Did You Do Your Homework? | A Pop Culture Podcast

Friend of the podcast and return guest Maren joins us to dig into nostalgia - specifically, media ABOUT nostalgia. We talk about rose colored glasses, lampooning "the good old days," and why Pete and Martha don't get that excited about musicals. The homework: Meet Me the 1944 film In St. Louis, the Hold Steady album Boys & Girls in America, and the 1998 seminal film Pleasantville.

Hey guys! No real episode this week, and for that we apologize - Martha was sick and had no voice, which doesn't make for a very good recording experience. In absentia, please enjoy us gabbing about His Dark Materials with Sarah Shaw, and we will be back with our real episode next time!

New guest Kim joins us to discuss coming of age stories: their appeal, universality, and sneaking diverse experiences into stories easily consumable by white people. We discuss Call Me By Your Name, Persepolis, and The House on Mango Street.

Happy New Year! Today we discuss something not at all relevant to our current world situation, oh no, not at all, who would even think that: Hypocrisy. Starting the new year off on a positive, optimistic foot, eh? Return guest Sara Shaw also helps us share some of the good, positive things in our lives, like video games and Philip Pullman.

Pete and Martha go guestless to discuss their Top Ten pieces of pop culture from 2018. They also throw a lot of shade about their favorite and least favorite homework assignments from this year, and reiterate A LOT about how LONG 2018 has been. See you guys next year!

Friend of the pod and return guest Dan Karlin (of SooL Radio fame) joins us to discuss Showing vs. Telling in storytelling. Our homework: The Sopranos, The Hunger Games, and Asterios Polyp.

We're revisiting the question of conservation and environmentalism in our episode this week, where we're joined by friend of the show and repeat guest Caitlin. Some of the topics addressed: the responsibility humanity has towards caring for our world, the roles of ecoterrorism and legal loopholes in defending the environment, and really cute robots and owls. What's stuck in our heads this week: Pete: #GrittyABook > The Gritty & the Gritty > The City & the City BBC Martha: Damsel by Elana Arnold Caitlin: One Day at a Time Netflix Join us next ep for a discussion on storytelling, with friend of the show and fellow podcaster Dan Karlin! Homework for next episode: Martha: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Dan: The Sopranos - Season 6, Episode 3 Pete: Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Mark Rhomberg is back on to talk about memory, time, and how it makes fools of us all (not really, but you get the idea). We dig into how memories and time paradoxes mess up some characters and how they play with story, and we all only fight a little about Interstellar. Our homework: The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix show), Here by Richard McGuire, and Interstellar, from director Christopher Nolan. Follow us on Twitter @DYDYHpodcast!

We're bumping up our episode schedule just a bit to make sure you get our Halloween Spooktacular in a timely fashion! Friend of the show Michelle joins us to talk about what media scares us and why (and also why we kind of like it). The homework for the episode: The Exorcist (film), The Shining (book), and season 3 episode 5 of Community, "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps." Our next episode will be focused on ghosts, but not the spooky kind (well, not really....). Mark Rhomberg returns to talk Interstellar, The Haunting of Hill House, and the graphic novel Here by Richard McGuire on the topic of "The Ghosts of Memory."

We're joined by Joel from 40 Going on 14 to discuss something that's been in the news a lot lately - Problematic Faves. How do we deal with our favorite pop culture when the creators turn out to be trash? We discuss The Cosby Show, JK Rowling, The Breakfast, and more. Our next episode is our Halloween Spooktacular, and will be coming to you one week early! Your homework for next ep: the film version of The Exorcist, the book version of The Shining, and Community 3.05, "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps."

We're back! We have returned from our hiatus with a fully packed episode, starting with what's stuck in our heads this week and a deep dive on the Starz documentary America to Me, which happens to be the high school we all went to. Return guest Bill joins us to talk about the documentary, our experiences, and our feelings re: our hometown Next episode we're joined by friend of the show Joel from 40 Going on 14 to discuss problematic faves. The homework for next episode will be: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Breakfast Club, and The Cosby Show.

Thank you for bearing with us! Here's the last of this round of book reports before we head into our second season of regular shows. Martha has a lot of feelings about Moana and also Twilight (she swears it's related), and also about female teen characters in YA lit. Pete would like to talk to you about problematic podcast phenomena in the context of Serial and S-Town, and also Big Red Machine, PEOPLE music platform, and collaborations in music.

It's our second round of hiatus book reports! In this ep, Martha talks about the now-outdated Achievement in Popular Cinema award floated by the Academy, which has been "postponed" because that idea was dumb and bad. She also gets into why Teen Rom Coms are Good, Actually and the importance of movies like Love, Simon and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. Pete talks the role of history books in pop culture, and also his experience with Slice ("that pizza delivery/werewolf/horror-comedy staring Chance the Rapper").

Welcome to Episode 1 of our hiatus episodes! As you may remember from last ep, Pete and Martha are taking a few weeks to get the podcast organized and line up some great guests for you. In the meantime, we're sending you some shorty individual discussions on what we're enjoying right now. Included in this episode: Free! and cultural norms reflected in pop culture, Crazy Rich Asians and good storytelling,the board game Codename and the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison.

Friend of the podcast Lizzie is back to dig into reality tv - we made Pete watch the season finale of The Bachelorette, and we have no regrets. Homework was ostensibly The Bachelorette, Great British Bake Off, and The Great Food Truck Race, but we talk about a TON of stuff. Also: an announcement about the next couple of episodes!

In this one, we talk about summer blockbusters, what makes a movie a blockbuster, and how unfair it is that people tend to think poorly of big budget action movies that come out in the summer. We both have a lot of feelings about superheroes and Steven Spielberg.

It's summertime, and homework is honestly the last thing on our minds - we thought you guys deserved a break! Pete and I go guestless to brief you all on what we've been enjoying this summer in the realms of pop culture. Easy breezy.

Zombies are EVERYWHERE and now they're on our podcast, too. Join us and guest Austin to talk Warm Bodies, The Girl With All the Gifts, and the Newsflesh trilogy as we dive into what zombies stand for and why they're so pervasive in our pop cultural landscape.

We get down with Shakespeare in our newest episode! Reoccurring friend of the show Maren Hagman joins us to discuss interpretations of Shakespeare's work, including the seminal Ran by Akira Kurosawa; 10 Things I Hate About You starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger; and As I Descended by Robin Talley. Martha stans for Taming of the Shrew and everyone else is all in on Macbeth - check out this group of book nerds as we all get geeky over Billy Shakes.

We get personal with a discussion on PTSD in pop culture: different portrayals, how it effects character motivation, and how we can use pop culture to help work through our own trauma. Joel Kenyon from 40 Going on 14, The Coffin Joe Cast, and The Joel Happy Kpants Hour joins us to discuss Macbeth, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Jessica Jones.