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This week on Slate Plus, Stephen, David, and Julia discuss the things we do now that our descendants will find barbaric.
On this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest, the critics discuss the mysterious new podcast S-Town, from the creators of Serial and This American Life, centered around a brilliant clock repairer stranded in an Alabama town. The podcast improves upon the Serial format—but is it satisfying? Next, Aisha Harris joins the show to talk about Ghost in the Shell, an adaptation of the 1995 anime movie of the same name. The film has drawn criticism for casting Scarlett Johansson as an originally Japanese character, but are the movie’s problems the result of whitewashing, or is it just plain bad? Finally, the gabbers cover the controversy of Mike Pence’s refusal to eat alone with any woman who is not his wife. Is this a case of letting people decide what rules they need to implement make their marriage work, or does it unfairly disadvantage female employees?
Links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- S-Town
- Serial
- Missing Richard Simmons
- Ghost in the Shell
- Ghost in the Shell Japanese anime
- “Ghost in the Shell’s Twist Ending Pulls a Reverse Get Out, Makes the Whitewashing Even Worse” by Aisha Harris in Slate
- “A Beginner’s Guide to the Ghost in the Shell Universe” by Emily Yoshida in Vulture
- “Karen Pence is the Vice President’s ‘Prayer Warrior,’ Gut Check and Shield” by Ashley Parker in the Washington Post
- “Mike Pence May Be Extremely Close to His Wife Karen, but That Doesn’t Mean He Respects Women,” by Heather Schwedel in Slate
- “What the Pence Rule Looks Like in Practice” by Ruth Graham in Slate
Endorsements
David: Obscura Day on May 6, and the novels of Liane Moriarty, including Truly Madly Guilty and What Alice Forgot
Julia: “My Church” by Maren Morris
Stephen: Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
Outro: “My Church” by Maren Morris
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Benjamin Frisch. Our intern is Daniel Schroeder.
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