Slate's podcast about The Hobbit, the A&E series Duck Dynasty, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at 50.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 222 with Dan Engber, Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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On this week’s Culturefest, our critics are joined by Slate columnist Dan Engber to discuss Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and whether its increased frame rate ruins the movie … or if the movie was already a ruin to begin with. The Gabfesters then discuss the entertainment appeal of the A&E series Duck Dynasty and what its popularity might say about the state of the white working class in America. Finally, they consider personality typology and the relevance of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at 50.

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

• Dana Stevens’ review for Slate of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
• Dan Engber’s defense of The Hobbit’s increased frame rate for Slate.
• The Slate Spoiler Special for Life of Pi.
• The J.R.R. Toklein collection The Silmarillion, which details the universe in which The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit take place.
• 5 Things You Should Know About 48 Frames Per Second.
• The Vulture round-up of how critics described The Hobbit at 48 FPS.
• The Ents from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
• Tricia Romano for the Daily Beast on Duck Dynasty and "redneck TV.”
• The TV show The Beverly Hillbillies.
• The series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, discussed on Culturefest Episode 206.
• Fredrick Wiseman’s 1968 documentary High School.
• The documentarians Albert and David Maysles.
• The free online version of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator used by Dana, Julia, and Stephen to discover their types.
• Lillian Cunningham for the Washington Post on the history and future of the Myers-Briggs.

Dana’s pick: The Facebook page and Twitter account for the proposed One Million Child March on D.C. for Gun Control.

Julia’s pick: Season 2 of the British drama series The Hour, to be watched as you wait for Mad Men to return.

Stephen’s pick: The lush, beautiful Fleetwood Mac gem “Save Me a Place” and Guided by Voices’ kickass rock song “Tractor Rape Chain.”

Outro: “Tractor Rape Chain” by Guided by Voices

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Dan Pashman. Our intern is Sally Tamarkin.

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