Spectacles: A Pop Culture Podcast

This is the final episode in this "Season" (Smattering) of Spectacles and it features what must be our spookiest chat yet. Get under those covers and quiver with fear as we discuss horror affect, lock the windows and light a flickering candle as we explore analogy and contemporaneous meaning in popular horror films, gasp with shock verging on pleasure as we dissect texts which utilise horror conventions in the telling of their tales. Stay safe - - - woooooo!!! This podcast also features sound effects from ZapSplat and the music of Bernard Herrmann, namely Narrative for String Orchestra (From Psycho) reused for the purposes of parody.

The feed is alive with the sound of music today as the Spectacles ensemble put on the greatest show of their lives. With special guest P.T. Barnowl, Stephen and Eva explore the perceptions, history and analyse the mechanics of what makes a musical hum on screen. Glee. C.W. More Singing than usual. Includes musical cover of This is Me by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul performed on piano by Harzy YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/MrKakaDanny Stephen is wrong in the podcast, Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge is available on YouTube to stream and available to Prime subscribers for free in Britain. It's awesome. Song sampled are; The Dumber they Come, The Better I Like ‘Em from the musical Kid Boots, Music by Harry Tierney and Lyrics by Joseph McCarthey, performed by Eddie Cantor. I know it's pretty sexist, I'm not endorsing the message of the song. Although dumb girls deserve love too so don't let me take that from you. Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo’bye) a song with music and lyrics by Gus Kahn, Ernie Erdman and Danny Russo from the Broadway musical Bombo performed by Al Jolson. Jolson performed minstrel acts and I'm not endorsing that either. I'm merely using him for illustrative purposes, history's a hateful place. Music from Steamboat Willie by Wilfred Jackson and Bert Lewis. The Broadway Melody - a song with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown, these words are performed by Charles King. (I’m) Young and Healthy from 42nd Street, Music by Harry Warren, Lyrics by Al Dubin and performed by Dick Powell. No relation to the Gavin and Stacey character. Be A Clown by Cole Porter performed by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Make 'Em Laugh written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, the song is based on Cole Porter's "Be a Clown" and performed by Donald O'Connor. It Only Takes a Moment composed by Jerry Herman and performed by Michael Crawford and Marianne McAndrew. All music copyright is retained by the owners and is protected in the podcast under Fair Use for illustrative, analytical or parody purposes.

Join us as we dig in to representations of animals and the natural world on screen. Fly through our dreams and personal relationships with nature. Chart the change in representations of the animal kingdom - has it become overly schmaltzified? And ultimately reflect on our call to arms - what can we do to help our planet? Featuring Adrian, a scientist and father who also likes nature. Causes to Tackle the Crisis in Nature Stand for the Trees (Against HS2): https://standforthetrees.org/ Extinction Rebellion: https://rebellion.earth/ Global Green New Deal: https://www.globalgnd.org/ The Dark Mountain Project: https://dark-mountain.net/ The Millenium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (mainly for educating ourselves): https://mahb.stanford.edu/ Birds Eider duck dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxr2xyajyJw Alex the Grey Parrot Comprehends Numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3w6OYsKJCc Wikipedia link for ‘The Genius of Birds’ by Jennifer Ackerman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Genius_of_Birds Ethnographic Documentaries Mentioned Robert Flaherty http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/flaherty/ Nanook of the North https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ystHx3eA28&vl=en Moana (1927) Restored https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwT4lVXO11k Man of Aran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXYC5Sv_fOQ

CW: Discussions of sexual abuse and mental illnesses. Mental Health, we all got it and leading politicians would like you to know that they are aware of mental health too. But what lies behind the buzz-phrase? Are all conditions born the same? Do all conditions deserve equal focus or the same advice to go for a jog every other day and delete Facebook from your phone? If I catch schozophrenia will it make me good at playing the cello? All these questions and more are tossed around by the Spectacles crew in this very special, Academy-Award nominated episode.

Sit back, relax and crack open a cold Corona as we recount our views on responses to the Covid outbreak in UK journalism and social media. In this slightly more relaxed approach to a Spectacles we vent, express and call out the power as we slowly descend into the mind-soup of week number 1249 of lockdown. Boris Johnson, he ain't good. Captain Tom, he is good but society ain't good. Doctors and Nurses, they're good but we don't always have to point that out. Librarians, they are good, even if Eva won't admit it. You with me? No more spoilers, we need the listens, baybee.

Spec and her pals Tacles and A Woodpigeon are off on an increble adventure into the wilderness of deprived areas of society. Gasp in awe as they realise that a vocal elite tailor prevailaing narratives about a marginalised underclass to maintain the status quo. Quivver in fear as superficial characteristics are utilised to tar swathes of society with reductive, pernicious reputations, degrading their perceived humanity and associated rights. Cower in despair as they realise that selfishness and lies are utilised to maintain the comfort of an increasingly deluded and increasingly small number of people! Keep on listening to the end for some whimsical, self referencial fun!

The Spectacles crew find themselves up against the clock in one of the oddest and most unlikely game-shows imaginable. In Who Gets to Be a Millionaire, hosted by Goose Tarrant they have to give long-winded answers to questions relating to game shows, quizzes and ITV's recent drama Quiz. Stick around for the chat, holla when we get facts wrong and feel superior if you knew an answer we didn't. It's the British (and American) way!

If its good enough for straight-to-streaming documentaries it's good enough for the Spectacles crew. Join us as we take a cheeky dive into the world of Fetishes, Kinks and Voyeurism on screen. Somebody's voice-recording app has a fetish for outputting blank MP3 files... Can you guess whose app that is??? I bet you can.

Ever got that sneaky feeling? The feeling that your world leaders and politicians might not be entirely authentic? Well so have the Spectacles crew and we're going to be investigating our renowned leaders the best way we know how - by watching movies and TV. Join us as we revisit a swathe of films and shows which dramatise the lives of historical Prime Ministers, Presidents and Monarchs, discussing how their image has been used to question, project and protect power.

What must it be like to be a celebrity? What must it be like to live life in the public eye? How can a person grapple with the cruel dichotomy of media narrated public persona and complex private individual?Take a listen to us, three people who are not celebrities, talk through the issues of social media, journalism, Hollywood producers and the effects that they have on performers in the public eye. We also cover our motivations in making a podcasts well as discussing the celebrities who have shaped our lives in intimate ways. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPECTACLES! You're two years old this month.

CW: This episode contains discussion about PTSD, alcohol abuse and traumatic domestic situations. Good ol' Uncle TV gathers the Spectacles crew together for a much needed introspective journey and therapy session. Listen to our heroes grapple with their sexuality, their trauma and their understanding of celebrity and anthropomorphism all with the help of Netflix Original Series Bojack Horseman. If our descriptions of our lived experiences have sparked some familiarity in your own then you might find the following links useful. For further reading about Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Out of the Storm https://www.outofthestorm.website/ Mind.org.uk Definitions of Types of Mental Health Disorders https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/complex-ptsd/ For further reading about Asexuality The Asexuality Visibility and Education Center https://www.asexuality.org/ Asexuality Archive https://www.asexualityarchive.com/ Asexuality: A Brief Introduction - Free Book http://www.asexualityarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/AsexualityABriefIntroduction.pdf Discussion of Trauma in World Leaders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQwP0XRBjq4

In this special Spectacles sponsered (but not really) by the Greggs vegan sausage roll, we take a look at the media forming our opinios about diet. Specifically the vegan diet and why popular beliefs and attitudes are changing towards it. Join us in a journey through questionable advertising, heartfelt eco-documentaries and plotlines in popular entertainment. This is the episode where Eva gains the inspiration for her BAFTA award winning short film, Stephen remembers the time he watched South Park and we get some helpful feedback from Chadley Bradson.

We are awash with remakes of childhood favourites, many of which are coming out more than two decades after the original. Who is this for? Adults who grew up with the franchise and enjoy the predictability? Children who watched the original two days ago and fancy seeing it again? Touching on trends within Disney itself and wider Hollywood, the Spectacles team take a wide look at our relationship with nostalgia and with our childhoods. Are we infantilising ourselves? Are we collectively regressing in a time of crisis? Who could blame us... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (Listeners should note that this episode was recorded shortly after the 2019 UK General Election...)

Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Hulu, however you consume your copious amounts of audio-visual entertainment we've got your individual needs catered to in this episode of Spectacles: A Pop Culture Podcast. We discuss the origins of contemporary and upcoming streaming services, exploring their business models, presentations to customers and most importantly the effects they're having on the entertainment industry. I don't know with what weapons World War Three will be fought... but I know that come World War Four we'll all be conscripted into one of ten global tech, entertainment and communications conglomerates to battle it out with a series of passive aggressive hash-tagged internet posts. Then we'll just merge into Disney anyway. Who'll have been bought out by Compuserve. Copyright free music "Better Days" available on bensound.com.

Todd Phillips' magnum opus 'Joker' has gotten the Spectacles crew talking. So much so that they took what was supposed to be a review 'minisode' called Monocle and instead released it as the usual feature-length audio essay that fans have come to expect. With everyone's favourite hack-journalist Alan Arndale mediating the conversation, they dissect the film as a political text in terms of contemporary masculinity, economic oppression and health inequality. They also provide their general thoughts on the "arthouse" film's narrative and structural flaws as well as its place in the superhero-saturated film scene. Has the maker of 'Zach Galifianakis and Robert Downey Jr go on a road trip with a masturbating dog' truly made this century's seminal text?

Two years after Hollywood ousted the evil toad king Harvey Weinstein and we all learned that non-consensual bedroom mischief is bad, we live in a world without problems, everyone is treated equally and being a woman is basically the same as being a man. Except BETTER! Our white knights Meryl Streep, James Franco and Oprah Winfrey have saved us from the pernicious tentacles of gender inequality and we can now enjoy our films guilt free! Actresses have worn black, actors have worn badges and women are even allowed to bust ghosts and plot heists now! We are all happy. Or are we? In this episode of Spectacles we discuss the #MeToo movement and its fallout, reflecting on properties which have responded to the media storm and speculate about a potential impending backlash. Featuring special guest star Quentin Tarantino. CW: We discuss real life examples of sexual harassment and assault in a certain level of detail in this episode so if that's going to be difficult you might want to sit this one out.

It goes without saying that school is a critical time for teenagers. We remember the teachers who helped us discover what we enjoyed... and the ones who did the opposite. We remember the bizarre rituals of the institution... and how they made us feel. We remember puberty... and the ensuing confusion over sexuality and our sense of self. But how do the movies remember school? What can they tell us about popular perceptions of this time in our lives? How do we WISH our teachers were? Is it attainable? What damage can the school institution potentially do to us? How well-represented are the struggles over sexuality we experience at school, on-screen? By the end of today's podcast, you should be able to answer all of these questions. Quiz at the end.

Take a break from fighting with your family this holiday period, because in this episode, we are talking about what makes family entertainment great (or diabolical) and the versatility of the genre. How do the dynamics within a family film change in a Christmas film? What elements of the 'genre' can be considered problematic? What exactly IS a family film anyway? What is a family? What is film? What is life? Help us, Tim Allen!

Are you a leftie who suffers from liberal guilt? Do you ever feel like corporations are manipulating your insecurities this way? Do you assuage this by sipping from a rainbow Costa Cup or eating from chains that claim to be 'organic' or 'ethical'? Do you kind of know that corporations are manipulating your insecurities but don't know what to do? Well, you could start by listening to 'The Commodification of Love' - the FINALE of Spectacles series 1. We've decided to go out with a bang and in this episode will be discussing how corporations have hindered and come close to ruining the social justice movement by appropriating it for the sake of advertising. But this episode is more than a f**k you to certain corporate oligarchs; it's a lamentation of how 'the left' has been manipulated into turning against its own people by inadvertently letting these businesses and subsequently the crowing factions of the right control the narrative of social justice. This is our most important episode yet (says Eva at least and she's the best host). DON'T MISS IT.

Britain has a complicated relationship with food. Just look at our simultaneous obsessions with multiculturalism in food, national pride/identity in food, and our obsession with ultra-processed supermarket snackables. Nowhere is this bastardisation (or glorification, depending on how you look at it) of 'British cuisine' better exemplified than in the wide variety of popular cookery shows aired on the BBC, such as The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Menu, The Great British Masterchef, The Great British Hairy Bikers do Great Britain, etc. Examined with reference to Britain's historical, imperial and post-imperial relationship with food, the Spectacles team cook up some juicy analysis for all to taste. Podcasting DAZN'T GIT TUFFER THAN THIZS.

Why is it people will gladly go on national television to air health problems and weight problems that most of us would be hesitant to discuss with our doctor in private? How do (or did) programmes like You Are What You Eat, Supersize vs Superskinny and The Biggest Loser get away with the exploitation and humiliation they put their contestants through? Not to mention the often bollocks health advice they gave. This is particularly fascinating through the lens of retrospect, given that we live in a time where 'fat-shaming' is on its way to becoming a hate crime, and discourse around what it means to be healthy has never been more fraught. Join us as we dig through these difficult questions with the same enthusiasm and rigour as Gillian McKeith digs through sh*t.

Our society has been awash with re-edits and remixes for decades (in what is commonly known as a remix culture), but total media democratisation via platforms like YouTube has taken us to uncharted territory. Now, hand a 13-year-old boy with decent editing software and enough time on his hands any piece of footage, and there is no end to what they can conceivably do with it. Through examination of the 'YouTube Poop' (or YTP) phenomenon, as well as recent trends in the music industry, the Spectacles team dig deep on the purposes and potential threats of the remixes we see around us today. Links to content mentioned in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0axzt7krqt4 https://soundcloud.com/user-535691776/dialog http://youchew.net/

What starts as a lighthearted reminisce about The X Factor in its heyday, the politics of Love Island, and analysis of Simon Cowell's uncanny ability to influence public opinion, evolves into a serious realisation (and subsequent rant) about widespread perceptions in Western society about its youth, and their supposed obsession with fame, pre and post financial crash.

In a world of deafening sound design, hackneyed editing and consumer oversaturation, three intellectuals gather together to work out what has gone wrong (and right, but mainly wrong) with movie trailers. What once impressed and excited moviegoers now faces stiff competition for their attention, when most prefer to stay home. Now, the trailer is showing signs that it is increasingly desperate. What can be done to save it? Through examination of the tropes of horror movie, romcom and superhero/thriller trailers, our heroes might just find the answer. Rated R for Mild Rude Language.

As the political landscape of the UK has undergone radical change, its population have started to look at the BBC with a new pair of eyes. With allegations of bias flying from all political corners, we present the evidence for this bias, and look in particular at the technique used by BBC journalists when interviewing politicians, which we call 'Disbelief by Default'. In the never-ending battle between the politician and the journalist, we look at how the dynamic of the interview has changed over recent decades, and examine the serious consequences of pursuing this style of overly-abrasive journalism. Among our case studies will be the relationship between Laura Kuenssberg and Jeremy Corbyn, the BBC's approach to the Scottish independence referendum and the influence of Jeremy Paxman on BBC culture.

How has Disney fundamentally changed perceptions of the fairytale? Indeed, what should the fairytale’s purpose be? And what do the most recent Post-Shrek additions to ‘fairytale canon’, such as Frozen and Tangled, say about society’s changing attitudes to the morality behind them? All of these questions may or may not be answered in this episode. Tune in for in-depth analysis, stay for Shrek.

Since its birth, film criticism has meant many different things: from a philosophical art form in itself to a simple star-rating, explaining whether a film is worth your time or money. With the rise of the online critic (namely on YouTube), we take an in-depth look at what film criticism means today, and ask whether it has been devalued, what its value was in the first place, and whether it is pandering to society's increasing need to hear their own opinions reflected back at them. Our discussion will range from examples such as the Nostalgia Critic and the video essay to Cahier du Cinema, the BBC's Mark Kermode and Roger Ebert.

Three lifelong Scots take on the challenge of summing up Scottish representation on-screen, from urban life in 'Trainspotting' and 'Red Road' to rural Scotland in 'The Wicker Man' and 'Brave'. Scotland's homemade programming such as 'Still Game' and the Opening Ceremony of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games offer a glimpse into what image Scotland gives of itself to the rest of the world, while Hollywood's most well-known fantasy and sci-fi characters provide clues as to how Scotland is received. Join us in our quest to answer whether Scotland is under- or misrepresented on screen, and who, if anyone, gets it right!

This is our sassy sister episode to our previous examination of how men are represented in the domestic space in mainstream film and television. Here we examine a variety of 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s media to dissect the standards and pressures put on women in (predominantly) male-dominated spaces as well as looking at more complex roles of labour and responsibility (such as First Lady and Queen), all while attempting to redefine the modern woman, in an episode's work! Examples discussed include Working Girl, Morning Glory, The Crown, and How to Get Away with Murder.

In a (kind of) two-parter, we examine men and women as represented in each other's "hegemonic spaces", i.e. men in the domestic space and women in the workplace. This discussion begins as an examination of the 'Dad Who Can't Dad and then Learns How to Dad' (e.g. Homer Simpson in The Simpsons, Tim Allen in everything) and ends with a wider conversation about what needs to change when it comes to how masculinity, fatherhood and families in general are represented in film and TV.

This episode is about big-budget, mainstream films which attempt to translate beloved characters from our childhoods to the big screen. We talk about particularly disastrous examples and ask how they go so wrong, such as ‘Postman Pat: The Movie’, and more recently, ‘Peter Rabbit’. Why do families still pay money to see them, and how do they manage to make the films far too childish and far too adult at the same time? We also ask where and why it goes well, such as in ‘Paddington’, and how the internet connects to the more disturbing aspects of this trend.

In this episode, we wade through the topical minefield that is 'fandoms'. In particular, how the internet has changed the communicative distance between creators and their fans, how the 'culture war' affects discourse, and how these things have lead to the sense of creative ownership that extreme fans seem to have over their favourite franchises. Examples covered include: Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Rick and Morty, Sherlock, Game of Thrones and Steven Universe.

A trailer for our upcoming podcast about political and cultural trends, as viewed through the prism of the screen. Find out what we're about, and why.