Behind every great villain is… frankly, well, often there’s another bigger villain pulling the strings. But the truth is, while we often celebrate “the big bad” some of the most interesting villainy comes from the lieutenants that the hero meets along the way to facing the big bad. Sometimes, these henchmen might even eclipse the…
Category: Sex and Gender
e425. Chrises vs Women Over 60! Media Literacy and Aging in Hollywood
Entertainment Weekly recently published an article by Derek Lawrence that made the somewhat shocking claim that “movies are more likely to star an actor named Chris than women over 60.” Well, that seemed like exactly the kind of thing we should investigate on this shows. So we looked into it a little deeper and. Well,…
e423. Father Knows Less: Unpacking Bad Dad Stereotypes in Film
There’s a movie coming out next weekend starring comedian Nate Bargatze called The Breadwinner. Curiously, even though we were aware of it, not one of the five co-hosts on the show chose it in the box office game. It just didn’t seem interesting. Recently we’ve gotten a chance to see the trailer and just. Well,…
e421. Here Comes the Bride! Feminism and Frankenstein
Recently, Maggie Gyllenhaal took a swing at a reboot of the horror classic The Bride of Frankenstein and released The Bride. Unfortunately, not many people saw it. But it begs the question, Frankenstein is one of the history’s most important books. Mary Shelly, created the sci-fi genre with the novel, and yet most of the…
e413. Teen Beach Movie Revisited: a Conversation with the Screenwriter
A few weeks ago Mav and Monica did a very special show where three of Mav’s current students from his “Introduction to Popular Culture” class where the students joined us to explain their view of one of their favorite movies, Disney’s Teen Beach Movie and both its cultural relevance and its usefulness as an academic…
e411. Is The Cannonball Run a Bad Movie? (Ok, we know it is… but does it have to be?)
So every once in a while we like to do an episode of the show called “is this a bad movie?” The funny part is that usually when we pick movie for that series, we know it’s a movie that many consider good, but that we feel like we have a chance to convince people…
e410. Teen Beach Movie: Metaphor, Methodology, Memories, and Millennials vs. GenZ
Sometimes an episode idea comes out of nowhere. Recently, Mav overheard several of his students discussing a movie from their childhood before his morning class. After he laughed at their description, the students challenged Mav to do some “homework” and watch the movie. He agreed, and incorporated the movie into his lesson the following week.…
e408. Wonder Woman: Boundaries, Bondage, and Breakthroughs
Wonder Woman is almost certainly one of the most enduring characters in all of pop culture. She’s certainly the most famous female superhero of all time. But we would argue that she’s significant even beyond that. Why? Well, let’s talk about it. On this week’s show Mav, Wayne and Monica are joined by returning guest…
e391. Manga-101: Why is Manga?
It’s always weird and oddly exciting when we discover that we have a hole in the things we’ve covered one the show. And in fact, It’s actually quite surprising that we’ve been doing this show for 391 episodes and haven’t devoted an episode to manga before now. Sure it’s come up in discussions about comics…
e389. Boycotts and their Cultural Impact
So… America is in a weird place right now. Frankly, we could say that just about every week these days. But this last couple of weeks it’s been even more so than our (new) normal level of crazy. A couple of weeks ago, right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered while performing his college campus…