Ryan Sheely and Matthew Wrather overthink the season finale of Gossip Girl and the Joss Whedon/Neil Patrick Harris episode of Glee, focusing on self-overhearing, homosociality, intersubjectivitiy, projective identification, the Cremaster cycle, an Empire State Building of Mind, cell phones, virtual social gestures, the Wire Season 5, Dr. Dunbar and his number, and what you’re going to do on your summer vacation.
(Email us your thoughts about what we should do with the show over the summer.)
There will be no spoiler warnings and there will be many naughty words. If either of those things bothers you, don’t click!
→ Download TFT Episode 17 (MP3)
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Recommended Reading
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Reinvention of the Human
Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire
Matthew Barney, The Cremaster Cycle
David Simon, et al., The Wire, Season 5
R. I. M. Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
“New David Simon Project To Investigate Happy, Upper-Middle-Class Streets Of Wilmette, IL”, The Onion, 46.19 (May 15, 2010)
Hi Guys, Sean from Aus here (-37.82807,144.950012).
I’ve been a big fan of the TFT podcast and have enjoyed all 17 episodes so far.
I would like to weigh in on what you guys should do during the summer break.
I am a big fan of the idea of you both going through some of the teen movie greats and subjecting them to the level of scrutiny that is given to GG and Glee.
John Hughes is the obvious choice, but there are a large collection of movies about fornicating teenagers that could be subjected to overthinking. Specifically, you mentioned Porky’s, but there are other options like the American Pie franchise, SexDrive, Fanboys, or my personal suggestion Teen Wolf.
Having a bit of a search, almost anything in this category -> http://www.imdb.com/keyword/teen-sex-comedy/ could be ripe for overthinking.
Thanks again for all of the hard work on both the site and both podcasts.
Sean.
Underthinking: I thought NPH was kind of… wasted. As in, he has a lot more talent than he demonstrated. Only one song, and a duet, at that- the resources he has available weren’t tapped.
Meta-casting: I don’t follow Glee-related forums or anything, but a friend of mine that does says there were lots of fan outcries for Adena Menzel to play Rachel’s mom from the beginning of the show- so it was “blatantly obvious they were going in that direction” to some fans.
Virtual Social Gestures: Cyber-bullying. It has reached a point where myriad school districts and boards are writing legislation and rules to deal with it. It ranges from personal emails to mean comments on pages and pictures. Note the order the character you were talking about said it- he said he de-friended the other guy on Facebook first. What happens online has a *lot* of weight with adolescents.
I like the option of you looking back at movies about teens and discussing the heavier social-political-sexual themes running through them for the summer. From my personal and pseudo-business perspective, you may get a better response from that, since movies are stand-alone and if you warn your listeners what’s coming in the next week, they could run out and at least rent it before you discuss. A whole series, while rentable, would be more difficult to catch up on- it would require much more time, so I would assume is thus less likely to be sought out.