We live in a geeky world. There are roughly 800 bajillion superhero tv shows and movies released every year. Even once we get away from superhero content, we quickly move into sci-fi, other comics, and toy based nostalgia IPs. Each property trying to build a cinematic universe to ensure that its fans consume more and…
Author: Wayne Wise
e160. Remembering Thought & Thinking About Memory
Do you remember the song that was playing when you had your first kiss, lost your virginity, or danced at your wedding? Do you know what movie that you crowded around the TV to watch as a family every holiday as a kid? Do you have fond memories of the vacation you took in the…
e158. Superhero Thought Experiments
Have you ever had one of those pointless internet arguments about the philosophical righteousness of Batman, Superman, Rorschach or Luke Skywalker? Or maybe you’ve spent hours arguing about how time travel works based on old Fantastic Four comic books. And I’m sure many of you have tried to defend the value of some superhero movie…
Call For Comments: Memory Triggers In The Digital Age
From Wayne: I think about memory a lot. I’ve always had a pretty good one, enough so that people comment on it. My ancient mother has lost a lot of her short term memory in recent months, so that’s on my mind. I’m getting old enough to feel nostalgia for stuff. I’ve been going through…
e155. Introduction to Ergodic Texts and Reading
What does it mean to be an ergodic text? That’s a complicated question. For one thing, the very meaning of the word “text” can be variable to different people, but we at VoxPopcast tend to use the literary nerd definition. We call all pieces of media that we consume, enjoy and scrutinize “texts” regardless of…
e154. Can We Cancel Cancel Culture Culture? (or can’t we?)
Every day another celebrity “is cancelled” for any number of problematic reasons. Typically, the celebrity responds by claiming they’ve done nothing wrong and blaming “cancel culture” gone wild. Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen not only politicians and actors supposedly cancelled as as well as children’s toys and books. Looking at the news,…
Call For Comments: Can We Cancel Cancel Culture Culture or Can’t We?
From Mav: So this is a weird one. We had this idea a few weeks ago that we would do a show on “cancel culture” after Gina Carano was publicly fired from The Mandalorian. But we didn’t get to it. For one thing, everyone else in the world was dumping think pieces left and right on her. For…
e152. Obviously it’s the WandaVision Show
Somethings are inevitable and predictable. Water is wet, gravity pulls us down, and this show was going to have to talk about WandaVision. That was clear even before the series premiered. However, we didn’t know just how big a cultural phenomenon it would become. Who could have expected while reading the 1982 Bill Mantlo comic…