Pop Trash in the Academy with Charisse L'Pree and Bob Thompson
Amplified is an audio blog series about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. This month on Amplified, we sit down with Charisse L'Pree and Bob Thompson, co-creators of the podcast Critical and Curious, to discuss their love of pop trash media, and its importance in the academy.
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Stacey Copeland 0:00
[Intro Music]
Welcome to Amplified, an audio blog, a podcast about the sounds of scholarship from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. I'm your host Stacey Copeland. In this episode, we're diving into the Hallmark movie Keanu Reeves Fast and the Furious world of talking pop trash in the university classroom. With two of our local experts on the topic, Amplify Sustain stream podcasters. Charisse L'Pree and Bob Thompson, the dynamic duo behind critical and curious a pop trash podcast throughout our conversation we'll delve into the evolution of pop culture studies discuss why some franchises are embraced by academics while others are still dismissed. And for you academic podcast nerds, Charisse and Bob share insights into the structure and process behind their podcast. And how podcasting for them has become a generative tool for course development and course material. Whether it's fast and the furious, or Romeo and Juliet, Charisse and Bob are the critical scholars giving us the language for why we love trash.
[Intro Music]
Charisse L'Pree 1:18
I am Charisse L'Pree, and I am an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University. I co host critical and curious a what started off as a fast and furious podcast and has since evolved into a pop trash podcast with other seasons. My area of expertise is specifically around media and identity. So my PhD is in social psychology. And I look at how people use media to understand themselves and help others understand them as well.
Bob Thompson 1:56
I'm Bob Thompson, I've been studying and writing about television and popular culture since the early 1980s. I'm also at Syracuse University in my 34th year if I've counted correctly, and the thing that I've noticed most in those years is the universities, the academic environment was so hostile to us back then How dare you be, you know, watching television and getting college credit for it. It wasn't that many years as movies had been embraced by the universities. And of course, that's changed now. Now every English department across the country and around the world have got courses on comic books and all the rest of it. And I have to say, as we started doing this pop trash thing. I kind of missed those days when all the eggheads were complaining about what we were doing. When we were fighting that fight. There was a certain voltage to it. Now, you know, couple people like us talk seriously about Fast and Furious and a bunch of people in ties and tweed coats join in the conversation. I missed those old days.
Stacey Copeland 3:12
Yeah now, everybody's doing it walk into any English department, they might be reading some Fast and the Furious, peer reviewed scholarly works now. [Laughs]
Bob Thompson 3:21
[Laughs] And you know, that is a big change. I mean, it took, I think a couple of things made that happen, one of which in the case of a lot of pop culture, it started getting so literate and sophisticated. Television now is better than most movies that come out. It's very novelistic, and all of that. You know, back in the day, when we were first defending the Love Boat, and Ships and that kind of thing. One had to do it on the terms that network television was a very different art form with a whole different set of properties. Now, one doesn't have to do that, you know, when Breaking Bad, has episode titles called ozymandias, the English department doesn't need us to defend it anymore.
Charisse L'Pree 4:09
I will say what I love about what Bob's expressing is the sort of evolution of pop studies, while at the same time there is still these franchises that are dismissed, right. So we can absolutely run a whole class on Marvel. There are some franchises that are embraced, right, there's pop trash, and they're embraced by academics. But the topics that we try to take on are still very much discarded right. So I don't think you're going to see a lot of Fast and Furious being integrated into the syllabus, because there's still the sentiment that it's garbage, even though it's one of the biggest franchises international mixed all of these things. The second season we talked about Keanu Reeves, like we were really digging for content that talked about Keanu Reeves. You and find stuff on the matrix, right? The Matrix has been analyzed within an inch of its life. But Keanu Reeves as an icon as an actor, as a character, as a philanthropist, as a motorcycle nut, is not received the same respect, or value in a star study that you would see of like, Tom Cruise, who I think is very similar, a in age and b also in content, right? So there's still certain pieces of pop culture that are perceived as trash.
Stacey Copeland 5:34
It brings me to a question about how do you know thinking about critical cultural approaches to popular cultures thinking about how do we critically analyze that for students, but also colleagues and peers? How do you go about choosing the particular topics you have?
Charisse L'Pree 5:50
So I'll start off because the whole thing started with the Fast and Furious podcast because Bob and I were talking about something, and I was super excited for the next one, I think it was like maybe seven, or it was probably seven. And Bob said something to the effect of i to love Fast and Furious, right? And then we realized that when we talk to colleagues about it, it was perpetually dismissed, like, Oh, what are they on now? Episode like, 24? You're like, No, dude, it's seven. Okay. I don't see anybody asking how many James Bonds they've made. I don't see anybody asking how many Superman movies they've made, right. But somehow Fast and Furious.
Bob Thompson 6:29
They made three Henry the Six and nobody complained
Charisse L'Pree 6:32
nobody complained about that. But still, there was this sentiment of like, that's trash, even though objectively from metrics, perspectives, it's a franchise that does things that other franchises don't do, be it how much money they make, be at the diversity of the cast, be it international representation, you know. So, for us, we kind of fell into that we were really excited to teach a class we have these diversity requirement classes at New House. But of course, we couldn't get our ish together. And so it turned into a podcast, right, we were going to co teach this class that used Fast and Furious to showcase issues of American history, media and culture, race, gender, class, and then it just kind of easily evolved into a podcast. So it was less about what are we choosing to talk about this season, and more like we need to talk about this, but fitting it into the things that are traditionally valued in the academic sphere. And we don't want to do that. What I
Bob Thompson 7:40
like about how it evolved was that, you know, if we would have done a class, we would have had to do the responsible due diligence of, you know, setting up a systematic way in which we would use various scholarly dimensions in which to take this whole thing apart. And it's not like we didn't do that in our conversations. But I much preferred the, and I think this is a property of an awful lot of podcasting. for better and worse, these were not academic inquiries in some kind of systematic way, as much as they were drive by conversations. But I know in talking to you, and every conversation I have with you, I learned something and am enlightened and my consciousness is raised. But doing that formally, was, I think, a really valuable thing. At the end of each one of those conversations. I saw more in each one of those films than I had seen before. And in most cases, by the time we got around to sitting down. I'd seen each film at least three times, sometimes more.
Charisse L'Pree 8:48
Absolutely. I think if we were to, you know, do it in a formal class, and you have to prepare a syllabus beforehand. In these conversations, we actually got to see how the syllabus would emerge. Right. So this actually, if we were making recommendations to academics for integrating into class materials, having an open conversation in a podcast format, allows for the you don't want to have these conversations. You don't want to have this illumination in like in front of 50-100 18-year olds, like that's, I don't like having any epiphanies in front of 18-year olds [Laughs].
Stacey Copeland 9:29
I mean, this is really interesting to me. So it almost sounds like looking back on that first season together. Your Fast and the Furious season was more of a research creation project, like using the podcast as a way to develop what a syllabus would be for the topic of Fast and Furious. So how did the other seasons develop from there? Did they follow the same sort of process?
Bob Thompson 9:57
One of the things that the podcast is really, really good at. And this is something that the previous use of audio only art radio and, and radio of course used to do drama and comedy and soap opera. But one thing that the podcast really does allow is this kind of first draft this feeling out of things. So and sometimes and I think there are times that there have been strings of our conversations in our podcasts that we could have easily say, okay, that certainly does not have to go down into some kind of forever recorded, eternity. But there is a sense in which the podcast you know, you listen to some of these people who, the day after an episode of whatever Walking Dead or Breaking Bad or Atlanta or you name it, go into these very deep kind of analyses. But they're doing it right afterwards. I mean, I think there is a sense of if scholarship is where angels fear to tread Podcasts can allow fools to rush in and feel out all kinds of stuff that can later be then worked out in more detail. Charisse knows that. When she first mentioned the idea of a podcast, I tended to have a very eye rolling attitude about a podcast. A matter of fact, I will confess here that I was proud to be one of the few people in the United States of America who didn't have a podcast, my mind changed about that. I think they were, if nothing else, for my own pleasure of sitting down and having a conversation about something I'm interested with a with a really intelligent person had a value in and of itself. I'm not sure whether that value extends to listeners. But it did help focus my thinking in a lot of ways. And that's a step in my research throughout the rest of my career that I never had.
Charisse L'Pree 11:51
I completely agree with all of that. And I will say to answer your question about the concept of the future, those subsequent seasons, we're also taking that perspective, right? What kind of content do our colleagues trash? Right? Where do we not see extended conversations? And so in the case of Keanu Reeves, I love Keanu Reeves. I mean, like I've loved Keanu Reeves since My Own Private Idaho and Bill and Ted. So and then to hear people you know, as John Wick was coming out as he was having this like massive surge in current pop culture, to see that everyone loves Keanu Reeves. But academics have not delved into that love from an analytical perspective.
Stacey Copeland 12:36
[Hm]
Charisse L'Pree 12:36
Instead, it's just oh, he's a crappy actor. And so that was very easy. I will also say one of the things that we loved about Fast and Furious is the way the narrative continues across multiple episodes. Right? So it's ultimately one story that will have been played out over 12 films. When this ends, including Hobbs and Shaw, we count Hobbs and Shaw, right. So over 12 films. Similarly, when we think about a star study, which is an accepted methodology within critical studies, we see how one person's story is amplified to,
Stacey Copeland 13:12
[Mhm]
Charisse L'Pree 13:12
connected to catalyze through their films and their artistic pieces. So we were like, oh, let's do a star study and see the narrative of Keanu Reeves over these 30 plus years. Then in our third season, kind of again, thinking about, you know, reorganizing story, with Romeo and Juliet. How is one story told ad infinitum, to the point where we really don't respect any story that uses Romeo and Juliet to a ridiculous degree, right? So no, Gnomeo and Juliet is generally a joke. Romeo must die. Even Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, all of those things are generally seen as pop trash. And so it's both what are the things that academics are not talking about, but the popular culture is, as well as how does pop culture tell stories and interesting and unique ways. So both of those questions have been considered with every single season.
Bob Thompson 14:20
You know, what occurred to me as you say that, so I'm trying to think where I go back to my career in the early 80s, where network television in general was that disdained by the intelligencia? Embraced by 10s of millions of people? Where would we have to go right now to really get to a pure sense of that. And I hate to bring this up because I'm not sure I want to do a whole season on Hallmark and lifetime Christmas specials. But there you've got a place where people really hate this stuff, intellectually and academically, but they are so spectacularly successful to the tune of making hundreds of new ones every year. So I don't know that's, this could be taken to places that even I may not want to go.
Stacey Copeland 15:10
I mean, you definitely have one secured listener here, just like the political and religious undertones and surrounding conversations around Hallmark over the past decade. That's podcast gold right there.
Bob Thompson 15:26
You're right, there is all kinds of rich veins in that kind of stuff. And I think that was the spirit that Charisse had in mind when she came up with this pop trash thing that this stuff that civilians take very seriously. But academics don't, is maybe one of the best. It's like getting a blood test of the culture, a baseline sort of thing. And I think I think she made a very good point in arguing for a lot of Keanu Reeves work and Fast and Furious. The stuff that she brought in these first seasons,
Stacey Copeland 16:05
You two have such a lovely dynamic, I was listening through a few of your episodes before we came on for our chat today. And I'm curious to get a sense, you know, I know that's partly because you work together and partly because you perhaps just enjoy each other's company. But I also think it might speak to the structure that you've chosen of the conversational base podcast with these little clips of audio, spliced throughout to kind of give us a taste of the different texts that you're working with. I was curious if you could walk me through? What is that process like of putting together your episodes? And has that changed over the past few years? Or have you kind of found your template if you will, for each episode?
Charisse L'Pree 16:48
I'll go ahead and say that I'm generally not a fan of people who have their catharses in, in media form, right? [Laughs} Like think any concept album by some pop star, and they're like coming to their own and all this other stuff. Having said that, if you listen to our podcasts, you're generally listening to Bob and I are having a great time nerding out about stuff,
Stacey Copeland 17:15
[Laughs]
Charisse L'Pree 17:15
both, you know, as a fervent watcher, as a hyper academic, that that's what you're seeing. That's what it's always been, we really just turned the camera on and made sure that we had a short list of questions that we could structure through each season. But there's very little prep, a lot of work happens in post. So I produced the first season, I produced the Fast and Furious episodes. And then we've had a couple of grad students who have produced the other episodes. You know, that's usually just like, oh, we went down this rabbit hole that adds another 20 minutes to the episode, we should probably just let that go, you know, but in the end, it's us nerding out and I'll go ahead and share like a little story. So when I started at New House in 2013. And so that was 11 years ago, Bob was at 34 years ago. I think I rolled up in office hours one time, maybe in my first year, and we had a nice little interaction, I think I might have been a little nervous because omg Bob Thompson. And then I didn't talk to him for like three years. And then I showed up at something else. And then we got like deep nerdy about something. I don't remember what it was. But Bob also hosts these Tuesdays with Blier, where he does like retro TV. Recorded live. So you're watching all the commercials, you're watching everything. We're all sitting down and pretending like it's 1986. And we're watching live broadcast TV, and having lunch.
Bob Thompson 18:47
[Laughs]
Charisse L'Pree 18:47
And in all of those, you know, like I was raised on television, not only was I raised on television, and this is a key thing that I talked about with my students. I was raised on reruns. We didn't have cable television, maybe I had a bunch of VHSs, but I watched a lot of television. That was way before my time. I don't think students really have that luxury anymore. Because there's just so much new content. There's so much new content, you can't stop and go backwards unless you're making the choice. Like we watched Friends, a bunch of them did that bunch of the Gilmore Girls and stuff like that. But I also think that that gives me a unique perspective on the stuff that Bob is passionate about. So when he talks about, you know, decades old TV I'm like, oh my goodness, this is what I thought when I was just like this 10 year old, you know, little mixed girl from New York watching jokes that I didn't understand. And then Bob has had his foot finger face [All laugh] in pop culture moving forward. So our conversations I feel special and passion, like spanned decades of passion. And it's, it's a friendship that I treasure because I don't think I have that with anyone else where I could be like super nerdy super academic super pop trashy, and just like go on for two hours at a time.
Bob Thompson 20:19
Just like I grew up with all kinds of the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges that were, you know, long before my time. And you're also right to point out that not too long after your childhood streaming was this miracle of giving us the entire history of television at our fingertips. But so much other stuff that we were never forced to go back and look at. I watched old episodes of I Love Lucy, and old episodes of The Brady Bunch, because they were on and there was only four other choices, Sunday mornings, you could watch, Meet the Press, what eight year old wants to do that, or you could watch reruns of Star Trek. And that was about the only choices that has disappeared. So we no longer have generations that are immersed not only in the pop culture of their own time, but the pop culture of previous times. Even shows like Seinfeld are becoming things you've got to put on reserve as assignments, kind of thing. And Friends and The Office are some of the only old things that continue to have massive viewing. But that that cross generational, popular culture thing is not being generated anymore. And I think my generation and Charisse's generation may be the last that really can are bonded by that. By that situation.
Stacey Copeland 21:50
I'm curious to hear all this talk about how much pop trash is out there. Where would you like to take the podcast next? What's next for critical and curious and this could be in terms of ideas, but also, you know, reception or, you know, dreams for the show moving forward?
Charisse L'Pree 22:07
Well, we've been in discussion about kind of three possible seasons. We're really excited about the kind of star study we're thinking about doing a Madonna star study only through her films, which would be really fascinating because Madonna was pop trash for a long time. Having said that, if anybody as a pop trash starlet has been embraced by Academy it is Madonna right there a Madonna scholars there's a whole sub area of Madonna feminism. Madonna is no longer she might be a little trashy, but she is no longer pop trash by any way shape and mean. And you know that there are Madonna scholars kind of put us in a situation where we couldn't just kind of come at it. As fans of a franchise, we would have to prep a whole freakin syllabus with all the readings knowing fully well that we weren't even tapping the body of work related to Madonna. One of the other seasons we were excited about is the Wayans Brothers. The Wayans Brothers as a whole is a massive family based franchise in the United States and globally. You know, we've also tended to focus on movies we try to avoid going television route. Having said that, in order to have a proper calm two things, one, we didn't want to go auteur theory. So but once we get into Wayans, you're definitely looking at auteur right, we could look at Quentin Tarantino high into trashy when it was Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs since has been very much absorbed into the academy. But the thing about the Wayans brothers in order to appreciate and critically analyze their films, almost all of which are parodies. You have to go and watch the originals. So in order to do an episode about Don't Be a Menace to Society, While Drinking Your Juice in The Hood, you have to go watch Menace to Society, you go watch Juice, you have to go watch this cluster, Boys in the Hood, you have to watch this cluster of films in order to understand the parody. And the amount of labor that took at the moment was not necessarily viable for our schedules. So the third idea that we are most closest to and working in the pre production plans for is Hollywood presents the Old Testament and really reading the Bible, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, through the lens of how Hollywood presents it. It's one set of stories the Old Testament that's told through a filmic narrative detached from each other. So it'd be 10 episodes with 10 movies that have become the canon of Old Testament books. For those who might not read the Old Testament.
Stacey Copeland 25:01
[Laughs]
Charisse L'Pree 25:02
So in that case, we would have the Old Testament, the text, the Bible, the Hebrew Bible, and reading it through the lens of the films
Stacey Copeland 25:14
thanks for listening to Amplified coming to you each month from our team here at the Amplify Podcast Network. I'm your host, Stacey Copeland, and our project assistant and editor is Natalie Dusek. A special thanks to Charisse and Bob for joining us in conversation this month. Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or subscribe to our email newsletter for updates and to keep in touch. If you have comments or additional thoughts on our conversation today, or any of our amplify initiatives, please do reach out. We'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, I will catch you next month as we sit down with Professor M.E. Luka of University of Toronto's critical technology podcast.
[Outro Music Plays]
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Charisse L'Pree Corsbie-Massay, Ph.D., examines how media affects identity, attitudes and behaviors, and how we use different media to express ourselves and connect with others. Prof. L’Pree has authored two books: "20th Century Media and the American Psyche: A Strange Love" (Routledge, 2021) bridges media theory, psychology and interpersonal communication to describe how our relationships with media emulate the relationships we develop with friends and romantic partners through their ability to replicate intimacy, regularity and reciprocity. "Diversity and Satire: Laughing at Processes of Marginalization" (Wiley, 2023) is the first textbook to explore diversity by demonstrating how satirical content can advance the discussion and change attitudes.
Robert J. Thompson is founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture and a Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at Newhouse School of Public Communications. Thompson is the general editor of the Television and Popular Culture series published by Syracuse University Press. He is the former president of the National Popular Culture Association and lectures across the country on the subject of television and popular culture. In 1991 and 1992, he was awarded the Stephen H. Coltrin Award for Excellence in Communication Theory by the International Radio & Television Society.
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Critical and Curious New Episode 11
Newhouse School of Public Communications
Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw
Intro + Outro Theme Music: Pxl Cray – Blue Dot Studios (2016)
Written by Stacey Copeland & produced by Natalie Dusek