popular culture

What’s more hardcore than history?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 22:24:13 +0000

What’s more hardcore than history? Rachel Sauer Wed, 06/18/2025 - 16:24

91�Թ�� alumnus Dan Carlin brings a love of history and a punk sensibility to a new season of “The Ampersand” as he discusses his hit podcast, Hardcore History

Listen to The Ampersand

There are a lot of places to experience punk: in the dim, smoky basement of Club 88 in Los Angeles in 1983, listening to a then-little-known band called NOFX, but also on the ancient battlefields of Britannia, where Briton warriors drew their swords against the invading Romans.

In the first scenario, Dan Carlin was actually there wearing his signature black T-shirt and Orioles cap. The battlefield? He visits it in his vivid imagination (still in a black T-shirt and ball cap)—drinking in the details and drawing a sensory-rich narrative from historical texts and records.

91�Թ�� history graduate Dan Carlin brings a punk sensibility to his wildly popular podcast, Hardcore History.

Carlin, a 91�Թ�� history graduate, is something of a journalist of the past—a punk rock kid who became a punk rock adult who brings that counterculture ethos to Hardcore History, among the most popular podcasts in the United States with millions of downloads per episode.

He recently joined host Erika Randall, 91�Թ�� interim dean of undergraduate education and professor of dance, to kick off a new season of "The Ampersand,” the College of Arts and Sciences podcast. Randall joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their conversation covered everything from creativity to punk rock to a dog named Mrs. Brown.

DAN CARLIN: So, what makes the past interesting is not so much that it's just, oh, here's a wild story from the past. It's that even though—what did Shakespeare say? Right, "All the world's a stage, and all the people merely players"—the people in the story are people just like we are.

And so, the ability to touch base with something that is otherwise impossible for us to relate to, right, the past is a foreign country, as the saying goes. They do things differently there. Trying to imagine living in a society where they perform human sacrifice, for example, is not possible for us. But you can start to realize that the people in the story are the same as we were.

And if you took a human infant out of the incubator at your local hospital, put them in a time machine, sent them back in the past to a time where people enjoyed visiting public executions, and that child was raised in that culture, they, too, would enjoy going to public executions. So, genetically speaking, we're the same people. And I think that's the end toward understanding the past. I mean, if people ever end up on Mars someday, we might not be able to imagine what it's like to be on Mars. But we can imagine what it's like to be people, even on Mars.

ERIKA RANDALL: I teach dance history, and it really, to me, is about the people and then the context, right, and the people who are next to the people, and how going to see a World's Fair was akin to having access to the world wide web because you suddenly got to be in a moment in time. In the 1900s, all these people came together, and then the forum changed.

So, to say that with just dates and facts but not to go, “Imagine that in this moment Loie Fuller is there with Marie Curie at the same event, running into each other. And look at what that did to dance. Look how technology and art, creativity and science came together because of that confluence of human people at an event.”

And that helps to get students excited versus, “This is the kind of piece that was made at this time on this date,” but to really get into the storytelling. And then the letters, the archives, the archival material that actually brings those humans to life, I find, oh, I want students to get as excited about that as I do. What do you think we do in this generation of people who are learning with so much information that they maybe don't read the bylines perhaps the way you and I did or dive into the works cited to get into the detail of, like, what can make me feel here?

CARLIN: There's a lot to unpack in that question because I think it touches upon a lot of things that I think about but don't have any answers for. I think this is self-evident and obvious, but we're involved in a mass giant human experiment right now. And anybody who's raising kids, even my kids are late teens, early 20s, so, I mean, but they're not really kids anymore.

Dan Carlin's "The End Is Always Near" explores some of the apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to frame the challenges of the future.

But this is all part of this generation, as I tell my oldest, that cropped up literally right after she was born. I mean, once the iPhone comes around, and we're walking around with—what did Elon Musk say? We're all cyborgs now, right? Once we enter that world, we firmly leave the analog world behind.

And what I mean by that is I try to explain to people that the entire history of humanity up until about the 21st century, maybe the very, very end of the 20th, that's an analog world, right? So, if you grew up, as I did, in a pre-computer world, you lived in the same world that the people in ancient Assyria lived in, right? I mean, they came home when the metaphorical streetlights went on, just like we did, right? No way to call mom, no tracking.

But the point is so, all of a sudden, now we enter into a world where we don't know how this plays out because there hasn't been enough time. What's more, unlike ancient times, where the pace of change was slow, so that even if there was some revolutionary new discovery, right, a brand new plow is invented that's going to change the entire world, you would probably have several hundred years to incorporate that new technology and see what that was going to do to society. Even movable print, which shook up the whole world, is nothing compared to what we have now because what we have now, if you said nothing's really going to change for another 50 years, then we could sit there and try to incorporate what's happened, right?

So, there's the ability to absorb and sort of make it a part of. In other words, society redirects around the inventions so that it then becomes the society plus those inventions. But what I think we're all aware of now is that the pace of change is so quick that by the time we would incorporate, oh, my gosh, what is the world plus Facebook like…

RANDALL: It's already moved on.

CARLIN: We're off of Facebook. Yes! And so, the ability to ever get to the absorption phase is gone. What that does for society is a big unknown.

So, the question is often brought up about things like the ability to think deeply or to contemplate. Or, I mean, do people get bored without their cell phone for two minutes? Does that rob us of the ability that ancient thinkers used to have to just sit out in the open air amongst the trees and think? Or as one person pointed out—and I think there's real benefit to this, too—the counterreaction to boredom, right, what boredom makes us do.

RANDALL: Yes.

CARLIN: To not be bored ends up being…

RANDALL: It sparks creativity. It actually lights us up.

CARLIN: Yes. The games you have to invent as a kid because there is no easy access to something else, right?

RANDALL: Yeah.

CARLIN: I don't know what that means for society. I tell my kids all the time that if you happen to be somebody who bucks that trend, it reminds you of the line, "In the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," right? I mean, if you can do math and nobody can do math anymore, that's an advantage, right? So, I always try to turn it into, well, if you're one of the few who reads, that's going to help you.

I think doing the show when you're doing five hours of history podcasting sometimes, and that there's an audience for that, helps you go, oh, well, good. There's still that out there. But when you have more than a billion people as your potential audience, getting a few million here or there that are interested in your little niche thing is not necessarily reflective of broad societal trends.

So, I don't know that our audience is representative, and I'm not sure I can draw many conclusions from that.

RANDALL: But it doesn't make you want to go get those other billion. It makes you—like, you don't want to have to necessarily adapt your path towards those folks who want the quick flip and quick hit.

Dan Carlin has hosted Hardcore History since 2006.

CARLIN: I wouldn't do that. No, I wouldn't do that for several reasons. One, there's people who have that lane—lots of people who have that. It’s an easier lane, to be honest. But also, because it's the same thing with why I'm following the Baltimore Orioles when I live in Los Angeles, and I've never been to Baltimore. I mean, this is—I was a punk rock person. I'm a Generation X person.

There's a whole bunch of things in my biography where you just go, oh, this guy is going to do it differently. My wife would say, you just have to be different, don't you? And, yeah, I think that's what it is. So, I don't want those other people. I kind of take pride that the audience invented a name for themselves. They call themselves the "hardcorps," C-O-R-P-S.

RANDALL: Oh, I love that.

CARLIN: This is how I always was as a kid, too. It's not that I'm different and bad. I'm different, and I'm going to take pride in that. And I want my several million, instead of the billions, because it's us, right? It's our own private "hardcorps" club.

RANDALL: In the basement.

CARLIN: We're doing our own thing. You can go enjoy your 30-second TikTok pieces of entertainment.

RANDALL: I can't imagine you in that ball cap and black T-shirt as a punk rock guy. Like, who were you listening to? Were you pierced? What are we talking about? Did the visual change, or were you a contrarian there, too, when you rolled up with your Orioles cap into the basement with people with mohawks?

CARLIN: Well—and I'm speaking to people who were there now in your audience who remember—punk is a caricature of what it was then. It's hard to describe what it was like in '79 or '80 or '81.

RANDALL: In L.A., right?

CARLIN: Yeah. I mean, listen, I remember John Doe, who was the lead singer of X. He had a great line. He said punk was wearing black jeans and having a normal haircut—what we would call a normal haircut today.

If you had short hair in 1978, people would yell out the car. You know, he said people would yell out the car and yell Devo at you because that was contrary. He said, “All I had was a normal American haircut, but that was a statement in 1978.”

So, we looked more normal. A lot of times, we had a lot of hair colors. But with me, if you saw me at CU, I didn't look… I had long hair at CU.

RANDALL: Were you punk? Were you punk at CU?

CARLIN: I was always punk.

Click the button below to hear the rest of the conversation.

Listen to The Ampersand

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about history? Show your support.

91�Թ�� alumnus Dan Carlin brings a love of history and a punk sensibility to a new season of “The Ampersand” as he discusses his hit podcast, Hardcore History.

Traditional

White

We still need a bigger boat

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 17:02:38 +0000

We still need a bigger boat Rachel Sauer Tue, 06/17/2025 - 11:02

Rachel Sauer

Fifty years after ‘Jaws’ made swimmers flee the ocean, 91�Թ�� cinema scholar Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz explains how the 1975 summer hit endures as a classic

On June 19, 1975, it wasn’t such a terrible thing to feel something brush your leg while frolicking in the ocean. It was startling, sure—humans’ relationship with the ocean has long harbored a certain element of fear, says 91�Թ�� Professor Andrew Martin—but the rational mind could more quickly acknowledge that it was probably seaweed.

That changed the following day, when a film by a young director named Steven Spielberg opened on screens across the United States. On June 20, 1975, to feel something brush your leg in the ocean was to immediately think, “SHARK!”

Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, a 91�Թ�� professor of cinema studies and moving image arts, regularly teaches "Jaws" in Introduction to Cinema Studies.

Are sharks really as scary as their reputation?

In the 50 years since “Jaws” made people flee the water for fear of sharks, the film has become widely recognized as a cinematic landmark.

“’Jaws’ is a movie I teach regularly in Introduction to Cinema Studies—yes, it’s that important,” says Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz, a 91�Թ�� professor of cinema studies and moving image arts, adding that “Jaws” also is an important case study for misconceptions, including the evolution and de-evolution, of the term “blockbuster.”

A disaster-horror movie

The cinematic landscape in which “Jaws” arrived was one of greater daring and a transition away from the focus on producers in the classical Hollywood era to a focus on a new cohort of directors—“mostly men, mostly white,” Acevedo-Muñoz acknowledges—who studied cinema in college and were greatly influenced by the French New Wave.

“With the collapse of the Hollywood studio system, suddenly there’s more opportunity for creativity, for edgy content,” he says. “In the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, you have some movies that really were trailblazers in what’s unofficially called the American New Wave. ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ 1967, comes to mind—nobody had seen that kind of romanticization of violence and graphic violence before.”

Young directors like Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese were more in touch with the counterculture of the time, and old-guard producers, recognizing these young mavericks might be lucrative, green-lit projects like “The Godfather,” “Mean Streets” and “Jaws,” Acevedo-Muñoz says.

“There’s incentive to be risky in that juncture of the ‘60s to the ‘70s,” he notes. “Then to that context you add the economic crisis of the early 1970s, the recession and unemployment, plus the end of the Vietnam War, heads are getting hot and people are angry.

Creating doom in two simple notes

It’s possible for a universe of dread to exist between two notes: duu-DU … duu-DU

Just two notes, played with increasing urgency and speed, let moviegoers know that a shark is coming, and fast.

An element of the genius of John Williams’ Oscar-winning score for the film “Jaws,” released 50 years ago Friday, is how much it conveys in just those iconic two notes.

“Williams layers melodic tension in these notes with an increasing rhythmic motion—he accelerates the speed in which we hear the notes, and he accelerates their frequency,” says Michael Sy Uy, a 91�Թ�� associate professor of musicology and director of the American Music Research Center. “When you combine that with the emotions attached to the fear, anxiety and dread of being attacked by a shark, then we start to feel how this music is living with and entering our ears, and it makes us feel actual anxiety or dread.”

The two notes of duu-DU are separated by the closest interval in Western musical notation that our ears are trained and socialized to hear, he adds—a half step—that, when played in succession, can help listeners feel a sense of melodic tension.

In the case of the “Jaws” soundtrack, it can help listeners feel a deep dread. In fact, some scholars argue that “Jaws” would not be the cinematic landmark it is without John Williams’ score.

“It’s hard to imagine movies today and over the past five decades without their soundtracks,” Uy says. “We make music a part of the storytelling because music can add an extra layer of meaning. It can contradict what is happening in a scene between actors, or it can validate what they’re saying. Music can tell the story even when words don’t.”

Learn more about 91�Թ��'s film and television soundtrack connections in the American Music Research Center's Dave Grusin collection. Grusin is a Grammy-winning composer, contemporary of John Williams and 91�Թ�� alumnus.

“The crises of the 1970s are one of the reasons why we have the flourishing of the disaster film at that time. I would point first to ‘The Poseidon Adventure,’ which is the best of them all, and ‘The Towering Inferno,’ ‘Earthquake.’ And to a certain extent, ‘Jaws’ is a hybrid of the classic horror monster movie and the 1970s disaster movie.”

The dire economic background of the early 1970s was important to “Jaws” and other disaster films, Acevedo-Muñoz says, because “a disaster movie, like a horror movie, tells us we are going through a really rough time, but if we all work together and we make a few sacrifices, we’re going to get out of this OK. If we follow the lead of Paul Newman or Steve McQueen or Gene Hackman, we’ll eventually get out of this all right.”

Driving the buzz

“Jaws” is often called the original summer blockbuster, but relentless repetition of this idea does not make it true, Acevedo-Muñoz says: “There’s no one movie we can point to as the original summer blockbuster.”

In fact, he adds, the term “blockbuster” really refers to the end of a classic Hollywood distribution and exhibition practice called block booking: If theaters wanted to show big-draw feature films, they also had to book smaller, cheaper, shorter films that came to be known as “B movies," which "were made quickly by 'B units' that often reused sets or even costumes from the big movies to cut costs. But scholarship on B movies has argued that because the studios weren’t paying too much attention to those units, some of the B movies were rather edgy and interesting."

Block booking meant that the producers and distributors controlled a lot of what was in exhibition venues, "but there were occasionally movies that may have broken that pattern, and those were in some ways the original blockbusters—as in busting the block of block booking practice," he says.

While “Jaws” did break box-office records of the time, it’s also noteworthy in cinema history as one of the first miracles of marketing, he says. It was based on a mega-bestselling book by Peter Benchley, one that was optioned for film while still in galleys, and the film marketing piggy-backed on the name recognition of the book.

Further, “Jaws” was one of the first films to intentionally create buzz as part of the overall publicity and marketing plan, including strategically leaked tidbits from the film’s set on Martha’s Vineyard.

On its June 20, 1975, opening day, “Jaws” was one of the most prominent films to benefit from a practice called “front loading,” which meant making more prints of the film and showing it in as many theaters as possible, rather than the previous practice of rolling openings from largest to smallest markets.

“The marketing and distribution team of Universal Pictures also decided to take a front-loading approach with ‘Jaws,’ so that it was playing everywhere,” Acevedo-Muñoz says. “Or almost everywhere. It still took months to get to my hometown, but we knew it was coming, and that anticipation was building.

“So, ‘Jaws’ is important because it was this consolidation of these different practices of marketing, creating buzz, creating anticipation, creating tie-ins—it put all these things in one place that were practices that had been around before the summer of ’75 but afterwards became the model.”

As for the film’s effect on moviegoers and their summer vacation plans? “I know a lot of people,” Acevedo-Muñoz says, “who refused to go swimming after they saw ‘Jaws.’”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about cinema studies and moving image arts? Show your support.

Fifty years after ‘Jaws’ made swimmers flee the ocean, 91�Թ�� cinema scholar Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz explains how the 1975 summer hit endures as a classic.

Traditional

White

Recognizing a century of boats against the current

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 19:17:08 +0000

Recognizing a century of boats against the current Rachel Sauer Wed, 04/23/2025 - 13:17

Collette Mace

The Great Gatsby remains relevant for modern readers by shapeshifting with the times, says 91�Թ�� scholar Martin Bickman

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The final words of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby—published 100 years ago this month—are among the most known and appreciated in American literature.

Martin Bickman, a 91�Թ�� professor of English, notes that the intentional vagueness of The Great Gatsby helps readers of all generations connect with the characters.

And according to Martin Bickman, a 91�Թ�� professor of English, this line and the novel’s conclusion reflect the age in which it was written and neatly ends a novel that seems to capture the American psyche.

But why is The Great Gatsby considered the Great American Novel? Not because it’s great or because it’s American, Bickman explains—although it is both. This novel has remained relevant from generation to generation because it shapeshifts with the times, continuing to carry themes that Americans are bred to notice.

Questions of the American dream, wealth, class standing and ambition are central to American values in both 1925 and today. And while these themes look very different to the modern American, Bickman says the intentional vagueness of the novel helps readers of all generations connect with the characters.

To understand this, Bickman, a CU President’s Teaching Scholar who has taught a course called American Novel, cites “reader response theory,” a framework he emphasizes is critical in the study of literature. According to reader response theory, the reader of a text to take must take an active role in constructing the meaning within the text; if readers look only at a novel through the perspective of the author, that neglects much of the text’s meaning.

For this reason, no text can be interpreted the exact way by two different people. Readers approach texts differently as a result of their position in the world, and the experiences that have shaped them inform their understanding of what they read. The text then becomes a blank canvas for what readers project onto it, Bickman says

Seeing ourselves in Gatsby

What does this have to do with Gatsby? According to Bickman, the title character is just two-dimensional enough to serve as a perfect projection screen for readers of the novel. He’s mysterious, allowing the narrator, Nick Calloway, to cast his own assumptions about the world and the wealthy onto him, as well as vague enough to allow the reader to project their own internal thoughts and biases onto him.

As well as having characters that reflect the reader in personality and perceptions, The Great Gatsby also reflects classic American messages that are relevant today.

Because of his intentional ambiguity, Gatsby as a character can reflect what the reader thinks of many different things, including the elite, the rich and even the quintessential American dreamer.

This is how The Great Gatsby becomes a chameleon, remaining relevant in era, despite its age, Bickman says. As well as having characters that reflect the reader in personality and perceptions, the novel also reflects classic American messages that are relevant today.

The green light on Daisy’s dock, for example, represents the unattainable hopes for the future that stem from the inability to transcend the past. This feeling is still present, and most likely always will be in a country that believes in the possibility of a glowing future as long as we just work hard enough to get there—such is, in essence, the American dream, Bickman says.

It also showcases the all-to-frequent pain of the American dream. Although Bickman says the billionaires of today had no equal in Fitzgerald’s time, the uneasiness surrounding the callousness of the rich is on full display in Gatsby. Daisy, for example, named for the beautiful and delicate flower that Gatsby sees her as, is just as cruel and selfish as any of the men around her. She was the one driving the car, after all.

However, as she comes from “self-earned” money, and as someone who has seemingly “won” at the American dream, does she get a pass for her selfishness? In a way, she seems to, at least for the moment. And as time moves on, and the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer, it seems that the original questions of whether the rich can be callous changes to whether the rich can be cruel—a key difference in how the world works, according to Bickman.

“It’s a real pathology now,” he says, “I mean, these people are cruel. The richest of the rich in the 1920s were nothing like today’s billionaires.”

So the lessons of The Great Gatsby remain relevant, Bickman says, suggesting that modern readers should take a deep look between the lines and wonder what Gatsby can show us about ourselves.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about English? Show your support.

'The Great Gatsby' remains relevant for modern readers by shapeshifting with the times, says 91�Թ�� scholar Martin Bickman.

Traditional

White

Top image: Warner Bros.

Don’t fear the fungi

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 13:30:00 +0000

Don’t fear the fungi Rachel Sauer Thu, 04/17/2025 - 07:30

Bradley Worrell

91�Թ�� mycologist Alisha Quandt says there’s little reason to fear a fungi-zombie apocalypse like the one imagined in the HBO hit TV series ‘The Last of Us’

Alisha Quandt prepared herself in advance to be asked by students and others about Sunday’s season 2 premier of “The Last of Us”—the hit HBO series that imagines a post-apocalyptic future where a fungal infection on a massive scale turns the majority of humanity into zombie-like creatures seeking to infect the last pockets of civilization.

It’s not that Quandt is a super-fan of the TV show (“I’m not into zombies, honestly,” she confesses), but as a mycologist—a scientist who studies fungi—she is used to getting asked about the TV show, specifically whether the grim future it imagines is anything people need to be worried about, or whether it’s simply harmless entertainment.

“I’m happy if it gets people excited about fungi. They’re so incredible,” says Alisha Quandt, a 91�Թ�� assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“Especially when the TV show first debuted, it was definitely a topic people wanted to discuss,” says Quandt, a 91�Թ�� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology assistant professor.

“And it seems like the topic (of infectious fungi) comes up in popular culture every five to 10 years. When I was starting my PhD, people were fascinated by the ‘Planet Earth’ TV series by David Attenborough, where this ant infected by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis staggers around, being controlled by the fungus. Then later, the Last of Us videogame came out, which really got people excited about (zombie) fungi.”

Quandt did her PhD research studying Cordyceps-like fungi, which is the type of pestilence the TV show identifies as the culprit for turning civilization into a hellscape populated by zombies controlled by the spiky fungi tendrils sprouting from their heads. For the record, Quandt finds that scenario very unlikely, for a variety of reasons.

No need to panic

For starters, the TV show imagines a worldwide outbreak is caused by Cordyceps-contaminated food. However, Quandt says most fungal infections in humans are caused by inhaling spores or through contact with the eyes or skin—and not through the digestive tract. She notes that in many parts of the world, people have been ingesting Cordyceps fungi for decades without incident, because they believe they contain beneficial properties.

“I’ve eaten Cordyceps in Asia, in Korea and China,” says Quandt, who remains unzombified. “It’s considered a part of traditional Chinese medicine, especially certain species. Even here in the U.S., you can find Cordyceps in coffees and teas, for example. They sell them at stores in Boulder.”

Quandt says another reason not to be overly concerned about Cordyceps is that many of them are “specialists” that have a very narrow range of hosts that they infect, down to a specific family of ant or spider. While some Cordyceps can transition from infecting one type of arthropod to another, or to jump from infecting an insect to another fungus, she says making the leap to a healthy human being is remote.

What’s more, the average human body temperature of 97 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit is not an environment that’s hospitable for many fungi, although Quandt acknowledges there are exceptions. “The Last of Us” imagines a future in which global warming has raised Earth temperatures to a point where mutated Cordyceps zombie fungi could live comfortably in human hosts, but Quandt notes that ambient temperatures of even 90 degrees Fahrenheit are still cooler than the human body.

“That’s a hard path for me to follow,” she says of an environmental change that would allow Cordyceps to evolve in such a way. “There’s a lot of assumptions that would go into that trajectory.”

91�Թ�� scientist Alisha Quandt finds the scenario from "The Last of Us" in which a Cordyceps-like fungi causes worldwide zombification very unlikely, for a variety of reasons. (Photo: HBO)

Beyond those arguments, Quandt says there is an even more important one as to why humans don’t need to start doom prepping for a fungi apocalypse.

“My argument about why we shouldn’t be worried about a fungal pandemic is that our bodies, when fully immunocompetent—meaning healthy human bodies—are extremely well equipped to deal with fungal propagules (spores) that come into contact with our bodies, mostly through our lungs,” she says. “Fungi have this cell wall that is made up of stuff that our bodies do not make. So, our bodies are really good identifying and dealing with that.”

Quant says fungal infections do pose a risk to people whose immune systems are compromised—particularly if they have taken a heavy dose of antibiotics, because those can kill off good bacteria, which can lower resistance to harmful fungi.

“Once our immune system goes away, which could handle those types of (fungi), we have so few antifungal drugs to treat fungal infections compared to the myriad of antibiotics that we have to treat bacterial diseases,” she says.

For the immunocompromised, Quandt says one of the most concerning fungi—which just cropped up in recent years and has spread worldwide—is Candida auris.

“It is a really concerning human pathogen because it is what we call nosocomial, meaning it is hospital related. People get these infections in hospitals, and once it’s in a hospital, it can be almost impossible to get rid of it,” she says.

“People will use all kinds of bleach and ethanol but it’s very hard to get rid of the yeast once it gets into a hospital room. And the fully immunocompetent, like nurses and doctors who are not sick, can end up spreading it from room to room to sick, often elderly, patients. Unfortunately, there’s not a good defense on the ground, so to speak, once Candida auris takes hold.”

But while “opportunistic pathogens” like Candida auris can pose a risk to the immunocompromised, the number of fungal diseases that could be described as “primary pathogens”—meaning they can infect and potentially cause serious health issues for healthy individuals—is less than a handful, Quandt says.

One primary pathogen that can be found in the United State is Valley Fever, which is primarily located in New Mexico, Arizona and southern California. Farming, construction or other practices that disrupt the soil can release the fungi’s spores, which people can then breathe into their lungs. Once inhaled, Valley Fever can potentially cause fever, cough, tiredness, shortness of breath and, in limited cases, serious conditions such as pneumonia and meningitis.

“But those are the rarer things, and I’m still not worried about them becoming common because they’re still not being spread from person to person,” she says.

In contrast with the way “The Last of Us” portrays fungi as an existential threat, Quandt sees a type of virus that’s already well-known to the scientific community and the public alike as a much greater risk for causing a global pandemic. The World Health Organization estimates the COVID-19 pandemic killed 14.9 million people worldwide between January 2020 and December 2021.

“As we’ve recently seen, unfortunately, there are a lot of other places to look for more likely suspects for (global pandemics). Things that were predicted by a lot of great investigative journalists and epidemiologists, like coronavirus and other zoonotic diseases (which jump from animals to humans), pose a much greater threat to mankind,” she says.

“As we’ve recently seen, unfortunately, there are a lot of other places to look for more likely suspects for (global pandemics). Things that were predicted by a lot of great investigative journalists and epidemiologists, like coronavirus and other zoonotic diseases (which jump from animals to humans), pose a much greater threat to mankind.”

And now, back to the show

Even beyond the fact she’s not into zombies, Quandt says her training as a mycologist can get in the way of her enjoyment of “The Last of Us” as entertainment, based upon the few episodes she has watched.

“I’m probably a little too close to watch the show—especially the fruiting bodies,” she says. “Sometimes they would show a person who is dead up against a wall, and the fruiting structures look life shelf fungi,” she says.

“Those are related to mushrooms—they’re not related to (fungi) that are molds, like Cordyceps. The artistry was beautiful, so they did a good job visually, but it’s just completely inaccurate. So, it does take you out of it a little bit to watch as an expert; you have to really suspend belief.”

Another scene that inspired disbelief for Quandt was a flashback episode—prior to the fungal pandemic—when a mycologist in Jakarta is asked by representatives of the country’s military to provide guidance on how to proceed after a group of workers in a building are found to be infected with early cases of the Cordyceps contagion. After surveying the infected, the mycologist gives the military members a chilling one-word answer: “Bomb!” (As in, bomb the entire country to try to prevent the infection from spreading.)

“My husband was watching the show with me. He paused it there and he’s like, ‘What should they do?’ I was like, ‘Get all the antifungals that you can. Get all the major ones and then get the rare ones—and start pumping these people with IVs, or all the people that you think might be exposed and get going on it.’ But the fact she said ‘bomb!’ I almost found it funny, but I was also like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so dramatic.’ Still, it’s a TV show, and I acknowledge that.”

While Quandt may opt not to watch more episodes of “The Last of Us,” she says if the TV show raises public awareness about fungi—even if the details in the show are not entirely correct—she is all for it.

“I’m happy if it gets people excited about fungi,” she says. “They’re so incredible.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology? Show your support.

91�Թ�� mycologist Alisha Quandt says there’s little reason to fear a fungi-zombie apocalypse like the one imagined in the HBO hit TV series ‘The Last of Us.'

Traditional

White

Top image: HBO

‘Kenough’: Is 'Barbie' more revolutionary for men than women?

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 21:08:55 +0000

‘Kenough’: Is 'Barbie' more revolutionary for men than women? Rachel Sauer Fri, 03/07/2025 - 14:08

Clay Bonnyman Evans

91�Թ�� PhD student’s paper argues that the hit film exemplifies ‘masculinity without patriarchy’ in media

M.G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and co-host of the podcast LA Made: The Barbie Tapes, describes Greta Gerwig’s Oscar Award-winning, box-office behemoth Barbie as “incredibly feminist” and widely perceived as “anti-male.”

Meanwhile, conservative critics rail that the movie is “anti-man” and full of “beta males” in need of a testosterone booster. Conservative British commentator Piers Morgan called it “an assault on not just Ken, but on all men.”

91�Թ�� PhD student Julie Estlick argues that Greta Gerwig's award-winning film Barbie is "a really good film for Ken."

But 91�Թ�� women and gender studies doctoral student Julie Estlick sees things differently. In her recent paper, “Ken’s Best Friend: Masculinities in Barbie,” published in Feminist Theory, she argues that the movie is “a really good film for Ken.”

On first viewing, Estlick noticed a woman nearby having a “very visceral, emotional response” to the now iconic monolog by actor America Ferrera, which begins, “It is literally impossible to be a woman.”

She wasn’t particularly moved by the speech, and walking out of the theater, she realized she didn’t see the movie as a clear-cut icon of feminism.

“I really questioned whether the film was actually about Barbie, and by extension, women, at least in the way people were claiming,” she says.

Once Barbie was available for streaming, Estlick took a closer look and arrived at a heterodox conclusion:

“Barbie is not anti-man; it is pro-man and is not necessarily a revolutionary film for women, at least not as much as it is for men,” she writes in the paper’s abstract. “This is because Barbie espouses non-hegemonic masculinity through cultural critiques that are rare to see in popular media.”

Hegemonic vs. toxic masculinity

For Estlick, “hegemonic masculinity” is a kind of stand-in for the “toxic masculinity” so often featured in media: superheroes, gangsters, vigilantes, killing machines who are also “lady killers.” Always strong, rarely emotional, such men are absurdly impermeable to harm, and sport chiseled features and perfectly sculpted abs, she says. Yet many are also “man children” whose “ultimate prize” is to have sex with a woman.

“That kind of media comes at the expense of women, works against women, and often oppresses women by sexualizing and objectifying them,” Estlick says.

In the film Barbie, the patriarchy ultimately doesn't serve the Kens any more than it does the Barbies, argues 91�Թ�� PhD student Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)

Non-hegemonic masculinity is strong without being oppressive, and supportive and protective of women without regard to any quid pro quo. It allows for men to openly express emotions and vulnerability and to seek help for their mental-health struggles and emotional needs without shame, while retaining their strength, vitality and masculinity.

“It does the opposite of hegemonic masculinity,” Estlick says. “It works alongside women and doesn’t harm them in any way.”

The Kens are first represented in the movie as clueless accessories to the ruling Barbies of Barbie Land. But after Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) and Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) find a portal to our world, Beach Ken returns and establishes a patriarchal society in which women become mindless accessories to hyper-competitive men in the thrall of hegemonic masculinity.

But ultimately, the patriarchy doesn’t serve the Kens any more than the Barbies.

“As people always say, men’s worst enemy under patriarchy isn’t women. It’s other men and their expectations, who are constantly stuffing men into boxes,” Estlick says.

Which isn’t to say that women don’t also enforce strictures of hegemonic masculinity.

“When little boys are taught to suppress emotions, little girls are watching. They are watching their fathers, and fathers onscreen, acting in certain ways,” Estlick says. “Girls internalize toxic ideologies the same ways boys do.”

Allan the exception

In Barbie, there is just one male who stands apart from Kendom: Allan, played by Michael Cera.

“Allan is positioned as queer in the film in that he is othered but not less masculine in the traditional understanding of the word,” Estlick writes. He “deviates from the conventional canon of masculinity” and “uses his masculinity for feminism and to liberate women while also protesting patriarchy.”

Allan doesn’t fit into Kendom, with or without patriarchy. As the narrator (voiced by Helen Mirren) notes, “There are no multiples of Allan; he’s just Allan.”

The character is based on a discontinued Mattel doll released in 1964, intended to be a friend to Ken. Fearing the friendship might be perceived as gay, the company swiftly removed Allan from store shelves, later replacing him with a “family pack” featuring Barbie’s best friend Midge as his wife, and a backstory that the couple had twins.

In the film, non-toxic Allan is immune to patriarchal brainwashing and sides with the Barbies in re-taking Barbie Land.

“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” says researcher Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Right off the bat we see (Allan) as queered from the rest of the Kens and Barbies,” Estlick says.

But Beach Ken, too, eventually senses that he’s not happy in the patriarchal society has created. In one of the movie’s final scenes, a tearfully confused Beach Ken converses with Stereotypical Barbie from a literal ledge:

“You have to figure out who you are without me,” Barbie tells him kindly. “You’re not your girlfriend. You’re not your house, you’re not your mink … You’re not even beach. Maybe all the things that you thought made you aren’t … really you. Maybe it’s Barbie and … it’s Ken.”

In other words, Barbie is rooting for Ken to claim his individuality.

“Beach Ken’s house, clothes, job and girlfriend all represent boxes that society expects men to tick, but this scene illustrates that it is okay to deviate from normative behaviors of masculinity and that manhood is not solely defined through heteronormative bonds and behaviors,” Estlick writes. And “it is acceptable for men to admit to a woman that they need help.”

Barbie is pure, candy-colored fantasy. But in our world, Estlick believes it points the way toward further non-toxic media representations of masculinity and ultimately contribute to better mental health for men trapped in a “man box” — as well as women who have borne the burden of men’s self- and societally imposed strictures on their own humanity.

“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” she concludes. It “(opens) the door to the creation of more media that subverts societal expectations of toxic masculinity.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about women and gender studies? Show your support.

91�Թ�� PhD student’s paper argues that the hit film exemplifies ‘masculinity without patriarchy’ in media.

Traditional

White

Top image: Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s another superhero film!

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:45:54 +0000

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s another superhero film! Rachel Sauer Wed, 02/19/2025 - 13:45

Doug McPherson

Following a blockbuster opening weekend for Captain America: Brave New World, 91�Թ��’s Benjamin Robertson reflects on the appeal of superhero franchises and why they dominate studio release schedules

Captain America continues to conquer obstacles and crush villains―not bad for a man approaching age 85.

The comic book hero made his debut in print in December 1940, then on TV in 1966 and hit the silver screen in 2011―gaining massive momentum along with way. This past Presidents Day weekend, the fourth installment of the superhero series, “Captain America: Brave New World,” hit the top spot at the box office in the United States, and earned $192.4 million around the globe.

Benjamin Robertson, a 91�Թ�� assistant professor of English, notes that superhero franchises are comforting in their repetitiveness.

It’s the fourth-best Presidents Day launch on record, behind three other superhero movies: Black Panther, Deadpool and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

What’s going on here? What’s giving Captain America his muscle? And why do folks keep going back to these same stories, characters and worlds over and over?

Benjamin Robertson, a 91�Թ�� assistant professor of English who specializes in popular culture, film and digital media, says there are two answers: “One, the genre is comforting in its repetitiveness. This is the least interesting answer, however,” he says.

The second answer appears a little more sinister. Robertson says viewers return to these stories because creators make “story worlds that solicit consumers’ attention and that must always grow and that turn increasingly inward.”

He says the first Iron Man film is about America intervening in the Middle East following Sept. 11, but later MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, the franchise behind many superhero movies) films seem less and less about real or historical matters and more about the MCU itself.

“As a colleague once put it, every MCU film is simply the trailer for the next MCU film, the result of a strategy that seeks to create a fandom that can’t escape from the tangled narrative that the franchise tells,” he explains.

In short, Robertson says if consumers want to know the full narrative—the full world that these films and series describe—they have to go to the theater. “As this world becomes about itself rather than about external history or real-world events, a certain ‘lock in’ manifests, making it harder and harder to not see these films if one wants to understand the world they create.”

‘Flatter American identities’

Actor Anthony Mackie plays the titular Captain America in Captain America: Brave New World. (Photo: Marvel Studios)

Another trick is that MCU films tend to “flatter American identities” by celebrating militarism, focusing on charismatic heroes who try to do the right thing unconstrained by historical necessity and suggesting that everything will work out in the end, Robertson says.

“I can see the more comforting aspects of these films having appeal to many consumers. Don’t fear climate change, fear Thanos [a supervillain] and other embodiments of badness,” he says.

As to the question of whether franchises are just growing their worlds and the characters in them, or retelling the same story because it makes money, Robertson says each MCU film is a piece of intellectual property, but an individual film is far less valuable than a world.

“A film might spawn a sequel or sequels, but without developing the world, the sequels will likely be of lesser quality and, eventually, no longer be profitable or not profitable enough to warrant further investment,” Robertson says. “But if producers develop the world into a complex environment that contains numerous characters with distinct and yet intersecting story arcs, well, then you have the foundation for potentially unlimited storytelling and profit in the future.”

He adds that in that context, Captain America has obvious value as an individual character, but he has far more value as part of a world that can develop around him and allow for new actors to play him as he evolves with the world.

So, as the world grows as an intellectual property and in narrative development, "so does the potential for profit, although we may now be seeing the limits of this dynamic as some MCU films have not been doing as well at the box office over the past five years, although there are likely several factors that contribute to this decline.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about English? Show your support.

Following a blockbuster opening weekend for ‘Captain America: Brave New World,’ 91�Թ��’s Benjamin Robertson reflects on the appeal of superhero franchises and why they dominate studio release schedules.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Marvel Studios

How ardently we admire and love 'Pride and Prejudice'

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:16:15 +0000

How ardently we admire and love 'Pride and Prejudice' Rachel Sauer Fri, 02/14/2025 - 10:16

Collette Mace

Are Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy the greatest love story? 91�Թ��’s Grace Rexroth weighs in

What is the greatest love story of all time?

This is a question many like to consider, discuss and debate, especially around Valentine’s Day. Whether you’re more of a romantic at heart or a casual softie, you’ve more than likely heard or expressed the opinion that there is no love story quite like Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Despite being more than 200 years old, something about this classic novel transcends centuries and social changes to remain a text with which many people connect, whether on the screen, stage or in the pages of the novel.

Grace Rexroth, a 91�Թ�� teaching assistant professor of English, notes that Pride and Prejudice has captivated audiences for more than two centuries in part because it appeals to what people—specifically women—have wanted and fantasized about through different eras following its publication.

What makes this love story so memorable and so beloved? Is it truly the greatest love story of all time, or is there something else about it that draws readers in again and again?

According to Grace Rexroth, a teaching assistant professor in the 91�Թ�� Department of English who is currently teaching a global women’s literature course focused on writing about love, the historical context in which Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice is crucial to understanding the novel's inner workings.

The Regency Era was a period of intense revolution and change. There still were very strict social norms surrounding marriage and status, which are evident in the novel, but it’s also important to consider that proto-feminist ideals, such as those expressed by Mary Wollstonecraft, were influencing conversations about the position of women in society, Rexroth notes.

Even at the time of publication, Pride and Prejudice was perceived differently between opposing political groups—more conservative thinkers saw it as a story that still rewarded conservative values, such as humility, beauty (always beauty) and a reserved disposition. Other, more progressive readers saw it as standing up to the status quo.

To this day, readers and scholars often debate whether Austen was writing to criticize or praise Regency Era ideas about women’s autonomy. In The Making of Jane Austen, author Devoney Looser observes, “It sounds impossible, but Jane Austen has been and remains a figure at the vanguard of reinforcing tradition and promoting social change.”

Nuance helps it endure

The fact that Pride and Prejudice lends itself to different interpretations is part of the reason why it’s lived such a long life in the spotlight, Rexroth says. It has managed to appeal to what people—specifically women—have wanted and fantasized about through different eras following its publication.

According to Looser, both film and stage adaptations have highlighted different aspects of the text for different reasons. During its first stage adaptations, for instance, the emphasis was often placed on Elizabeth’s character development. In fact, the most tense and climactic scene in these early performances was often her final confrontation with Lady Catherine De Bourgh, when Elizabeth asserts that she’s going to do what’s best for herself instead of cowering under Lady Catherine’s anger at her engagement to her nephew, Mr. Darcy.

Such scenes emphasize Elizabeth’s assertiveness and self-possession in the face of social pressure. Featuring this scene as the climax of the story is quite different from interpretations that focus on the suppressed erotic tension between Elizabeth and Darcy.

This doesn’t mean that adaptations prioritizing the romantic union didn’t soon follow. In 1935, Helen Jerome flipped the narrative on what Pride and Prejudice meant to a modern audience by casting a young, conventionally attractive man to play Mr. Darcy. Looser refers to this change as the beginning of “the rise of sexy Darcy,” a phenomenon that has continued in the nearly 100 years following this first casting choice.

In many ways, the intentional decision to make Mr. Darcy physically desirable on stage coincided with the rising popularity of the “romantic marriage”—a union founded on love and attraction rather than on status and societal expectations. Before this, Mr. Darcy’s being handsome was just a nice perk to Elizabeth, not a clear driving force for her feelings towards him.

Matthew Macfadyen (left) as Mr. Darcy in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice. Some critics argue that the film over-dramatized the first proposal scene. (Photo: StudioCanal)

From loathing to love

This is not to say there’s no implication of attraction in the original novel, though. There’s something magnetic about Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship from the very beginning, when they profess their distaste for each other as the reigning sentiment between them (though readers can see that Elizabeth really doesn’t seem to mind being insulted by Mr. Darcy until later in the novel). It’s a quintessential “enemies to lovers” narrative, Rexroth says.

In that way, the novel offers a hint of the unruly desires driving many creative decisions in most modern film adaptations—from the famous “wet shirt” scene in the 1995 BBC adaptation with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, to what some critics argue is a highly over-dramatized first proposal scene staged in the rain in the 2005 Keira Knightly version. That sense of tension between Elizabeth and Darcy, unsaid but palpable, is a draw that has reeled in modern audiences to the point of obsession.

Rexroth suggests that part of the novel’s appeal hinges on what can and cannot be expressed in the text: “Because discussions of sex and desire are fairly repressed in the novel, emotional discourse has more free reign, which is often appealing to modern readers who experience a reverse set of tensions in modern life. Modern discourse, while often privileging a more open discussion of sex, often places tension on how and why we express emotion—especially in romantic relationships.”

Modern sexual liberation, especially through the eyes of women, has been an integral part of feminist movements. However, feminism also offers reminders that when the world still is governed by misogynistic ideas about sex—including women as the object and men as more emotionally unattached sexual partners—key aspects of what sex can mean from an anti-misogynist viewpoint are lost.

This, perhaps, is one reason that Pride and Prejudice is so appealing to women battling standards of sexuality centered around patriarchy, and who find themselves longing for something more—a “love ethic,” as author bell hooks called it.

However, is Pride and Prejudice really a perfect example of a "love ethic”? Rexroth also asks her classes to consider the pitfalls of how readers continue to fantasize about Pride and Prejudice, potentially seeing it as a model for modern romantic relationships.

Questions of true autonomy

While Elizabeth exercises her autonomy and free choice by rejecting not one but two men, standing up to Lady Catherine and overall just being a clever and witty heroine, she is still living within a larger society that privileges the status of her husband over her own and sees her value primarily in relation to the ways she circulates on the marriage market.

Jennifer Ehle (in wedding dress) and Colin Firth as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. For many fans, the "perfect ending" with the "perfect man" is part of the story's longstanding appeal. (Photo: BBC)

For that reason, women are never really autonomous, Rexroth says. How can they be, when Elizabeth’s decision to reject a man could potentially ruin her life and the lives of her sisters? Or when her sister Lydia’s decision to run away with Mr. Wickham nearly sends the entire family into ruin? What happens to Elizabeth in a world without Darcy?

This, according to Rexroth, is the danger of looking at Pride and Prejudice uncritically. Though readers and scholars may never know if Austen meant it to be a critical piece about the wider societal implications of the marriage market—although it can be inferred pretty strongly that she did mean it that way, Rexroth says—it does have startling implications towards modern relationships that we tend to find ourselves in.

“Modern discussions of love often focus on the individual, psychological aspects of relationships rather than the larger social networks that structure them,” Rexroth explains. “My students sometimes think that if they just work on themselves, go to the gym and find the right partner, everything will be okay—they’re not always thinking about how our larger social or political context might play a role in their love lives.”

The fantasy of Pride and Prejudice tends to reinforce this idea, she adds. It’s not that the world needs to change—the fantasy is that finding the right man will “change my world.” Such fantasies tend to treat patriarchy as a game women can win if they just play it the right way, Rexroth says. If a woman finds the right man or the right partner, that man will somehow provide the forms of social, economic or political autonomy that might otherwise be lacking in a woman’s life.

Such fantasies sidestep the question of what produces true autonomy—and therefore the capacity to fully participate in a romantic union, she adds.

So, is Pride and Prejudice the ultimate love story? Ardent fans might argue yes—a “perfect ending” with a “perfect man” is the quintessential love story, and who can blame readers for wanting those things? Happy endings are lovely.

Others, however, might still wish that Mr. Darcy had behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about English? Show your support.

Are Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy the greatest love story? 91�Թ��’s Grace Rexroth weighs in.

Traditional

White

Colin Firth (left) and Jennifer Ehle as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice." (Photo: BBC)

Where is today's cool hand Luke?

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 20:08:48 +0000

Where is today's cool hand Luke? Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/24/2025 - 13:08

Rachel Sauer

In honor of what would have been Paul Newman’s 100th birthday, 91�Թ�� film historian Clark Farmer considers whether there still are movie stars

Movies did not invent stars—there were stars of theater, opera and vaudeville well before moving pictures—but movies made them bigger and more brilliant; in some cases, edging close to the incandescence of a supernova.

Consider a star like Paul Newman, who would have turned 100 Jan. 26. Despite being an Oscar winner for The Color of Money in 1987 and a nine-time acting Oscar nominee, he was known perhaps even more for the radiance of his stardom—the ineffable cool, the certain reserve, the style, the beauty, the transcendent charisma that dared viewers to look away.

“There are still actors we like and want to go see, so I’d say there still are movie stars but the idea of them has changed,” says 91�Թ�� film historian Clark Farmer, a teaching assistant professor of cinema studies and moving image arts.

Even now, 17 years after his death in 2008 at age 83, fans still sigh, “They just don’t make stars like that anymore.”

In fact, if you believe the click-bait headlines that show up in newsfeeds every couple of months, the age of the movie star is over. In a 2022 interview with Allure magazine, movie star Jennifer Aniston opined, “There are no more movie stars.” And in Vanity Fair’s 2023 Hollywood issue, star Ana De Armas noted, “The concept of a movie star is someone untouchable you only see onscreen. That mystery is gone.”

Are there really no more movie stars?

“There are still actors we like and want to go see, so I’d say there still are movie stars, but the idea of them has changed,” says 91�Թ�� film historian Clark Farmer, a teaching assistant professor of cinema studies and moving image arts. “I think that sense of larger-than-life glamor is gone, that sense of amazement at seeing these people on the screen.

“When we think of what could be called the golden age of movie stars, they had this aristocratic sheen to them. They carried themselves so well, they were well-dressed, they were larger than life, the channels where we could see them and learn about them were a lot more limited. Today, we see stars a lot more and they’re maybe a little less shiny and not as special in that way.”

Stars are born

In the earliest days of film, around the turn of the 20th century, there weren’t enough regular film performers to be widely recognized by viewers, Farmer says. People were drawn to the movie theater by the novelty of moving pictures rather than to see particular actors. However, around 1908 and with the advent of nickelodeons, film started taking off as a big business and actors started signing longer-term contracts. This meant that audiences started seeing the same faces over and over again.

By 1909, exhibitors were reporting that audiences would ask for the names of actors and would also write to the nascent film companies asking for photographs. “Back then you didn’t have credits, you only had the title of the film and the name of the production company, so people started attaching names to these stars—for example, Maurice Costello was called Dimples.”

As the movie business grew into an industry, and as actors were named in a film’s credits, movie stars were born. In 1915, Charlie Chaplin conflagrated across screens not just in the United States, but internationally, Farmer says.

Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, seen here in a publicity photo for Giant, were two of Hollywood's biggest stars during the studio period. (Photo: Warner Bros.)

“You could say that what was produced in Hollywood was movies, but studios were also actively trying to produce stars—stars were as much a product as the movies,” Farmer says. “There was always this question of could they take someone who had some talent or some looks or skills like dancing or singing, and would they only rise to the level of extra, would they play secondary characters, or would they become stars? Would people see their name and want to come see the movies they were in?

“Stars have this ineffable quality, and studios would have hundreds of people whose job it was just to make stars; there was a whole machinery in place.”

During Hollywood’s studio period, actors would sign contracts with a studio and the studio’s star machinery would get to work: choosing names for the would-be stars, creating fake biographies, planting stories in fan magazines, arranging for dental work and wardrobes and homes and sometimes even relationships.

For as long as it has existed, the creation and existence of movie stars has drawn criticism from those who argue that being a good star is not the same as being a good actor, and that stars who are bigger than the films in which they appear overshadow all the elements of artistry that align in cinema—from screenwriting to cinematography to acting and directing.

“There’s always been a mixture of people who consider film primarily a business and those who consider it primarily art,” Farmer explains. “Film has always been a place for a lot of really creative individuals who weren’t necessarily thinking of the bottom line and wanted to do something more artistic, but they depended on those who thought about it as a business. Those are the people asking, ‘How do you bring people in to see a movie?’ Part of that can be a recognizable genre, it could be a recognizable property—like a familiar book—but then stars are one more hook for an audience member to say, ‘I like Katherine Hepburn, I like her as an actress and as a person, and she’s in this movie so I’ll give it a try.'

“One of the biggest questions in the film industry is, ‘How can we guarantee people will come see our movie?’ And the gamble has been that stardom is part of that equation.”

Evolving stardom

As for the argument that movie stars cheapen the integrity of cinema, “I don’t think they’re bad for film as an art form,” Farmer says. “Audiences have this idea of who this person is as a star or as a performer, which can make storytelling a lot easier. You have this sense of, ‘I know who Humphrey Bogart is and the roles he plays,’ so a lot of the work of creating the character has already been done. You can have a director saying, ‘I want this person in the role because people’s understanding of who this person is will help create the film.’ You can have Frank Capra cast Jimmy Stewart and the work of establishing the character as a lovable nice guy is already done.”

"Faye Dunaway wears a beret in Bonnie and Clyde and beret sales go off the charts. People went to the movies, and they recognized and admired these stars," says 91�Թ�� film historian Clark Farmer. (Photo: Warner Bros.)

As the movie industry evolved away from the studio system, the role of the movie star—and what audiences wanted and expected from stars—also began changing, Farmer says. While there was still room for stars who were good at doing the thing for which they were known—the John Waynes who were excellent at playing the John Wayne character—there also were “chameleon” stars who disappeared into roles and wanted to be known for their talent rather than their hair and makeup.

As film evolved, so did technology and culture, Farmer says. With each year, there were more channels, more outlets, more media to dilute what had been a monoculture of film.

“Before everyone had cable and streaming services and social media, movies were much more of a cultural touchpoint,” Farmer says. “People wanted to dress like Humphrey Bogart or Audrey Hepburn. Faye Dunaway wears a beret in Bonnie and Clyde and beret sales go off the charts. People went to the movies, and they recognized and admired these stars.

“One of the markers of stardom is can an individual actor carry a mediocre film to financial success? Another would be, are there people who have an almost obsessive interest in these stars, to the point of modeling themselves after star? Stars tap into a sort of zeitgeist.”

However, the growth and fragmentation of media have meant that viewers have more avenues to see films and more ways to access stars. Even when A-listers’ social media are clearly curated by an army of publicists and stylists, fans can access them at any time and feel like they know them, Farmer says.

“Movies are just less central to people’s lives than they used to be,” Farmer says. “There are other forms of media that people spend their time on, to the point that younger audiences are as likely to know someone who starred in a movie as someone who’s a social media influencer. But that’s just a different kind of stardom.

“I think the film industry really wants movie stars, but I’m not sure viewers necessarily care all that much. Again, it’s always the question of, if you’re spending millions and millions of dollars on a product and you want a return on that, how can you achieve that without making another superhero movie or another horror movie? The industry wants movie stars and audiences just want to be entertained.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about cinema studies and moving image arts? Show your support.

In honor of what would have been Paul Newman’s 100th birthday, 91�Թ�� film historian Clark Farmer considers whether there still are movie stars.

Traditional

White

That can of beer tastes and lasts better than you think

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 17:48:48 +0000

That can of beer tastes and lasts better than you think Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/24/2025 - 10:48

Doug McPherson

Beer historian and 91�Թ�� Assistant Professor Travis Rupp explains why canned beer, celebrating its 90th anniversary today, has been ‘immensely impactful’ for the industry

“It's Saturday, y'all, here's a plan
I'm gonna throw back a couple …
Until the point where I can't stand
No, nothing picks me up like a beer can.”

From “Beer Can” by Luke Combs

"Cans are the best containers for beer," says beer archaeologist and historian Travis Rupp, a 91�Թ�� teaching assistant professor of classics. (Photo: Travis Rupp)

On Jan. 24, 1935, some shoppers in Virginia were likely scratching their heads and gawking at something they hadn’t seen before―beer in cans―specifically, Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer from the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company. Up until then, beer drinkers had enjoyed their suds in bottles.

Today, canned beer is commonplace, but according to beer archaeologist and historian Travis Rupp, a 91�Թ�� teaching assistant professor of classics, even though canning would prove to be “immensely impactful” for the industry, neither brewers nor consumers cared much for cans initially.

“There were false claims made about metal flavor leaching into canned beverages because the beer was coming in contact with the aluminum,” Rupp says. “Where this may have been the case with early steel or aluminum cans, it wasn’t true for most of the container's history.”

Rupp adds that even as late as 2015, glass bottles were viewed as better containers for beer, given that they were “nicer” for presentation.

Yet today, cans have emerged as the clear winner in the beer game. A Colorado example: MillerCoors Rocky Mountain Metal Container, based near the Coors campus in Golden, now churns out roughly 13 million cans daily.

“Cans are the best containers for beer. They don’t let in sunlight or oxygen, which are both detrimental to beer,” says Rupp. “Bottles let in sunlight. Even brown or amber bottles allow a small percentage of ultraviolet rays through, which can skunk or spoil the beer. Bottles also can leach in oxygen through the cap over time as the seal breaks down. Bottles still have a place for cellaring or aging high gravity barrel-aged beers or sours, but if you want your beer to stay and taste fresh the longest, you opt for cans.”

The case for cans

Over the decades, cans have also helped brewers’ bottom lines: “Cans are far cheaper because they’re much lighter to ship,” Rupp explains. “Freight shipping costs are mostly dictated by weight. This ultimately can result in higher profits for breweries and lower costs for consumers. They’re also far, far cheaper to store, since they require far less space than glass bottles and cartons.”

The first canned beers were Krueger's Cream Ale and Krueger's Finest Beer. (Photo: Brewery Collectibles Club of America)

Long before cans made their debut, Rupp says some breweries tried replacing wooden casks with metal kegs throughout the 19th century, but no protective liner existed to prevent metallic leaching in these containers. “And given the long duration that beer would sit in the metal casks before serving, the flavor would become quite awful. It wasn’t until the 1960s that stainless steel kegs hit the market.”

91�Թ�� that metallic-flavor-leaching debate, Rupp says aluminum can producers now apply a patented protective liner to the inside of their cans to prevent leaching. “If you cut open a can produced by the Ball Corporation [the global packaging giant], you’ll find … a dull grayish-white crosshatched pattern in the can. This is the protective liner, and I assure you no metal flavor is leaching into your beer.”

But for Rupp, perhaps the most impressive technology comes in what’s called the seaming process on cans. The ends (or top) of the can are produced separately. Once the cans are filled, the end is placed on top and goes through a series of rollers and chucks to seam the top of the can.

“This bond is so tight that the sides of the can will fail before the seam does. It’s a really cool advancement in canning technology, as are canning machines in general that work hard to ensure no oxygen ends up in the beer before the cans are sealed. We’ve come a long way from church keys and pull tabs on beer cans.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about classics? Show your support.

Beer historian and 91�Թ�� Assistant Professor Travis Rupp explains why canned beer, celebrating its 90th anniversary today, has been ‘immensely impactful’ for the industry.

Traditional

White

Who lives in a pineapple and announces football games?

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:30:05 +0000

Who lives in a pineapple and announces football games? Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/10/2025 - 08:30

Jared Bahir Browsh

The success of simulcasts means that fans can expect to see more creative takes on traditional sports, including SpongeBob SquarePants calling Saturday’s NFL Wild Card game

As the final seconds of Super Bowl LVIII ticked off, according to social media, the biggest star was not MVP Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce or even Taylor Swift; it was a sea sponge and his starfish best friend. The Nickelodeon alternate broadcast of the Super Bowl starring SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star as commentators was a huge hit, with on-field graphics and animations featuring Nickelodeon stars and, of course, slime.

This was not the first time a media conglomerate aired or streamed a simulcast as a companion to its main broadcast to attract more fans. ESPN’s first basic simulcast was in 1987 after the network gained partial rights to the NFL—the first cable network to air the NFL—agreeing to simulcast the game on local networks of the competing teams. When ESPN2 launched in October 1993, it offered a second ESPN network to sports fans and within a year ran its first alternative broadcast, bringing in-car views to IndyCar fans as a companion to the main broadcast on ESPN.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the 91�Թ�� Department of Ethnic Studies.

In 2006, the network created “ESPN Full Circle,” later renamed the Megacast, leveraging the popular basketball rivalry between Duke University and the University of North Carolina to offer local broadcasts and alternative camera views for the game. The previous year, ESPN had launched its college-focused ESPNU and ESPN360, its broadband broadcast service, and used these newer platforms along with its existing networks to offer eight different ways to watch the game.

ESPN offered statistics and other data on its high-definition networks, which were still separate from the standard-definition networks, and even offered polling through ESPN mobile before social media exploded.

These simulcasts and “Megacasts” aimed to give dedicated fans a more in-depth look at the game or event that was being broadcast. At the same time, leagues and sports broadcasters were looking for different ways to attract young and casual fans who enjoyed sports but were not the obsessive fans at which these Megacasts were targeted.

Courting younger fans

For a long time, leagues took young fans for granted, relying on parental, peer and geographic influence to produce new fans. In today's expanding media environment, young and casual fans have infinite options for entertainment, so leagues and their broadcasting partners have had to strategize new ways to attract new audiences.

One of these efforts debuted in 1973: Peter Puck, an anthropomorphic hockey puck created by NBC executive Donald Carswell and animated by Hanna Barbera. NBC had just obtained the rights to the NHL, which was struggling to grow its audience in the United States. Carswell thought Peter would be a great way to teach U.S. audiences the rules of professional hockey through three-minute shorts between periods. Although NBC stopped airing the NHL in 1975, Peter’s legacy lives on more than 50 years later.

The 1980s brought a sea change for sports as cable and improved marketing began to create the enormous sports media environment we experience today. As networks competed for viewers, sports became a reliable form of entertainment to attract audiences who had more choices than ever. As football continued to dominate the sports landscape, buffered by the 1984 Supreme Court decision to allow college football broadcasting to expand beyond the control of the NCAA, other leagues strategized to draw fans to television, stadiums and arenas.

Throughout the 1970s, teams had built larger stadiums and debuted mascots like the Phillie Phanatic to entertain fans. The following decade, as the NBA struggled to find a broadcaster to air its championship games live, David Stern—who took over the league as commissioner in 1984—“Disneyfied” the NBA experience, making attending games more family friendly with more timeout and halftime entertainment.

It just so happened that same year that the most marketable athlete of all time came into the league. Michael Jordan was not only a boon for adult basketball fans, but also kids who wanted to “Be like Mike.” In 1992, Jordan co-starred with Bugs Bunny in the Nike advertising campaign “Hare Jordan.” He retired the next year to play baseball before returning to the NBA in March 1995. The following summer, Bugs and Jordan reunited to film Space Jam, which grossed more than a quarter of a billion dollars after it premiered early into the NBA season in November 1996.

Announcers Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson with SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star announcing Super Bowl LVIII. (Screenshot: Nickelodeon/YouTube)

As a part of this effort to draw new fans, leagues also produced shows aimed at younger fans like “The Baseball Bunch,” which debuted in 1980 and featured MLB players and managers teaching baseball fundamentals. Ten years later, “NBA Inside Stuff” premiered on NBC’s Saturday morning schedule, joining a growing sports media industry aimed at kids that included publications like Sports Illustrated for Kids and video games like the Madden, FIFA and NBA 2k series, among the most popular video game series of all time.

Primetime slimetime

The consolidation of the U.S. media system throughout the 1980s and 1990s led to massive media conglomerates. Unsurprisingly, NBC held the network broadcast rights for the NBA when “NBA Inside Stuff” aired. As broadcast and cable networks came under the same corporate umbrella as film and animation studios, new opportunities for cross promotion emerged. Disney bought ESPN and opened the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, named after the anthology series that aired under one of their other subsidiaries, ABC, from 1961 until 1997 . Disney also founded an NHL team, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, in 1993—named after the popular 1992 kids hockey movie—and in 1996 debuted “Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series” on ABC, which featured anthropomorphic hockey playing superhero ducks.

The success of Space Jam and the continued media conglomeration strengthened the relationship between animation and sports. NASCAR rights holder FOX debuted “NASCAR Racers,” an animated action series featuring NASCAR branding, a day before the 1999 race season finale. Cartoon Network aired the marathon “NBA All-Star Slam” in 2003, featuring interstitial interviews with NBA players in the lead-up to the All-Star Game, which aired the evening of the game on TNT (both networks were owned by Warner subsidiary Turner).

In 2016, LeBron James appeared on the Cartoon Network series “Teen Titans Go!” the same night as a TNT basketball doubleheader and a few days before the All-Star Game. Later, the Teen Titans offered commentary of the 2023 NBA Slam Dunk Contest in the lead-up to the NBA All-Star Game airing on TNT.

Although these series and specials expanded the visibility of league branding and special events, the engagement with actual games was limited. When Viacom and CBS merged again in 2019, after splitting 14 years earlier, they began strengthening the relationship between former Viacom network Nickelodeon and broadcast network CBS. They began featuring Nickelodeon content on CBS All-Access, now Paramount+, and in 2021 Nickelodeon aired an NFL simulcast of the Wild Card playoff game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints featuring Nickelodeon live-action and animated stars joining the real-time NFL broadcast with alternate announcers Nate Burleson and Noah Eagle. Current Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton, then the coach of the Saints, volunteered to be slimed, similar to the traditional Gatorade shower.

Current Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton, then the coach of the New Orleans Saints, gets "slimed" after a 2020 Wild Card win against the Chicago Bears. (Screenshot: Nickelodeon/YouTube)

The following season, “NFL Slimetime” premiered on Nickelodeon, a highlight show hosted by Burleson that strengthened the relationship between the NFL and Nickelodeon. This relationship exploded during last years’ Super Bowl as the Nickelodeon simulcast on the cable network and Paramount+ was credited for a growth in game viewership, especially among younger and casual fans who appreciated the irreverent approach to the game.

A pineapple under the arena

As media conglomerates continue to leverage sports rights to attract audiences and increase subscriptions to their streaming services, they have also leaned into the popularity—and meme-making possibilities—of these simulcasts. Several months after the Nickelodeon simulcast of the Wild Card Playoff, Disney leveraged its Marvel Cinematic Universe to produce a simulcast, “Marvel Arena of Heroes,” on ESPN2 and its streaming service, which was similar to the Wild Card game on Nickelodeon and featured special graphics and superhero-themed content related to the real-time NBA games between the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans. ESPN and Genius Sports, the company behind augmented games like the Arena of Heroes simulcast, extended their contract in the summer of 2024.

In 2023, Disney aired its own fully animated simulcasts with the “Big City Greens Classic” NHL broadcast in March and the “Sunday Funday” Toy Story-themed NFL game in September. Both regular-season games included a rendering of the real-time broadcasts featuring stars from its animated franchises. Disney followed this up in December 2024 with another “Sunday Funday” featuring “The Simpsons” and the Christmas Day “Dunk the Halls” animated simulcast featuring classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. In between these two games, NBC’s Peacock service offered an alternate stream of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans featuring graphics from the popular video game series Madden.

As SpongeBob and Patrick prepare to announce the Nickelodeon simulcast of the 2025 NFL Wild Card game between the Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers Saturday, fans should be prepared for more of these simulcasts as networks and streaming services try to market these games to young and casual fans, boosted by social media memes like Patrick roasting the starting quarterback and Lisa Simpsons scoring a touchdown against Homer.

Jared Bahir Browsh is an assistant teaching professor of critical sports studies in the 91�Թ�� Department of Ethnic Studies.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about critical sports studies? Show your support.

The success of simulcasts means that fans can expect to see more creative takes on traditional sports, including SpongeBob SquarePants calling Saturday’s NFL Wild Card game.

Traditional

White

popular culture

What’s more hardcore than history?

Related Articles

We still need a bigger boat

Are sharks really as scary as their reputation?

Related Articles

Recognizing a century of boats against the current

Related Articles

Don’t fear the fungi

Related Articles

‘Kenough’: Is 'Barbie' more revolutionary for men than women?

Related Articles

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s another superhero film!

Related Articles

How ardently we admire and love 'Pride and Prejudice'

Related Articles

Where is today's cool hand Luke?

Related Articles

That can of beer tastes and lasts better than you think

Related Articles

Who lives in a pineapple and announces football games?

Related Articles