Pop DNA

We're getting further down the vampire funnel into allegory and metaphor--what do vampires MEEEEEAAANN??? We start with some historical medical cases that give insight into what people in the past thought of vampires, with the case of Mercy Brown, and an explainer on the vampire-adjacent Chinese mythological creature the Jiangshi. We also look at a few of our favorite (or at least most foundat...

Stake it or leave it, this is our summer series! We decided to spend our summer deep diving into vampire lore and the ever evolving role of the undead in popular fiction. In our first installment, we define our terms and talk a little about the folklore origins of vampire stories. We also take a quick look at vampires in popular fiction, highlighting a few works and broader trends that we will del...

Pop DNA scored an exclusive early interview with up-and-coming debut author Rhonda Watts for an intimate, no-holds-barred interview. Rhonda's debut cozy fantasy book, Spells & Sensibility, is currently on submission, so no spoilers or big news yet, but she wanted to talk about it with her friend Erin, and we recorded the conversation. We talk about Rhonda's writing process, how she got...

Rhonda is still in her Medievalist Era and making it everyone's problem, and Erin just wants to talk about some creatures, so you could say this is a typical Pop DNA episode. We continue our exploration of LOTR's relationship to medievalism in pop culture with a look at the beloved Medieval Y2K moment, exemplified in movies like A Knight's Tale, Ella Enchanted, Shrek, and of course the...

The Medieval Revival of the 1960s and '70s coincided and communicated closely with the LOTR books' surge in popularity at that time. Hippies and other sects of 1960s counterculture adopted the Shire and the Hobbits as their own, and produced expressions of art and culture that Tolkien was really kind of a curmudgeon about. In this episode we explore how medievalism (or MODievalism) permeat...

This episode is all about how the Victorian era's culture and politics shaped J. R. R. Tolkien and, by extension, the world of Middle Earth. We start with a look at the Grotesque vs. the Romantic Middle Ages as defined by medievalist David Matthews, and how each approach was at play in the late 19th century Medieval Revival. We use Matthews' work as a framework for analyzing the medievalis...

Remember when we tried to have a comprehensive discussion of The Lord of the Rings in one 55-minute episode? Turns out there's a lot more to it. In this introduction to our LOTR (Revisited) series, we take a quiz to find out which characters we are, get on a soapbox about how adaptations and their respective source materials are two separate entities, then highlight a few of the topics we plan...

It's that time of year again! We came back from our long hiatus to talk about our favorite TV and movies of 2025, plus a few books, and a few things that were NOT our favorite. First we had to spend a good chunk of time talking about all our feelings on Wicked: For Good, or should we call it... Wicked: For Bad... We also talked about the different common themes or through lines we noticed in t...

Wicked: For Good has officially been released into the world! To celebrate, we are regifting one of our episodes on The Wizard of Oz in which we discussed Wicked. We talked about other adaptations of the 1900 novel, as well, including the 1939 film and the musical The Wiz, focusing on how each new iteration of the story traced shifting ideas in American culture and politics. #thewizardofoz #wicked...

We are finally done talking about Sex and the City! We conclude our discussion with an examination of Miranda and Charlotte as foils of one another, and through the lens of archetypes rather than fully developed characters, branching off from our talk last episode about the theory of the three other women as facets of Carrie. This leads to the most interesting part of the entire series, where we d...

This episode's title comes from the 1626 play by English dramatist John Ford, because we are very smart. And turns out, it kinda fits for discussing SATC's apparent attitude toward Samantha Jones. We dive into Sam's key romantic relationships to explore how her attitude toward sex and dating was contrasted with that of the other three women, and what that says about how the show viewed...

Is Sex and the City a feminist text? That's the question we sort of attempt to answer in this episode, but ultimately we find it more interesting to talk about Sabrina Carpenter's 2025 album Man's Best Friend and the 2009 romcom film He's Just Not That Into You starring Ginnifer Goodwin. Our rambles meander through discussions of how male characters are written on SATC, and how the...

Heads' up that we had several forms of technical difficulties with recording this episode, so apologies in advance for any subpar sound quality! Are we ever ready to talk about Sex and the City? Unclear, but we're going to. In part 1 of our SATC series, we discuss some general thoughts on the HBO show, its origins, and its cultural impact. We also talk about our first experiences with the...

Welcome to our slightly unhinged summer series, Millennial Falcon! This three-part series is all about the fandoms we've never felt like we were truly a part of until the past few years, our Millennial Falcons, if you will. For Rhonda, that's romance novels, and for Erin it's Star Wars. In our introductory episode, we discuss our histories with our respective Millennial Falcons, why we...

In the finale of our The Office series and of our regular season, we look at the show's ties to popular media that came both before and after. Erin did a deep dive into the history of the mockumentary, and you won't believe what the first one was! We also discuss some well-known mockumentary films, like This is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, and works that use mockumentary elements, such as...

In part four of our discussion of The Office, we dive in to the various romance storylines the show featured, and how we feel about them! From the classic sitcom "will-they-or-won't-they" tension between Jim and Pam, to Michael and Holly's second chance romance, to the hilariously toxic relationship between Kelly and Ryan, there's a little something for everyone. (Erin's...

“Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it's not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised.” –Michael Scott Likeability plays a huge role in how characters on The Office relate to one another, and how we as the audience perceive them. Discuss! This episode also features our second Finer Things Club meeting...

Despite its undercurrent of warmth and optimism, The Office (US) went to some pretty dystopian places in its explorations of the workplace--which were really just reflections of the boring dystopia of our reality. In this episode, we look at how The Office fits within the context of Workplace Dystopian media, works such as Superstore, Office Space, Sorry to Bother You, and Silicon Valley. We also...

If you've ever listened to us trade The Office references on the pod and thought, "why don't they just talk about The Office already?" this new series is for you! In your orientation packet, you'll find an overview of our thoughts on the American series in comparison with the original British version, and a quiz to discover which characters we are. We also go over a preview of the topics we plan t...

Our yearly tradition of discussing our favorite movies and TV, plus a little music and books, is back! We had every intention of talking about Wickiator/Glicked, but there's really no story there. There's Wicked, which we talked about for far longer than we intended because we had so many thoughts, and then there's Gladiator, which... was a movie. We also talked about some common themes we noticed...

Check your Christmas ornaments, there might be important documents inside! Please enjoy this regifted episode from 2019 about the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, specifically A Christmas Prince. ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Honestly, this episode was a long time coming. A Christmas Prince is rich in cultural influences, from the lives and loves of historical real-life royals, to classic fairy tales...

We have another regifted episode for you this week! We couldn't choose between our two Narnia episodes, so we're regifting both! This episode from December of 2022 touches on gender and violence, and how children experience fear and danger in fantasy worlds, all themes we explored in our A Song of Ice and Fire discussions. This one is perfect for if you want to dive a little deeper into another pe...

Happy December! We are taking a much-needed break to enjoy the holiday season, but thought we'd take the opportunity to revisit some of our previous episodes this month. It's Regifting Time! This episode from our Chronicles of Narnia series in December of 2022 explores the topics of magic, magic systems, and prophecy in fantasy fiction and Narnia's relationship with other fantasy classics. It's a...

Why do so many fantasy stories center on the protagonist fulfilling a "Chosen One" prophecy? We don't really answer that this week, but we do talk about the undercurrent of prophecy in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, the "Song of Ice and Fire" that this universe is named for. We also look briefly at how specifically Chosen One prophecies are present in many of our favorite fantasy works,...

In Westeros, when you're here, you're family. Oh, wait, that's The Olive Garden. But we're talking about families this week, and, like most things in Westeros, being part of a family is generally not a great time for anyone in this world. Certainly not as fun as having dinner at The Olive Garden. We look specifically at the Targaryen family and some possible historical inspirations for this mythic...