Media Literate

Hey, almost everybody who worked on this podcast is receiving their degrees today! In honor of this momentous occasion, the Media Literate team organized an adorably tiny "conference" with some panels of our most frequent guests to let them talk to each other for once instead of being stuck with Kim and Laura. It's a mushy, feel-good finale. Thanks for listening.

Sebastian returns from an epic voyage through the James Bond franchise to tell Kim and Laura about one of its low points—or high points, depending on how you look at it—Lee Tamahori's Die Another Day (2002).   Some cool articles for further inquiry:   Barry Barclay, “Celebrating Fourth Cinema”: https://www.academia.edu/4905111/Printed_in_Illusions_Magazine_NZ_July_2003_CELEBRATING_FOURTH_CINEMA  Cynthia Baron, “Doctor No: Bonding Britishness to Racial Sovereignty”: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_James_Bond_Phenomenon/x9-1QY5boUsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover  Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322328154_On_the_importance_of_a_date_or_decolonizing_the_Anthropocene  T.J. Demos, Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today: https://icamiami-org.storage.googleapis.com/2017/06/dc83ec96-mirzoeff-demos_anthropocene-proofs-jan2017.pdf Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822385981/html?lang=en Jamie Shinhee Lee, “North Korea, South Korea, and 007 Die Another Day”: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405900701464865 Max Liboiron, Pollution is Colonialism: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781478021445/html Emiel Martens, Once Were Warriors: The Aftermath: The Controversy of OWW in Aotearoa New Zealand: https://www.amazon.com/Once-were-Warriors-Aftermath-Controversy/dp/9052602360 Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interrupts: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822376781/html Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, “Toward a Third Cinema”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41685716  Vanessa Watts, “Indigenous Place-Thought and Agency Amongst Humans and Non Humans (First Woman and Sky Woman Go on a European World Tour!)”: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/19145

Bri returns to drop some more game studies knowledge on Kim and Laura's heads, this time thinking about the question of agency. What does it mean to make choices in games, particularly when it comes to games that tell stories of resistance and revolution? Is there a "right" or a "wrong" ending to these games?   Some cool links for further inquiry: States and Social Revolutions by Theda Skocpol: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=so0gddc0w3UC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=states+and+social+revolution&ots=ISK9OtQSqV&sig=wnDcQ0qzUh_IzgYE9xE6LCB-iEw#v=onepage&q=states%20and%20social%20revolution&f=false Muriel, Daniel and Garry Crawford. "Video games and agency within neoliberalism and participatory culture." Video games as Culture: The Role and Importance of Video Games in Contemporary Society. Routledge, 2018

Kim Henry joins Julia Elizabeth Evans to reflect on the biggest night of the year in Hollywood—the good, the bad, and the cringe.

It's a mom appreciation episode! Kim, Laura, and Daniela try to parse through Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother" while considering their own mothers and how they influenced their love of film. No, Kim and Laura don't understand the movie, but hey, they've still got a whole two months left in their Master's program to figure it all out.

Julia welcomes Kim and Laura to her new coven with a conversation about witches and anthropology.   Some cool links for further inquiry: What Type of Witch Are You? https://www.buzzfeed.com/sydrobinson1/what-type-of-witch-are-you Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Mules_and_Men/tz62QRx_gE0C?hl=en&gbpv=0 - Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Witch/RDYuDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, “Expedition Content”: https://ek.klingt.org/expeditioncontent.html E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Witchcraft_Oracles_and_Magic_Among_the_A/z7dFEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 Chick Strand, “Notes on Ethnographic Film by a Film Artist”: https://cinefiles.bampfa.berkeley.edu/catalog/6643

Everything you need to know about Post-Socialism. Just in time, too.  

Our producer Julia Elizabeth Evans takes a second to process industry news with our host Laura. Together, they circle back and work out their thoughts about the 2021 Rust set tragedy, the fall 2021 IAETSE strike, Hollywood’s culture of urgency, and the industry-wide conversation around safety on set.

Laura and Kim enlist Ann's help in understanding what it is about early film she loves so much—other than the fact that Buster Keaton can definitely get it, which they understand completely. Some cool links for further inquiry: Mary Ann Doane, "The Indexical and the Concept of Medium Specificity" https://read.dukeupress.edu/differences/article-abstract/18/1/128/97676/The-Indexical-and-the-Concept-of-Medium   Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde" http://www.columbia.edu/itc/film/gaines/historiography/Gunning.pdf

From cultural norms to political values to stereotypes—learn all about Antonio Gramsci and his essential contributions to the concept of 'hegemony' on this week's Snack Episode, with special guest, PhD student Dan Lark. Some cool references for further inquiry:  How Gramsci Went Global" by Marzia Maccaferri: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/10/how-gramsci-went-global Antonio Gramsci: Life of a Revolutionary by Giussepe Fiori (1990) Antonio Gramsci: Architect of a New Politics by Dante L. Germino (1990) The Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/prison-notebooks/9780231157551 "The world world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters." - Antonio Gramsci

Attention ladies and gentleman of the ton, Media Literate is back for the new social season with romance scholar and absolute legend Jackie Johnson, who joins Kim and Laura for a chat about the racial politics of Bridgerton (2020-). What does it mean to be "race-blind?" And how do the implications of a story change when adapting a book to film with actors of color?   Some cool sources for further inquiry: Aymar Jean Christian, Open TV: Innovation beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9781479814909/html Jayashree Kamblé, Making Meaning in Popular Romance Fiction: An Epistemology: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mUBvBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=jayashree+kamble&ots=8QxOGBUBwZ&sig=seFvWyylkW95zs233pJygEVo1bI#v=onepage&q&f=false Sarah Brouillette, “Romance Work”: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/722834/pdf?casa_token=LzDajTFXir0AAAAA:gCEFVrR_sw73KQdcZFQGUzDnDh-QanC9pXXqdEP705hjnHoZq36X0skrqgDGEzhplOV0pw1D7Q

It's finally mildly chilly in Los Angeles, so grab a cup of cocoa (or something stronger) and get cozy. Kim and Laura are talking about their favorite Christmas movies in an extended Canon Fodder segment that in classic Canon Fodder tradition mostly doesn't mention any of the actual Christmas movie canon.

This week's snack episode is led by Daniela Velazco, who teaches us the roots and importance of Chicanx cinema. Learn how these Mexican-American filmmakers started, what motivated the stories they tell, and why their films especially relevant in our modern, transnational context.

Kim and Laura return to their ongoing conversation on futurity with Sebastian, who talks with them about Indigenous time and conceptions of the future. Some cool links for further inquiry: Incident at Restigouche: https://www.nfb.ca/film/incident_at_restigouche/ The Cave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHZsdgfo11w&t=3s File Under Miscellaneous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SEyAs-FSHQ&t=360s The 6th World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f4Jm0y_iLk Lindsey Catherine Cornum, “The Creation Story is a Spaceship: Indigenous Futurism and Decolonial Deep Space”: http://www.vozavoz.ca/feature/lindsay-catherine-cornum Grace L. Dillon (ed.), Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction: https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/walking-the-clouds N.K. Jemisin, “How Long ’Til Black Future Month?”: https://nkjemisin.com/2013/09/how-long-til-black-future-month/ Mark Rifkin, Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination: https://www.dukeupress.edu/beyond-settler-time Leslie Marmon Silko, “Long time ago”: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx3b2xmZWttaHN8Z3g6NTg2MTk3YWU0NmUwYjVjNQ Kali Simmons, “Reorientations; or, An Indigenous Feminist Reflection on the Anthropocene”: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/717132/pdf?casa_token=9A_HWUnJtvAAAAAA:LWQmXYA0-HhA-gTz5MuF8UqIt6sNVlYwOoxDWPiNgXlV4Jg3PRoee8PZQgkUE0Oupc5k9Xwf5g Zoe Todd, “Indigenizing the Anthropocene”: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/3118244/7-Todd,-Zoe,-Indigenizing-the-Anthropocene.pdf Interview with Jeff Barnaby: https://www.vulture.com/2020/05/jeff-barnaby-is-worried-white-people-wont-get-blood-quantum.html Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/medialiteratepodcast/ Music credit: Fawn Wood

Returning guest, Sebastian, comes to explain everything important about Fourth Cinema and its roots in media history...in 4 minutes. Learn about numbered cinema and what comes next in this week's Snack Episode.

Ann returns once again, this time for a chat with Kim and Laura about the power of celebrity in the United States and China and its role in projecting national influence around the world. Plus, Kim and Laura share some of their most embarrassing celebrity hangups.   Some cool links for further info: Ann McCarthy, "Reality Television: A Neoliberal Theater of Suffering": https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anna-Mccarthy-2/publication/249880817_Reality_Television_A_Neoliberal_Theater_of_Suffering/links/556c098108aeccd7773a228c/Reality-Television-A-Neoliberal-Theater-of-Suffering.pdf Sarah Banet-Weiser, Authentic(TM): https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9780814739372/html  

Kim and Laura are joined by Ph.D. student Maddie Hawk for a chat about the history of Korean media up to and including Squid Game. Why is it so big right now, and what do we miss about it when we don't have the proper context?

Just in time for the Spooky Holidays, our newest Short-Form Snack Episode invites back Charlotte Scurlock to teach us the history and use of the horror genre term: abjection.  Some cool links for further inquiry: Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: http://digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu/~jack/home/images/archive/6/60/20160825003818%21Kristevapowersofhorrorabjection.pdf   Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429236143/monstrous-feminine-barbara-creed

Get ready for a very wholesome airing of grievances. Laura and Kim bring on a brand-new team member, MFA student Julia Elizabeth Evans, to settle the centuries-old (probably) rivalry between film studies and film production. Is the author really dead, as this podcast has been saying for months now? Let's see what an author thinks.   Some cool links for further inquiry: Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author: https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf   T.J. Demos, Beyond the World's End: Arts of Living at the Crossing: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UnH0DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=tj+demos+beyond+the+end+of+the+world&ots=zRTBDwZOdi&sig=dK3itlCSaYLVCxnpWKRCjQ2MeXM#v=onepage&q&f=false   Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema": http://johnniewilcox.com/courses/20051/postmodernism/files/articles/20050131mulvey.pdf   Marc Siegel, "The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-wai": https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Bmihe5fRwV4C&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=marc+siegel+at+full+speed&ots=bHHyrZl2iS&sig=5ephdhHON1bSsh-VxfQoAdxoN2U#v=onepage&q=marc%20siegel%20at%20full%20speed&f=false   The IATSE strike: https://iatse.net/by-a-nearly-unanimous-margin-iatse-members-in-tv-and-film-production-vote-to-authorize-a-nationwide-strike/   https://www.juliaelizabethevans.com/

In this early-release Snack Episode, Julia Elizabeth Evans discusses the recent IATSE strike rippling through the media production world, and explains why it matters for you and the shows you care about.    Want to learn more about the updated agreement between Producers and Film Crew Members? "Hollywood Strike Averted As IATSE & AMPTP Reach Deal On New Film & TV" Contracthttps://deadline.com/2021/10/hollywood-strike-averted-iatse-amptp-reach-agreement-on-new-film-tv-contract-1234850563/