Pop DNA

We're getting further down the vampire funnel into allegory and metaphor--what do vampires MEEEEEAAANN???

We start with some historical medical cases that give insight into what people in the past thought of vampires, with the case of Mercy Brown, and an explainer on the vampire-adjacent Chinese mythological creature the Jiangshi.

We also look at a few of our favorite (or at least most foundational) examples of vampires in literary or cultural works that are used to explore social and political commentary, including Dracula, Sinners, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Next episode we will look at vampire romance!

Further Reading:

More about the Jiangshi

The case of Mercy Brown

Edgar Allan Poe's tenuous connection to vampire lore

A Colonial Reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula

Psychology Today's analysis of Sinners

The Take video on adolescence, adulthood, and vampires in Buffy

The Psychology of Trauma in Interview with the Vampire

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Stake it or leave it, this is our summer series!

We decided to spend our summer deep diving into vampire lore and the ever evolving role of the undead in popular fiction.

In our first installment, we define our terms and talk a little about the folklore origins of vampire stories. We also take a quick look at vampires in popular fiction, highlighting a few works and broader trends that we will delve into deeper in future episodes.

Further Reading:

Britannica entry on vampires

Vampires on the mythos fandom wiki

Vampire history

The migration of paranormal romance

The evolving role of vampires in literature

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Pop DNA scored an exclusive early interview with up-and-coming debut author Rhonda Watts for an intimate, no-holds-barred interview.

Rhonda's debut cozy fantasy book, Spells & Sensibility, is currently on submission, so no spoilers or big news yet, but she wanted to talk about it with her friend Erin, and we recorded the conversation.

We talk about Rhonda's writing process, how she got the idea for the book, making time to write with a full-time job, the importance of finding the right agent, and how to approach writing a Jane Austen retelling.

Read Rhonda's blog post about the process here.

Follow us on Instagram, and get ready for Vampire Summer starting in June!

Rhonda is still in her Medievalist Era and making it everyone's problem, and Erin just wants to talk about some creatures, so you could say this is a typical Pop DNA episode.

We continue our exploration of LOTR's relationship to medievalism in pop culture with a look at the beloved Medieval Y2K moment, exemplified in movies like A Knight's Tale, Ella Enchanted, Shrek, and of course the Jackson Lord of the Rings films. And the Star Wars prequels.

This early 2000s interpretation of the middle ages is having a moment in current pop culture, and of course influencing the popular medievalism of today.

After a brief dip into Tolkien's influence on Dungeons and Dragons, Erin finally gets to talk about all her favorite Tolkien creatures. Goblins, Orcs, Trolls, Balrogs, and other potential fantasy romance love interests.

Follow us on Instagram to see things we talk about, and what Rhonda wore to the Hobbit Picnic.

Further Reading:

Y2K Medievalism and Camp by @zombiegirlzine on Substack

Our current appreciation for Y2K medieval is nostalgia for nostalgia

Ten Things D&D "borrowed" from Tolkien, but don't tell Wizards of the Coast

A ranking of Middle-Earth creatures

A little more about Balrogs in case you want to write that Balrog romance

The Medieval Revival of the 1960s and '70s coincided and communicated closely with the LOTR books' surge in popularity at that time.

Hippies and other sects of 1960s counterculture adopted the Shire and the Hobbits as their own, and produced expressions of art and culture that Tolkien was really kind of a curmudgeon about.

In this episode we explore how medievalism (or MODievalism) permeated 1960s pop culture, in art, literature, media, and fashion.

We also look at how different versions of Middle Earth were envisioned by various artists, from those influenced by the hippies' love for the books, to the artist Alan Lee, whose work reflected a reverence for Tolkien's particular preferences and went on to influence the aesthetics of the Peter Jackson films.

See the images we reference on our Instagram.

Further Reading:

LitHub article on Alan Lee's illustrations

American Cinematographer article on visualization in the Jackson films

Collection of Tolkien's own drawings and paintings

Sampling of LOTR book covers

Hobbits and Hippies article from BBC

Anti-War Adoption of The Lord of the Rings paper

Medieval revival of the 1960s and 1970s blog post

This episode is all about how the Victorian era's culture and politics shaped J. R. R. Tolkien and, by extension, the world of Middle Earth.

We start with a look at the Grotesque vs. the Romantic Middle Ages as defined by medievalist David Matthews, and how each approach was at play in the late 19th century Medieval Revival. We use Matthews' work as a framework for analyzing the medievalism of The Lord of the Rings, and then take a closer look at the society and politics of the Shire in particular in light of this context.

Next episode we'll move into the 1960s and talk about how much hippies loved The Hobbit, and there will probably be some Creature Talk.

Further Reading:

Setting and Medievalism in Jackson's Lord of the Rings

Medievalism: a Critical History by David Matthews

The Victorian Medieval Revival

William Morris' influence on Tolkien

Social hierarchies in Hobbiton

Social advancement in Middle Earth societies

Remember when we tried to have a comprehensive discussion of The Lord of the Rings in one 55-minute episode? Turns out there's a lot more to it.

In this introduction to our LOTR (Revisited) series, we take a quiz to find out which characters we are, get on a soapbox about how adaptations and their respective source materials are two separate entities, then highlight a few of the topics we plan to delve deeper into over the next few episodes.

• Inspirations from Norse mythology and medieval epics
• Lore and races of Middle Earth and their real-world roots
• Tolkien's Medievalism through the lens of the Victorian era
• Hippie culture's embrace of The Hobbit and the Medievalism revival of the 1960s and 1970s
• Tolkien's impact in modern fantasy fiction and Medievalism in current popular culture
• Tolkien's work in context of conversations about race, gender, and power hierarchies in fantasy

Hopefully we'll get to all of this. We'll see.

It's that time of year again! We came back from our long hiatus to talk about our favorite TV and movies of 2025, plus a few books, and a few things that were NOT our favorite.

First we had to spend a good chunk of time talking about all our feelings on Wicked: For Good, or should we call it... Wicked: For Bad...

We also talked about the different common themes or through lines we noticed in the media we were drawn to, before popcorning some of our personal best-of lists.

Things we talked about (in order of mention):

• Wicked: For Good
• Hamnet
• Sinners
• Heart Eyes
• The Drop
• Wolfman 
• The Summer I Turned Pretty
• Home for Christmas
• The Paper
• Eternity
• Mickey 17
• K-Pop Demon Hunters
• The Pitt
• Nobody Wants This
• One of Them Days
• Materialists
• The Chair Company
• Pluribus
• Tusk Love
• Katabasis 
• Freakier Friday
• Frankenstein

Other things we loved but didn't have time to talk about:

• Wake Up Dead Man
• Companion
• The Housemaid
• We Bury the Dead
• Severance
• The Roses
• Fackham Hall
• The Wrong Paris
• Merrily We Roll Along
• The Four Seasons
• Sirens 

We'll have a brand new series starting in February revisiting The Lord of the Rings. Please join us!#wickedforgood #sinners #hamnet #bestof2025

Wicked: For Good has officially been released into the world! To celebrate, we are regifting one of our episodes on The Wizard of Oz in which we discussed Wicked.

We talked about other adaptations of the 1900 novel, as well, including the 1939 film and the musical The Wiz, focusing on how each new iteration of the story traced shifting ideas in American culture and politics.

#thewizardofoz #wicked #thewiz #wickedforgood

We are finally done talking about Sex and the City!

We conclude our discussion with an examination of Miranda and Charlotte as foils of one another, and through the lens of archetypes rather than fully developed characters, branching off from our talk last episode about the theory of the three other women as facets of Carrie.

This leads to the most interesting part of the entire series, where we delve into the classic four-character-group dynamic, with the archetypes of Patriarch, Matriarch, Craftsman, and Clown.

We spend way too much time (probably) talking about famous groups of four characters and how they fit in to these archetypes, leading with Sex and the City, The Golden Girls, and the March sisters from Little Women. We found the pattern fits for the Beatles, the Plastics from Mean Girls, the Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and many more...

Further Reading:

Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz talks about the archetypes and the Bluth siblings

Buzzfeed breaks down a bunch of four-character groups

Buzzfeed also highlights how Miranda was always the worst