Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 502 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.
On this week’s Slate Plus, Stephen, Dana, and Julia discuss the piece of pop culture that, when someone tells you it’s their favorite, makes you dislike them instantly.
Go to Slate.com/cultureplus to learn more about Slate Plus and join today.
This week the critics discuss new Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the community his followers built in Oregon in the 1980s. Are the documentarians too enamored with their subjects? Then, the hosts talk about Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, whether she crossed the line with any of her jokes, and what significance the annual event has in 2018. Finally, Justin Peters joins the gabbers to discuss his Slate series Watching YouTube and attempts to unpack what’s so captivating about the website.
Links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- Wild Wild Country
- “Wild Wild Country’s Ma Anand Sheela Went From Cult Leader to Criminal to Meme” by Inkoo Kang in Slate
- Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
- “Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is Fair Game” by Christina Cauterucci in Slate
- “How Michelle Wolf Blasted Open the Fictions of Journalism in the Age of Trump” by Masha Green in the New Yorker
- Justin Peters’ series Watching YouTube for Slate
Endorsements:
Dana: Kevin Kruse’s Twitter thread about the history of political parties in America
Julia: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Stephen: Astral Meditations by Alice Coltrane
Outro: “Turiya and Ramakrishna” by Alice Coltrane
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Benjamin Frisch. The production assistant is Daniel Schroeder.
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