Episode 26: The Secret Lives of Puppets

Last week David Reddish, a former writer for Sesame Street, announced that he’d always thought of Bert and Ernie as gay… and the internet exploded. Some people were happy… some people were sad… and some people just asked “why does anyone care?!?!?” Well, that’s what this show is for. Wayne and Mav are joined by Josie…

Call For Comments: The Death of the Author and the Birth of the Critic

From Mav: In the last couple weeks, we’ve done a couple shows that have dealt with interpreting the non obvious sexual subtext in children’s media (Disney Princesses and Sesame Street Muppets). Obviously, we don’t think that those things are front and center. That’s why we said subtext. But that leads us to an obvious question:…

Episode 25: Sex and the Disney Princess

Just about any parent in American who has a five year old girl knows about the Disney Princesses. Between Frozen, Tangled, Moana, and the others, the “House of Mouse” has stumbled upon  a multi-billion dollar industry from films and toy sales alone, and far more when adding in other merchandising sales. However, there may be…

Episode 24: Genre in General

At best, “genre fiction” often seems to be taken as synonymous with “popular” or “exciting”. At worse, it is often used a pejorative meaning “low brow” or “garbage”. But what is genre anyway? And why is the word used that way? Wayne and Mav are joined by a returning Hannah to sift through a discussion on…

Episode 23: Comic Studies-301: Course Syllabus

When everyone knows that you are a comics geek, it turns out people ask you quite often “so what should I be reading?” When your job is literally “be a comics geek” or moreover “teach other people to be a comics geek” then you get this question pretty much constantly. Since Wayne and Mav are…

Call For Comments: Genre, in General

From Wayne: We all have our favorite genres in our choice of entertainment. I like superheroes and science fiction and some kinds of Horror. I’ve recently discovered an affection for Thrillers. I used to think I didn’t like Crime stories, but that has changed. I don’t read a lot of Romance books, generally speaking. When I…

Episode 20: Monster Mash

“The Monster” and “The Monster Hunter” may be among the oldest figures in popular culture. It is the most basic of stories. Some great evil is threatening the community. Someone go kill it! It is a theme that has played out in countless books, movies, tv shows, comics and video games. The monster is a…

Episode 19: Cosplayers of Color

It’s pretty well accepted in contemporary geek culture that “representation matters.” At least, it’s accepted by everyone except for the evil corners of the internet that we don’t really care about. And thankfully, because of this, recent years in geek culture have seen the addition of many diverse characters that have become cosplay favorites at…

Call for Comments: Monsters and Monster Hunters

From Mav: Now this is going to be a very fun show. It’s time to talk about monsters! Obviously VoxPopcast is a geeky show. A lot of what we deal with is based on comic or video games or science fiction or fantasy. While these things are all very different, they have a common ancestor…

Episode 18: She-Ra and the Male Gaze

If you happened to see a mid-tier 1980s cartoon superheroine get a costume update that was less objectifyingly sexy for a modern day reboot of the series in the last couple weeks and you were shocked to see a bunch of angry middle-aged men complaining about it… well then, “hello there! You must be new…