We actually watch some. In fact, we watch a bunch of them. And like… we’re smart! in fact, being smart is sort of the entire point of this show. And yet, we…

e330. The Immortal Legacy: Aging Actors and Endless Franchises

If you’re a fan of geek media, you likely noticed two important things from Marvel Studios last week. One was the long-awaited release of Deadpool & Wolverine. The second was the San Diego Comicon surprise that Robert Downey Jr. would be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to take on the role of Dr. Doom.…

e328. What’s the Deal with Presidential Assassinations?

It’s been a weird week of American politics. And we can’t really keep up. Yeah, we know something big happened this week (the whole shakeup of the democratic nomination) but we recorded this episode last week after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. It oddly feels like old news now. But the thing is, we’re…

e325. So You Have To Write a Prospectus? Now What Is It, Exactly? (and can an ointment clear it up?)

One of the best parts about being an academic is that you “get summers off.” One of the worst parts of being an academic is “your off days are just a time to do more homework.” That’s where Monica is, as she is currently knee deep in trying to write her PhD prospectus. But that…

e324. Unpacking Bridgerton Season 3: Penelope, Queerness, and Fandom Reactions

It’s that time again… we’ve had another year of Bridgerton and of course we had to analyze it. Think about it, it’s a show about British regency society. In some ways this might be the most cultured and sophisticated thing we ever do. Also, there’s a lot of sex. On this week’s episode of VoxPopcast,…

e323. The Complex Legacy of Barbie: Gender, Fashion & Identity

So how about that Barbie? No, not THAT Barbie… we did a show on the movie last year. No, what we want to talk about is enduring legacy of the concept of Barbie. Starting with the doll and going through to the movie, Barbie is just… always there. Or at least she has been for…

e317: From Field to Frame: Life Lessons from Sports Movies

Sometimes when the world is on fire, you just want to watch a dumb feel good sports movie. Right now the world is on fire, so we thought maybe we’d talk about dumb feel good sports movies. BUT, are they really as dumb as we make them out to be? On this week’s episode Mav…

e314. Fashion, Furniture, and Furballs — Six Years of VoxPopcast

On this week’s show, all five co-hosts are online to celebrate six years of producing a weekly pseudo academic roundtable of pop culture analysis with drinking and swearing. It isn’t too often that we can get the entire gang together these days, so this week we thought we’d do so with no strict agenda other…

e308. 2024 Oscars Predictions!

It’s hard to believe it, but it’s been exactly a year since our last Oscar show. It’s kind of funny how that works out! Years being annual and all of that! In any case, the Academy Awards are next weekend and we’re a show celebrating popular culture so it seems like now would be a…