A few days ago I made a random joke about Sabrina Carpenter on Facebook. I was talking about how stupid it is that some parents are apparently superman that they took their kids to her concert and it ended up being all about sex, when literally that’s the one thing I know about her. Anyway,…
Copied from my Facebook post early in the morning after the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident at the Oscars. To anyone defending Will Smith for defending his wife. NO! Chris Rock’s job is making mean jokes about the audience. Literally! It’s a roast. It’s why the Oscars hire him every year! It’s what he’s paid to…
I’m teaching a class called “Written Professional Communication” at the University of Pittsburgh. Amongst other things it’s about… well, communicating professionally in writing. Currently we’re working on “responding to complaints”. In order to generate some complaint s to respond to I instructed my students to write a complaint letter as though they lived in the fictional universe of their choosing:
Ok… So I walked through the room while Stephanie was watching the news and a commercial for Dupixent was on. Basically it’s a bunch of kids being embarrassed by their eczema and happy that there’s a treatment that helps so they’re not embarassed at the pool, a ballet recital or a concert. Conceptually, I get…
Ok… question for old skool comic book fans… (Wayne Wise, looking at you since this is a favorite of yours). There’s a Legion of Superheroes character named “Triplicate Girl” or “Triad” (depending on which era of comics you’re reading). Her powers are that she comes from an alien race where everyone three identical beings. Only…
So, in a discussion with my cohosts on the Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow Podcast, and some of our fans, we came to the theory that most of us can’t conclusively gender cartoon characters UNLESS they have specific gender markers (skirts, boobs, etc). OR if we know from context (because we know the show…
I’ve been batting around an idea in my head for an academic paper/conference presentation (probably for next year’s PCA/ACA) and I’d like to do something that I’ve done before that has worked out pretty well for me. I want to outsource some of my thinking and brainstorming to the internet. What I’m looking for here…
I just watched the trailer for Cats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtSd844cI7U I have some thoughts… but first some caveats: When I was a little kid, I actually loved this musical. I don’t know why… but Rum Tum Tugger was just one of my favorite songs. I have this movie as one of my picks in the VoxPopcast Box…
(as the title says, herein be spoilers… you know… and dragons… though given the show, way less dragons than you might expect) So I’m having weird thoughts about the reaction I’m seeing online to last night’s Game of Thrones (s08e02). First of all, I want to point out that I really liked the episode. Some…
I haven’t seen the new Captain Marvel movie yet, so this is not my review… it’s more of a pre-review? I guess? Preview sounds weird. Anyway, I think one of my favorite things lately is reading the pre-release buzz about Captain Marvel. In particular, I’m loving the one very particular type of criticism. In the…
So once again I’ve been too busy to post movie reviews. I’ve sen a bunch, but I just haven’t gotten to writing them up. I do talk about films (in a different way) quite often on my podcast, VoxPopcast (cheap plug), so you should totally be listening to that. But if people want me to…
You know how you love nothing more than hearing me academically talk about comics and sex and gender and cultural theory and stuff? Shut up! You do! Anyway, I was asked to speak at Barnes and Noble’s Grand Reopening and Harry Potter event this Saturday at the Waterfront Barnes and Noble in Pittsburgh. They’re celebrating…
It’s all about the supporting actor… I happened to check in on Facebook at the movie theater when I went to see the new remake of A Star Is Born and I got an interesting comment from a friend of my wife’s that it “doesn’t seem your type of movie.” I found that funny. If you…
I’ve been too busy to write movie reviews lately. I’ve been seeing a bunch of movies, of course, but I only have so many hours in the day and most of my writing has been going towards either my dissertation, some upcoming academic conferences and publications I have, or the podcast. Even I can only…
So if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you might know that I started a podcast a couple months ago, primarily with Wayne Wise and Katya Gorecki (but also a rotating cast of other people) devoted to pop culture. VoxPopcast (or Vox Populorum… we gave it two names, but everyone seems to be focusing…