This 2018 concept album is about reckoning, celebrating, and reclaiming what it means to be American. We discuss how Monáe uses her platform to advocate for queer and black women while working with big record labels to also produce commercial success.

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

• Dirty Computer

Additional Resources:

• Janelle Monáe Bends More Than Gender In Two New Videos From 'Dirty Computer'
• Why Janelle Monae’s ‘Dirty Computer’ Film Is a Timely New Sci-Fi Masterpiece
• Why Janelle Monáe Put Her Music on Hold to Take Hollywood by Storm
• Prince apparently wrote the synth line on Janelle Monáe’s new single
• How Janelle Monáe Found Her Voice
• Janelle Monáe On Her Dirty, World-Dominating Year
• Unpacking the meaning of ‘Dirty Computer,’ in which Janelle Monáe finally gets to be herself
• Janelle Monáe on the meaning of "Dirty Computer" and what she promised her grandmother

This is a special repost of the first episode of our Patreon-only series, SuperKINGcontext.

Stephen King's first novel was adapted into this 1976 cautionary movie about adolescence, bullying, and female representation by a team of middle-aged men. How does the male gaze impact this story that is so often referred to as "feminist"?

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

• Carrie

Additional Resources:

• https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/04/carrie-stephen-king-horror
• https://web.archive.org/web/20000510093031/http://www.briandepalma.net/carrie/carrint.htm
• http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/pj-soles-reminisces-about-the-original-carrie.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/03/carrie-stephen-king-brian-de-palma-horror-films-feminism
• https://cinephiliabeyond.org/four-decades-later-brian-de-palmas-carrie-stands-one-capably-crafted-horror-films-time/
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10474858/Carrie-the-growing-pains-of-a-horror-classic.html
• https://sites.google.com/site/cultoddities/home/carrie/carrie-1976/press/sissy-spacek-interviews
• https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/11/03/carries-prom-scene-an-oral-history-part-one
• https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/11/04/carries-prom-scene-an-oral-history-part-two

This political comedy podcast makes over a million dollars a year from its Patreon subscribers alone. We try to unpack how it gets made while learning more about the personal values associated with the "dirtbag left."

• Chapo Trap House podcast on Soundcloud

Additional Resources:

• Meet Chapo Trap House: The Funniest and Most F**ked Up New Podcast About Media and Politics
• THE RADICAL CHEEK OF 'CHAPO TRAP HOUSE'
• Chapo Trap House are the Vulgar, Brilliant Demigods of the New Progressive Left
• Explaining the ‘Chapo Trap House’ Podcast to the Uninitiated
• Liberals are making bank on a site called Patreon. The right calls it "hipster welfare."
• What Will Become of the Dirtbag Left?
• Is This the Stupidest Book Ever Written About Socialism?
• Chapo Trap House subreddit quarantined for allegedly encouraging violence
• SOCIALISM IS BACK, AND THE KIDS ARE LOVING IT. Reason. Aug/Sep2019, Vol. 51 Issue 4, p55-52. 4p. 2
• 'The Voice of the Dirtbag Left': socialist US comics Chapo Trap House
• Chapo Trap House: Socialism for the Extremely Online

This 2015 comic mixes folklore and magic with science and technology. We discuss how each creator brings their own experimentation to the project, and how it's been received by the comic book industry and its more philosophical readers.

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

• Injection

Additional Resources:

• Warren Ellis' Freaky Scifi Comic Series Injection Gets Optioned for TV
• Exclusive Interview with Injection’s Warren Ellis
• INTERVIEW: Warren Ellis talks about ‘Injection’ without crying
• AN INJECTION OF WARREN ELLIS IN THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
• Matt Chats: Declan Shalvey on Wolverine, Injection, Learning from Scripting Comics, and Why He Brings up ArtCred Less
• What's at Stake with Warren Ellis's 'Injection'
• INJECTION #1 TALK WITH WARREN ELLIS, DECLAN SHALVEY & JORDIE BELLAIRE
• Take Control Of Your World: Revisiting ‘Injection’ By Ellis, Shalvey & Bellaire [Sci-Fi Week] Read More: Take Control Of Your World: Revisiting 'Injection' [Review] 
• https://injectioncomic.tumblr.com/
• BELLAIRE & SHALVEY: ART & COLOR, WORKING IN CONCERT [GALLERY]
• INJECTION #2: LETHAL DECOMPRESSION [CLOSE READ]
• Haug H. The Alchemical Singularity: Magic and Technology in Warren Ellis’s Injection. Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. 2019;48(132):22

This collection of non-fiction essays attempts to define two modes of storytelling by providing examples of each from popular culture. We talk about how Fisher's argument fits into our larger discussions of horror stories and how his definitions may be useful for considering the end of capitalism.

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

• The Weird and the Eerie

Additional Resources:

• The Revolution Will Be Weird and Eerie
• Eugene Thacker – Weird, Eerie, and Monstrous: A Review of “The Weird and the Eerie” by Mark Fisher
• Making Sense of “The Weird and the Eerie”
• In Memoriam: Mark Fisher
• why we quit: tariq goddard on leaving zero books
• Toward a Theory of the New Weird

Thank you to our Co-producer patron Kevin Wetter for selecting this week's topic!

This 2009 TV show, helmed by Joss Whedon, was meant to be a thematic exploration of identity and sexuality but many have argued about its problematic story. Was that because of corporate interference or Whedon's own issues with feminist representation?

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

• Dollhouse, Season 1

Additional Resources:

• Adams, Pippa. Women in Science Fiction: Opportunities and Constraints of Representations in Postfeminist Worlds
• Joss Whedon on Comic Books, Abusing Language and the Joys of Genre
• JOSS WHEDON TALKS FIREFLY, DOLLHOUSE AND LEAVING TELEVISION
• The Mind-Transplant Script Whedon Wrote Before Dollhouse
• Anderson, D. (2016). Echoes of Frankenstein: Shelley’s Masterpiece in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Our Relationship with Technology. Slayage, 43, 1
• Kitchens, J. (2016). Object Entanglements: From Postmodern Subjectivity to Posthuman Thingness in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Studies in Popular Culture, 38(2), 1.
• Rogers, S. (2011). Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 22(2), 153.
• Avni, S. (2008). Inside the Dollhouse. Mother Jones, 33(6), 88–89.
• Jensen, J. (2008). Welcome to the “Dollhouse” Fan Frenzy. Entertainment Weekly, (997), 14.
• The Expired Feminism of Joss Whedon
• In defence of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse
• Joss Whedon's Dollhouse: Confounding Purpose, Confusing Identity, edited by Sherry Ginn, Alyson R. Buckman, Heather M. Porter
• • “Fantasy Is His Business, but It Is Not His Purpose” by Alyson R. Buckman
• The Fascinating No-Consent Fantasia of Dollhouse and Mad Men
• POSTMORTEM: WHY WE HATED DOLLHOUSE. AND WHY WE LOVED IT.

THIS IS A REPOST OF A 2016 EPISODE. As the release of the film JOKER looms, we revisit our discussion about Batman, the Joker, and ambiguity.

Looking back on the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” does it stand for anything? Or does it simply soak up whatever morals we bring to it? Christopher Nolan’s intentions remain mysterious, but we do our best to figure them out.  

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

• The Dark Knight

Additional Resources:

• JOHNSON, V. (2014). ‘It’s What You Do that Defines You:’ Christopher Nolan’s Batman as Moral Philosopher. Journal Of Popular Culture, 47(5), 952. doi:10.1111/jpcu.12181
• The Dark Knight of the American Empire
• Hunting The Dark Knight : Twenty-First Century Batman. London: I.B.Tauris
• Dive Deep Into the Making of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy With This Documentary

Thank you to our Co-producer patron Miriam Meaney for selecting this week's topic!

This 1985 Peter Greenaway film approaches storytelling with the perspective that there is no meaning to reality despite our organized attempts to create it. We talk about how Greenaway uses the traditions of Dutch paintings and anatomical animal studies to get this message across or frustrate us by trying.

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

• A Zed and Two Noughts

Additional Resources:

• Symmetry and Structure in Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Noughts
• Organizing the ZOO: Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts
• Distant Voices, Still Lives and A Zed and Two Noughts: watch the double bill
• Alemany-Galway, M., & Willoquet-Maricondi, P. (2008). Peter Greenaway’s Postmodern / Poststructuralist Cinema (Vol. Rev. ed). Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press.
• De Beauregard, R. C. (2010). Green Apples and Red Prawns: The Colour of Time in Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts ( Z.0.0.). Journal of British Cinema & Television, 7(1), 82.

Thank you to our Co-producer patron Chris Marlton for selecting this week's topic!

This 2002 Japanese art film is slow, meticulously shot, and has wonderful, ornate costumes. We discuss how it was influenced by a form of traditional puppetry but should be approached more like a meditative painting.

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

• Dolls

Additional Resources:

• Finding Love in Loss and Tragedy
• Dolls
• Dolls by Takeshi Kitano (Review)
• The cult Japanese movies outfitted by Yohji Yamamoto
• Inviolable Attachments: Takeshi Kitano’s Dolls
• Dolls (2002)
• Redmond, S. (2013). The Cinema of Takeshi Kitano : Flowering Blood. London: WallFlower Press.
• Sherman Hollar. (2012). Kitano Takeshi. Britannica Biographies, 1.

In this 1978 non-fiction book, Gardner argues that art and writing should be moral and that his peers in the literary community are immoral for failing to uphold this tradition. We discuss Gardner's tragic life story while trying to process this debate and whether he was right, wrong or just an asshole.

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

• On Moral Fiction

Additional Resources:

• John Gardner, Pugilist at Rest
• Moral Fiction
• John Gardner raided the castle of American fiction, a bit like Grendel. By David Stanton
• Getting the Elephant off the Baby: A Look Back at John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction
• John Gardner’s Tricksy Death and Tangled Legacy
• On Moral Fiction, By John Gardner, Analysis by Christian Author Lorilyn Roberts
• John Gardner: A Tiny Eulogy
• What Do You Mean, 'Moral' Fiction?
• An Interview with John Gardner
• John Gardner