Pop DNA

It's Rhonda's Birthday Bonus, and we are talking Superheroes, Sorceresses, Space Wizards, and other powerful women in fantasy media! 

We explore the relationship between power (like literal superpower/magic/the Force/etc.) and femininity in the narratives of some of our favorite fantasy and sci-fi heroines, from Alina in Shadow and Bone, to Katniss in The Hunger Games, to Diana in the Wonder Woman films, to Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and more. 

How does media portray these powerful women and their relationship with femininity? And what does this portrayal say about how our society views powerful women?

Works cited: 

The Violence Binary [Video Essay] by Wit and Folly

The Violent Woman: Femininity, Narrative, and Violence in Contemporary American Cinema by Hilary Neroni

Works discussed:

Black Widow, Avengers Age of Ultron, and Avengers Endgame

Game of Thrones 

The Hunger Games

Jupiter Ascending

Shadow and Bone trilogy

Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII, and IX

The Twilight Saga

WandaVision

The Wheel of Time

The Winternight Trilogy

The Witcher

Wonder Woman and WW84

Follow us on Instagram and come back next week for our May topic, which we totally know what it's going to be and have definitely planned...

Our New Girl series wraps up with a look at the show's predecessors and contemporaries in women-centered sitcoms. We look at favorites from I Love Lucy, to Murphy Brown, to The Mindy Project, to Insecure, and how each of these shares common threads with New Girl. 

We also discuss the "quirky" persona of Zooey Deschanel that prevailed in the late 2000s/early 2010s. We talk about how this public perception informed our reading of the Jess Day character, and how it may have (read: definitely did) lead to unfair public judgement of Deschanel and her work.

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Theory: New Girl is actually a show about breakups. 

This week we dive in to all the relationships, breakups, and make-ups that the storylines of New Girl were often built around. We mostly focus on Jess + Nick and Cece + Schmidt, plus the other relationships of all four characters, and Erin pulls out her marriage and family therapist education to look at these relationships from a psychological standpoint. 

We also wonder if Jess and Nick were intended to be end game from the beginning, and if Liz Meriwether would ever want to be a guest on our show.

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This week we're talking teachers and tech startups. We look at the other work of New Girl series creator Elizabeth Meriwether, including the the romcom No Strings Attached and the critically-acclaimed Hulu series The Dropout. We also discuss the character archetype of the teacher as seen in media, from Ms. Frizzle to Jess Day to our new favorite, Ms. Teagues on Abbott Elementary. What common threads and through lines do we find in both of these explorations?

This New Republic profile of Liz Meriwether draws out interesting parallels between her work and that of Lena Dunham. This Mental Floss list of memorable TV teachers includes Jessica Day.

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The month of April we are talking all things New Girl! This week we start out mixing things up a little by taking the "Which Character Are You?" quiz first (one of us got a surprising result, the other not so much), and then give an overview of the topics we're planning to dive into this month.

New Girl gives us plenty of material to explore in terms of DNA, from women as sitcom protagonists throughout TV history, the portrayal of teachers in media, the psychology of breakups, and commentary on geek and pop culture spaces and media. Those are a few of the avenues we plan to go down in our discussion, so we hope you'll join us!

If you want to find out which New Girl character you are, take this quiz.

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You didn't think we'd end our Matrix discussion without talking about a little movie called Jupiter Ascending, did you? 

We wrap up this month with a look at the Matrix films in interaction with the science fiction genre, from classics like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the 1927 film Metropolis, to sci-fi blockbusters like Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Star Wars. 

We also look at some newer works that have drawn inspiration from the Matrix films, and how the Wachowski sisters' work has explored gender and society in ways that only science fiction can. 

And, yes, we talk about Jupiter Ascending.

Here are a couple of articles about the science fiction films that influenced The Matrix; the interview where Lilly Wachowski confirmed the trans metaphor in the original film, and a blog post about Jupiter Ascending as gender-bent re-reading of the Matrix.

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This week our discussion of The Matrix veers into those topics you're not supposed to discuss at a dinner party: politics, as explored through the films' connections with Erin's current anime obsessions; and religion, specifically Rhonda's experiences watching The Matrix at her church youth group in 2004. 

Read more about The Animatrix here, and about the 1980s anime that influenced The Matrix here. The Matrix Fandom Wiki has just tiny bit of content on the religious symbolism, but this BBC News article goes a lot more in-depth. Anyone want to read The Gospel Reloaded and report back?

As always, follow us on Instagram for sporadic memes and book recs.

Our in-depth explorations of The Matrix begin with Ancient Greece, in particular with Plato and his Allegory of the Cave, and the Greco-Roman god of dreams, Morpheus. 

We also spontaneously draw parallels between The Matrix and Shakespeare's Macbeth, dip just a little bit into political readings of the films, and as is our tendency, reference The Office far more than necessary.

Read a free copy of the Allegory of the Cave; check out Geraldo Nascimento's The Matrix Illuminated. Background on the Greek god Morpheus. 

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We are taking the Red Pill and entering the Matrix... or wait... was it the other way around? 

This week we give you a birds' eye view of the topics and themes we plan to explore this month as we dive into this iconoclastic science fiction film series. (Our friend Anna helped us write this description, and you might be able to hear her voice on part of the episode!)

We'll cover Plato's Allegory of the Cave, the Mythos of Morpheus, and the religious imagery and symbolism we see in the films, plus more!

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We wrap up our Bridgerton series with a look at how the show has impacted pop culture, tourism, fashion, and social media! From the filming locations turning into tourist attractions, to #RegencyCore trending on TikTok, to Regency Romance-inspired dating shows like The Courtship, Bridgerton has inspired a cultural moment, and we are loving it!

This article highlights several of Bridgerton's filming locations, and this one details the rise in tourism due to the "Bridgerton Effect." This Vogue article breaks down the RegencyCore trend and fashion aesthetic, and this TODAY article tells you everything you need to know about the new dating reality series The Courtship.

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