The Popculty Podcast
The Popculty Podcast
Comic-Con 2019: The Future (of Sci-Fi) is Female
In the very first episode of the Popculty Podcast, get acquainted with your host, SJ, and the kinds of topics we'll cover on this show. Then geek out with me as we re-cap all the big announcements from Comic-Con 2019, featuring an all-star lineup of female superheroes, villains, and Terminators!
Follow Popculty on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram for all the news and commentary on the underrepresented pop culture you care about!
Logo by Max Badger.
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It's The Popculty Podcast, where we discuss everything pop culture. I'm your host, SJ. Let's dig in.
Upbeat intro music:[plays]
SJ:Thanks so much for tuning in to the very first episode of the Popculty podcast. Today we're going to be talking about some of the big announcements that came out of San Diego Comic- Con 2019, AKA geek holiday of the year. But first I'm just going to introduce myself a little bit. I've been running the Popculty blog on Tumblr since about 2015. I've also written about television for a couple of years now and I thought this would be a really good way to branch out and kind of build on what I already do. I totally get that not everyone likes Twitter or is on Tumblr, so I thought maybe podcasting would be a really good way to reach kind of everyone. Everyone seems to like podcasts, so I thought that might be a good way to branch out and to also continue the conversation to go a little deeper on the things that I kind of touch on on the blog, and to have real conversations with real people. This just seems like sort of the natural evolution for Popculty, so I'm hoping you guys are into it. I'm hoping that this'll be fun and we can have some really awesome discussions. The things we're going to cover on here is going to encompass the whole spectrum of pop culture. We're going to talk about music, we're going to talk about movies, but especially we're going to talk about television because there is just so much of it out there right now, and we're also always going to emphasize stories by and about people we don't often hear from. That's women, people of color, queer people, etc, so if that it's not your thing, you might want to find a different podcast. And I really don't want this to be just me up here talking to myself week after week, so I really am going to try to make this as much as possible a conversation. I'm going to sit down with creators and creatives and people who are passionate about certain things. We're going to have awesome, lively discussions about movies and shows and musical artists and video games and books. We're going to talk about it all. This episode is going to be a little bit different because I am just getting started. It is going to be just me up here today. Sorry about that. But I promise in the future it is not always going to be like this. So hang tight and it's going to get real. When it comes to TV, I watch almost everything. I'm not exaggerating. I've watched almost 300 shows and on any given week I'm keeping up with 60 to 70 shows. I know that's crazy, but I do it so you don't have to. And my goal is to basically point you in the direction of the things that you're really going to like. The things that are going to resonate with you. Time is precious and you can't get back those two hours that you spent watching a terrible movie. So I'm going to try to save you from that. And if you're feeling overwhelmed by the amount of TV right now, one, you're not alone, and two, it's completely understandable because there are almost 500 scripted shows on TV right now- 495 to be exact. But compared to 15 years ago, there were only 183, so there has been a massive jump in the amount of content that is now available and a lot of us are feeling completely overwhelmed and inundated by it, so I'm going to help you sort through that, okay? I am in the process of assembling... The Avengers? No, a team to help me on this project. We've already got brand new art by the wonderful Max Badger. He's a comic book artist. He's a game designer. Really awesome dude. He might actually be my token white guy on here, so big shout out to Max. You can find him on social media under"wax diamond". On Tumblr, he's@wxdmnd, so go check out his art there. Thank you, Max! One thing that's really important to me is accessibility and for podcasts that means reaching those who are deaf and hard of hearing. Just because we're an audio platform doesn't mean that we should leave people who are hard of hearing out of the conversation. That's ridiculous. We're talking about culture, which they are a part of, and there are several people in my life who are deaf or hard of hearing- shout out to Cat and Ian and Zach- and they love pop culture as much as I do. They love going to the movies as much as I do and they want to talk about this stuff. So the fact that most podcasts don't provide transcripts is pretty ridiculous to me. And so for my part, I definitely don't want to repeat those mistakes. I want to have the doors open to literally everyone. And so this just feels like a barrier that's pretty easily removed by just providing transcripts. Now if you follow the blog, you know that there are three things that I try to do every time I have a conversation about pop culture and three things that I encourage everyone else to do as well. The first is to be critical of all the media you consume. And that doesn't mean be cynical. That actually means the opposite really, because if you are critiquing something that means you have hope that it can be better. And while it's definitely easier to critique something we're not a fan of, it's equally important to actually critique the things that we love because when you love something, you should want it to be the best version of itself that it possibly can. When we as audiences don't demand better of the creators of culture, everyone loses, right? We, the audience are left disappointed and bitter and the creators are left ignorant of their mistakes and poor choices and then they're likely to repeat them in the future. Call-out culture can certainly be overused, but it's essentially a really important tool for both audiences and creators to learn from each other and for art itself to evolve. We've seen so many examples of this, this dialogue between creators and consumers and oftentimes it ends in victory. You can see this in Marvel upping its game in terms of diversity and representation after decades of fan pressure, which we'll be talking about later when I talk about Comic-Con. We've also seen this have even more real life consequences. Just last week Netflix finally responded to a years-long criticism of its show'13 Reasons Why' after numerous studies found its depiction of suicide had correlated to a 28.9% increase in teen suicide in the month following its premiere. If we keep speaking up when these companies make huge mistakes, when they fail us like this, it's going to create a positive precedent so that we don't have to get to the point of kids having to die before a studio does something about it. Being critical also means to think more deeply about the messages embedded in the things you're consuming. We have to accept that liking a thing isn't the same as that thing being good or great and vice versa. We have to try to separate our tastes from the inherent worth of a thing. Like I hate oranges, but I still recognize that we all need vitamin C and the occasional Mimosa, just like I recognize that'Breaking Bad' is a good show, but I'm just not that interested in seeing yet another white male antihero. It's not necessarily a judgement to say that something isn't for you. It's simply expressing your tastes and your desire to see some particular stories over others. TLDR; being critical just means having an open and an inquisitive mind. It makes us smarter viewers and when it's properly expressed. It forces creators to accept responsibility for their creations and and to just make better art. The second thing I always try to do and encourage you to do as well is support marginalized voices. That means go see women-directed movies in theaters. That means binge watch shows with female, non- white, or queer casts. Corporations like Netflix and studios like Marvel, they only understand one language.
Coins:[jostling]
SJ:If we put our money where our mouths are like we did for Wonder Woman, like we did for Black Panther, and Crazy Rich Asians and show them that people want to see these types of stories and that they will make money, then they'll keep making them. And don't just support the critically-acclaimed or the blockbusters. I'm saying, yes, go see Captain Marvel, which is co-directed by Anna Boden, but then go home, go onto Amazon Prime and pay$5.99, which is less than the price of a theater ticket by the way, to watch Fast Color, an indie film in which a black woman(played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) gets super powers. I will always do my best to shout out woman directed indies like this and put stories that all the critics aren't talking about on your radar. The last kind of principle that I really try to adhere to is demand representation. Whether you are Black, Brown, female, nonbinary, trans, queer, disabled, mentally ill, what have you. The century of watching movie after movie about a white man's struggle is finally coming to an end and it's because we're demanding that other voices be let in. We're clamoring for shows about young people of color in New York City like'The Get Down' and'Pose', female friendships like'Broad City' and'Dead to Me', people with disabilities like'Speechless' and'This Close'. These are not only the stories that historically haven't been told, they're also the most interesting stories. As girls, we often had no choice but to identify with the only characters available to us(i.e. mostly boys). It was The Goonies, and Indiana Jones, and Luke Skywalker, hell, Dark Wing Duck. Now, little girls have Wonder Woman and Katniss and Moana. And you know what? So do boys, which is going to help them grow up to be good men if they can learn at a young age to empathize with female characters, and recognize women's strength and value. Representation isn't just about the wish-fulfillment, the feeling of being less alone in the world when we see ourselves on screen- even though that is so important. It's also about exposing ourselves to different perspectives, which is something that creates empathy in human beings, and I think we can all agree that especially at this point in time right now, we need empathy more than ever.
Upbeat music:[plays]
SJ:Ok, now that you know what you're getting into, I want to talk about some fun stuff because San Diego Comic-Con 2019 was this past weekend and holy hell, were there a lot of bombshells dropped. I want to start with Marvel and their Cinematic Universe Phase 4. The projects I was easily most excited for like Captain Marvel 2 and Black Panther 2 were barely mentioned. Instead they rattled off a truly bizarro-sounding lineup that rang maybe half a bell for me. That lineup includes: The Eternals, Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Blade, Thor: Love and Thunder, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Hawkeye, What If, and WandaVision. Phew! Okay. Ah, let's be honest, these don't sound great. They kind of sound like reject arcade games of the 90s or something. But then I started looking into the details and turns out some of these are kind of exciting. For instance, The Eternals. This is going to be directed by Chloe Zao, who directed the really critically acclaimed film The Rider just a couple years back. She's a really talented director and a director of color, so it's great to see her stepping behind the camera. Meanwhile, in front of the camera we've got Richard Madden from Game of Thrones, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, and Angelina Jolie. Yeah, you heard that right. Also Lauren Ridloff stars as Makkari, the MCU's first deaf character. Now, that is a huge milestone and this casting is starting to get interesting. Speaking of interesting casting, Black Widow. Now this will obviously follow Scarlett Johansson's character from the Avengers movies. Okay. Real quick, just to address the elephant in the room: Scarlett Johansson has had a long history of saying problematic things of taking the role of, you know, characters of color and trans characters, even though she is cis-gender and white. Uh, she's done a lot of iffy things in her career and most recently she pissed off a lot of people anew, when she said something along the lines of,"I should be able to play any character that I want because that's an actor's job." Well...okay, we can get into that discussion another day. But just to acknowledge that Scar-Jo is pretty problematic. Maybe you're not a fan of Black Widow anymore. I don't blame you, but I will say this: if you can separate the art from the artist, Black Widow is shaping up to be a pretty interesting project. This film is also going to be directed by a woman, Cate Shortland, and the cast includes Florence Pugh, who's one of my favorite new actors of the past few years. I saw her in Lady Macbeth a couple years back and have kind of had my eye on her ever since. She's fantastic. And Rachel Weiss... I mean, I got issues with Scarlett Johansson, but I will literally go see my gay mom Rachel Weiss in anything. So The Eternals and Black Widow are already pretty exciting steps for Marvel, which has hired exactly one female director in the past two decades. And even then, they didn't give her her own project. I'm talking about Anna Boden who co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck. So this is exciting to finally see Marvel trust a woman by herself to direct a superhero movie, because hello- Wonder Woman? Patty Jenkins killed it. We don't need any more proof that women can direct superhero movies or action movies. It's time we move along. So I'm glad Marvel finally is. Okay, moving along to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings...doesn't sound awesome, but it will when I tell you that it's directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed one of my favorite movies of all time, Short Term 12. That's the movie that put Brie Larson on my radar. And he's a director of color who's going to be directing the first Asian American leading man in a Marvel movie. It's got an all Asian cast: Fresh off the Boat's Simu Lu stars as Shang-Chi, alongside Chinese actor Tony Leung as the Mandarin, and Awkwafina! Though Marvel has not revealed which characters she'll be playing, but she is always fun. So three cheers for Marvel upping their diversity game.
Generic crowd:Yay!
SJ:Yeah, I gotta admit, I'm still not interested in Dr. Strange or Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. But according to Marvel, it's going to be a full-on horror movie and will also feature Wanda Maximoff. So I guess that's kind of interesting? Blade now exists in the MCU apparently. I wouldn't normally care, but Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is now Blade, so I do. Now, Thor: Love and Thunder. What a ridiculous title. But when I tell you that it's directed by Taika Waititi, the man behind What We Do in the Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok, it kind of makes perfect sense, doesn't it? This film comes out November 5th, 2021 and get this: it stars, not Chris Hemsworth's Thor...
Taika Waititi:It introduces for the first time, female Thor.[Audience cheers] So for us there's only one person who could play that role. Only one. And she's here and I'm going to introduce her to you now. Please welcome to the stage... Natalie Portman![Audience screams]
SJ:Yes, you heard that right. Natalie Portman is now playing not for his love interest. She is playing Thor herself. Comic book fans are probably not surprised to hear this as there was a recent run of comics in which her character Jane does actually become Thor. So this is based off a pretty well-known recent comic book run, but it's pretty exciting to see this come to life on the big screen. And Taika Waititi literally handed her Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, on stage. So the hammer has been passed and as you can hear, the crowd at comic con went wild. Apparently Natalie Portman's Thor deal was signed six months ago and she says she'll get"jacked" to play female Thor. I am downright giddy to hear that. Nothing takes me out of an action movie faster than when there's some waif of a girl who we're expected to believe can toss 200 pound men around like they're rag dolls. No, I'm here for Gal Gadot putting on 17 pounds of muscle to play Wonder Woman. I'm here for Brie Larson's Instagram videos of her pushing a Jeep up a hill and doing 250 pound hip thrusts. I am here for Charlize Theron, at 41 years of age, doing all her own stunts in Atomic Blonde and looking like she could kick my ass any day of the week. That is where it's at. I am so here for these actresses getting fully ripped for these roles. The other pretty exciting thing about this movie? The presence of Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson, who confirmed at SDCC that she will be the first LGBTQ character in the MCU.
Interviewer:Day one as king of Asgard, what would Valkyrie first change in New Asgard?
Tessa Thomspon:I think first of all, as new king, she needs to find her queen.[audience cheers] So that would be...
SJ:Is it ridiculous that it has taken Marvel twenty years to give us any kind of queer representation in this entire universe that now spans four phases? Yes. Also, I kind of have to file this under"girl, this is not news", because Valkyrie was already canonically bi in the comics. A lot of us were hoping this big reveal would be Carol Danvers because, like, we saw her hair in Avengers 4 and we just knew. But we are getting a queer character of color played by a queer actress of color and that is definitely worth celebrating. Even with the details, Marvel's TV lineup though is still pretty"meh" in my opinion. Falcon and the Winter Soldier is just going to be Captain America minus Captain America. Loki is Thor minus Thor. Hawkeye is Jeremy Renner minus my interest. What If is going to be the MCU's first foray into animation and will feature the voices of Jeffrey Wright and apparently every MCU actor ever, but other than that, there are no details. WandaVision, which is going to premiere on Disney+ in the spring of 2021, doesn't have too many details either, but it's going to star Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprising their roles from the Avengers as Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, and Vision, plus a grown-up Monica Rambeau, whom we met as a child in Captain Marvel and she's played here as an adult by Teyonah Parris. In other Marvel TV news, Agents of Shield is going to finally end with season seven. Now I've watched this show from the beginning, I've been a fan for a while, but I got to admit, it pretty much feels like time. They kind of lost me when they went to space a couple seasons back and my interest has kind of waned since then. So as much as I'll hate to see some of the characters go, I think this is the right call really. But there might be a potential for a spin-off series on Disney+, the new streaming platform, involving some of these characters. One fan in the audience specifically asked about a Daisy and Jemma spinoff show, and Jed Whedon, the co- creator said that the idea of a comic book based around the two of them has actually been talked about. I only watched a few episodes from this latest season of Agents of Shield, but I will say that the episode in which Daisy and Jemma start tripping balls in an alien casino was easily one of the best episodes the show has ever had, and I would 100% read a comic about the two of them having adventures and shenanigans
Jemma:Why are we here?
Daisy:[slurred] We're on a mission.
Jemma:Right...What is the mission?
Daisy:The mission is...LADIES' NIGHT![both trill]
SJ:Now on the other side of the comics world, the DC universe debuted the first episode of its animated Harley Quinn series. According to SyFyi Wire, it feels like a kindred spirit to Marvel's Deadpool:"The season premiere is a hilarious meta and violently refreshing deconstruction of the iconic Gotham mythos."
Joker:Harley?
Harley Quinn:It's me, dickhead.
Aquaman:Ahoy![dolphin chatters]
Harley Quinn:This is going to be the start of something huge.
SJ:It looks totally bonkers, very fun, and any iteration of Harley Quinn that doesn't have her just being the Joker's play-thing/victim is progress in my book. Really solid voice cast: Kaley Cuoco is Harley Quinn, Lake Bell is Poison Ivy, Allan Tudyk will make a fantastic joker. It's also got Wanda Sykes, Tony Hale, Chris Meloni... A lot of good people, so that'll be fun. It doesn't quite make up for the lack of a Wonder Woman 2 teaser trailer, but it's something. In the Arrowverse, this year's crossover is going to be the most ambitious yet. It's a five-episode crossover event called Crisis on Infinite Earths. It debuts in the fall and that's going to include all the characters from Supergirl, from Arrow, from The Flash, from Legends of Tomorrow, and the upcoming Batwoman series starring Ruby Rose. So that's going to be really exciting to see everyone coming together. Plus TV's original Robin, Burt Ward, is going to be guest starring.
Robin:Holy here we go again, Batman!
SJ:And in related news, Supergirl finally has a new suit. Gone is the skirt. She finally has pants.
Melissa Benoist:It feels amazing!'Cause I can kick and I can stretch...
SJ:Yes, she can kick, she can stretch. Also, the cast doesn't constantly have to watch out for up-the-skirt shots when she's doing action scenes. It looks modern, it looks sleek, and most importantly, Melissa Benoist will no longer be freezing her ass off while they're filming at 2:00 AM in Vancouver.
Supergirl cast:[chants] Pants! Pants! Pants! Pants!
SJ:Apart from Marvel and DC, there was the Star Trek: Picard trailer, there was Westworld season three, Snowpiercer- Yes, the series based on the Bong Joon-ho film from a couple of years back. And what I'm really excited about the trailer for His Dark Materials. This is the adaptation of the Phillip Pullman young adult book series by the same name. This was my favorite series growing up. Lyra was my heroine. They did a movie adaptation several years back, but even though it had a really great cast, the movie itself was not very good and, uh, people forgot about it almost right away. So I'm really hoping that they'll nail it this time. It gives me hope that this is a series, not a film, so they can really take their time with it. It's on HBO, which means it has huge production value. The cast looks incredible: The little girl from Logan is playing Lyra. She looks great. James McAvoy plays her father, Lord Asrael. Ruth Wilson, who just has the most perfect resting bitch face, is playing the evil Mrs. Coulter, and Lin-Manuel Miranda is playing Lee Scoresby. It looks great. I cannot wait for shape-shifting demons and iron-clad polar bears. So fingers crossed for His Dark Materials that premieres in the fall on HBO. And the last thing that came out of SDCC this year that I am super excited about is actually Terminator: Dark Fate. I know, I eye-rolled too at the announcement of the sixth terminator installment, but that was before Paramount dropped key art of the film's three female protagonists, played by MacKenzie Davis(you know her from Halt and Catch Fire and the lovely San Junipero episode from Black Mirror), Natalia Rayez, and the OG Sarah Connor, Linda freaking Hamilton herself. Misogynist Internet trolls immediately started their bitching and I suddenly couldn't wait for November 1st. I call it the Troll Test: Whenever the fragile misogynists of the Internet announce that they're boycotting a movie, like they did with Star Wars, like they did with Ghostbusters, I know it's going to be awesome. Anything that pisses off man-babies is my cup of tea. It's directed by Tim Miller who directed Deadpool. It's going to be a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which means it's essentially going to retcon all the other films that have come since that have been so underwhelming. And in addition to Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Edward Furlong are set to return. How cool does this sound? They're doing everything right. Terminator: Dark Fate- not something I thought I was going to be excited about and now I cannot wait for it.
bell:[dings]
SJ:Alright everyone, thank you so much for listening to this episode. However you came to be here, I really hope you found something interesting. I hope I got you thinking about some stuff. I hope I got you excited for some stuff that's coming up, and I really hope you'll tune in next time when we're going to be talking about the Emmy nominations that were announced a couple of weeks ago, as well as some of the big cancellations and renewals on TV. Because we're not going to have a super regular schedule for these episodes, the subscribe button is going to be your best friend. If you click that, you'll be kept up to date with everything. As soon as we have a new episode released, you'll be the first to know. It'll just pop up in your feed. So please do hit that subscribe button. In the meantime, please follow the Popculty blog for all the visual content your heart desires, be it pics or gifs or think pieces- It's all on popculty.blog. So check that out. Follow me on Twitter@popculty. I do want this to be a sort of conversation, so the more I hear from you, dear listeners, the better this podcast is going to be and I think the more entertaining it's going to be for all of us. So if you have thoughts about this episode, or there's something that you want me to talk about in the future, please do let me know. Send me an email or better yet record a voice memo and send that to me. Email is in the description, but it's podcast@popculty.blog. I really want to hear from you. I want to know what you're passionate about. What shows are you watching, especially if it's one of the, you know, two shows that I don't watch. I will put it on my list and hopefully talk about it at some point. Thank you, Gamespot Universe Trailers for the Harley Quinn promo. The Supergirl cast interviews are courtesy of IMDB. Agents of Shield, property of ABC Studios, Marvel Television, Mutant Enemy Productions, and Walt Disney Television. Our cover art was designed by Max Badger. Our theme music is composed by Andrew White. And this episode was produced by your host, SJ Palm, reminding you to stay critical, support women directors, and always demand representation.'Til next time.