💌Podcast The Newsletter💌
Bonjour.
Housekeeping:
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Enough chit chat! Let's get down to business.
When I was just becoming an adult reader, after I had spent years reading required reading for school and had to start choosing books on my own, I was drawn to non-fiction. I was in that annoying stage of early-adulthood where I felt very smart and was falsely optimistic enough to believe that I could make a difference with my brain. I wanted books that would teach me something, that would make me a smarter person. I felt like fiction was a waste of my VALUABLE time. I wanted a book that would give me something to impress people with.
I don't think this is all that uncommon, and I think the same rule can be applied to podcasts. People want to listen to interview shows, or fact-filled shows, or news shows, so they have something to talk about at parties, so they can feel smarter about the world. And while that's wonderful, these people (I was one of them) are missing out
As a reader, it took me a few years to realize that I got even more out of reading novels. That they made me empathize with others, examine my own life and relationships, and encouraged me to dream. And because I'm a dummy it took me awhile to realize that I could get a lot out of fiction podcasts. Not surprisingly, they do the same thing to your brain that novels do. They make us better people. They take us to other places. They are timeless.
For years I kept hearing people saying, "next year is the year for fiction shows." And I think the moment is finally happening. We've always had great fiction shows, but for awhile, a majority of them were of the sci-fi, dystopia, and apocalyptic kind. This turned many people (like me) away. But now we are getting shows like Ellie and the Wave, Gaslight, The Horror of Dolores Roach, Fuck Hut Music School for Teens, Margaritas and Donuts, Mockery Manor...oh so many more. Fiction shows have always been here (I hope I'm not angering people who have been listening to them for a long time...I admit I am slow to catch on.) And there are lots of great sci-fi podcasts. Now I am hooked on those, too, even though I never thought I would enjoy sci-fi! Those are getting better and better all the time. But fiction shows are expanding in genre and number, for the people who are slow to embrace them. It's exciting.
I tell people who aren't into fiction to start with The Truth, movies for your ears, short stories that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always intriguing. This is the show that broke me into fiction podcasts. I might not learn anything about a specific topic, but I always take so much away. And these stories are incredibly enjoyable. So if you're on the fence about listening to fiction shows, start with The Truth (I particularly loved this episode) or binge one of the shows I mentioned above. I think you'll be hooked and slap yourself for not switching sooner. But it's okay, you're lucky! You have a lot of catching up to do.
xoxo lp
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The Bechdel Cast's Caitlin Durante
Caitlin Durante is co-host of The Bechdel Cast and host of Sludge. Her name anagrams to many wonderful things, such as Latin Dancer UTI. Follow her on Twitter here, follow The Bechdel Cast on Twitter here, and follow Sludge on Twitter here. Learn about her amazing screenwriting class here! Image courtesy of Genevieve Marie.
Kindly introduce yourself and The Bechdel Cast.
My name is Caitlin Durante, I'm a comedian and writer and co-host of The Bechdel Cast, a podcast that examines the representation and portrayal of women in film. Historically, it's not been great. Jamie Loftus and I plus guests analyze a different movie each week and usually tear it apart. We've ruined a lot of movies for a lot of people.
Tell us about how the show came about.
The kernel of the idea came about many years ago when I was trying to figure out a Halloween costume, and I was complaining about how there are so few distinguishable female movie characters. It got me thinking about how abysmally women have been treated in film throughout time, and I decided to start a podcast about it, especially since I felt it would help me reconcile loving so many problematic movies. I emailed Jamie, who I had known from doing comedy in Boston, and asked if she'd be interested in partnering with me on the podcast. She was very down. Then I emailed Aristotle and asked him how to start a podcast; he loved the idea and told us he'd record for us. Two or three months later, we started releasing episodes. It all came together very easily and quickly.
What do you hope The Bechdel Cast does for people?
I hope it encourages people to think critically about the media they consume. We always say, you're allowed to love whatever movies you love, even if they're wildly problematic, but we want people to be aware of how media has influenced their thinking and reinforced things like rigid gender roles and toxic masculinity. And we also just want to entertain people; we're comedians and we want to make people laugh.
How has your opinion of The Bechdel Test changed over the course of you doing this show?
Ha, I'm actually finding the Test to be less and less useful, at least for me. It's a great tool for people who are just getting their feet wet in terms of noticing the generally poor representation of women in media, but there are so many other conversations to have, so much deeper you can dive when it comes to this topic. Which we do on the podcast. The Bechdel Test has become more of an after thought for me these days... sometimes I even forgot to pay attention to whether or not a movie passes LOL.
You are famously team Wet Scabs, am as I. But sometimes when I hear Jamie defending team Dry Scabs (cards shuffling) I feel like I could be swayed. But I never am! Do you ever waver on your position over this controversial topic? Are more people team Dry or Wet Scabs?
I was almost not going to answer this question, but you seem so curious about the answer so here goes! For those who don't know, on the podcast, we often speculate about the consistency of Beetlejuice's cum. There's no question about it -- he cums scabs, but are they wet or dry? Jamie, as you said, is vehemently Team Dry Scabs, whereas I am correct, so I am Team Wet Scabs. I would never waver from this stance. Surprisingly, our fans are split pretty evenly down the middle. Of course, there are those who think this is the grossest conversation of all time. And they are not wrong.
You also hosted a show called The Sludge Podcast. Tell us about how that podcast came to be.
Sludge: An American Healthcare Story is my podcast about how I was diagnosed with "sludge" at the ER after I went in with excruciating abdominal pain. I was later discovered to have gallstones, and the podcast details my very difficult and frustrating experience trying to get treatment. Season 2 of the podcast comes out soon, in which I chat with other folks who have had similar healthcare horror stories. I'm trying to shed more light on how broken and biased the American healthcare system is. I'm fun!
If someone doesn't love Paddington 2, tell them why they are wrong.
Well, I'm trying to channel my inner Paddington, and I don't think Paddington would tell someone they are wrong. He's much too kind and polite. That being said, Paddington 2 is the best movie ever made and if you disagree, I will fight you. It's so funny, the story is so tight and well crafted, it looks beautiful, and the characters are so delightful. You will cry at least twice. It's an allegory for prison reform, for crying out loud!! Not to mention Hugh Grant's performance. I have a Master's degree in Screenwriting from Boston University (which I don't like to mention) so I know what I'm talking about!
💎BTW:💎
🎙️ICYMI, The Bello Collective produced a beautiful list of the best podcasts of 2019, and if you haven't read it yet, please do. If you go through it thoroughly, as I am now, you will have an entire year's worth of really excellent podcast recommendations to work your way through. My husband is going through it, too, and chose Masala Jones, recommended by Elena Fernández Collins. I quickly listened to the entire six-part series, which tells the story of Samar Rajamouli, a med school drop out turned porn star, who faces the racism and toxic masculinity head on. On top of that, the story addresses Samar's family's immigration story, and his own sex-positivity. The story treats the porn industry with respect and openness, but also healthy criticism. It's also very funny and a ROLICKING FUN TIME.
🎙️Speaking of a ROLICKING FUN TIME, on It Could Happen Here, Behind The Bastards's Robert Evans asks: Could the US be on the road to a second civil war? (Robert thinks YES.) I admire Robert as a podcaster and journalist. All of his opinions, even when I don't necessarily agree with them, come from an educated, well-researched place, and it's always fascinating to hear what he has to say. He always offers an outlook away from the bubble that I reside in. Robert talks a lot about how modern warfare is different than the warfare of the first Civil War, a time when war would start in an instant, at a momentous battle. Today wars are much more insidious, and around the world, they usually start with protests, like Occupy Wallstreet. (If we do enter a civil war, we will be in one before we realize it is happening.) I do not think that Robert intended that listeners would binge the entire series on a Sunday morning, but that is what I did, and I needed to self-sooth myself afterward. (Midway there is an "uplifting" episode with ideas of things we can do to prepare ourselves, but it isn't very uplifting.) The show is smart. Often Robert says "I'm sure you're wondering..." about things I hadn't even thought to wonder about. So I think for a dummy like me, this show is eye-opening, but also very informative for people who already know a lot about this, or have thought about it.
🎙️If you're in search of an excellent storytelling series, try Dark Winter Nights, a live storytelling event where Alaskans share their amazing stories about living in Alaska. For Won't You Be My Neighbor, Rob shares a dark story about visiting the home of his recluse neighbor kind of for fun, with his mother, only to discover a tragedy that ends up making headlines. It's pretty gross and disturbing. (But at times I loled.) It also asks the question: what makes a good neighbor? (I have been thinking about this a lot, listening to Finding Fred.) What responsibility do we have to difficult people in our community? Especially if they are mentally unwell?
🎙️In an incredible two-part episode of Snap Judgment, we get the story of Danielle, who literally went through hell and high water to adopt her daughter, Annaporva, from India. Until she was an adult, Annaporva had no idea that her mother risked her life to bring her home. The story is a dramatic retelling of Danielle's adventure, and also a close look into this mother / daughter relationship, and how it must feel, for Annaporva, to be a daughter who Danielle fought so hard to get. (And to be a person who was...spoiler alert...sold for $22.)
🎙️Heavyweight is always good, but I have to point out a recent episode, #30 The Marshes. Steve Marsh discovers that his parents had a child before his brothers and sisters, who was put up for adoption 40 years ago. Steve wants to help his mom find her firstborn. The obvious worry is present: what if this woman had a terrible life, all due to the fact she was adopted by another family? But another terrifying worry emerges: what if this woman is better adjusted than the rest of the Marsh children, proving that it isn't biology that handed the Marsh children lives of addiction and troubles, but Steve's mother's parenting? I felt the emotion at the very bottom of my stomach.
🎙️Storybound is a radio theater program that features original music composed for each episode and the voices of authors and writers reading their essays, poems, and fiction. I listened to the first two episodes while I was winding down for bed, in an effort to kind of tuck myself in with nice storytelling. I recommend the second episode, where Lidia Yuknavitch reads her short story "Street Walker." It's a lovely story, but hearing Lidia read it adds an extra special dimension to the experience. And the sound design is impressive!
🎙️Because I am working my way through The Bello 100, I listened to The Secret Room, based on Ma'ayan's recommendation. The episode she wrote about, Objectum Sexual, has an interview with Joey, who falls in romantic love with inanimate objects. To some this would seem laughable, but the interview doesn't poke fun, which allows us to take object sexuality seriously, and learn a lot more about it.
🎙️Twenty Thousand Hertz, a show about sound, takes us on a sonic adventure around the world with Trevor Cox, who invites us to "sightsee" with our ears, on sand dunes, and into the Arctic Ocean. It's not only fascinating, but also a beautiful piece of audio. Listen at 1x speed!
🎙️One of the first podcasts I became obsessed with was Awesome Etiquette, a show hosted by Emily Post's grandchildren about etiquette. It always seemed catered to older people, and I found some of the advice entertaining because it was quite old-fashioned and addressing the problems of well-off, well-meaning white people with barely-problems. But Were You Raised By Wolves? feels a little fresher. The advice is a bit more applicable to my life. And the hosts don't promote themselves as etiquette experts as they do on Awesome Etiquette. Instead, they admit their own struggles with manners. The show is also really funny and I feel like I want to be friends with the hosts. I hope they will dedicate episodes to pizza etiquette. That was always my favorite genre on Awesome Etiquette. (I cannot believe how many problems people experience when sharing pizzas with friends.)
🎙️You might have seen THE ELIZA EFFECT on the 99% Invisibile feed, it was good. But Invisibilia ran an ELIZA-adjacent episode that was even gooder. On Raising Devendra, artist/researcher/mom Shayla starts using a therapy bot that runs on modern AI, Replika, and names them Devendra. Instead of screaming at Devendra and telling Devendra to shut the fuck up all the time, and calling Devendra an idiot when they start randomly playing DMX songs in the middle of dinner (oh wait now we're talking about me and my relationship with my Alexa) Shayla treats her AI with kindness. Shayla is a mom and said that she didn't want Devendra to be like her, she wanted Devendra to be the best version of her. So she decided to truly raise the bot, to treat the bot with only unconditional love. What will Devendra grow up to be? Can we raise a bot like a child?
🎙️I love A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal—brothers Eric and Jeff are loveable and hilarious, and they invite the biggest names in hip hop over to their apartment to record their show. I encourage you to go through their backlist, if you love hip hop, you'll find yourself saving tons of episodes. But this episode with Cam'Ron is getting a lot of attention. On it, Cam'Ron emphasizes his skepticism for the existence of dinosaurs. It's one of the greatest captured conversations I've heard in a long time. Cam'Ron is positive he's right, and Eric and Jeff respond with humor and curiosity.
🎙️Podcasters, Ma'ayan Plaut outlines 3 ways podcasters can share their work (=be smart) on Podcast Pontifications. SHARING is important for podcasters because when podcasters are able to learn from each other, everyone wins, everyone improves, and everyone breaks ground in the podcasting space. Ma'ayan says her mantra is: "be strategic to be efficient." But the whole (short) episode feels like a mantra that we should all commit to memory. (And we can, the transcript is there.) THANK YOU, MA'AYAN. (Is this newsletter becoming Ma'ayan The Newsletter? Sure, it is!)
🎙️I was turned onto Pretend when I saw the episode The Santa Claus Man (a wild story you probably haven't heard before–a con man tries to save Christmas by intercepting children's letters to Santa Claus) and now I'm addicted. It's a documentary-style show about real people pretending to be someone else. (Think con artists, snake oil salesmen, undercover FBI agents...pretty much anyone living a lie.) After The Santa Claus Man, I listened to The Cousins Part One and Part Two. Without giving away too much, a woman, Susan, is harassed online by what she believes is a psychotic family she also believes is HER family. Although from the very beginning, I had a pretty good feeling what would happen, I was on pins and needles the whole time. When part one ended I think I said aloud, "GODDAMIT," but was instantly relieved to know I could hear part two without waiting. The story is complicated but well-told and includes interviews with Susan and the FBI. Cons are SO HOT RIGHT NOW. And the show is super engaging and well done. You're in for a treat.
🎙️I have been enjoying this season of Slow Burn, which investigates the murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., and I wondered exactly how it would get wrapped up. It's an extremely complicated story. But the final episode does not disappoint—here is what I had been hoping for all along, the best theory of who committed the murders, and why they were not caught.
🎙️The First Mrs. Claus asks us to consider what the Santa Claus story would look like if we found out that everything we know about Christmas is a lie, and that Hot Coco, Santa's first girlfriend before Mrs. Claus, is really the brains behind the whole Christmas operation. Coco's story puts a en empowering feminist slant on the Santa Claus story, and it adds a lot of campy humor. (The Elves are paid in poppers.) Starring Michelle Visage, Lewis Black, RuPaul, Kristin Chenoweth, Cecil Baldwin, and more...it's very silly and a lot of fun. This show was created for people who love Drag Race. Those people, in particular, will feel this show was made just for them.
🎙️Caitlin Durante (SEE ABOVE) and Jamie Loftus reviewed Home Alone on The Bechdel Cast, which reminded me that Home Alone is not only my favorite Christmas movie, but maybe my favorite THING of all time. Caitlin and Jamie make so many smart, funny observations on the treatment of class, women, and feminity/masculinity on this episode, and you should listen to the whole thing. But my favorite conspiracy theory they planted was that Moira (Kate = Catherine O'Hara) is the breadwinner of the family, and her husband (Peter) is rich but jobless, kind of a fine harmless man who doesn't have much control in the family. CURIOUS TO HEAR MORE? Listen.
🎙️I was blown away by Charles Gustine's Ebenezer Scrooge episode of Iconography. BLOWN AWAY. We are not worthy, it deserves awards and money, somebody send him some! It's a look at Charles Dickens (OR SHOULD WE CALL HIM EBENEZER SCROOGE???) like you've never seen before, definitely required holiday listening. It's well researched (Charles told me that he watched every version of A Christmas Carol he could get his hands on) and beautifully produced. The music almost made me cry. (That is probably a ME issue.) Charles argues that the story has endured and been reinterpreted so many times because the story's ubiquity reflects a very real nostalgic impulse and even a morose "loss of Christmas" impulse that goes back to a time so long ago, nostalgia wasn't even invented yet. One of the most interesting things he touches upon is how Dickens wrote himself into Ebenezer (the AMOUNT? We don't know.) Charles told me via email: "If we take it as read that somehow the radical reformer Dickens identifies with the miserly Scrooge so much that he gave him a lot of his own characteristics, even his sister's name, what ends up setting them apart is something I hadn't really seen anyone comment on before—Dickens's almost compulsive need to see and be seen. To experience fame as a way of being a shadow on everyone's hearth, which lent him empathy for the world around him. Without which, we/he can not help but be Marley and Scrooge, who are transformed only by the supernatural ability to be anywhere and everywhere and see everything."
🎙️Let me be the fourteen billionth person to say this: one of the best things about podcasts is hearing the stories, life experiences, and points of view of people who are different than us. In their own voices, in our own ears. That's what That's Different is all about! On each episode, Sara Anderson talks to people who are defying convention about their motivations, mindsets, risks, challenges, and payoffs of daring to live a life that’s different. On the first episode, Sara talks to Val and Tim, a couple who have created a rolling hostel called The Nomad Bus. Listen to the episode on the site, along with Sara's video, so you can see the bus. Excited to see what other interesting guests show up for Sara's new show!
🎙️I love you!