Vox Populorum - The Voxpopcast

Halloween Season is upon us! As scary as 2020 has been in general, we are finally at the part of the year where we are supposed to be scared… or at least watch a lot of scary movies. But 2020 has been scary enough… and so this year we want to focus on the funny … Continue reading "e133. Comedy of Horrors!" The post e133. Comedy of Horrors! first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

A global pandemic, rampant racism, social unrest, the fall of American democracy, the deaths of celebrity and political icons, feral hogs and murder hornets, and an asteroid is hurtling towards the earth. All of this and it’s only October. 2020 has been a hell of a year. So much so that some have speculated that … Continue reading "e132. Is 2020 the Darkest Timeline?" The post e132. Is 2020 the Darkest Timeline? first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

It’s rare that a tiny little foreign market indie film gets any mainstream media attention at all. It’s even rarer that it actually trends on social media, creating calls for the public to boycott the world’s largest streaming service and results in court investigations of that company. And yet, Netflix’s new film Cuties managed to … Continue reading "e131. Cuties: Eroticizing the Innocent and Infantilizing Sexuality" The post e131. Cuties: Eroticizing the Innocent and Infantilizing Sexuality first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

Way back at beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown — what seems like a million years ago — we did a special episode where we talked to Tristyn and Sophie, two graduating seniors who had their final year of high school interrupted by the sudden worldwide pandemic that we now all find ourselves still dealing with. … Continue reading "e130. Freshman Year in Quarantine" The post e130. Freshman Year in Quarantine first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

The corset might be one of the most fascinating garments in the history of fashion. On one hand, it’s simply underwear. It is a garment that provides a specific function. On the other hand popular culture has made it a symbol forever associated with everything from the Victorian Age to 80s pop music to burlesque … Continue reading "e129. Corsets: Enhancement, Imprisonment, Empowerment, & Empresses" The post e129. Corsets: Enhancement, Imprisonment, Empowerment, & Empresses first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

Pop Culture is a double edges sword. The more we love a certain type of media, the more of it we absorb. But the more we absorb, the more we notice some of the tropes that are frequently repeated. And the more we notice those tropes, the more likely we are to eventually get annoyed … Continue reading "e128. 9 Popular Culture Pet Peeves We Hate and Why" The post e128. 9 Popular Culture Pet Peeves We Hate and Why first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

In our contemporary moment pop culture is controlled by two forces. A focus on so-called “geek culture” and a push for more inclusive diversity across media forms. While there is certainly a long way to go, in many cases, leaps and bounds of progress have been made in the last several years, with greater attention … Continue reading "e127. Dungeons & Diversity" The post e127. Dungeons & Diversity first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

Ever since the mid 1980s and the publication of Watchmen comics, their creators, and their fans, have been obsessed with the idea of “deconstruction.” Director Zack Snyder is extremely fond of the term. He argues that he is “deconstructing superheroes” every time he gets the chance. But what does that really mean? To most fans, … Continue reading "e126. Reconstructing Deconstructed Superheroes" The post e126. Reconstructing Deconstructed Superheroes first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

It’s 2020 and the world is ending… or maybe it’s not… or maybe it ended months ago and we just can’t tell anymore. Honestly at this point it’s pretty much just impossible to tell. With what seems like one disaster after another shaking the planet, we decided to take a look at apocalypse and disaster … Continue reading "e125. It’s the End of the World as we show it…" The post e125. It's the End of the World as we show it... first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

If you’ve been following the show for the last several months, you know that in our COVID pandemic quarantine imposed death of media, we have turned our constant starvation for content to the internet and become big fans of Jelle’s Marble Runs, a YouTube channel featuring athletic competitions between… well, marbles. What started as a … Continue reading "e124. Marveling Over Marble League!" The post e124. Marveling Over Marble League! first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone on the Internet and they tried to prove their point by forwarding some meme that was a quote of a famous person for historical figure that seemed to vaguely relate to their point in the most perfunctory possible way? When this happened, did you think to … Continue reading "e123. Culture, Context, Protest, and Memefication" The post e123. Culture, Context, Protest, and Memefication first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

There are a lot of television shows and movies about teenagers, both comedies and dramas.There always have been. And yet, actual teenagers on television are extremely rare. Teens are typically played by twenty-something actors (or older). This is especially the case when it comes to teenagers in shows with a heavy sexual or romantic components … Continue reading "e122. twentysomethingteen" The post e122. twentysomethingteen first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

We’ve had such a long string of super serious shows lately with some very heavy topics that we’ve been wanting to try and do some things that were more fun, laid back and… well, silly! This week is Mav’s birthday, and rather than sit around and discuss any of the dozen ways that the world … Continue reading "e121. The Improv Story Game" The post e121. The Improv Story Game first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

Let me tell you a story, children. Way back in the before time, in the long long ago, before the plague came, we used to have this stuff we called content… media… shows. Back then, if we wanted entertainment, we would turn on our magic picture boxes and marvel at the wonders that displayed before … Continue reading "e120. Quarantine Comfort TV" The post e120. Quarantine Comfort TV first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

A few weeks ago, we released an episode about “copaganda.” On that show we started out talking about the TV show Paw Patrol and internet calls to have it and other cop shows cancelled in the wake of the #DefundThePolice movement and heightened scrutiny on law enforcement in the United States (Note from Mav: And … Continue reading "e119. Copaganda II: Going Rogue" The post e119. Copaganda II: Going Rogue first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

We live in very interesting times. The world around us is changing every day… and with the internet if feels like it’s changing ever rapidly. With everything from #COVID-19 to #BlackLivesMatter to #MeToo to #DefundThePolice to #Resist to #LoveIsLove, the social media sites have given every one of us the ability to advocate for what … Continue reading "e118. #activism" The post e118. #activism first appeared on Vox Populorum - The VoxPopcast.

There was a weird story that broke a few weeks ago when people discovered that episodes of the 2012 teen sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place had “censored” the cleavage of the mother on one episode by placing a blur over the actress’s chest on the Disney+ streaming service. After some investigation, it turned out that … Continue reading "e117. Post-Release Censorship and the Disney Vault"

One of the most interesting side effects of the recent #BlackLivesMatter protests sparked off by the George Floyd murder has been the #DefundPolice movement gaining national attention. Obviously that’s a big complicated issue that goes beyond shouting hashtags online (or probably should). Some jurisdictions are beginning to take the call seriously, but in the meantime … Continue reading "e116. Copaganda, Cartoons, and You"

Every story (well most stories) have a protagonist that we follow throughout the narrative. Usually we are meant to identify with them; they are our link to the plot and the world of the story. Typically, their worlds are fleshed out by any number of supporting characters that they interact with: friends, lovers, enemies. These … Continue reading "e115. Why Do We Love Minor Characters?"

A few years ago, in an interview with Stephen Colbert, Will Smith said that he believed that racism isn’t getting worse — it’s getting filmed. While it may be hard to quantifiably judge the first part of that statement, the second part is certainly true. In the last couple of weeks, the public availability of … Continue reading "e114. Your Black Friend is Tired"