Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 519 with Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, and Stephen Metcalf with the audio player below.
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On Slate Plus, the hosts reveal some of their own formative eighth-grade memories.
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This week, Julia, Dana, and Steve talk Eighth Grade, unpacking what sets the film’s treatment of adolescence in the Instagram era apart from other coming-of-age stories. Then, the gabbers are joined by June Thomas to take on the controversial Netflix series Insatiable. Is it more nuanced than its critics have given it credit for? Finally, the hosts discuss Kelly Marie Tran’s powerful op-ed in the New York Times—and how we should handle toxic fandoms like the one that drove her off of social media in the first place.
Links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade
- “Eighth Grade Is a Movie About Middle School That Will Leave Adults in Tears” by Dana Stevens in Slate
- “Eighth Graders on Eighth Grade” by Forrest Wickman and Kaylee Domzalski in Slate
- “Bo Burnham’s ‘Eighth Grade,’ Reviewed: A Teen Coming-of-Age Story Plagued by Niceness” by Richard Brody in the New Yorker
- Insatiable
- “Netflix’s Insatiable Is Somehow Both Obscenely Cruel and Terminally Dull” by Constance Grady in Vox
- “Insatiable Is Dreadfully Unappetizing” by Sonia Saraiya in Vanity Fair
- “Losing It in the Anti-Dieting Age” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner in the New York Times
- Friends From College
- “The Provocative, Preposterous Power of ‘Insatiable’ ” by Troy Patterson in the New Yorker
- “ ‘Insatiable’ Backlash Borders on Censorship, Says Creator” by Jean Bentley in the Hollywood Reporter
- “I Won’t Be Marginalized by Online Harassment” by Kelly Marie Tran in the New York Times
- “Ethan Hawke on Dreaming of a Fourth ‘Before’ Film, Why He’s Not Having a McConaughey Moment, and the Necessity of Film Festivals” by Rory O’Connor on the Film Stage
- “The Persecution of Kelly Marie Tran: How ‘Star Wars’ Fandom Became Overrun by Alt-Right Trolls” by Amy Zimmerman on the Daily Beast
- “Star Wars Lovers’ #FanArtForRose Shows a Better Way to Fight Online Trolls” by Inkoo Kang in Slate
Endorsements:
Dana: Bo Burnham’s Netflix stand-up special Make Happy and the app iNaturalist
Julia: The birding app Merlin Bird ID, the hiking app AllTrails, and the Portland Bonsai Village
Stephen: Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Outro: “Long” by Molife
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Benjamin Frisch. Our production assistant is Alex Barasch.
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