The VoxPopcast

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 superhero comics, and movies and TV. We live in this weird golden age where all content is basically superhero media, and there's good and bad about that, but on the whole I love it. But one of my favorite things about superheroes is when they're not being superheroes. I maintain that the single best superhero content ever put to film isn't anything obvious. It's not the final battle in Avengers: Endgame. It's not Wonder Woman...

e166. So… What is the Male Gaze Anyway?

Sometimes academic terms bleed over into the popular lexicon and gets used by people almost as second nature without anyone really bothering to think about what it means. "The Male Gaze", is one of those terms. It gets used in both academic and popular pop culture criticism, but often without definition. There's simply a vague understanding that everyone is on the same page. They're probably not. Honestly, we're as guilty of this as anyone. We've done several episode specifically referencing the male gaze, and many others where we talk about it in passing. We also have a few coming up that are going to build off of the theory. But we've never really defined it either. Well, on this episode we fix that. This week, Katya, Wayne and Mav get...

Call for Comments: She’s Not Like Other Girls! Introducing the Fanboy Gaze

By Mav and Matt Linton / June 11, 2021

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 personal sexual identity, the narrative often positions the reader to interact with the story as a straight male. Most importantly, it surmises a female character whose job is "to be looked at". Being attractive to the audience is her main role before anything else. We've talked about how people tend to misuse the term and the theory and we've talked about how the theory has been extended to other "gazes" in the decades since Mulvey...

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 our other topics here!) I've run into a number of folks recently that think that in this age of increasing representation, the male gaze is a non-issue (and, sometimes, the idea that a gaze of any kind is not in play.) The premise seems to be that because we have greater diversity of characters along racial, cultural, gender, and sexuality lines than the issue disappears. Somehow? But the male gaze explains precisely why all representation...

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 its members strive for. It is a favorite conference of the hosts of our show. After being forced to take one year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, PCA returned last weekend as a virtual conference. Mav and Wayne both attended and presented. On today's show, they welcome returning guest (and our first ever guest, right on the tail of the PCA2018 conference) John Darowski as well as our new friends Maggie Yankovich and Christina...

Episode 22: Monuments and Memories

by Mav, Katya Gorecki and Emily Brennan-Moran
September 3, 2018

No Replies

A couple of weeks ago, a protest at the University of North Carolina resulted in the toppling of “Silent Sam” a statue that stands at the university to commemorate Civil…

Call For Comments Comics

Call for Comments: Comics Class Canon Syllabus

by Mav
August 31, 2018

18 Replies

From Mav: We like comics. We love comics. If you’ve heard at least two seconds of the show, you probably picked that up on that. It’s one of the reasons…

Podcasts Politics Race and Class Sports

Episode 21: Sports, Patriotism, and Social Justice

by Mav, Donté Dunnagan, Danny Anderson and Hannah Lee Rogers
August 28, 2018

1 Reply

If you live in the United States, then it’s almost football season. Even if you’re the kind of non-fan that likes to unaffectionately refer to it as “sports ball” you’re…

Call For Comments Politics Race and Class

Call For Comments: Monuments to Racism

by Mav and Katya Gorecki
August 25, 2018

3 Replies

From Mav: Once again, we’re in a situation where fortune calls upon us and I am presented with an idea for an episode related to an episode I was already…

Comics Literature Movies and Film Podcasts Race and Class Religion Sex and Gender Television Violence

Episode 20: Monster Mash

by Mav, Wayne Wise, Heather Duda and Michael Chemers
August 21, 2018

4 Replies

“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…

Politics Race and Class Sports

Call for Comments: Sports and Social Justice

by Mav
August 17, 2018

6 Replies

From Mav: Football season is nearly upon us. If you know me, then you know that’s a big deal for me. Even if you’re not a football fan, assuming you live…

Comics Fashion Podcasts Race and Class Sex and Gender

Episode 19: Cosplayers of Color

by Mav, Wayne Wise and Ayana Arnette Underwood
August 14, 2018

6 Replies

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…

Call For Comments Comics Literature Movies and Film Sex and Gender Television Video Games Violence

Call for Comments: Monsters and Monster Hunters

by Mav and Wayne Wise
August 12, 2018

5 Replies

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…

Comics Fashion Podcasts Sex and Gender Television

Episode 18: She-Ra and the Male Gaze

by Mav, Wayne Wise, Katya Gorecki and Hannah Lee Rogers
August 7, 2018

3 Replies

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…

Call For Comments Comics Movies and Film Race and Class

Call for Comments: Cosplayers of Color

by Mav and Wayne Wise
August 5, 2018

1 Reply

From Mav: Usually we try to mix topics on our show up from week to week; one week generally has very little to do with whatever happened the week before.…