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Dr. Joe Darowski
19 Plays8 days ago
This week we take The Outdoorsy Educator in a slightly new direction! Joe Darowski has written many books on culturally impactful television shows and comic books, examining the societal implications and relevance to the time they were produced. Join us for a fascinating discussion, and let us know what you think!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Outdoorsy Educator'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Outdoorsy Educator podcast, the show where curiosity meets the open road. I'm your host Alistair and I invite you to join me as we explore the world through travel, nature, getting outside and the power of learning.
00:00:17
Speaker
Each episode we will dive into stories from inspiring educators, adventurers and global citizens who are reshaping what it means to learn, whether it's in a classroom, on a mountain trail or even halfway across the world.
00:00:31
Speaker
From backpacking trips that change your perspective to educational journeys that transform communities, we will cover it all. So pack your curiosity, lace up your boots, and let's discover how the world teaches us.
00:00:44
Speaker
One step, one story, one adventure at a time.
Meet Dr. Joe Dorowski
00:00:53
Speaker
And on this week's episode of the Outdoorsy Educator podcast, we have Dr. Joe Durowski. Joe, how are you today? I am doing well. How are you? Yeah, doing very well. We were put in touch through a mutual friend, Steve Mutum. So I'm excited to have this conversation. And he is he is dying to hear this when it comes out in a few weeks. So I'm excited. So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, a little bit about yourself?
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'm ah Joe Dorowski. I teach English at Brigham Young University. But my area of emphasis is American culture. My PhD is in American studies. So I do a lot of research into comic books and TV shows and film, as well as teaching classes on the classic, you know, you know classic canon of literature and things like that. I'm not trying to to knock that at all. But my personal area of focus has been much more into popular culture studies.
00:01:53
Speaker
i love that. i love that. look Yeah. yeah Yeah, so that's and that's how we've sort of connected again through a mutual friend, Steve, is we I know we both have ah ah an adoration and a love for the show, Frasier.
00:02:05
Speaker
with Fantastic sitcom. Right. we We could do a whole extensive podcast just on Frasier. I have featured a couple of times Frasier. I think it is the biggest Frasier podcast called We're Listening. As
From Shakespeare to Superheroes
00:02:18
Speaker
have Steve and I initially connected and they said, yeah, you got to talk to Joe. He's going to have a really interesting perspective on, you know, a culture and how it can relate to education. occasion And that's really what I wanted to ah to to start off with is we're both in academics, but how how does the world of academia, how does that connect to
00:02:38
Speaker
I'm not quite sure of the right phrase, but culture, especially television, culture, movies, TV shows. And is it fair to say your focus is on the 90s or does it expand beyond that? It does expand beyond that. But several of my books have have been on shows from that era. So I have co-authored a book on Cheers, which the tail end is into the 90s and then on Frasier, which runs through the 90s and into the early two thousand But I've done some other projects. I have a book on Survivor, which is a 2000s era show. Very outdoorsy show, right? Yes, indeed. Yes. um But it's kind of an interesting way that I found myself working in academia but studying popular culture.
00:03:21
Speaker
When i first applied to grad school, I, on my application, said I was going to study Shakespeare. Right. That's it. Right. um And then ah I was in the same university where I'd done my undergrad is where I was doing my master's degree. And I ran into a professor for whom I had written a paper on ah Spider-Man in a class on science fiction. I did a paper on Spider-Man and he he stopped me in the hall and said, i so I saw that you're in the master's program. If you wanted to do more research on superheroes, I would love to chair your thesis committee. And I had no idea what I was going like. I didn't know how to put together a thesis committee yet. Like that's right after I got in. I'm like, well, that sounds like a great
PhD Journey and Comic Studies
00:03:59
Speaker
opportunity.
00:04:00
Speaker
so I love that. yeah I shifted from classics and Shakespeare and British lit to American literature and and superhero comic books is right about what I wrote my master's thesis on. Just because of that encounter in the hallway and him remembering a paper that i had written in one of my undergrad classes. And then when I switched up my master's, it was kind of a, I don't know what to do with my life. So I applied to a bunch of PhD programs.
00:04:24
Speaker
Right. And Michigan State University at the time housed the Journal of Popular Culture. So they were very they they did a lot of pop culture studies. And they also have the I can't remember the exact title, of it but they have the largest comic book collection in the world and their special collections. They have hundreds of thousands of comic books. And so when I applied saying I'm kind of interested in continuing thinking about comic books and long form storytelling that spans decades with, you know, hundreds of authorial voices.
00:04:54
Speaker
And how it changes to reflect the times as the same character stories are being told in different eras. I got into PhD program in American Studies at Michigan State and wrote my doctoral dissertation on the X-Men and race and gender in the X-Men and how that ebbed and flowed and the portrayals of those shifted across decades of storytelling you know with with the X-Men.
00:05:19
Speaker
And at that point, with an American studies degree and doing major research on comic books, it kind of became cultural studies was my my main area rather than literature. Now, as an English
Balancing Classic and Popular Literature
00:05:29
Speaker
professor, I do absolutely still teach the canon. I think there's a huge place in the university and the humanities for those classics. But I think it also warrants looking at what are the popular texts that huge numbers of people are engaging with at a given point, you know, history. in our history. Like why does this particular text resonate? ah you know Why is this the best, you know the biggest movie that most people see? And that may be very different than the number of people that read a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, which is fantastic and artistic and has incredible weight and and merit to it. But also what about these massive stories that resonate with millions and sometimes billions of people? Let's think deeply about those too.
00:06:09
Speaker
I love it. um So obviously a lot of this conversation may come back to the root of Frasier. I also run a Friends podcast with my friend Deanne. And I'm trying to
Media Reflecting Societal Norms
00:06:21
Speaker
i i was trying to think before we got on how to phrase this question. i haven't quite got it nailed down. But I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about how these sitcoms, TV shows, even comic books, movies, whatever, it is tied into the culture of the time. a lot of the time when I talk about sitcoms whether it's Friends, Frasier or something else, it often comes up, oh, would that joke land today? If the writers were writing this show in 2025, would they have included that joke?
00:06:51
Speaker
Is that still something that we can tease about in ah in a joking way, but maybe culture has shifted? So i was wondering if you could talk a little bit to that and and how these things you've studied, these comic books, TV shows who studied, you know tie into the time they were written. Yeah.
00:07:07
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. There are things that don't age well. And that's yeah things that were just not just acceptable, but but were considered the the like common sense take on things that shifts. And I sometimes talk about this with my students and I say, yes, there's some discomfort when we look at these older texts and there's, you know, depending on how old we're talking about, like there's open racism or homophobia or. You know what what it may be. But I also say let's think about that also in light of how far we've come that our immediate reaction now is discomfort with that. That says something that there has been improvement in our society. There's still plenty of room to change and things that we're making now are absolutely going to have a similar reaction 20 years, 30 years, 40, 50 years down the road. People are going to look back and say, wow, that was really –
00:07:53
Speaker
you know that was like acceptable uh and not just acceptable but um you know normalized to to have that particular attitude like those shifts are all always happening uh in a culture and um when we're looking back at these older pieces of pop culture those are locked in time right but us as audiences we're not um and
Personal Experiences and Media Perception
00:08:15
Speaker
even we as individual people we engage with a piece of culture like at different points in our lives we're gonna have wildly different reactions to it because we ourselves have changed even though that thing you know, is the same. Like the movie Home Alone, when you watch it as a kid, you think like, oh, like how fun would that be, you know, to to be alone? And then there comes up there there like comes a point where suddenly like, what do his parents do for their jobs? How do they afford this particular house? And you don't even think about that as a kid. But then the like the next stage is thinking about like, oh, that's going to hurt. Like they're going to have a lot of doctor bills. That's going be long term. anything about the pay Right. Right, the homeowner's insurance claims and things, yes. Yes, yeah, like like like and and that text is there, but we as an audience shift. Or even like um I remember when I was in grad school, that's when i my wife and I had our first baby, and i had a stack of comics that I'd been meaning to get to, but I hadn't gone to, and we had our baby like right as we entered a long break in and in the academic calendar. so I'm like, oh, you know, this will be fantastic. I was literally holding my baby in arms when I read a comic book, And it was about a newborn baby in peril. And if I'd read that one week before, I would have had a very different reaction than reading it holding my newborn. Like I had changed the tech. Of course. But I was in a different place emotionally and and just in my life experience. And as a culture, we go through these changes and transformations. And those texts stay where they were.
00:09:38
Speaker
uh and we can have discomfort with them and there are absolutely jokes that we would
TV Shows Tackling Societal Issues
00:09:42
Speaker
not make today that are there in some of these older sitcoms uh when we go look at them but that's ah not always the thing where we should look back and um denigrate the artists for what they did then maybe we should celebrate where we are now that oh we have immediate discomfort that means we have evolved Right, and that's something that maybe, as you've alluded to, should be celebrated rather than just focusing on the discomfort. When i was thinking about this today, there was a couple of examples that jumped out at me in my mind when I felt...
00:10:12
Speaker
felt torn. I wouldn't say discomfort because just because I thought something was funny in the 90s doesn't mean I should feel guilty about it now because I have hopefully grown and evolved. those There's numerous examples throughout Frasier because of the camp nature of some of the main characters. One that often jumps out at me is Daphne refers to her transvestite uncle in one scene. She just mentioned him in San Francisco. That's a term that wouldn't be used now. um yeah Yeah. Right or wrong, it's not about that, but just how things have evolved. But I often think about the show Will and Grace and how different that appears to me. I don't know the show terribly well. I've seen most of it, I think, um to sort of celebrate and and look at almost the...
00:10:59
Speaker
the Yeah, the acceptance of of two gay men you know living in New York appear to me to be living their best life with that much homophobia. I'm sure there is some in there that they deal with. I just don't remember examples. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know well i like i know the premise that I've read about it, but I haven't watched a lot of that show. Okay, it's ah it always just struck me as one that was...
00:11:21
Speaker
very positive um with regards to homosexuality. Yeah, and I read some interviews with the creators and I know that's that was their goal. well Okay, you know more than I do. there That's interesting. It certainly comes across like that. And then I think of Friends because I'm doing, as I said, ah an episode by episode rewatch
Humor and LGBTQ+ Themes in 90s TV
00:11:39
Speaker
and while it's not in any way sort of anti-gay, which seems like a very odd thing to say, there's a couple of jokes in there that certainly wouldn't be made now and do make me feel, you know, they make you kind of gasp your breath in a little bit and go, oh, that's that's not good. So it's very interesting that these shows often lived at the same time and maybe it's because of my age and I was born in 1981. So 90s television for me was very influential.
00:12:08
Speaker
But I do feel it really was a crossroads of, you know, maybe coming out of some of the now what we would phrase as off-color jokes and not appropriate jokes to acceptance.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yes, I think that there's absolutely in that 90s something something is happening that's different. Like like I said, i wrote I wrote a book on Cheers and there's a whole episode where, and this would be early 80s, this episode Cheers. It's from the maybe the second season, if I'm remembering right. But one of Sam Malone's old baseball buddies comes out as gay. And Sam doesn't immediately – like, has has him – he's there doing a book launch at the bar. And that's when he announces this. And um Norm and Cliff come across as incredibly homophobic. Like, they're worried about but the bar's be gay bar. And, like, these are, you know, the beloved weird uncles of the TV show. Yes. And and they're they're expressing like pretty openly homophobia ah about this. Now, later on in that run, there's a whole episode also where Norm decides he's going to pretend to be gay because he's really good at interior design. And and some people that hired him to do interior design are shocked when they find out that he's straight. And he's like, I'd rather keep the job. So I'll try.
00:13:19
Speaker
Right. you know So there's like a shift there. And then when we get to Frasier, there are obviously lots of gay jokes in Frasier, but there's is a different flavor to those gay
Evolving Audience Perceptions
00:13:30
Speaker
jokes. And one that like led to them winning awards from GLAAD and you know other...
00:13:35
Speaker
other groups uh because like they would do a romantic farce where they used the fact that one character is gay as just another bit of confusion it wasn't like the joke wasn't they are gay the the joke is the confusion that comes from someone assuming someone is gay and not knowing that someone else is gay and that's a different kind of comedy than what you saw in like the 60s 70s 80s where like the the punchline would be that person's gay you know and that that's the whole joke and everyone's laugh at that Right right now, and with something like Frasier, the fact that someone is gay is just part of the farce, not the punchline.
00:14:06
Speaker
I think that's a very interesting way to look at it. It often causes me to have moments of self-reflection because it's really a fe are some of the things you know over the 80s and 90s in you know the sitcom world.
00:14:20
Speaker
Are they really offensive? Am I taking that something as offensive when really to perhaps somebody who may be gay, you brought up glad. They obviously didn't see a lot of the Frasier, um you know, farcical scenes as offensive, I would assume, having given awards. So I find I sometimes sort of mull over this. You know, am I finding something offensive that maybe isn't actually offensive to the person I am perceiving it to offend?
00:14:47
Speaker
and and And that sort of thing. So it's maybe not the show itself. It's how I'm actually perceiving it. It can be it can be very different from the way it was intended. Yeah. And I mean, that kind of instrospec introspection is valuable.
Critical Media Examination
00:14:59
Speaker
It's worth doing it. it Like, I think when when I study popular culture, like...
00:15:04
Speaker
There are some people ah like within academia who are sometimes like, is that worth studying? not only be talking about the classics. I definitely run into that kind of attitude. But then there are also some people who aren't – and they're saying that because it's disposable. like Is it worth studying? And then there are some people who are also like, well, I just want to check out and enjoy this thing and not think deeply about it.
00:15:24
Speaker
you know right and and so like i get it sometimes for both ends of the spectrum like why are you thinking deeply about this thing i don't want to have to think deeply about the thing i love and other people are like well why why would you think deeply about that bit of cultural ephemera that was made to be disposable that was made just to be consumed and then for kind of forgotten uh you know and it's not a timeless classic in in the in their minds um but again i i think there's there's value in being willing to put in some of that work and some of these texts uh where there's artistry and craftsmanship and performance and you know writing that warrants it, you know that introspection can be very rewarding. But also as an audience member to be willing to put in that time to do the work that you're thinking of. Like, okay, like I felt a little bit of discomfort. Why? you know That's going to change our experience as as consumers, but I think there's value in doing that. And not just kind of passively consuming all the media that's there around us. There's so much that's there around us. Like we have more media at our fingertips than any generation in the history of of the world, right? Like we write there's just so much that's there.
00:16:25
Speaker
And being willing to be ah thoughtful consumers of that media, I think that's an important skill set to develop when there is so much that is out there.
00:16:36
Speaker
So that's a skill set I did not have. I mean, I've watched Friends and Frasier in particular passively as comfort shows, as many, many people have.
Societal Changes in Media Context
00:16:44
Speaker
And then when I became more involved in We're Listening and and my friend Deanne and i in fact, Steve, our mutual friend, was on two episodes of the Purple Door podcast, my friend's rewatch pod. um It's been very interesting to not only watch the show through that different lens of examining it a little more rather than just as you said, as passive entertainment, but to really look at some of the deeper meanings. um And even things, this came up a few weeks ago when we were watching an episode of Friends, smoking, which is pretty black and white, how in the 80s, people were smoking indoors,
00:17:21
Speaker
Frasier there was I cannot remember the episode now but I remember at least at times people were smoking indoors but Frasier would request that they go out to the balcony smoking became i ah we we we dug into this a little in New York it was around the year 2000 ish smoking became banned indoors And then now you would never see somebody smoking indoors on a sitcom, yeah as far as I can tell. And it just sometimes it gives me moments to pause and reflect on how society changes.
00:17:53
Speaker
Certainly in this case, and in most cases, I would hope for the better. But some sometimes possibly not, I'm not quite sure. Have you ever come across examples where you think, you know people are maybe trying too hard to be politically correct in media um and it to me that i imagine that might backfire on what they're trying to do yeah uh where it starts to feel preachy uh like like it feels
Risks of Political Correctness in Media
00:18:17
Speaker
like we're stepping outside ah of the story or the characters to say a message i like there could be fantastic messages that are delivered when it's interwoven with a narrative and interwoven with like the the reality of the characters that they've created so far but
00:18:32
Speaker
Definitely. There are, you know, whether it's a special episode from the 90s or whatever, there are moments where it feels like the creators are stopping the the purpose of the show to tell the audience what to think about a subject. And that feels very clunky and it feels very preachy to the audience. And it causes, I think, moments of resistance. Whereas when... um the the theme is integral to the plot and also feels earned for those characters. I think those messages can be delivered in thoughtful ways and artistic ways that don't feel like we're being given a spoonful of medicine. um And there's, I completely understand the impulse of, you know, a creator or an artist saying, I have an issue I want to speak on. But when that becomes kind of a you know, a Shakespearean turn to the audience and direct the audience monologue in a venue that hasn't been that, that has never had that, that's, I think, where it can it could feel like like maybe a bit of a a misfire for for the show.
00:19:39
Speaker
That's it it's coming back to Will and Grace they rebooted it rebooted the show several years ago don't quite remember when now I have not seen the reboot at all but one article I read about it said that it it did descend into that a little bit with regards to politics just one too many cracks and jokes very clearly showing the writer's political opinion And it it felt forced ah to this one
Navigating Media Overload
00:20:06
Speaker
journalist, this one reviewer, and we and um I thought, you know I'd like to watch that and see if i I picked up and catch the same feelings that they did about it. um It's on my my extensive to watch list.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yes. that's yeah The pile of media to get to is is more than I will get to in my lifetime. Right. I think we know it's it's just endless. Yes.
Personal Connection to 'Frasier'
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. um So again, we touched on this Frasier. How did...
00:20:31
Speaker
We've connected through sort of the Frasier Worldwide Network a little bit. Is that show that is particularly something you enjoy? if so, what did you what do you enjoy about it? What the meaning of the show to you?
00:20:45
Speaker
So it's one of the first shows that was like a sitcom for adults that I saw when I was, I had have been like 13 or 14. And it was my oldest sister who was probably a senior in high school at the point. And she just said, and this will date because I was in 1982. Okay, similar age, vintage.
00:21:07
Speaker
There was a family computer in one room, and then she actually had a computer to do homework on. It was basically like you could do word processing. That's the level of computer we're talking about. yes ah But there was one night where the other computer was being used by a different kid who had to do homework, and she said, fine, you can use mine. And she was watching Frasier, and I definitely was like stopping to watch. And she said something about, I think you'd like this show. And I was just like, something was clicking where i'm like, there's...
00:21:33
Speaker
like like an intelligence to this humor that's that's different, right? um And I was, you know, i was I was a kid that was in drama, like I was doing a Shakespeare play, like I i like i was i was fascinated with the idea the world of storytelling, and immediately I was like, there's something different. And so then I started to do homework, quote unquote, in on that computer every Thursday when Frasier was on. Right. it Just coincidentally, yeah yes. Yes, yeah, exactly. And she knew exactly what was going on. She was like, yeah, come watch Frasier. And then, yeah,
00:22:03
Speaker
It was something that i was definitely watching. and then in college, so I was i was an English major and ah what was called a theater and media arts minor, so studying film and television for for my minor. And i can't remember if it was for a paper or what, but I was starting to dig into Frasier little bit more. And I showed my younger sister, like just passing it on. I said, i was home one time. I said to my younger sister, watch some of this. It's the best writing you're going to see on television. And she fell in love with Frasier. And that's who co-authored the book on Frasier with me was my younger sister.
00:22:33
Speaker
Oh, I did not. I wasn't aware of that. That's wonderful. Yeah. And so that that sister and I, um when I was in, ah I just finished my PhD and I was talking with a publisher at a conference. And I mentioned that I had this idea about writing about Aaron Shawlinson- Class issues and Frasier, but there would certainly be other things that I'd write about as well, and so they they. Aaron Shawlinson- Said send us proposal, and so I talked to my sister and the reason I talked to my sister she was getting her masters in the history of design from.
00:23:05
Speaker
from Parsons in New York. And I knew i was gonna have to write about Frasier's apartment and the chair. And I'm like, that's not like I studying race and gender and class in pop culture. That's something I'm very comfortable with.
00:23:16
Speaker
but its It's a skill I'm developing. Yes. Yeah, like like I had classes that trained I understood some of the theory and I've learned a lot more since then.
Frasier's Set Design and Storytelling
00:23:27
Speaker
But writing about like chair design and the the the elements of Fraser's apartment, I need my sister who has master's in the history of design. Because we have a whole ah like you know there's a whole section about Martin's chair and the history of chair and like the Eames chair that he replaces with Martin's chair. My sister knew about like the history of the Eames chair and what that was as a piece of design. And so I was like, um I need you to help co-write this book on Frasier. Yeah. I love that. I love the family collaboration on it. And yeah the the more I get into looking through looking at these shows through this podcasting lens, the more I nerd out about this stuff. I've got to be honest, I love looking at the set design in particular because some is a coincidence. There's no meaning to it, but man, the live, there's so much... so many uh the praises department particular yeah praises department has so much and she was able to uh find out and write about like so many of the pieces of art that were in there and the knickknacks and and uh you know the the chuhili uh glass sculpture that's there and ah you know she knew like the cultural uh weight of those things but also what they're why they're being put in this apartment what they're trying to say about the characters uh you know and uh
00:24:39
Speaker
and And so, like, that was that was incredibly important to her insights into, you know, the craft and care that the set designers had, ah you know, and the set decorators had in in creating the look and feel of Frasier's apartment. Like, that's one of the... ah The things that I realized is not just the amazing performances of David Hyde Pierce or Perry Gilman. It's not just those performances, and it's not just the writers giving them great lines. It's the fact that the set design was immaculate. They had everyone giving 100%, and that makes the best episodes feel like 110% of great. Yeah. Right. Wait, wait, wait, wait, that care is, is throughout all the layers of creation of a sitcom episode.
00:25:18
Speaker
Absolutely. And I think of, and we're going to get into the Fraser niche here a little bit, but when we, when we visit, um, like Cam Winston's apartment, which is, you know, ah the same, you know, he's one floor up, I think one floor up, um, you know, structurally the same, but then so very different, And then the scene where um his neighbors escape the young station manager comes in and decides he wants to live like Frasier, essentially. And there's all this redecoration. Yeah, yeah his name. Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
Todd, is it Todd? Perhaps it's Todd. Oh, I think it's Todd. Yeah, I remember it was Alan Tudyk. Yes, exactly. It's like trying to remember the character. And it's one of the few times or when you see Nile's old money, right? When he's at the end with Maris' old money, like that's a different kind of wealth than Frasier's newer money. Right. It's very and very deliberate.
00:26:08
Speaker
You know, I sometimes think the Montana reflects that a little bit. The old, the dark wood, it's got that, it's it's a lot more aged. um And I do love it, yeah, with Todd, when, you know, Fraser, there's this, I don't know, 30-second scene where his apartment changes decoration 10 times with the music playing over. I love that little insight into Fraser's psyche of the set decoration. And again, all very deliberate, I'm sure, as he's trying to re-identify himself through different decor.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's such such an interesting thing. Well, I must confess, I was unaware of your your writings until a few weeks ago. And of course, I've looked at Amazon and I've already thought, well, I'm definitely getting the Fraser book. If nothing else, there'll be that. um But I think that segues quite nicely into if people are interested in this topic, in this subject, in your writing, what's the best way for them, to eat and admit perhaps ask you a question if they have it, to in touch with them, B, where to find your books?
00:27:09
Speaker
o Yeah, so my books are on most booksellers' websites. Amazon definitely will have them. A lot of my work has been published with a... Roman and Littlefield has done my my TV work, and then there's a publisher called McFarland that's done a lot of my superhero stuff. So those two publisher websites. And the the TV books I've done are part of a series called A Cultural History of Television. So if you have a different favorite TV show, that's but it's possible they'll have a book There's a book on friends in that cultural history. Oh, very nice. I'll get that one too. And so that's part of that particular line.
00:27:45
Speaker
I also do host a weekly podcast called the protagonist podcast where each week we talk about a great character and a great story. And we just try and rotate through my guest interests. i You know, and have a different guest on, have them talk about a favorite book or a favorite TV show and a favorite character from there. And I've been doing that.
00:28:04
Speaker
for 10 years now. So there's a lot of episodes there. So if you have ah a favorite TV show, a book, or movie, or comic book, I very likely have done an episode on it. ah But if not, you can definitely reach out. I am on Twitter and Blue Sky, both just at Jay Dorowski, and I can get messages there.
Definitions of Success in Academia and Media
00:28:21
Speaker
Fantastic. And I'll put links in our show notes when this episode comes out, and I will certainly start following and listening to the Protagonist podcast, because the more I get into this, the more I find it just fascinating. what we have One of the most recent episodes we just did was on Friends, and I will confess, even though I have written books on Friends,
00:28:39
Speaker
90s sitcoms, those were the first episodes of Friends I saw all the way through. Just somehow in my life, I never got into Friends. And like I could have named, like on the episode, I'm like, here's everything I know about these characters. And my sisterhood's seen the whole series, the one that I've co-written books. She was the the guest on that episode when we were talking about Friends. She's like, you you were right on everything. and it's just through great cosmos i've taken in friends now some of that is also like when i was working on the uh the uh fraser book there's a there's an oral history of nbc 1990 sitcoms and i read the whole thing so i read a whole chapter on friends or you know an oral history of friends without ever having seen a full episode of friends that's so interesting to have that perspective on it yeah yeah knowing some of the backstory but not having seen the episodes it's really interesting yeah I can see see myself ordering a few of these that's fantastic well um as we kind of round the corner here to the home stretch I could talk to you for hours about this but it's always a goal of mine to try and keep these podcasts relatively bite-sized and
00:29:36
Speaker
you know knowing that people have questions. They can reach out to me to put them in touch with you or just reach out to you on Twitter and Blue Sky directly. But I've got three quick questions for you as we wrap this up. um Leaning back on academia and also relating it to your work, related to you know cultural writing, how has your definition of success changed over the years?
00:29:59
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. I was just writing us a paragraph about this. Oh, really? Like... like um And success, there's there's so many ways to think about success, and whether that's, you know, for an individual or for, you know, if if you're an artistic creator, because obviously like what yourre what you're doing in your life, is success is going to be very different. But I was writing about the G.I. Joe franchise. Right. And, you know, success could be, you know, instant recognition. It could be longevity. It could be a deep, you know, people finding deep connection with a particular work. It could also be be being having a you know, a wide audience, you know, that enjoys the work. And G.I. Joe's kind of had all all of those experiences. That have happened. I mean, even like ah my my work with the X-Men, like the X-Men failed when it launched, you know, as a comic book series, which is very weird to think about now because it's it's one of the most famous franchises that's out there for superheroes. Right. But when it launched in the 1960s, it kind of limped along and then got canceled. I had no idea. did
00:31:02
Speaker
And then in 1975, it got relaunched with a new vision. It was an international group. It was a an interracial group. In the 1960s, it was all white Americans, which, again, reflection of the times. in a going god And then 1975, it gets relaunched and builds to become the most popular comic book franchise of the 70s and 80s. But there's no like wider media. It's still like a very comic book-oriented thing where like you have to go into the comic book space to discover the X-Men. And it's not until the 2000s that, you know, it it reaches, you know, the the film, you know, the the the massive audience that that film is able to reach. And so, like, it's had these stages of failures and success throughout its time as a franchise, depending on what you want to call success, like maybe some of the most, you know,
00:31:46
Speaker
you know, artistically successful, you know, runs weren't as well known or has haven't reached as big an audience as the film, but you also, you know, for for the owners of the IP, they they want to have that big, broad audience that that film is able to to create. And so what is success? Is it to telling the most, you know, tight, artistic, thematically significant story, but not finding a huge audience? as if i hear I don't know. I don't know. Success is is so multifaceted. Yeah, I couldn't agree more on that. i'm
00:32:18
Speaker
I started this podcast several months ago and my friends went about a year ago. So it's been quite nice at this time of year to have some reflection. I didn't have any idea what success meant in terms of the podcasts um a year ago.
00:32:32
Speaker
But now, you know for example, my friend's one has grown. We have and a nice and nice audience. But it's the individual messages I've i've received, you know sprinkled throughout the the last six months to a year, just saying, I really enjoy your podcast. Thank you for doing this every week. That means so much more than I thought it would have if you'd asked me a year ago, how will you feel if one person sends a message? And then with this with this podcast, The Outdoors, The Educator,
00:33:01
Speaker
meeting people i had no idea quite how impactful it would be to meet so many people from so many walks of life on a personal level again it's growing things are going well in terms of numbers but it's funny how i don't really think about that anymore and i thought i would oh yeah it's much more internal than i than i if you'd asked me a year ago than i would have thought Oh, I can't agree more with the the podcasting space where yeah I'm like, ah when I started doing my podcast,
Rewards of Podcasting
00:33:28
Speaker
um you know, that's right. It was 10 years ago. It's right when podcasts were starting to get big. And I very quickly realized like reaching a a large listenership isn't going to be ah part of this. And even like. I tell other people when they're starting podcasts, I'm like you need to find some sense of personal fulfillment to keep doing this. Don't view it as a second job or a revenue stream or a way to get known or anything like that. If you get personal fulfillment, keep doing it and you're going to love doing it. And you're going make great connections. Like you said, you're going to have interesting people come on your podcast. You're going to be, you're going to get the chance to go on other end other podcasts. And if that has value for you and is fulfilling for you, you're going love doing podcasting. But if you're viewing this as like, this is a way to, you know, get your voice out there and and get known and, I'm like, i don't I don't think you're going to last very long because it's a long, slow process. But then you start to get those personal connections, those messages, the thank yous. And it's like, oh, okay, someone you know someone is out there listening. This is reaching someone and has has some merit besides the personal fulfillment of of digging into something and talking about something that you love, right?
00:34:30
Speaker
Exactly. Just this last weekend, um so I live in the Dallas area. was driving through Texas and yeah I interviewed somebody on the podcast a couple months ago and we've become farm friends online but i was driving through the city where he lives and hey would you like to get breakfast and it was so nice it was such a nice thing that this friendship we're now we've become very good friends was born from the idea of this podcast and it's connected this and you know I'll take that over an extra 500 listeners on a report any day of the week. Give me that you know those friendships, those connections. Certainly, you know without being too philosophical, makes my life better, having more of that more of those connections, especially in a day and an age where it's very easy to isolate yourself. um
00:35:19
Speaker
I'm finding more and more reward in those things, and that's kind of what success is framed in. I really like that definition that you have there. Yeah, it's it's something I find myself thinking about quite a lot. um I'm going to put you on the spot here. um And I think the important one is impactful, so not favorite. But I was wondering what might be the most impactful television show and comic book franchise that have shaped your work.
00:35:49
Speaker
The comic book franchise, I can tell you right away, it's X-Men. Okay. Because the first comic book i ever read was an X-Men comic book. I was in a grocery store back when they had Spinner Racks in the 80s. And my mom, I am sure to make me be quiet while she was doing her grocery shopping, said I could get a comic book. And I grabbed and an X-Men comic book.
00:36:08
Speaker
And that ended up being what I wrote my doctoral dissertation on. and I just I love that so much. Yeah. You know, that that random moment in ah in a grocery store has definitely like I can point to that piece of media as having an outsized impact on my life compared to any other bit of media that I've ever gotten.
00:36:26
Speaker
Right. In terms of a television show. most impactful um there's so many different ways to think about impactful kind of like success yes so yeah you know i'm ah i'm a little bit torn yeah it may go back to fraser because that was the first one that i wrote academically on in terms of of tv shows was fraser so it just where it's not just my fandom which is you know that's a show that i've re-watched the whole series more than once but it became part of my like my professional identity and my professional career i i probably would have to say Frasier. But then I also think back, like, some of the first reason I wanted to study or, or you know, get into film and television at all was because of, like, Jim Henson things and Muppets. Right.
00:37:13
Speaker
You know, like like, in high school, I remember I wrote a paper on Jim Henson and the Muppets, and i got a lot of praise from my teacher, I think, because she had been reading a lot of other papers about, like, diseases, and it was depressing. And and she got a lot about Jim Henson and the Muppets, but it was kind of like, I think there's kind of something cool in writing about the things we love, right? And writing about, um you thinking about entertainment, which, yeah i mean, you we mentioned before, like, there's there's there' is absolutely valid time to say I'm checking out and I just want to show that I can relax too and I don't have to think deeply about. That is a valid thing to have as a you know, a mechanism or part of our lives, you know, part of part of what we do. You know, it's been a hard day. i want to turn something in just going to make me laugh. And no i don't want to be thinking about, like, the gender implications or... You know, the racial implications of the show. I am not saying don't do that. But i that's when I started to discover that there was also value in saying I am going to think more about this was was Jim Henson and the Muppets. So that that's another one.
00:38:08
Speaker
I love it. Well, yeah I had some fun. My final question that I ask guests who take up space in the the outdoor industry is often, you know if you could go hiking with somebody for 10 miles, anyone want who to be. But I thought it might be fun to ask you if you're you're sitting there, um I'm assuming in your office at work, and if anybody in the world, dead or alive, somebody you know, don't know, anybody could walk in that door and say, Joe, I want you to rap or turn me into a comic book hero and write a comic book based on me and my life. You have artistic liberty.
00:38:44
Speaker
Have at it. Who do you think you would like to walk in the door that you could turn into a comic book hero? um I know this is like recency bias of a project I was working on, and it's it's ah not fair because there are other comics about this person, but I was just thinking deeply about Jack Kirby, who is a core comic creator. and like we We think about Stanley as kind of like the grand the grandfather of of comic books, right? Yeah. because of all his cameos in Marvel Comics. Jack Kirby was co-creating most of the characters with Stanley. i Steve Deco, there was some other ones. But um like Jack Kirby's life is just so interesting. like He was drawing comics before World War II. He co-created Captain America before the US ended the war.
00:39:27
Speaker
Then he fought in World War II. Then he came back and ends up co-creating the foundation of the Marvel Universe with with Stanley. And there's debates. i I'm not trying to touch debates about how much who who deserves creative responsibility. but I'm just to say they co-created a lot of about the Marvel Universe together. And he then is going to be advocating for artists' rights as, um but like, he sees, what we talked about, like, society shifting. He sees society shift so much while he's doing this career that when he starts, like, there's no sense that any of this is going to have any value. It's just, like, what's the next job? I'm just moving from job to job, you know, and... and
00:39:59
Speaker
then by the end of his career and his life, all of his original art would have been worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands dollars for every single piece of those, and no one had thought to save them. And Marvel, there's a whole history of Jack Kirby's lost art. But also, the idea that, okay, I'm making the X-Men, or I'm making the Avengers, I'm making the Incredible Hulk, it's like, this is just my gig for these next two, three years, then there's gonna be the next fad that we chase. But to see that become something that endures and becomes foundational for generations of You know, cultural literacy. Like you need to know his creations to be culturally literate today. Like there's just something fascinating about Jack Kirby. And again, going to I'm going fully own some of that as recency bias. It's a thing I've been working on very recently was was talking about his.
00:40:44
Speaker
his work um i appeared on an episode of a podcast called the omnibus podcast talking about jack curvy's lost art but that's that was the first thing that popped in mind uh right when you asked that question and that's what we kind of was hoping you would go with is you know not even though it can be a difficult these questions can be broad what's your gut say so i love that i love that that's the first name well uh joe i mean i'm going to be getting online and ordering a couple of these books hopefully um we've inspired some listeners too but i cannot thank you enough for your time this has been absolutely fantastic Oh, I very much enjoyed this. Thank you for reaching out and inviting me to come on.
00:41:19
Speaker
Thank you again to this week's guest, and I hope today's episode was as enjoyable for you as it was for me, and perhaps even inspired your next adventure. If you did enjoy the show, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review, or follow us wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more information at theoutdoorsyeducator.com or follow us on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. Until next time, thank you so much for listening to...
00:41:47
Speaker
The Outdoorsy Educator Podcast.