Why is it people will gladly go on national television to air health problems and weight problems that most of us would be hesitant to discuss with our doctor in private? How do (or did) programmes like You Are What You Eat, Supersize vs Superskinny and The Biggest Loser get away with the exploitation and humiliation they put their contestants through? Not to mention the often bollocks health advice they gave. This is particularly fascinating through the lens of retrospect, given that we live in a time where 'fat-shaming' is on its way to becoming a hate crime, and discourse around what it means to be healthy has never been more fraught. Join us as we dig through these difficult questions with the same enthusiasm and rigour as Gillian McKeith digs through sh*t.

Our society has been awash with re-edits and remixes for decades (in what is commonly known as a remix culture), but total media democratisation via platforms like YouTube has taken us to uncharted territory. Now, hand a 13-year-old boy with decent editing software and enough time on his hands any piece of footage, and there is no end to what they can conceivably do with it.

Through examination of the 'YouTube Poop' (or YTP) phenomenon, as well as recent trends in the music industry, the Spectacles team dig deep on the purposes and potential threats of the remixes we see around us today.

Links to content mentioned in the episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0axzt7krqt4

https://soundcloud.com/user-535691776/dialog

http://youchew.net/

What starts as a lighthearted reminisce about The X Factor in its heyday, the politics of Love Island, and analysis of Simon Cowell's uncanny ability to influence public opinion, evolves into a serious realisation (and subsequent rant) about widespread perceptions in Western society about its youth, and their supposed obsession with fame, pre and post financial crash.

In a world of deafening sound design, hackneyed editing and consumer oversaturation, three intellectuals gather together to work out what has gone wrong (and right, but mainly wrong) with movie trailers. What once impressed and excited moviegoers now faces stiff competition for their attention, when most prefer to stay home. Now, the trailer is showing signs that it is increasingly desperate. What can be done to save it? Through examination of the tropes of horror movie, romcom and superhero/thriller trailers, our heroes might just find the answer. Rated R for Mild Rude Language.

As the political landscape of the UK has undergone radical change, its population have started to look at the BBC with a new pair of eyes. With allegations of bias flying from all political corners, we present the evidence for this bias, and look in particular at the technique used by BBC journalists when interviewing politicians, which we call 'Disbelief by Default'. In the never-ending battle between the politician and the journalist, we look at how the dynamic of the interview has changed over recent decades, and examine the serious consequences of pursuing this style of overly-abrasive journalism. Among our case studies will be the relationship between Laura Kuenssberg and Jeremy Corbyn, the BBC's approach to the Scottish independence referendum and the influence of Jeremy Paxman on BBC culture.

How has Disney fundamentally changed perceptions of the fairytale? Indeed, what should the fairytale’s purpose be? And what do the most recent Post-Shrek additions to ‘fairytale canon’, such as Frozen and Tangled, say about society’s changing attitudes to the morality behind them? All of these questions may or may not be answered in this episode. Tune in for in-depth analysis, stay for Shrek.

Since its birth, film criticism has meant many different things: from a philosophical art form in itself to a simple star-rating, explaining whether a film is worth your time or money. With the rise of the online critic (namely on YouTube), we take an in-depth look at what film criticism means today, and ask whether it has been devalued, what its value was in the first place, and whether it is pandering to society's increasing need to hear their own opinions reflected back at them. Our discussion will range from examples such as the Nostalgia Critic and the video essay to Cahier du Cinema, the BBC's Mark Kermode and Roger Ebert.

Three lifelong Scots take on the challenge of summing up Scottish representation on-screen, from urban life in 'Trainspotting' and 'Red Road' to rural Scotland in 'The Wicker Man' and 'Brave'. Scotland's homemade programming such as 'Still Game' and the Opening Ceremony of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games offer a glimpse into what image Scotland gives of itself to the rest of the world, while Hollywood's most well-known fantasy and sci-fi characters provide clues as to how Scotland is received. Join us in our quest to answer whether Scotland is under- or misrepresented on screen, and who, if anyone, gets it right!

This is our sassy sister episode to our previous examination of how men are represented in the domestic space in mainstream film and television. Here we examine a variety of 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s media to dissect the standards and pressures put on women in (predominantly) male-dominated spaces as well as looking at more complex roles of labour and responsibility (such as First Lady and Queen), all while attempting to redefine the modern woman, in an episode's work! Examples discussed include Working Girl, Morning Glory, The Crown, and How to Get Away with Murder.

In a (kind of) two-parter, we examine men and women as represented in each other's "hegemonic spaces", i.e. men in the domestic space and women in the workplace. This discussion begins as an examination of the 'Dad Who Can't Dad and then Learns How to Dad' (e.g. Homer Simpson in The Simpsons, Tim Allen in everything) and ends with a wider conversation about what needs to change when it comes to how masculinity, fatherhood and families in general are represented in film and TV.