Have you ever noticed how infrequently superheroes in most superhero TV shows and movies actually wear their superhero costumes? It makes sense when you think about it. Superhero costumes are actually kind of silly: wearing underwear on the outside of spandex bodysuits? They’re based on pop culture tropes from nearly a century ago, which honestly…
Category: Comics
Call For Comments: Why Are There Still Superhero Costumes?
From Mav (with Monica Geraffo): This is going to be about superheroes and fashion. But it’s not going to seem like it at first and there are a billion concepts that I want to tie together, so bear with me. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise at this point that I love superheroes. I love…
Call for Comments: She’s Not Like Other Girls! Introducing the Fanboy Gaze
From Mav (with Matt Linton): We’ve talked a lot on our show about Laura Mulvey’s theory of the “the male gaze”. In short, the male gaze describes the tendency of narratives to position female characters primarily as objects of desire to be consumed by male protagonists and readers. It argues that regardless of the reader’s…
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…
e165. PCA-2021 Recap
It’s the PCA-2021 recap show! In many ways, Popular Culture Association(PCA) national conference is responsible for this show. One of the things we’ve always strived for is to have the kind of wide variety of cultural scholarship that is found there as well as the open and inclusive vibe and ideology that the organization and…
e164. Why Do We Love Plot Twists?
On today’s episode we reveal that secretly this geeky little pop culture show was always actually about education and academic all along. Did you pick up on the clues we’ve been laying out for three years? Ok, maybe that one isn’t much of a plot twist, but what about the fact that one of Hannah…
Call For Comments: Why Are Plot Twists?
From Mav: It’s the episode you’ve been waiting for. After Katya’s sudden and surprising death via plot device, on next week’s show we’re going to explain which of Hannah, Wayne or Mav is the secret traitor and did her in!!! Will the others make it out alive? Or will they fall prey to the VoxPopKiller…
e162. Multimedia & Literary Crossovers
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…
Call for Comments: Why Do People Like Crossovers?
From Mav: Recently, on my other show, GoshGollyWow, we had a brief conversation about crossovers. Well, it was recently for me, anyway… It will be in the future for listeners of both this show and the other one. In fact, because of different recording schedules, it might very possibly be in the future of when…