Sad Girl Syllabus

Sad Girl Syllabus is back with an end-of-the-year special with astrologer Erin Redwing of Planet IX Astrology. Erin joins us for a conversation about astrology, her spiritual journey, and her predictions for 2023. In her year ahead forecast, she covers the major players Saturn in Pisces, Pluto in Aquarius, Jupiter in Taurus, and the North Node in Aries. The vibes are neither good nor bad, but a secret third thing…Related Articles:The Astrology of Money: Bitcoin and the Aquarian TechnocalypseErin Redwing:youtube.com/realizingerinTikTok: @realizingerinTwitter: @realizingerinPlanet IX Astrology:Planet-ix.visionTikTok: @planet.ix.astrologyInstagram: @planet.ix.astrologyShop the Planet IX store: https://planet-ix.vision/collections/all

The finale of our spooky anniversary season is here! Just in time for Halloween, the Sad Girls are discussing two internet-centered films, Pulse (2006) and We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021), and explore how they fit into the Folk Horror canon. How do internet-native urban legends shift our perception of folklore today?

As Halloween creeps closer, Bethany and Mary invoke spirits and monsters while discussing folk horror in the Candyman films (1992 & 2021) and The Skeleton Key (2005). Each film approaches the legacy and stain of slavery in the US, and the terrors that continue to stem from it.

This week the Sad Girls scare themselves. Bethany and Mary watched The Ring (2002) and Poltergeist (1982) so you don't have to! Tune in for our takes on both films, the way they draw on folklore, and for some bonus ghost stories.Become a patron: https://patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

The Sad Bitch Project In October of 2022, two podcasters disappeared into the woods while recording a podcast…

Welcome to the most wonderful time of the year, listeners! We're celebrating the best way we know how, by talking about horror movies. But not just any kind of horror, we're delving into folk horror and exploring what makes the genre so disturbing. This week we're watching both versions of The Wicker Man (1973 and 2006), the first film that comes to mind when we think of folk horror.Become a patron: https://patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

In the last leg of Sad Girls Abroad, Bethany and Mary discuss the turn to horror in the movies Hostel and Midsommar. What's an American to do when they run into an ancient European cult? The girls discuss the depiction of American exceptionalism amid horror, ritual, and more.Warning: There are discussions of gore and vomit throughout this episode, specifically from 6 min to 46 minute mark, as well as references to violence throughout.Sign up for our newsletter: https://sadgirlsyllabus.com Become a Patron: https://patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

This week the Sad Girls are watching the genre-defining summer holidaze film The Talented Mr. Ripley. Bethany and Mary discuss all the reasons why this is the best expression of “Americans Abroad,” the pillars of the Sad Girl Pantheon (Jude Law, Matt Damon, Philip Seymour Hoffman), how this movie could be defined as Dark Call Me By Your Name, all while doing what we do best: go on tangents.Sign up for our newsletter: https://sadgirlsyllabus.com Become a Patron: https://patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

The Sad Girls stay in the sun as moods get darker in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash. Bethany and Mary discuss the film's rising (sexual) tensions, refugees and xenophobia, and confronting the villan you've become. Plus, pools and Dakota Johnson.

Something about the hot sun, the endless hours on the beach that makes the European Holiday take a turn… This week Bethany and Mary discuss Elena Ferrante's “The Lost Daughter,” an iconic beach read and film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The story uses the summer trip as a backdrop to exploring the darker sides of self and we ponder what it means to be a sad-girl-turned-sad-woman.Book discussed: The Lost Daughter by Elena FerranteSign up for our newsletter: https://sadgirlsyllabus.com/Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

Sad Girl Syllabus is spending their sixth season abroad. Following the trope of Americans abroad in Europe for a summer vacation, the season begins with the sweet and sweaty, and quickly turns into something much darker. In this first episode, Bethany and Mary discuss two romance-centric films of Americans exploring Europe: An American in Paris (1951) and Call Me by Your Name (2017).

The girls sat down with Jaya and Jessie Nicely, founders of Compound Butter magazine to talk about our favorite subject: food! We ponder the mutual influence of food on culture and culture on food. Topics discussed are: food traditions and rituals, what we eat when we're sad, and whether or not there's actually a sourdough starter in the tabernacles of Christian church altars. Compound Butter is a biannual publication about food, art, and all the things in between.Sign up for our newsletter: https://sadgirlsyllabus.com/Become a patron: https://patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

For the final episode of season 5, Bethany and Mary continue to explore the connection between food and spirituality by talking about… not eating. They discuss fasting and asceticism, the phenomenon of Victorian Fasting Girls, and reflect on the season as a whole. Note to listeners, the content in this episode is at times graphic.

Things get metaphysical as Mary and Bethany discuss ancient food cults, alternative theories about Early Christianity, cannibalism and spirituality, and more. Books discussed: The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John M. AllegroWho Cooked the Last Supper? by Rosalind MilesSign up for our newsletter: https://sadgirlsyllabus.com/ Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/sadgirlsyllabus

In this episode, Sad Girl Syllabus explore the dark side of food and spirituality, namely poison and cults. From the Heaven's Gate poisoned pudding to the Rajneeshee poisoned salad bars to the dark underpinnings of Celestial Seasonings' Sleepytime tea, Bethany and Mary discuss the use of food in US cult practices, especially as a method of control. Be careful out there and watch what you eat!

The connection between food and spirituality is the topic of the new season of SGS, and the girls kick things off with a conversation about influential lifestyle brand GOOP. Cleanse culture, wellness, cycle syncing, seed oils, it's all here! Is wellness culture flourishing because most of the food in global circulation is making us sick? Do girls have IBS because they're hot, or because they have a gut full of plastic? Has religious-flavored authoritarianism seeped into wellness culture? We discuss all this and more. Subscribe to our newsletter! sadgirlsyallbus.com.

In this extra credit episode, Bethany and Mary discuss the new cottagecore bonanza lifestyle store, Six Bells, and its creator Audrey Gelman's trajectory from The Wing girlboss to cottagecore purveyor (and yes, that wedding feature in Vogue), and what it means to commodify and romanticize rural and homespun.

Welcome to the finale of Girlboss Interlude! And the finale of Hulu's The Dropout! Watch along with us as we finish our journey with the one girlboss to rule them all, Elizabeth Holmes. And we have some exciting announcements about the pod in this episode! Keep up to date by subscribing at sadgirlsyllabus.com.

The Sad Girls get into it with Hustlers (2019) starring Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu and based on the true story as reported by the one and only Jessica Pressler in 2015. Bethany and Mary discuss myth-making the Sad Girl to Girl Boss arc, Sad Girl origin stories in the Joker, Wuthering Heights, and Phantom of the Opera, and finding purpose in a postmodern world.

The watch-along continues this week with Mary and Bethany commentating on the final episode of Netflix's and Shondaland's Inventing Anna. As Anna's court case wraps up, the girls draw conclusions of their own as to who's really a scammer and who's really a #girlboss and where the boundaries lie.

Isn't everyone a scammer? This week, SGS is watching Inventing Anna, the Netflix series that follows the story and exposé of Anna Delvey, the faux German heiress who conned the New York art scene. Mary and Bethany discuss narrative and myth-making, how everyone loves a con artist, and the subtle ways we fool ourselves and others. Watch along with the show or listen to the commentary on its own.

You either die a sad girl or live long enough to see yourself become the girlboss, or at least we think that's how the saying goes. Our newest season of Sad Girl Syllabus is all about the girlboss mythology, the girlboss-scammer crossover, and scam girl stories going from headlines to blockbuster biopics. For each episode we're hosting a little watch party for these movies and miniseries. We invite you to watch along with us! We're kicking things off with our fave, Elizabeth Holmes, and her story as told by Hulu's newest series “The Dropout.”

For the finale of season 3, Bethany and Mary discuss the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the rise in women serving in the military, the portrayal of the “girl boss” soldier, a deep dive into Zero Dark Thirty, and social media's impact on our understanding of war.

In the penultimate episode in the series on women's roles during wartime, Bethany and Mary cover the Vietnam War and the counterculture of the 1960's and 70's in America. Topics of conversation include Jane Fonda, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, M*A*S*H, and Susan Sontag.

The media bubble around World War II history and lore is rife with the sad girl archetype, but at this point in history we start to see a change in attitude toward her. The women at home are taking an active role in the war effort and stepping up to fill the gaps left by the men who are called up. In this episode, Bethany and Mary discuss this massive turning point, Casablanca, A League of Their Own, and Hannah Arendt.

Susan Furber joins the show to discuss her debut novel The Essence of an Hour, which is a coming-of-age story about a young girl living in America on the brink of World War II. Susan, Bethany and Mary explore “Sad Girl Theory” defining sad girls through 19th and 20th Century female authors and proto-influencers. The Essence of an Hour is available online, Kindle, and wherever you love to buy your books. To find out more, visit the Valley Press website: https://www.valleypressuk.com/book/155/the_essence_of_an_hour

Media depicting the Civil War has become the basis for the sad, trad wives of cottagecore, debutantes, and a lot more in contemporary American femininity trends. Bethany and Mary get in deep to a film syllabus of remakes, appropriations, and retellings including:Gone with the Wind (1939)Little Women (1994 and 2019)The Beguiled (1971 and 2017)Angelica Jade Bastien on Sofia Coppola's The BeguiledCold Mountain (2003)

The exploration of the “Sad Wife” theme in history and literature continues with the SGS conversation on the American Revolution and America's eight Founding Mothers. Bethany and Mary discuss how these female counterparts serve the purpose of making the Founding Fathers more well-rounded, their recent role in pop history, and the patronizing “women's empowerment” meta-narrative.

“Trad Wife Finishing School,” the 3rd season of Sad Girl Syllabus, is all about the sad, waiting wife archetype in literature. For every hero who is off fighting for his country, there is a woman waiting for him to return. At least, that's how it goes in the great epics and wartime novels and movies. Bethany and Mary begin the season by going all the way back to Ancient Greece and examining The Odyssey's Penelope and Clytemnestra. While awaiting their husbands' return from the Trojan War, one wife is faithful and one is not. The Girls get into it and explore questions about Ancient Greek religion, culture, and attitudes toward gender roles during times of war.

This week's Extra Credit episode is a holiday hangover cure-all. Bethany and Mary discuss Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. Their formulaic plot lines, Sad Christian Mom hype, and the fabricated magic of Christmas.

Can faith make you a monster? For the finale of Season 2, Mary and Bethany explore the motif of monster priests and the performance of faith. From The Exorcist to The Conjuring Universe to the recent series Midnight Mass, our discussion includes vampires, heroes, and the fine line between the demonic and the saintly.

Feeling bad and feeling sad. Bethany and Mary discuss institutionalized mechanisms of guilt and penance in the Catholic Church. We talk confession and reconciliation, and how they're used as manipulation tactics and how they are mythologized in a litany of films and television shows from Scorsese to The Sopranos.

The history of Christianity is full of divinely endowed priests abusing their “God-given” powers. In this episode Mary and Bethany welcome the pod's very first guest Robert Kolodny, cinematographer of the recently released documentary “Procession,” to discuss the making of the film and the Church in bad faith. *This episode includes mentions of sexual assault. Bonus: Robert's carefully crafted cinema syllabus relevant to this week's topic is featured below.Corpus Christi (2019, Jan Komasa)Teorema (1968, Pier Paolo Pasolini)Little Sister (2016, Zach Clark)Diary of a Country Priest (1951, Robert Bresson)Dark Habits (1983, Pedro Almodóvar)First Reformed (2017, Paul Schrader)Ida (2013, Paweł Pawlikowski)Mother Joan of the Angels (1961, Jerzy Kawalerowicz)The Devils (1971, Ken Russell)Procession (2021, Robert Greene)

Bethany and Mary kick off a whole new season discussing one of the biggest trends of the last few years: God. What's behind the recent uptick in Christian motifs and memes? “Hot Priest” attempts to answer this question by looking into the desirability of the out-of-reach clergymen and how this trope has made the rounds in pop culture for decades from The Thornbirds to Fleabag. Also included in Season 2 is a new segment: “Trad Catholic Corner,” a revue of ironic, unironic, and post-ironic religious influencers.

Extra Credit! This season's bonus episode explores Elizabeth Holmes: founder of Theranos, the defunct healthcare company that claimed to have invented an optimized blood test and scammed millions of dollars from powerful investors.

The season one finale is here and it's all about The Twilight Saga. From Wuthering Heights to Twilight, Bethany and Mary ponder: How did we get here? Where do we go from here? What is the fate of Gothic Literature?

Phantom of the Opera marks a major milestone in the history of Gothic literature, and Mary and Bethany discuss the end of genre. Topics covered are Broadway's longest-running musical, science vs. illusions, and Gothic aesthetics in the 20th century.

This week on Sad Girl Syllabus Bethany and Mary discuss Dracula by Bram Stoker, the iconic gothic novel that put vampires on the map. Topics covered are 19th century medicine and science, monsters, industrialization, and, of course, vampires.

In the pilot episode for the Sad Girl Syllabus podcast, Bethany and Mary begin their exploration of the "Wuthering Heights to Twilight Pipeline" with a deep dive into early Gothic Literature. Topics covered are ICYMI: Wuthering Heights, notable film adaptations, #gothlitvibes, and salacious Brontë family gossip.