Culture Gabfest

The Culture Gabfest “Independence, Duh” Edition

Slate’s Culture Gabfest on Independence Day: Resurgence, an oral history of Angels in America, and New York’s profile on Judith Butler.

Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 406 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.

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This week on Slate Plus, in true Game of Thrones style, Julia ousts Steve and Dana and instead is joined by Willa Paskin and Dan Kois to talk about the Season 6 finale and how the show has changed in its most recent season.

On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, the gabbers ask whether Dana Stevens is the only person in America who enjoyed Independence Day: Resurgence. What made the movie such a critical and box office dud? Next up, Dan Kois joins to discuss his and Isaac Butler’s oral history of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and how it changed the way gay lives were represented in pop culture. Last, the critics weigh in on Molly Fischer’s profile of Judith Butler in New York magazine. How relevant is Butler’s work on issues of gender construction in contemporary culture and how has her writing changed since the ’80s and ’90s?

Links to some of the things we discussed this week follow:

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Endorsements:

Dana: Judith Butler’s book Precarious Life and also “Philip Pullman on the 1,000 causes of Brexit” in the Guardian.

Julia: “Those Three Days” by Lucinda Williams

Stephen: The A–Z of Brexit” by Tom Ewing in New York magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog.

Outro: “Those Three Days” by Lucinda Williams

You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.

This podcast was produced by Ann Heppermann. Our intern is Lizzie Fison.

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