Listen to Culture Gabfest No. 515 with Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner with the audio player below.
Or find the Culture Gabfest via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.
On Slate Plus, Dana, Julia, and Stephen discuss Slate’s cover story for this week, “The Abortions We Don’t Talk About.”
Go to Slate.com/cultureplus to learn more about Slate Plus and join today.
This week, the critics weigh in on Mission: Impossible—Fallout, directed by Christopher McQuarrie. They discuss how the installment fits in the 22-year-old franchise and what sets it apart from other action movies. Next, Fortnite is the most popular game on the planet. The gabbers discuss their experiences playing, Fortnite as a cultural phenomenon, and what makes an “it” game, with the help of Slate’s Dawnthea Price. Finally, the hosts unpack the much-buzzed-about New York Times Magazine profile “The Big Business of Being Gwyneth Paltrow,” examining the reasons for Goop’s success and what the company’s—and the culture’s—ethos of aspiration does to the rest of us.
Links to some of the things we discussed this week:
- Mission: Impossible—Fallout
- Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol
- “Mom and Dad Are Fighting: The ‘Guy in a Gorilla Suit’ Edition,” hosted by Gabriel Roth, Dana Stevens, and Carvell Wallace
- Slate Day at Capital Factory in Austin, Texas
- Epic Games’ Fortnite
- “Fortnite Is a Blast—but It Isn’t a Phenomenon” by Dawnthea in Slate
- “Drake’s Twitch Cameo Was So Drake” by Heather Schwedel in Slate
- “The Big Business of Being Gwyneth Paltrow” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner in the New York Times Magazine
- “Let’s Talk About My Abortion (and Yours)” by Cindi Leive in the New York Times
- “The Abortions We Don’t Talk About” by Slate staff
- “The Politics of Shmashmortion” by Dana Stevens in Slate
- “Roe v. Wade, Part 1: Who Was Jane Roe?” from The Daily
- “Roe v. Wade, Part 2: The Culture Wars” from The Daily
Endorsements:
Dana: Shuggie Otis’ album Inter-fusion and Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow starring Tom Cruise
Julia: The Hamilton Original Broadway Cast Recording, Pavement’s cover of “No More Kings,” an anti-endorsement of Schoolhouse Rock: America Rock, and an appeal to listeners: Do you know of any fun civic texts for kids that are representative of our sense of American history today?
Stephen: The ice cream at Samascott Orchards in Kinderhook, New York; Caroline Rose’s album LONER; the act of poaching an egg in a microwave; and Dizzy Gillespie’s Gillespiana
Outro: “Photosynthesis” by Daniel Gunnarsson
You can email us at culturefest@slate.com.
This podcast was produced by Benjamin Frisch. Our production assistant is Alex Barasch.
Follow us on Twitter. And please like the Culture Gabfest on Facebook.
