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Thots and Fears
342 Plays2 years ago
In preparation for spooky season, this episode is all about fear. We talk about the fears of today (and fears experienced by your co-hosts) that are exploited within pop culture by taking a closer look at House of the Dragon and She-Hulk. We think critically about the relationship of fandom and violence and how contemporary fears are used to drive TV plot lines.
Taking fear back to its roots, we look at the use of fear in art history as a visual tool of propaganda in religion, politics, entertainment, and storytelling.
CONTENT WARNING. When discussing House of the Dragon, we talk about violence against women and child bearers and bodily freedoms concerning abortion.
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Transcript
Introduction: Fear and Inspiration
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to the super scary episode of Art Pop Talk. I'm Bianca. And I'm Gianna. It's not spooky season yet, but too many things lately have scared us to our very core. In this episode, we are talking about the fear.
00:00:23
Speaker
you and your fear. It is something that if you haven't noticed, we've brought up a lot lately. And you know, we think it's time that we really tried to conquer this. Without further ado, let's art pop talk. I feel like Chiana may be a precursor to this episode is that everyone should watch that episode of Friends, where the one where Rachel quits and
00:00:54
Speaker
That's the basis for this, really. Really, the basis for today's episode is actually the fact that that is one of those obscene quotes that Bianca and I use a lot. And we really want that to become a more prevalent part of APT diction. And so we are building an entire episode around you and your fear. I'm too afraid.
Personal Fears and Career Reflections
00:01:23
Speaker
Yes, so all of this fear is just kind of one of these episodes where I've had like a little bit of an emotional roller coaster here on my end of the microphone screen. It's been a little Sad Girl Central station over here. I am
00:01:48
Speaker
in a more rigorous nine to five schedule these days and that has taken away from some time and opportunity to invest in other things that I want to do for myself and some other jumping off points in terms of getting more involved in art and other kind of commercial career paths I would say. I've been increasingly getting interested in
00:02:13
Speaker
graphic design and I feel like I've just been thinking about like all these things that I want to do and I'm ready to do them and I can't do them because I kind of need a paycheck. So there's just been a lot of fear on my end and am I too afraid or am I just the right amount of afraid to kind of stay where I'm at.
00:02:37
Speaker
When we first decided to do this episode, I had the fear. I had the fear and I was kind of one foot already kind of out the door in terms of the schedule that I was on. And now through other helpful conversation between myself and some other important players in my life and employers, I
00:03:01
Speaker
feel as though I am a little bit more stable right now and my fear has actually been caused for some
00:03:09
Speaker
really cool change in my workplace and you know as I try to keep things kind of separate on the podcast that's kind of as far as maybe I'm willing to talk about right now but I will say they don't talk about in Friends That Fear can also be progress for change in terms of when you have nothing to lose then
00:03:32
Speaker
you might as well go out with a conversation and then maybe that might not lead to leaving, I suppose. I've also thought a lot about just fight or flight recently too because that is really like so, so integral to like my work trauma. Because I haven't had any kind of employment that's been worth sticking around for,
00:04:00
Speaker
until fairly recently. So a lot of these kind of oddball jobs I was working before, you know, something happens like, Matt, like, I'm getting paid $10 an hour, like, but you don't realize that that even stays with you when, you know, as we like to say, like, we're in our big girl job.
00:04:16
Speaker
And so it's just been a super fearful kind of week for me in terms of what are my next steps, figuring out my life, my next move, where my next paycheck is coming from, because I've had some things that, you know, I have just needed to figure out and they're all kind of like culminating. As of now,
00:04:35
Speaker
things are really just in a more normal point for me, like as of this morning. But I think we're sticking with this episode in terms of what we've pledged to kind of the art pop tarts in terms of
00:04:48
Speaker
If I'm not okay, like you guys will
Conversations on Fear and Work Dynamics
00:04:52
Speaker
know. And like you can listen to past episodes where I just am trying to fake it through an episode and I'm not okay. And it's very evident. That is not what we're here to do. But we can talk about just like our feelings and emotions constructively through art. So that is what we are here doing today.
00:05:12
Speaker
So that is what is happening on my side of town. No, but I am so glad that we're able to have those conversations. I guess we realize that these types of conversations are okay and that they are productive because so many times, you know, we've all been through similar situations and we've heard from so many of our listeners and people in the art community who go through the same thing and very like isolated silos.
00:05:41
Speaker
Gianna, there was like a couple things you hit on that I was wondering if you felt comfortable expanding upon, but
00:05:47
Speaker
Something that we talked about with Onyx Montes in our salary transparency episode and something that I think about all the time is where she brought up the example that she was in a meeting and offered up her own salary to everyone and how that sparked change where because people were transparent about their salaries, everyone ended up getting a pay increase.
00:06:12
Speaker
And so I think to your point, share however much you want to share, but to taking action for yourself in the workplace leads to such good change for you and for other people. So it just was very reminiscent for me of a different workplace dilemma, but nevertheless like a sparking change in an environment for, you know, other women in the workplace too.
00:06:39
Speaker
Totally. And I will say, yeah, there's definitely a lot of parallels in terms of my fear or my concerns have been a catalyst for change, which I think is incredible. But also, I am a fairly outspoken person. And sometimes that also gets me into trouble too, as well. I'm very happy to have a skill set in which
00:07:06
Speaker
my supervisors, employers, professors have historically told me that I am very good at articulating myself and I pride myself on that as a skill set that I have and I'm grateful for. And recently this week I've been in really wonderful conversations and really open conversations just about the privilege I feel as like a
00:07:29
Speaker
millennial person in the workplace or just young woman in the workplace in terms of we should feel grateful for what we have. And if you haven't been at a place for a certain long time, have you built up enough clout to ask for things? And those are all things that I think are made up. And if you need something
00:07:49
Speaker
It's hard to ask for it, but you don't know what will come of something until you ask for it. And you might be surprised what comes of that. But I also think just remember too, it depends on your work environment and if you historically feel safe or comfortable in that spot, but you still don't owe anyone anything and a good employer will know that. They'll know that that's change that they need to make.
00:08:13
Speaker
systemically for the organization or whatever place that you work for and that doesn't just affect you. And even if they make that change, it still might not be the right place for you.
Art, Financial Stress, and Future Contemplations
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah for sure and another question I have for you is early in the week you were talking to me about this thought you had where you were really excited to actually give your degree a chance and I was kind of wondering if you could speak to that as well just because I thought it was a really interesting line of thought where
00:08:45
Speaker
you know, you are an artist. And since graduation, you've been working in jobs that aren't directly tied to you doing art making as a businesswoman. So I was just wondering if you had more thoughts to share with the class.
00:09:04
Speaker
Yeah, perhaps. I mean, when I graduated from college, I had zero dollars and I was very grateful to have like a home to go back to and also find. Congratulations on being debt free as well though. Oh.
00:09:21
Speaker
MG you guys yeah we need to talk about that as well so that but that's the deal right because when you graduate college and you have federal student debt or even private debt you have like a certain amount of time to find a job and then you have to start paying that back so it's taken me two years
00:09:42
Speaker
um, since graduation for myself to save the amount of $10,000. That is the amount of money that I have from working a $15 an hour job to working a $10 an hour job to then moving to a different job that was $15 an hour to now
00:10:03
Speaker
working out a very stable job that's about $43,000 annually, and a job that I've only been in for about six months. And being able to save that much has to do with not being able to pay back student loans, being living at home for a while, so half of this time
00:10:26
Speaker
a quarter of this time I'm not really paying rent and then also moving in with my fiance so having multiple partner income. I've had a lot of you know help and
00:10:38
Speaker
support during this time, but now it does feel like, wow, this two years has gone by in a flash. I also, my health is somewhat more stable than it was two years ago. I'm not in like, you know, physical anguish every single day from having chronic IC.
00:11:01
Speaker
And so then it just like, really hit me like, wow, I feel like stable for the first time in a really long time. And you are now looking at a fucking debt free woman, which I didn't think that I was gonna see. I'm a debt free woman. I'm a debt free woman. Like I didn't think that that was gonna happen for
00:11:22
Speaker
at least a year, a year and a half, because I also have intentions of going into a grad program and I wanted to go into a graduate program being debt free. So things just kind of culminated, like a lot really happened. Like in our culture, like because I had a Pell Grant, I will qualify for that $20,000 of student debt relief.
00:11:44
Speaker
Um, so that wipes obviously my 16,000 out and I was like, wow, I get to move. I can move things along quicker. Right. What do I want to do with my shiny $10,000 and do I want to start investing that in myself? So the answer to that is, is still yes. And I feel, um,
00:12:06
Speaker
like very sad now that I have like time. It's hard to look back on these two years and feel like so out of the game. It's really hard. And I do feel like I'm putting my life on hold to to kind of get get a paycheck. But it's just kind of a weird, weird thing to navigate. But then I was thinking so much of like our conversations with Danlyn Pham, who is
00:12:36
Speaker
Fucking killing it. She's gonna have a piece. I think a couple pieces. She has a show at Oklahoma Contemporary coming up soon like she is just Everything I I love her work so much and I love her attitude about art. I know that she has other jobs She has multiple points of income her and her partner do and
00:12:56
Speaker
and she was out of the game for art for a while she gave herself a break after graduation to figure it out because again your artists in academia are not being taught to develop small businesses they're being taught to conceptually develop work and that's it so i i think time is good and and i'm and i'm getting to that place um where that is on the forefront of my mind and i
00:13:24
Speaker
am hoping to see that development happen faster for myself. But it's crazy to look back on these two years and know that I've made three significant works of art. Three. That was like hard for me when I like took a minute to look at that. Yeah, and it just like, I mean, the past few years have flown by so much. And when you're constantly learning new skills to for the different jobs that you're going into and just navigating
00:13:53
Speaker
Different life stages as well. Like you've talked about I mean, it's just you're constantly learning new things. How can you possibly have more time to Invent new things out of your own brain cells and put it into a work of art You know, what's so funny too is I I went I went back home this weekend and I had like a one-on-one with my
00:14:13
Speaker
my like artist therapist aka David Phelps who does not listen to this podcast so like who we do want on the podcast who we do want on the podcast but like you know whatever and I was just talking about how I just think it's really funny too when I
00:14:30
Speaker
Now that I'm out of school and I also look at my undergraduate work, it really is painful. Because, especially living in a place like Stillwater, which is already very isolated, but then you add another bubble on top of that, which is academia. And you expect me to
Critique of Art Education and Historical Uses of Fear
00:14:49
Speaker
make this profound body of artwork that is reflective of my lived experience and the world around me.
00:14:58
Speaker
That is not realistic. It's also not realistic to ask 19 year olds what they want to do for the rest of their life and send them to college at that age. That's a whole other thing. But in terms of just like art and that your undergraduate work is supposed to be a catalyst for you to like enter other exhibitions and have somewhat of a portfolio to enter into the world. And I think that some of the art that I made is creditable and I can still do that.
00:15:25
Speaker
But it's hysterical when you think about it as a concept and it's just ridiculous. And so I would just love, love it if there is
00:15:35
Speaker
some professor out there right now in current time listening to this who has those conversations with their students because I had those conversations with my professors and you know I remember like one of my mentors saying you know academia is a bubble and you're only really going to realize that when you leave but there weren't much just conversations about also how hypocritical that is in terms of what's expected of me of me is to make
00:16:06
Speaker
art that's reflected of the world that contributes to the visual world as an artist and do that now. Gianna, I'm getting such inspiration where your next series should just be a critique on the artwork made by college students when they're forced to create artwork.
00:16:29
Speaker
Dude, I told you. Like forced to go into debt, forced to create artwork. I told you I would gladly throw my artwork in and like a cringy art like coffee table book or like performative art book. Like it's mad. It's rough out there folks and it's just um...
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's I don't know. I just think it's really, it's really funny, the way that art works and just the way in which art is perceived outside and also within academia, there are blind spots on both ends. And it really does take time outside of that to navigate that. And I think my re entry also in being involved in our community has
00:17:14
Speaker
has been really hard for me because I feel like I preach so much. You cannot underestimate the value of your local arts community. And I think that is so true. But the entry point into that can also be hard.
00:17:32
Speaker
and not knowing kind of where to start when you have kind of self-isolated for a lot of different reasons because art can also be harmful and also it may not be your main source of income at this point in your life like it is for me. So I have the fear and I hope it will serve me well. I think this week,
00:18:01
Speaker
It has served me well. I think I am taking each month at a time and I think that that is good, but I have somewhat of a trajectory and I haven't had that in a while. It's been working jobs in eight month increments, which has been
00:18:20
Speaker
really exhausting. But I think really something did click in my head when student loans went away. I felt like free, this freedom. We love you and we appreciate you sharing all of your thoughts and fears with us. Thoughts and fears. Love it. I feel like we should make some merch idea thoughts like T-H-O-T-S thoughts and fears. So cute. So cute.
00:18:49
Speaker
I love that, Bianca. Oh, thank you. It's my marketing brain. Always true about new content.
00:18:58
Speaker
I used my lady brain on that one. Got my big old lame brains over here. Oh my gosh, iconic. Well, speaking of iconic, should we talk about the history of fear or should we take a little break? I think my lady brain needs like a little break so I can calm down and reset my emotions and get some water and then I'll be ready to jump back in. Okay, love it.
00:19:55
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody. Hope you're not too scared just yet because Gianna just talked with us about some very real current fears. But as most of us know, this is a pretty radical statement. People have always had the fear.
00:20:15
Speaker
And much like our fears of today, a lot of them were caused by art in the past as well. So Gianna, do you want to talk about some fears of days past?
00:20:27
Speaker
I would love to. Surprise, surprise. It all comes down to Western religion. Ooh, spooky. But perhaps really just propaganda at large, right? So visuals have been historically used to create emotions of fear, to control you, to conform you to certain ideals, ways of thinking.
00:20:54
Speaker
And I must say, it is quite effective. Because, case in point, like, I struggle with the fear of breaking from societal norms. I struggle with the fear of not having a reliable income. But fear is something that motivates historically religion, politics and entertainment today. Our history and fear is
00:21:23
Speaker
absolutely no exception to that. It is the OG of that. So we can start off with some small things we have already talked about on the pod and Bianca, if any of our prior episodes kind of spark any kind of conversation for you, I was just finding a lot of threads between prior content and what we're talking about fear. So if any of that lends itself
00:21:50
Speaker
to this episode, feel free to chime in. So we've talked a little bit about like, Venetas, still lifes, and we also have momentum mores and, you know, just friendly reminders that you will die. And so we have visual references of skulls, hourglasses, representing the passage of time. We even have bubbles, which is this ephemeral quality of life. We have
00:22:16
Speaker
um, decane fruit and flowers and we have insects that feast off of these like moldy, um, decane fruits and vegetables.
00:22:27
Speaker
Um, so in terms of kind of things that we've talked about on the podcast, like, what are we supposed to get out of, like, Annamarie Tenler's still lives? Like, I am scared of divorce. Like, I was just trying to gravitate onto things we've talked about. And I was like, that's the point, Bianca, because we like that those still lives remember the thing that we like. Do you think all along she was, she had the fear? If so,
00:22:55
Speaker
Snaps for Tedler because now I'm kind of on board with these still lifes even more like those were always her strong point but like to fear divorce like yeah I'm like I'm that's a real fear that I sometimes have so just in general. Is the happily engaged Beyonce? Yeah. Whoopsie.
00:23:19
Speaker
So what comes after death, right? We have these reminders that we are going to die, but what comes after death? Well, eternal damnation. So you're going to hear about damnation in church and services. You're going to feel that real fear that comes with damnation. And we're also going to show that to you because remember our churches are the
00:23:48
Speaker
OG historical patrons of art. So visual fear for the visual learner, right? But also in kind of jokes aside, you have to think about
00:24:01
Speaker
actually wanting to make religion accessible. And there are a lot of people who historically were illiterate. So when you have these entry points of fear, like that is also to cater to also different types of people in different classes as well.
00:24:19
Speaker
If you or a Khan Academy stan and you took an art history class maybe in high school or maybe intro one in college you might remember learning about the Amine Cathedral in France within that city and gothic architecture
00:24:36
Speaker
lots of significant things about this cathedral but what I specifically want to get into are the high relief sculptures in the tympanum which essentially constitutes the area between the lintel over the doorway and the arch above the portal. The portal is essentially your doorway into the cathedral and this particular cathedral you have three different entry points on
00:25:05
Speaker
on the same wall. So it almost acts as like a triptych. On one side you have depictions of Virgin Mary, you have something else over here.
00:25:13
Speaker
and particularly last judgment scenes are very popular above these portals. They serve as entry points into these religious spaces. When we talk about the last judgment, typically the figure of Christ appears in the center of the composition. We have Christ also dominant in size because he's the most
00:25:37
Speaker
important as well. To either side of Christ you might have the four evangelists sometimes represented or accompanied by their animal symbols. To the side you might have smaller figures that would be angels or demons who you will see weighing the sins of, you know, the newly dead, right? So essentially what you're seeing, Last Judgment, quite obvious in terms of
00:26:07
Speaker
what could or could not happen to you. So it's very serious, right? So you better live a certain way of life and conform to this religion. So one thing I love about Khan Academy, just in terms of talking about this cathedral, is just kind of the way in which they describe this tympanum.
00:26:29
Speaker
to take this quote from Khan Academy. On the lower register of the tympanum we see figures awakening from their tombs while Saint Michael, flanked by triumphant angels, weigh the souls of the dead. Above the register on the left, Saint Francis leads a line of figures clothed in long robes into heaven where they are welcomed by Saint Peter.
00:26:54
Speaker
On the right side of the register, Demon pushes a line of terrified naked figures into the jaws of hell. And so I suppose they have to be very descriptive because this is a very descriptive scene and it's also very literal.
00:27:11
Speaker
in uh in in what is happening because if like that's not an art historical exaggeration they're not using flowery language to talk about like write an article they're actually describing what's depicted yes because if this piece of art
00:27:27
Speaker
can't actually spell it out for us isn't able to use words it's going to be kind of as graphic as possible and i remember studying this piece in high school and us kind of making fun of these tiny little like damned figures who were like being chased by demons but could you imagine actually like how overwhelmingly terrifying that imagery would be
00:27:48
Speaker
as, you know, a person who doesn't have access to education, who maybe can't read, is forced to go to church. And those are my Sunday images that I just casually see every day. Gianna, I can in fact imagine as we look into a Sunday image,
00:28:06
Speaker
I can't wait. That was the perfect buildup for me. Well, just like fear, anger is apparently real as well. So anyways, this timping on this kind of piece of architecture is kind of, you know, I think a fun OG to talk about in the wake of the topic of fear. But one thing that was coming up a little bit when you search visual references of fear,
00:28:35
Speaker
The opposite feeling also comes with that. So there's a lot of vices and virtues wrapped up in this idea of fear because what we're talking about is a cautionary tale. Tale as old as time.
00:28:51
Speaker
what is fear without courage, without godliness, or without heroism. So in any story, you know, we don't have vices without virtues. And even actually in this cathedral flanked on some of the sides, we have other visual depictions of virtues and vices that also accompany
00:29:13
Speaker
these high reliefs as well, which is interesting. So courage and fear have a super like mega toxic relationship happening, right? Like classic codependency. And I was thinking about that just so much this week. So in terms of, you know, what I was going through, like, I'm a catalyst for change. But like, damn, I'm tired. And like, I thought I was gonna leave it. You know what I mean? It's just like,
00:29:41
Speaker
something positive came out of that but like I had to over I had to overcome this thing like gross like I don't want any more character development in my life story guys like I'm done I think also to this lens itself to very like Freudian outlook that we will also make decisions to avoid pain and lead us to something pleasurable which you know again is a
00:30:07
Speaker
is a philosophy, I suppose. And, you know, there are other examples of, you know, like, I didn't... I suppose this checks. I suppose this checks some boxes. I didn't go into having a difficult conversation, you know, at work.
00:30:24
Speaker
thinking that it was gonna even lead to something like pleasurable or positive, it might lead to like you not being there anymore. So you never know. But it goes to show how fear can control you, right? Because why would you do some vice or commit a deadly sin when that could lead you to something, to eternal pain or eternal damnation?
00:30:51
Speaker
do something very easy like just come to church every day and and then you live this beautiful painless life right. I think in terms of also like pleasure and pain there's a lot wrapped up in that when we think of contemporary culture there's a lot of like music I feel like that's involved with pleasure and pain dynamics and there's also a lot of
00:31:16
Speaker
problematic concepts around that as well too that we still really kind of struggle with in contemporary society. But yeah anyways I think um you know I just kind of wanted to get into like the bare bones of fear which I feel like lends itself very well to religion. I think when we talk about something like heroism you know we've talked so much about
00:31:38
Speaker
comics and kind of like historically what's been wrapped up in that in terms of western propaganda and that's you know just a classic tale of you know you can't have the thing
00:31:49
Speaker
that is threatening you without something to kind of protect that. So these are just stories that we are continuing to evolve, but that we still very much consume today. I think in terms of something like fear, Bianca and I were talking some about some media that we are consuming now and how kind of really
00:32:15
Speaker
having conversations about violence and Bianca I wanted to open this up a little bit to talk about um there's a lot of really outdated research in terms of what media how media is consumed and to what percent is that consumed because it has violence in it in terms of like something like video games like there's there's
00:32:39
Speaker
I found some more recent data to kind of, you know, talk about how, you know, violent images are like affecting us mentally.
Violence and Fear in Modern Media
00:32:48
Speaker
But in terms of just like, I feel like TV has just gone like off the rails, you guys. It has just gotten, unconsumably violent for me to, to a point where I feel like people are so faced to it. And I know that like you are very eager to,
00:33:08
Speaker
to get into this and I want to allow you. I'm bursting on the scene. I have used this entire episode as a mental dump for myself, so I'm just so happy for you to do the same. I don't know if you've found this, but I'm just having a hard time finding data to back up how highly consumable TV is highly consumable because it's violent.
00:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, that is something that I'm struggling with too as well because I have a lot of personal feelings that I want to put an analytic spin on and I think I'm causing a little bit of trouble for myself in trying to do so, which I'll get into. But at the same time, I feel like a lot of this conversation kind of stems from a very
00:34:03
Speaker
cultural idea where you can kind of get this image of your head in your head of maybe a
00:34:11
Speaker
an older generation saying to you, oh, TV's just too violent. This is too violent. Or video games are messing up our kids. It's kind of a cultural and maybe generational statement. And I too am also struggling to find factual evidence to kind of back up
00:34:34
Speaker
an idea that's branded by a generation, if that makes sense. Should we just get into it? I think so. You were bursting at the sea. Literally for the past, I guess, week, 10 days now, I've just been fueled by rage for this and I'm just ready to burn it to the ground.
00:34:59
Speaker
The second part of this very scary conversation today, again, as Gianna said, was prompted by my fear in some very recent television shows that have premiered and before we dive into this topic, I want to offer a content warning for violence against women and abortion.
00:35:20
Speaker
And to begin this, I also am going to talk about my experience watching the premiere of HBO's episode for House of the Dragon. So if you haven't watched yet and don't want spoilers, though I do not recommend watching the show whatsoever, I am going to offer you a warning for spoilers now. So feel free to jump.
00:35:42
Speaker
in gearing up for what I thought was going to be a culturally relevant premiere of a pop culture phenomenon that is Game of Thrones, said, Bianca, you're going to sit down, you're going to watch this premiere, and you're going to take part in an experience of, you know, on kind of a global level, you know. Everyone seems to be talking about
00:36:08
Speaker
the New York apartments where the lights are the same. Okay, like we get it, whatever. Everybody watch a show. I too thought I would be one of those people sitting in an apartment watching the pre-era of House of the Dragon. And maybe not to my surprise, the show brought me back to such a particular place of
00:36:34
Speaker
pop culture and a visual history where you're just placed in this little box where you just accept all of the things that are on TV because it's Game of Thrones. Oh, it's just Game of Thrones. It's just violent. There's just naked women everywhere. Women are just getting fucked left and right.
00:36:51
Speaker
I'm sure by now, if you have seen the premiere, you have feelings about the, I don't even know what to call it, about the murder scene of the king's wife. That's what I'm going to call it.
00:37:08
Speaker
Essentially, I'll just recap the scene. So King Viserys is desperate for a male heir and his wife, the queen, is pregnant. She is going through a difficult birth because I believe they mentioned that the baby's breach, I think it's the
00:37:32
Speaker
Maester says to the king, you can make this choice, and he pulls the king aside, gives the king his options, and he, the king, makes the decision to perform a Caesarean section on his wife, Queen Aemma Targaryen, I think is how you pronounce her name. I'm gonna butcher these Targaryen names as well, I'm sorry.
00:37:58
Speaker
Obviously this is done without her consent. She has no idea what's going on. She's giving birth and then they slice this woman open and graphically, graphically mutilate her body to get the baby out. And it's not like any other type of
00:38:24
Speaker
medical show you may have seen. It's not like any other kind of battle scene or horror scene. It's graphic to an extent that was unbearable and I just started bawling my eyes out. I mean, it was just, it was horrific in every sense of the word. I mean, I don't, I don't even know how to find a description of this scene. It was awful.
00:38:54
Speaker
I'm trying to process what I've just seen. After a while, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go to Twitter, obviously, and I'm going to, because in my brain, HBO is canceled. This show is done for. Oh my God. Fuck this. House of the Dragon is done. And I don't know why I was surprised to find the opposite thing happening on Twitter. And there have been a few conversations, like there, obviously now it's,
00:39:21
Speaker
It's become a controversial scene in the episode. But when I get on Twitter, everyone's talking about how, oh, doesn't it feel great to like partake in a watch experience again? Isn't it great that we're all here together watching women get violently murdered and have their bodies mutilated without their choice? Like, oh, it's so fun. We're all doing this together. Like we're all suffering through the trauma together. And then I started seeing this shit
00:39:49
Speaker
with comparisons of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon kind of posters side by side where it's nettered Stark on the Iron Throne and then we have the new Queen Targaryen Queen on the Iron Throne in the cover and like wow look how far we've come.
00:40:09
Speaker
I am so full of fucking rage that people are getting fed this very very real and present fear for so many women not only in the United States based on recent events but this is something that happens to women all over the world
00:40:32
Speaker
We're being fed this imagery where, yeah, it's violent, but it's just Game of Thrones. And then there's this kind of supplemental conversations running deep where they're churning this out and the conversation is getting twisted to, oh, isn't this like a feminist revival of Game of Thrones?
00:40:52
Speaker
because a queen is now supposedly sitting on the iron throne. There's this process of images where we're fed this constantly and it becomes acceptable. And so because it's acceptable, there's this kind of base level. And then on top of that, oh, we have this change. We have this change towards a white woman on the throne. Isn't that great? Isn't that progress for HBO and Game of Thrones?
00:41:23
Speaker
I want to talk about rage a little bit later with some She-Hulk stuff as well. So I want to read some bits from this PopSugar article where the co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik, I'm probably pronouncing that super wrong, talks with them about this scene in particular and what that means for the rest of the series.
00:41:47
Speaker
PopSugar writes that the showrunner admits that the scene and how vividly they should show Emma's death was a quote, subject of much debate and that they cut numerous versions of it. Quote, it seemed important to highlight something that was the kind of most traumatic event. It's what breaks that family apart. And more importantly than anything, Viserys doesn't give his wife
00:42:13
Speaker
AIMA a choice, and that's something that seems really important, he explains. Still, he understands why people might feel uncomfortable with how much is shown on screen. Quote, we did make a point of showing it to as many women as possible and asked the very question, was this too violent for you? Unanimously, the response was no. Often the response was no, if anything, it needs to be more.
00:42:42
Speaker
It's raising a point that hits a real trigger for women, which is this idea of choice that she doesn't get to choose. She's effectively murdered by her husband, and that's a good indication of the state of play in his world that we're inhabiting.
00:42:59
Speaker
I'm going to keep going and then we can debrief. He says when they were editing the episode, the editor Tim Porter had the idea of paralleling the tournament fight and the birth scene. So something that also really just made my stomach turn is that they have these kind of elaborate panel shots of the jousting arena that is in the shape of a vulva.
00:43:27
Speaker
And it's just these men fighting in the shape of a vulva. And they're so explicit with this fucking arena. And then they cut away to the birth scene of the queen. Oh, yeah. Quote, Tim Porter, it seems like this is an appropriate time to draw that parallel between the two, the male and the female struggle. Oh my God, you guys. One's fighting on the battlefield, the other's fighting for survival.
00:43:57
Speaker
sometimes from the person closest to her, he explains. Patti Considine, who plays King Viserys, thinks that he's doing the best he can with the pressure he's facing. The actor says, quote, it's almost a given that he must produce a male heir, but it puts his wife at risk.
00:44:23
Speaker
She has a miscarriage after miscarriage and then the final one results in her death and the baby's death. And that's something that really profoundly affected him throughout his whole story. There are regrets about decisions. There are regrets about serving the realm and being a king.
00:44:41
Speaker
He says that that actually shooting the scene was very tough and very emotional, in fact. It was a lot more brutal and a lot more emotional than it ends up in the final episode, he shares. He wondered if it was too much to be shown because Viserys is utterly devastated. There's a double tragedy. There's the death of Emma, and then there's the death of his son, Balon. And that hangs over the show for a very long time.
00:45:08
Speaker
I don't even know where to begin with all of this. I mean, it's a lot of men talking about what they think should be shown and is the most effective or impactful part of childbearing experiences. I do want to say that I posted some of my reactions on my Instagram story.
00:45:35
Speaker
whenever I watched the premiere and a lot of people were DMing me and having conversations with me about their thoughts as well. And one person, a woman did respond and she was saying that she watched this with her boyfriend and did kind of echo that mentality saying like, no, if anything, it needs to be more. She was saying, oh, I was watching this with my partner and I think that this is really important for him to watch. And
00:46:01
Speaker
While I can totally echo that sentiment, I don't think that's the experience for every single woman or a person, a childbearing body who has that experience watching the show. And I think that also makes a stronger point where this show is produced for the male gaze and for the male audience because even women are saying no, if anything, it needs to be more because
00:46:30
Speaker
It's still on us to undergo this trauma. Watching a very real and present danger affect us in this way as if to educate our male partners. I just feel like you know that like we've reached just such a traumatic point when we are relying on a fantasy show
00:46:59
Speaker
to educate the men in our society.
Trauma and Gender Issues in Entertainment
00:47:10
Speaker
It's hard to say in terms of because when we talk about entertainment we know that just straightforward visual art is also wrapped up in that commodification and that commercialization. All of that is wrapped up when we talk about things in art history.
00:47:26
Speaker
It's hard, it's so hard to critique something because it's just why did they even? Why did you have to capitalize off of this super traumatic moment and do it in this way? And I don't agree with them doing it in the way that they did, especially the sports of it all, right? Like men in the arena fighting in the vagina. To say that this is a battle between men and women
00:47:56
Speaker
is so wrong at every level i just like well because also and to that point like i do understand like the gender of this but also like we need to understand that like abortion is not a
00:48:15
Speaker
It's not exclusively a gendered issue, like abortion and having access to that affects a lot of different peoples. And it mostly affects, as you said, people with childbearing bodies. But if I don't have access to an abortion, that also affects the person in my life that I've conceived a child with. And we also
00:48:41
Speaker
don't have access to an abortion and then we also have to find out financial means for the both of us to provide for that child. Like abortion affects all of us. And it's a class and race issue. I mean the fact that these men are presenting this as a men and women's issue also is just the flattest interpretation a man could possibly offer up.
00:49:09
Speaker
of what abortion rights and access is. This is a class and race issue as much as it is anything else.
00:49:18
Speaker
And perhaps in the scope of the show, less to do with class because a, you know, rich queen dies and was not able to make this choice for her own body and is mutilated by the higher ups of this kingdom or whatever.
00:49:40
Speaker
but that does not echo with what's happening today. There are plenty of women who are in power and are advocating for abortion restriction and that is a class and race problem. And the flattening of that and them offering up an explanation for why they did that and why they played out the scene they did is
00:50:05
Speaker
They have no education of what is going on and the fact that that is how they are going to try and attempt to educate the greater public and men about this is completely backwards.
00:50:20
Speaker
Well, it's also just a very biased case study that we are actually presented with. Like one, we don't actually, we only know what we know from this one perspective and from this person who particularly worked on the show, that whatever case study that they did,
00:50:37
Speaker
Which I love the point about like oh, yeah, we got a bunch of women together right and these women we gave these We gave them a choice we gave them a fucking choice We gave them those women the platform to tell us that they want our show to be even more violent like You know what? I mean like fuck you. This was a very um
00:51:01
Speaker
This is a very biased perspective in order to feel the historic violence that is the Game of Thrones series. And I just think that from where Game of Thrones started versus where it is now, I'm not surprised that the violence has increased because I think there is a kind of sick demand for that. Because if we don't go up, then our
00:51:28
Speaker
is our consumer audience going to feel let down because we didn't go there, right? With violence. This really reminds me too of
00:51:37
Speaker
you know, when I did my piece that was stop taxing my vagina, not a luxury. And it was one of the first pieces that I did with text and, you know, I'm talking about periods and I had one of my male peers tell me, you know, I just feel like you just like didn't go there, right? Like, I feel like you should just really like go there. And I'm like, right, because to talk about periods and to talk about something that is like aggressive towards women, we also have to show that in an aggressive way, right? We can't just use our words.
00:52:06
Speaker
like this, right? It does feel like this is coming from almost like a male perspective in sorts because we know the creators of the show are that of. But also, right, it feels like, oh yeah, we really went there, we really showed it to you, right? We really tackled this issue. We really tackled this issue because we showed you something violent. And I remember having these kind of conversations in undergrad about,
00:52:35
Speaker
I don't think you even understand that even just saying the word vagina is new. We didn't even like explicitly say pregnancy or show pregnancies on TV until I Love Lucy. Don't tell me that I didn't go there or that I have to like use my own period blood for performative art in order to talk about periods. Yeah, this is just kind of an ongoing conversation in terms of the art of it all.
00:53:05
Speaker
in which we have these thoughts about should we talk about violence against these types of bodies with violence. Yeah, and it's just, should we talk about fear with fear? Should we talk about fear by showing you the scariest and imaginable thing that can happen to your body?
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think there are elements of like the grotesque kind of wrapped up in what we're talking about with Game of Thrones. I also think too, just in terms of we definitely consume Game of Thrones and that's a kind of pop cultural phenomenon around it. Is that like this is like a fantasy there's
00:53:43
Speaker
fandom involved with Game of Thrones? Rather than this dystopian... Correct and so that's where things kind of start to get like a little icky, right? Because that's really interesting. When we become like fans of this like aggressive world that we like want to be a part of that's where I start kind of getting uncomfortable because on TikTok you know there have been some conversations and you know there's the audio from the office where Stanley's like
00:54:10
Speaker
that girl is a child i don't want to see you near her i don't want to see you sniffing her boy have you lost your mind because i'll help you find it and so i in full disclosure i have only watched um part of this first episode um but i i am kind of i'm i'm too afraid to kind of watch it and i also just don't know if i have like a super big interest in just continuing a participation in game of thrones
00:54:38
Speaker
Again, I felt very peer kind of pressured to be involved with it because of like FOMO, just like fear of missing out on this phenomenon. But there are jokes about like, I don't want to see you. I don't want to see you near her. She is a girl. I don't want to see you sniffing around her. I'm like, this isn't like funny. Like you're, you're also still like, because you know, that is what's happening. And like, you're making a joke out of it that he is like a predator. And like our
00:55:05
Speaker
young main character is is being preyed upon by her like weird older relative. And like you're making a joke out of it from like a quote from the office. I don't miss TikTok making a joke out of everything because that's the way that younger generations are just taught to visually interpret horrific images.
00:55:28
Speaker
It's just putting a funny sound over it and making it okay. I'm all for processing things how you need to process things. I've had a lot of inappropriate reactions to trauma, but it's become a phenomenon to take part in this as a cultural joke where you're in on it.
00:55:51
Speaker
Well, right, because I just feel like when it Game of Thrones, I've just gotten out of control that like we it's like we just now we've just let them do whatever they want to do. Right? Yeah, that that's where you lose me. I mean, like I even had I mean, just like Game of Thrones, like was a whole different things in which I experienced so many new horror horrific visuals in conjunction with fantasy. I think some of these conversations about Game of Thrones are different than just like general horror.
00:56:19
Speaker
because a lot of the horror that we talk about on artpop talk has a more kind of not all horror has like a constructive meaning to it or artistic meaning but there's something about fear that we like to consume and that we cause fear because it
00:56:37
Speaker
it gives us a pleasurable experience. But I do think that we have to be careful about that, especially when we get into something like wanting to consume fear and fantasy, not horror. Like where's the line between that? I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a really, really excellent point. I really also want to talk about She-Hulk. I don't know if we should go into a full conversation
00:57:03
Speaker
for just based on time's sake today. But some of those thoughts that have been brought up in She-Hulk particularly about anger and this, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of monstrosity. Maybe we can do this for a Halloween episode. We've talked about monstrosity on the podcast as well. Before last year in our October Halloween episodes,
00:57:27
Speaker
something about She-Hulk and compared with House of the Dragon has given me a lot to think about in terms of and I think Jenna you're echoing that too in terms of the way we kind of segment these genres and there's something that's supposed to be very monstrous about She-Hulk and there's something in the
00:57:50
Speaker
Bruce Banner character when he turns into the Hulk that he has this identity of Hulk smash, this anger, this destructive being.
Feminist Themes and Visuals in 'She-Hulk'
00:58:00
Speaker
And we are also getting coded this kind of feminist sprinkling with She-Hulk. And there were points throughout, there's only been two episodes out. That's the point that we're recording. There have been great points within each episode. I'm like, oh man, like,
00:58:18
Speaker
they really wrote this scene really well, particularly when she's explained to Bruce Banner how she can, you know, control her anger perfectly well because she does it every day existing as a woman in this world. So she should have no problem controlling her anger when she turns into a Hulk.
00:58:33
Speaker
But it's sugarcoated. These really great feminist talking points are just wiped away by this idea that, oh, but she's a really pretty Hulk. She's She-Hulk. And they bring up these very dated aspects of what She-Hulk in its original form is, as they say in the second episode, a derivative of
00:59:01
Speaker
The Hulk, she's a lady Hulk, but it's just, they're hitting it and then still doing it anyway. And I feel like that's also what the showrunners were doing. They're like, oh, we know this is bad, but we did it anyway. And they're like, oh, we know She-Hulk is still a derivative of the male Hulk, but we're still gonna call her that anyway. And I'm getting so angry watching these things
00:59:28
Speaker
where people are like, oh, great, like, no, this is equality. Yay. You know, no, like, don't believe the lies. This is fake feminism at its finest. And I, I really want to talk more about She-Hulk, but just for maybe we can have Sid on or a lady, a lady Marvel expert. And, you know, kind of debrief with us. Yeah, we just need actually like a female counterpart to an expert, like not an actual expert.
00:59:58
Speaker
Right. A she expert. A she expert. A her expert for her. She. She. She. She. Her. Her. Her. Yeah, for me, one of the visuals that I really liked in terms of kind of this moment where I can't tell if I'm on board with what's happening or not is when we get a little bit of an action scene when she's in the courtroom. And then
01:00:22
Speaker
she takes off her heels right and like anytime and then like she puts back on her heel and like anytime you have this like imagery of a woman putting on her heels is it's so visually relevant to just throughout history when they use the heel. Did they not learn from green m&m? Did they did they learn nothing from green m&m? Oh my god. Bianca the parallels.
01:00:52
Speaker
Oh my God. Chiana angry. I just, it's, we have this joke in our family where like our Nona used to say, you foolish of me. And I, when, when I've been watching these shows lately, I'm like, you foolish of me. You think my lady brains aren't computing with what you're doing, but
01:01:20
Speaker
I see. I see through that. I see what you're doing. You're still appealing to your male audience. I'm not having it.
01:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, it also just like, I don't know, I'm just not invested in this little miniseries. I'm not like a fan right now of any of like the effects and... But also, I mean, we had WandaVision and, you know, there were there were problems in itself with WandaVision, but we just had Miss Marvel, which I thought was fantastic. But it's like, oh, Miss Marvel, she's a kid.
01:01:51
Speaker
She's a kid. You can't talk about kids that way. You can't talk about Kamala Khan's dating life, her sex life. She's a kid. Come on. But oh, a big green lady monster. Yeah, she can fuck someone. We can show that in the trailer. She can have someone come into her bedroom.
01:02:08
Speaker
What? She's a big green monster. She's a big green monster. And I want to see her be some people up. I want to see her be a big green monster. And I'm not seeing any of that. I'm just getting like, I'm not like... I'm seeing tits of rock hard abs, a skinny waist, and hair that changes into a flawless blowout whenever she turns into the whole.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, I've been feeling kind of weird just about like the hair texture change. Just also in comparison to like, I understand that like the visuals, they're just staying true to like the comics, but also like Bruce Banner's hair doesn't change. You know what you don't have to do whenever you take a comic and convert it to a television, you don't have to do the same thing. If it was called She-Hulk, you can acknowledge, oh, you know, in the second episode, people were calling her She-Hulk, she's like,
01:03:02
Speaker
I don't really like that. But okay, we're so close. She's like, it's so gross. She-Hulk, like, what why can't why can't you come up with another you can acknowledge that you're echoing the character of She-Hulk from the comics, you don't have to do the same thing. You can actually improve upon past mistakes, but God forbid.
01:03:24
Speaker
yeah i don't yeah i was just going to say like i'm just getting like vibes from this like oh like i'm the quirky like superhero i'm not like the other superheroes kind of type vibe which always you know gets gets me a little skeptical but that's how she is as a person as a lawyer and she does have this very kind of
01:03:45
Speaker
quote unquote different Hollywood actress type like all of that is fine like her quirkiness it's fine but again it feels like coded right like you're just giving that to me in order to also do these other actually very like normative ways of showing you know female
01:04:02
Speaker
heroines so it just feels all very yeah like you said just kind of very like coded and like you like you can't punish me i swear i think oh but i don't know where like i guess in terms of like she hulk where we stand i think like our fear
01:04:18
Speaker
has just turned to anger on that one. What is the fear aspect of she holding? Well, I wanted to see more, I want to see more people be afraid of her. I wanted to see, I think I'm just thinking about this idea of monstrosity because last year we talked about monstrous women and monstrous female bodies that have been depicted and not saying she has to be this,
01:04:43
Speaker
villain who, you know, terrorizes like this city or whatever. But honestly, that might be more interesting. But yeah, I want to see, I don't know, but then you're I don't know, you might get like they discussed in the first episode, oh, your your anger, her emotions, but I want to move past that. You know what I'm saying? I want I want to see something that's equitable. And this is so clearly, do you think not equitable with the guise of being progressive?
01:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, I just think in terms like, you know, I appreciate some of like the candor or some of the writing in terms of like acknowledging, I don't have to like meditate like Bruce Banner, because you know, I have to be like, I'm a woman lawyer, and I have to be a little headed all the time. I think, right, you know, that is good writing. But I just also wonder if if you just were, if she just was, was just was without this explanation. Yeah, that is also like,
01:05:42
Speaker
Okay to like you don't have to give me this yes girl moment. Like yes feminism. Yes. She's a female lawyer Yes, she could just be women are allowed to be angry. I'm fucking angry right now I'm angry that I have to watch these shows I thought we're gonna be fun pop culture things to talk about and they're feeding me this bullshit Women are also allowed to be angry. I think I kind of wanted to see it an angry Hulk smash some shit up
01:06:11
Speaker
Imagine how actually different that would be to see a woman just like lose her shit as a superhero. There's a lot to lose your shit about these days. Yeah. And she has a right to do that. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Still early on in the series. Maybe we'll get that. Maybe she'll terrorize LA. Maybe she'll terrorize LA. I don't know. Cool.
01:06:39
Speaker
Staying fearful on this end of the mic. Stay fearful, ladies. Don't get murdered. Stay fearful. Do we feel like this episode got away from us? Or do we feel like this
01:06:59
Speaker
Do we feel like the thread is thin or do we do we feel like we actually talked about something constructive? I don't know. How are you feeling? Personally, I feel the thread. You feel the thread? Yeah, I do. I do because I'm just I think it connected for us to when we were talking earlier in the week about all these things happening kind of simultaneously. And that's just you know,
01:07:20
Speaker
That's how we get these episodes is a combination of real life fears, fears in images and fears in pop culture. I don't know. I think it's not out of nowhere that these things are happening as well because there's a big push for progressive.
Conclusion: Progressive Storytelling and Media Critique
01:07:42
Speaker
images and four progressive storylines. And what I don't want is to lose sight of that, because that's not what we're actually getting back in return. And we want those things in the workplace, too. We want all of these good things, but they're coming back to us in secretive ways. Yeah, that's such a good point. I feel like I don't want to be kept being told
01:08:11
Speaker
how progressive things are or how progressive She-Hulk is or how progressive Game of Thrones is, how progressive my workplace is. I just want those things to just be without explanation, without argument, without a catalyst for change. It's like the horror version of Chadeas. It's Chadeas was a villain. It is Game of Thrones.
01:08:40
Speaker
HBO, you need to get your fucking shit together. Oh, Bianca, that was salty. I love it. Well, it doesn't. HBO is, like, owned through a lot right now, so... Yeah. Have fun at Discovery plus HBO. HBO has the fear. And if you don't, you should. HBO.
01:09:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, we just rolled with this one. We did indeed, but it was a kind of- I feel good, I feel better. Yeah, I mean, like I said. I really needed to vent about this. APT is just our dumping ground, you're welcome. Dumping ground for thoughts and fears. Thoughts and fears. Signing off, stay fearful, art pop nerds.
01:09:27
Speaker
Let us know your thoughts. As always, we would love to hear from you and you can email us at artpuptalk at gmail.com. You can DM us. You can look us up across the board.
01:09:37
Speaker
artpoptalk.com, at artpoptalk on social media. Don't forget, you can buy us a coffee if you like our content and want to hear more, help keep the podcast going. And with that, we will talk to you in two Tuesdays. Bye, everyone. Bye. Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci-Vinc. And me, Gianna Martucci-Vinc. Music and sounds are by Josh Turner and photography is by Adrian Turner. And our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.