e64. Mythologizing the Founders

If you live in the United States of America, then this week is Independence Day, the day when we patriotically celebrate the greatest of our heritage and the foresight of a bunch of men in breeches, wigs and stockings decided to create a perfect nation… or so we tell ourselves. If you live outside the…

e63. Transcosplaphobia

Recently Mav witnessed something fascinating on the internet. Several men arguing on a message over whether or not it was appropriate to post transgender cosplay models and to talk about how sexy they were. This isn’t to say that they were concerned about whether or not it was appropriate to objectify women — that was…

e62. Comics! You know… for the Kids!

Did you know comic books used to be produced almost entirely for children? Yeah! It’s true. Ok, maybe you did know that, but there was a time in America where given the popular idea of what a comic book was, that was hard to believe. Of course, there was also a time in America where…

e61. Narrative REMIX!

We seem to like stories we already know. Not just rereading or rewatching an old favorite. We seem to derive some sort of pleasure in seeing a new version of an old story… a version with a “twist.” What if Superman was a horror story? Well, lets explore that in Brightburn! What if Lizzie Bennet…

e60. Poverty Shaming

Have you ever been perusing Facebook or Twitter and run across a meme that maybe seemed a little funny at first, but when you thought about it, you just thought “hey, isn’t that just making fun of people for being poor?” Maybe the meme wasn’t funny at all…. maybe it was just a forward from…

e59. Game of Finales

Well, the Game of Thrones finale has come and gone and of course we have to talk about it. The internet had opinions and so do we. But this is this show so we’re not going to just stop there. Mav, Hannah and Wayne are joined by returning friend of the show, Michael Chemers, to…

e58. Gaming an Empire

History does not look upon tyranny with favor. The Persian Empire, The Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire, The Qing Dynasty, The British Empire. In our modern contemporary moment we tend to think of all of these as affronts to freedom and democracy… and with good reason. That said, there are a surprising number of games…

e57. You Kant Like That!

If you’ve listened to the show before you know that Hannah and Mav have an ongoing argument about how Riverdale is the best show on television and Hannah is incorrect in thinking that The Good Place is instead (and you can probably tell which one of us wrote the copy for this episode from that).…

e56. Endgame Analysis

So, if you’ve ever listened to our show, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re doing an episode about Avengers: Endgame. Honestly, this week, pretty much every podcast is doing an episode on Avengers: Endgame. So, if you haven’t seen it yet… honestly, it’s the most popular movie on the planet… there’s no way you…

e55. PCA-2019 Recap

If you’ve been listening to the show for the last few weeks, you know that all four hosts have been preparing for PCA2019, the national conference of the Popular Culture Association in Washington DC. In fact, episode 52 and episode 53 featured previews of our papers. The conference was from April 10 to April 13,…