The Midnight Myth Podcast

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story… The question of “who tells your story” echoes throughout the Broadway sensation Hamilton: An American Musical, a blockbuster portrayal of a forgotten figure in American history. This week on the Midnight Myth, we dive deep into Lin-Manuel Miranda’s powerful piece of theatrical Americana in a surprise second investigation into the roles and responsibilities of historical fiction. We’ll go back to the big daddy of historical dramas, William Shakespeare, to learn how history plays have shaped national sentiment and historical perception. Then we’ll discuss the historical imperatives Hamilton confronts us with. What does the play ask us to do? What relationship to history does it cultivate? Does it handle American history with the delicacy it deserves—where does it triumph and where does it fall short? Hamilton is deeply important to us as art lovers and content creators, so we hope to do it justice in our conversation—or that you’ll view us with indulgence.

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Donate to the Milwaukee Freedom Fund to help protestors in Kenosha. Or donate directly to the family of Jacob Blake.

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Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

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They may take our lives, but they can never take… our podcast! This week on the Midnight Myth, come with us to a distant land and a distant past, when a cruel pagan ruled England, and a kilt-wearing, face-painted band of untrained rebels beat back those tyrannical invaders. A time when princesses traveled to enemy territory to negotiate with war leaders, only to fall in love with a larger-than-life national hero… Wait a second. That doesn’t sound right. Yes, friends, we’re tackling the 1995 megahit of historical fiction, Braveheart. Spoiler alert: it’s not history. But if it’s not history, what value does it bring? We’ll explore some of the political realities of England and Scotland in the Middle Ages, the epic “source” material of the Mel Gibson flick, and the reflections Braveheart inspires regarding historiography.

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If you’re not part of a high-risk population and want to do your part to help ensure a free and fair US election, consider applying to become a poll worker. Learn more at www.powerthepolls.org.

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Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

What threatening shadows lie within the deep? For millennia, mankind has wrestled with the mysteries and perils of our oceans. With 80% of the world’s oceans still uncharted, it’s easy to understand why we tell stories about monsters lurking beneath the surface. Today, we’re discussing the ultimate modern realization of those fears—Stephen Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws. We’ll look back to the ancient world and the mythological sea monsters we once believed plagued our waters. How far have we really come from the people who imagined the Kraken, sea serpents, and six-headed man-eaters? Plus, we’ll cover the Great White in the room—why Jaws comparisons have surfaced in conversations about the coronavirus, public health, and policy debate.

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If you’re not part of a high-rick population and want to do your part to help ensure a free and fair US election, consider applying to become a poll worker. Learn more at www.powerthepolls.org.

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Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

After five weeks of discussing iconic science fiction films and television—2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Rick & Morty Season 4—we’re back with a no-holds-barred discussion of the connecting themes and striking variation within the genre. Starting with a (very) brief history of sci-fi, from its ancient roots to its flourishing in the 19th and 20th Centuries, we try to arrive at a satisfying definition of the science fiction genre that celebrates its rich and diverse output. We’ll discuss how sci-fi properties frequently serve as apt social or political commentary, the changing landscape of literary voices within the genre, and the contentious distinction between sci-fi as pulp and sci-fi as “serious literature.”

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Find out if your state offers free COVID-19 tests and get tested through Project Baseline. Thank you for wearing a mask and protecting the health and safety of your community.

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The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

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Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

After an eventful couple of weeks, we’re back in the studio with the conclusion of our mini episode series on science fiction film and television. This week, we’re getting schwifty with insights from Season 4 of Adult Swim’s Rick & Morty. Through the particular lens of Season Four, Episode Six: Never-Ricking Morty (you know, the one with the Story Train), we’ll explore what it means to be postmodern sci-fi. We’ll discuss Dan Harmon’s signature “Story Circle”—an adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s comparative mythology research—and the layers of in-universe and out-of-universe commentary this episode achieves. Like, it’s so meta. Plus, what happens when stories become the basis of entire belief systems—from Jesus Christ to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Rick Sanchez himself…

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Find out if your state offers free COVID-19 tests and get tested through Project Baseline. Thank you for wearing a mask and protecting the health and safety of your community.

__

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

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Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

We’re back. In the fourth installment of our science fiction mini-series, we’re taking on another iconic sequel (and finally succumbing to the lure of James Cameron) by covering 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The sci-fi-action-blockbuster that spawned some of cinema’s most quotable moments also deals in massive questions of human responsibility, technology, destiny, and compassion. We’ll discuss Sarah Connor as an analog of Cassandra, the cursed prophetess of Troy, and the film’s parallels to a widespread mytheme. Plus, what is SkyNet? What is the technological singularity? Is the future set, or are we bound toward the same destruction via many paths? Come with us if you want to live… and learn!

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Find out if your state offers free COVID-19 tests and get tested through Project Baseline. Thank you for wearing a mask and protecting the health and safety of your community.

__

The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

“Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space.” That’s right, friends, for the first time in our three years of podcasting, we are heading where no man has gone before and taking on the beloved Star Trek franchise with a deep dive into 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Considered the best of the Star Trek films, The Wrath of Khan is simply dripping with literary references, from the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. How do all these dizzyingly complex texts inform the philosophy at the heart of the story? How does this science fiction film conform to age-old revenge stories while also functioning as a naval war story in space? How do reason and passion—two powerful thematic forces in the Star Trek universe—find harmony in the characters of James T. Kirk, Spock, and the inimitable Khan? Beam up with us for the answers to all these questions and more… Part 3 of a short series on sci-fi in movies and television.

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The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

As we continue careening through the vacuum of space in our mini-series on sci-fi classics, we’re picked up by the commercial ship the Nostromo. A strange creature lurks on board… This week, we’re discussing Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror/science fiction mashup ALIEN. We’ll explore the ancient themes that resonate from Greek mythology into this modern masterpiece, and we’ll discuss how the persistent mind-body problem suffuses this intensely visceral film. A movie that masterfully tackles questions of gender and sexuality, survival and heroism, humanity and monstrosity. Don’t forget—if we break quarantine, we could all die.

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The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Open the pod bay doors and join us beyond the infinite as we dive deep into Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this first part of a mini-series on sci-fi in movies and television, we’re starting with what many consider the greatest science fiction film ever made (and we don’t disagree). We’ll explore some of the myriad readings of this ambiguous and powerful piece of visual storytelling, discuss themes of evolution and progress, and offer some insights into the unique collaboration of Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. We’ll decode some of the visual and auditory symbols, bringing analysis from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. How does Kubrick fashion a sci-fi masterpiece that works its magic on the unconscious, stirs our “mythological yearnings,” and infuses Romance and poetry into the cold vacuum of space? All this and more on this week’s odyssey.

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The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

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If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!

Just when you thought the Wheel of Ka was over, and after 7 books of re-reads and discussion about Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, Derek and Steve return with the coda. We sat and reflected on the time, and gunslinger-esque dedication it took to complete our side project, and realized we had just one more episode of the Path of the Beam. In an interview style bonus, Derek asks Steve several questions about the books, what connects them, their strengths, their weaknesses, and debate like two old stars in a constellation over Midworld, locked in dialogue, trapped in gravity, and forever repeating.

We hope you enjoy this bonus, and remember, all things, even the Beams serve the Tower, why would this podcast be any different?

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The Midnight Myth stands with Black Lives Matter and those protesting social injustice across our country. Please join us in supporting those who will not stay silent.

Open your wallet if you are able. Consider supporting the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Reclaim the Block, your local Black Lives Matter Chapter or Bail Fund. Or directly support the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Tony McDade. Seek out and support Black-owned businesses in your area.

Looking to get educated about systemic racism, police violence, and white privilege? Find book, film, and podcast recommendations at bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES.

—

Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth

Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes!

Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen!