This 2008 military film claims to be about realism and a soldier's addiction to war. But we learn that despite writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow's best intentions, it doesn't accurately reflect the experience of veterans.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• The Hurt Locker
• Near Dark
• Blue Steel
• Point Break
• Sheriff of Babylon
• Pride of Baghdad
• The Night Porter
• Eat the Apple

Additional Resources:

• Here’s Why ‘The Hurt Locker’ Is The Worst War Movie Of All Time
• U.S. bomb expert says "Hurt Locker" stole his story
• Iraq War Vet Ordered to Pay $187,000 in Failed Lawsuit Against 'Hurt Locker' Producers
• The Hurt Locker: interview with Mark Boal
• The Hurt Locker: So Right About Men, So Wrong About Addiction
• What's Wrong With 'The Hurt Locker'
• First sight: Mark Boal
• Driscoll, S. (2013). The Hurt Locker (film). Salem Press Encyclopedia,
• TAUBIN, A. (2009). hard wired. Film Comment, 45(3), 30-35.
• The Iraq war -- from the troops' point of view
• Kathryn Bigelow

 

This 12-year running comedy game show features celebrities from the entertainment industry celebrating their love of cinema. But it's also a fascinating intersection between business and marijuana culture. We discuss its trajectory alongside the legalization of the drug here in parts of the United States.   Check out Doug Loves Movies here.   Additional Resources:

• Podcast Review: Doug Loves Movies
• Listen Up: The 20 Best Comedy Podcasts Right Now
• https://tv.avclub.com/doug-benson-is-probably-high-right-now-1798258344
• Doug Benson on comedy, high concepts and Doug Loves Movies
• Doug Benson's Total Scam of a Life
• Listen Notes
• Talk show host's stoner dream comes true, and it's high time
• Doug Benson On 420 Comedy, Post-Legalization

   

 

This controversial comic series about terrorism and identity politics predicts a dystopia that not everyone is willing to agree with. We look at the angry arguments from both Howard Chaykin and his detractors about whether this is artistic expression or just shock value. And... we ask what no one else seems to address. Does Chaykin's story successfully meet its intended goal?

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• The Divided States of Hysteria
• Black Kiss
• American Flagg
• The Homeland Directive
• Dead Babies
• Mr. A

Additional Resources:

• The Divided States of Hysteria controversy, and what it means for trans characters in comics
• “Conversation” Sparked By Second Print Of ‘Divided States Of Hysteria’
• Transmyscira: Why I’m Boycotting Image Comics
• On Free Speech, Censorship, And Howard Chaykin’s Divided States Of Hysteria
• Howard Chaykin Responds To Controversy
• Image Comics & Chaykin respond to sensitivity feedback, pull THE DIVIDED STATES OF HYSTERIA cover
• HOWARD CHAYKIN RESPONDS
• INTERVIEW: Howard Chaykin on ‘Divided States of Hysteria’ controversy
• There Is Absolutely No Excuse for Image Comics’ Divided States of Hysteria Hate Crime Cover
• Let’s All Calm Down Over Howard Chaykin’s ‘Divided States’ Cover Art Swap

As long-time listeners know, one of our hosts is moving across the country, and our production schedule has been disrupted.

To ease the transition, this week's Supercontext is a shortened, totally subjective chat about what media we have been consuming and enjoying.

If anything caught your interest, please consider buying through our Amazon links below to support the show!

PROSE

• Newsletters: Warren Ellis, Unladylike, Hot Pod, Jim Gibbons, Ken Lowery, Live Wire
• Men in the Off Hours

AUDIO

• Jimmywine Majestic
• Until Your Heart Stops

COMICS

• Shiver
• Juni Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu
• The Coldest City

TV

• Hap and Leonard
• Legion
• Halt and Catch Fire

MOVIES

• Alien: Covenant
• Atomic Blonde

We look into the story behind-the-scenes of this surprisingly profound comic: from Ferris' struggle with West Nile virus, to the book's seizure en route through the Panama Canal. In addition, we discuss Ferris' theme of "personal monster dilemmas" and how the process of creating this was like melting valuable dross from gold.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
• How To Be Happy
• You And A Bike And A Road
• Why Art?
• Escape From Special
• Gravity's Rainbow

Additional Resources:

• Fantagraphics Has Surprise Hit in Debut ‘My Favorite Thing is Monsters’
• Bankrupt Shipping Company Causing Woes for Publishers
• Emil Ferris: 'I didn’t want to be a woman – being a monster was the best solution'
• The Emil Ferris Interview: Monsters, Art and Stories (Part 2)
• The Bite That Changed My Life
• My Favorite Thing is Monsters Author Talks 2017’s Buzziest Graphic Novel
• The Holocaust, Art, Chicago & Sickness: A 3,500-Word Interview with My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Mastermind Emil Ferris
• How Emil Ferris became the breakout graphic novelist of the year

This memoir by a music icon was expected to be a tell-all about scandal and betrayal. But we discuss how it's actually about defense mechanisms that give the illusion of cool confidence.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Girl in a Band
• 1991: The Year Punk Broke
• Sonic Youth
• The Messthetics
• Motherfucker
• The Purkinje Shift (live)
• Rap Damage

Additional Resources:

• Kim Gordon’s ‘Girl in a Band’
• Mooallem, S. (2015). 60s KIM GORDON. Harper's Bazaar, 304-307.
• Unconventional Idol: Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band
• FELSENTHAL, J. (2015). ONE-WOMAN SHOW. Marie Claire (US Edition), 22(3), 226.
• Even Kim Gordon Doesn't Have It All
• Weiner, J. (2015). Kim Gordon's New Noise. Rolling Stone, (1230), 18.
• Why Do Women's Music Memoirs Sell So Erratically?
• Kim Gordon: Girl in a Band

As long-time listeners know, one of our hosts is moving across the country, and our production schedule has been disrupted.

To ease the transition, this week's Supercontext is a shortened, totally subjective chat about what media we have been consuming and enjoying.

If anything caught your interest, please consider buying through our Amazon links below to support the show!

PROSE

• After The People Lights Have Gone Off
• The Ones That Got Away
• Steering the Craft
• My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs
• Commonwealth 

COMICS

• Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier (The Man On The Wall)

AUDIO

• Mothership Connection
• Maggot Brain
• Cluster & Eno
• Jericho Sirens
• The Binge Mode podcast

TV

• Taboo
• Peaky Blinders
• Longmire
• Hard Sun
• Puffin Rock

MOVIES

• They Remain
• Coco
• Charlotte’s Web
• Moana

 

This 2017 film, written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, is trying to be a respectful crime drama set on a Native American reservation. We discuss Sheridan's mission and choices, as well as the criticism and praise it received for its depiction.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• Wind River
• Skinwalkers
• Stephen Graham Jones
• Longmire

Additional Resources:

• Wind River Is an Overwritten Mystery-Thriller With a Crazily Powerful Ending
• The Moody, Mixed Messages of Wind River
• The Truth Behind This Year's Most Shocking Film, Wind River
• 'Wind River': Taylor Sheridan on Why He Needed to Make This Modern Western
• Taylor Sheridan: 'The big joke on reservations is the white guy that shows up and says: "My grandma is Cherokee"'
• What’s So Hard About Casting Indian Actors in Indian Roles?
• Movie Review: Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Wind River’ is Gripping, Realistic and Beautifully-Crafted
• Three Billboards, Wind River and Hollywood's Representation Problem
• Why do white writers keep making films about Indian Country?
• Sundance: Weinstein Company to No Longer Distribute Jeremy Renner's 'Wind River'
• Weinstein Name Stripped From ‘Wind River’; Tunica-Biloxi Tribe Financiers To Pay For Oscar Campaign
• Taylor Sheridan Got the Weinstein Company Scrubbed From Wind River With an Ultimatum
• Brutal Crimes Grip an Indian Reservation

Jen Kirkman is a prolific comedian, known for her acerbic, dry wit. We look at her 2015 Netflix special and wonder what it says about mainstream lifestyles and life after forty.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine)
• The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
• Nikki Glaser
• Morgan Murphy
• April Richardson
• Michelle Wolff

Additional Resources:

• Jen Kirkman responds to Louis C.K. allegations: He's 'no longer' a friend
• Jen Kirkman sets the record straight on Louis CK and those sexual misconduct rumors
• Jen Kirkman on Election-Night Anxiety, Touring as a Woman, and Dealing With Rumors
• Jen Kirkman: ‘Joan Rivers was my comedy mother’
• Jen Kirkman Talks Trump, Mental Health, and Overthinking Comedy
• Jen Kirkman on feminism, Hallmark Christmas movies and — yes — Louis C.K.
• In her first Netflix special, Jen Kirkman airs her grievances on a world gone dumb
• Jen Kirkman Finds Material in the Single Life in ‘I’m Gonna Die Alone’
• I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine): An Interview with Jen Kirkman
• How Morrissey’s Moping and the Bee Gees’ Style Inspired Jen Kirkman’s Standup Special

This graphic novel, by one of the elder statesmen of comics, pushed the medium into new formats, genres and methods of distribution. We discuss how Eisner used a very personal tragedy to create it, as well as its unique representation of Jewish American identity.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

• A Contract With God
• The Spirit
• Comics and Sequential Art
• Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative
• Hubert Selby, Jr. 

Additional Resources:

• Eisner's A Contract with God Is the First Graphic Novel. By: Plummer, Marguerite R., Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2013
• The 'God' father
• THE ANATOMY OF EXPRESSION: WILL EISNER AND ‘A CONTRACT WITH GOD’
• Scott McCloud’s Introduction to Will Eisner’s A Contract With God — the Centennial Edition
• Royal, D. P. (2011). Sequential Sketches of Ethnic Identity: Will Eisner's "A Contract with God" as Graphic Cycle. College Literature, 38(3), 150-167.