Storytelling and Race in Captain America — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #98

in Comics/Cartoons, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | July 6th, 2021

What is it for a super-hero to rep­re­sent Amer­i­ca? Though the char­ac­ter cre­at­ed by Joe Simon and Jack Kir­by in 1941 may have been a way to cap­i­tal­ize on WWII patri­o­tism, it has since been used to ask ques­tions about what it real­ly means to be patri­ot­ic and how Amer­i­ca’s ideals and its real­i­ty may con­flict. We’re of course talk­ing about race, a theme explored by Sam Wil­son, for­mer­ly Cap’s side-kick, pick­ing up the shield in the comics and now on TV (and in the forth­com­ing film).

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca, and Bri­an are joined by com­ic super-fan Antho­ny LeBlanc (return­ing from our ep.  56 on black nerds) to dis­cuss the recent com­ic runs by Ta-Nehishi Coates and Nick Spencer and espe­cial­ly Truth: Red, White and Black, Mar­vel’s 2003 comics mini-series by Robert Morales and Kyle Bak­er that tells the sto­ry of Amer­i­can super-sol­dier exper­i­ments on unknow­ing black men (rem­i­nis­cent of the real-life Tuskegee Syphilis Study). This was the source of the “first black Cap­tain Amer­i­ca” char­ac­ter Isa­iah Bradley fea­tured in The Fal­con and the Win­ter Sol­dier Dis­ney+ show, which we also dis­cuss.

Here are a few arti­cles that fed into our dis­cus­sion:

The final issue of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Cap­tain Amer­i­ca is com­ing July 7.

We rec­om­mend the Cap­tain Amer­i­ca Com­ic Book Fans pod­cast for more infor­ma­tion. Their recent inter­view with long­time edi­tor Tom Brevoort was illu­mi­nat­ing, and they spent eps.  33 and 34 walk­ing through Truth: Red, White & Black.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Considering Mare of Easttown — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #97

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | July 1st, 2021

Inso­far as some­thing is a TV hit at all these days, the small-town Penn­syl­va­nia mur­der mys­tery star­ring Kate Winslet seems to qual­i­fy, but what dis­tin­guish­es it from the many many oth­er crime dra­mas on TV? Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt dis­cuss the plot struc­ture, cast­ing, and oth­er cre­ative choic­es and try to fig­ure out how the show relates to Broad­church, The Undo­ing, etc. Should there be a sea­son two?

Here are a few of the arti­cles that fed the dis­cus­sion:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Modernizing Table-Top Role-Playing Games — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #96

in Games, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | June 21st, 2021

What’s the cur­rent sta­tus of table-top role-play­ing games like Dun­geons and Drag­ons in pop cul­ture? Thanks to D&D’s recent depic­tion in Stranger Things and the enor­mous pop­u­lar­i­ty of fan­ta­sy prop­er­ties like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, inter­est in elves and mag­ic and such is no longer fod­der for Satan­ic pan­ic, but the idea of active­ly pre­tend­ing to be a char­ac­ter in this genre to engage in col­lab­o­ra­tive sto­ry-telling still seems for­eign to many.

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Aman­da McLough­lin, the host of Join the Par­ty, a begin­ner-friend­ly, pur­pose­ful­ly inclu­sive D&D real-play pod­cast, to go over some D&D basics, the dynam­ics of play­ing vs. spec­tat­ing (by lis­ten­ing to her pod­cast, for instance), and the racism and impe­ri­al­ism built into the set­ting (adven­ture = going into a for­eign land to kill often intel­li­gent crea­tures and take their stuff). What is it to “act out your fan­ta­sy” in this way?

Some of the ways of wit­ness­ing oth­ers play­ing that we refer to include Crit­i­cal Role, The Adven­ture Zone, and Dimen­sion 20.

The Join the Par­ty game mas­ter Eric Sil­ver wrote the arti­cle “Dun­geons & Drag­ons Has an Anti­semitism Prob­lem.” You can also look at Wikipedi­a’s “Dun­geons and Drag­ons in Pop­u­lar Cul­ture” entry or get a fla­vor of the range of options by look­ing at Dice­break­er’s list of “10 Best Table­top Role­play­ing Games Out Right Now”, this list of “The 12 Best Actu­al Play Pod­casts,” or this video of “Top D&D Chan­nels that Aren’t Crit­i­cal Role.”

Fol­low Aman­da’s pod­cast @jointhepartypod on @MultitudeShows. She also hosts the Spir­its Pod­cast about folk­lore and urban leg­ends.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #95 Considers Joss Whedon’s The Nevers

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi, Television | June 10th, 2021

Mark, Eri­ca, and Bri­an dis­cuss the HBO Max show out Vic­to­ri­an-era super-pow­ered fem­i­nine out­casts, helmed and now aban­doned by the cre­ator of Buffy the Vam­pire Slay­er, Fire­fly, etc. It’s jam packed with steam­punk gad­gets, fisticuffs, social injus­tice, and far too many char­ac­ters and plot threads to keep track of. Giv­en that the sea­son was reduced to a half sea­son in light of the pan­dem­ic, does it still work? Does know­ing the com­plaints about Joss Whe­don affect our con­sump­tion of the show? Is this a faux fem­i­nism where women must under­go tor­ture to gain strength?

Here are a few arti­cles we con­sid­ered:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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The Psychology of Video Game Engagement — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #94 with Jamie Madigan

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Psychology, Video Games | June 4th, 2021

Why do peo­ple play video games, and what keeps them play­ing? Do we want to have to think through inno­v­a­tive puz­zles or just lose our­selves in mind­less reac­tiv­i­ty? Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Dr. Jamie Madi­gan, an orga­ni­za­tion­al psy­chol­o­gist who runs the Psy­chol­o­gy of Video Games pod­cast, to dis­cuss what sort of a thing this is to research, the evo­lu­tion of games, play­er types, moti­va­tion vs. engage­ment, incen­tives and feed­back, as well as the gam­i­fi­ca­tion of work or school envi­ron­ments. Some games we touch on include Don­key Kong, Dark Souls, It Takes Two, Retur­nal, Hades, Sub­nau­ti­ca, Fort­nite, and Age of Z.

Some of the episodes of Jamie’s pod­cast rel­e­vant for our dis­cus­sion are:

Check out his books and arti­cles too. Here are a cou­ple of addi­tion­al sources about engage­ment:

The site Eri­ca men­tions about dis­abled modes in gam­ing is caniplaythat.com.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Why Do Tech Billionaires Make for Good TV Villains? Pretty Much Pop #93 Considers “Made for Love,” et al.

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi, Television | May 31st, 2021

The tech genius has become the go-to bad guy in recent films: They’re our mod­ern mad sci­en­tists with all imag­in­able resources and sci­ence at their com­mand, able to release dystopic tech­nol­o­gy to sur­veil, con­trol, and pos­si­bly mur­der us. Even Lex Luthor was made into a “tech bro” in Bat­man v. Super­man.

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an dis­cuss the HBO Max series Made for Love star­ring Cristin Mil­i­oti, as well as Alex Gar­land’s Devs, Mike Judge’s Sil­i­con Val­ley, and Jed Rothestein’s doc­u­men­tary WeWork: Or the Mak­ing and Break­ing of a $47 Bil­lion Uni­corn. How does this trope work in com­e­dy vs. seri­ous media? How does it relate to real-life tech moguls? Can women be vil­lains of this sort, or is a cri­tique of tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty part of this sort of depic­tion?

To learn more, read what we read:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Why Collect? A Conversation about Collectibles from Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast (#92)

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | May 20th, 2021

What dri­ves some­one to col­lect Star Wars fig­ures or Trans­form­ers or LEGOs or what­ev­er else? Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by guest Matt Young of the Hel­lo from the Mag­ic Tav­ern and Impro­vised Star Trek pod­casts to talk about this poten­tial­ly expen­sive and life-eat­ing habit. No kidult­ing required.

For a lit­tle extra infor­ma­tion on this top­ic, you may want to look at Wikipedia on the Psy­chol­o­gy of Col­lect­ing, this incom­plete list of nos­tal­gic col­lectible IPs (that’s “intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty”), or this weird list of col­lec­tions that includes erasers, con­fet­ti, traf­fic cones and sug­ar pack­ets.

Most of the lit­er­a­ture we found in research­ing this episode was either about what col­lec­tions might present a future invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty or oth­er tips for doing this as a finan­cial activ­i­ty (please don’t try to do this) and sur­prise that adults buy toys.

After the episode, Matt remained on the line for our Aftertalk, which is typ­i­cal­ly only avail­able for sup­port­ers via patreon.com/prettymuchpop, but this this case we’ve unleashed it to the pub­lic:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Diagnosing America’s Relationship with Pets — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #91 w/ Trainer Hannah Branigan

in Life, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | May 5th, 2021

What is with the weird rela­tion­ship we Amer­i­cans have with our pets? Many of us treat them as our babies, yet of course they’re our cap­tives. Dog train­er Han­nah Brani­gan joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to talk about pets as enter­tain­ment, as hob­by, and as pan­dem­ic com­pan­ions. How can we make this rela­tion­ship as ben­e­fi­cial as pos­si­ble for all involved, and how can learn­ing to be a bet­ter pet own­er inform our treat­ment of oth­er peo­ple? Plus, what do we want out of TV talk­ing ani­mals, dog train­ing TV, and the abom­i­na­tion that is Pooch Per­fect.

Han­nah’s pod­cast is Drink­ing from the Toi­let, and you can learn more about her book and train­ing pro­gram at hannahbranigan.dog. A cou­ple of her pod­cast episodes that we refer to are #129 Treat Every­one Like a Dog, #114 Acci­den­tal Behav­ior, and #80 I Wrote a Book.

And a few arti­cle links as usu­al:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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