e202. To Kill a Mockingbird… and a Maus — Censorship & Book Banning

Every once in a while the world of weekly pop culture and the world of literary academia collide so totally that the world notices even outside of our show. Last week was one of those weeks. A school board in Tennessee voted to remove Maus, the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize winning Holocaust memoir graphic novel,…

CFC: Why Even Really Care About Banned Books Anyway?

From Mav: So, I guess we need to talk about “the Maus situation.” If you live in my world then it’s pretty impossible to escape the news from last week that Art Spiegelman’s Maus was “banned.” Between the fact that it’s a comic, that it was a politically motivated book banning, that there are issues…

e117. Post-Release Censorship and the Disney Vault

There was a weird story that broke a few weeks ago when people discovered that episodes of the 2012 teen sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place had “censored” the cleavage of the mother on one episode by placing a blur over the actress’s chest on the Disney+ streaming service. After some investigation, it turned out that…

Call For Comments: Post-Release Censorship and Revisionism

From Mav: There was an article a few weeks ago that I wanted to address with a show… and then the world went to hell and we had to deal with other things (racism, sadly, is always topical). So now I want to get back to it… and sort of expand it with some other…

e99. Pseudo-Academic Content: Listener Discretion is Advised

We live in a content driven world: Movies, Books, Music, TV, Comics, Video Games, and even Podcasts. “Content is king!” or so they say. But of course, different types of content are appropriate for different audiences. Anyone who has watched a movie in the last several decades knows that they have ratings, that is, a…

Call for Comments: Content Ratings and Parental Ratings Guides

From Mav: I’ve gotten into a couple conversations recently with different people about movie ratings. Not the kind of whether they’re good and bad… stars… thumbs up and down and all that. I mean MPAA ratings: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17… or at least here in the United States, that’s what they are. Curiously, it…

e67. Social Justice Knitting

Back on June 23rd, a popular social network took a bold stance for 2019. It decided to pronounce all support of Donald Trump or his #MAGA campaign as hate speech and white supremacy and for the most part ban it from its network. Oddly enough the network that took this stance wasn’t Facebook or Twitter.…

Call for Comments: unRavelrying Social Justice Networks

Ravelry.com From Katya: So this one is off the beaten path for the podcast but very much in my wheelhouse. Regular listeners have heard me plug my instagram feed with the caveat that it’s mainly sewing and knitting-centric. One of the biggest parts of the online knitting world is a website called Ravelry. Ravelry is a…

Call for Comments: Hegemony, Gatekeeping and Ivory Towers

From Katya: On May 4th, the Vice President of Student Affairs at Duke University, Larry Moneta, walked into a coffee shop. Unfortunately, this is not the beginning of a mediocre joke but a chain of unacceptable decisions resulting in the mistreatment of campus workers. [caption id="attachment_428" align="alignright" width="300"] Young Dolph[/caption] Inside the shop, Joe Van…