A Yellowjackets creator spills his guts

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vox's Constance Grady talks with Bart Nickerson, the co-creator of new TV show Yellowjackets, which airs on Showtime. Yellowjackets follows a girls' soccer team, stranded in the Canadian wilderness in 1996 as teenagers — and also the present-day middle-aged women that some of the survivors become. Bart and Constance discuss the role of trauma on television, the process of crafting characters across two timelines, and why the struggle for survival (and cannibalism) fits a story about adolescence. Host: Constance Grady (@constancegrady), staff writer, Vox Guests: Bart Nickerson, co-creator (with Ashley Lyle) of Yellowjackets on Showtime References: "The Case Against the Trauma Plot" by Parul Sehgal (New Yorker; Dec. 27, 2021) "Too many movies right now are 'about trauma.' The Matrix Resurrections actually does the work," by Emily VanDerWerff (Vox; Dec. 24, 2021) "Yellowjackets is prestige Pretty Little Liars. Hear me out," by Constance Grady (Vox; Jan. 7) "Yellowjackets brilliantly mixes teen angst, cannibalism, and midlife crises — with major Lost vibes" by Emily VanDerWerff (Vox; Nov. 12, 2021) "The slippery genius of the Cinderella story" by Constance Grady (Vox; June 5, 2019) "'Yellowjackets' Leans In to Savagery" by Alexis Soloski (New York Times; Nov. 12, 2021) Enjoyed this episode? Rate Vox Conversations ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of Vox Conversations by subscribing in your favorite podcast app. Support Vox Conversations by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Paul Robert Mounsey Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:53.0	Is a Gory TV show about teen girls stranded in the wild? Really the best way to talk about trauma?
1:07.0	I'm Constance Grady, and I write about culture for Vox, and this week I'm your host for Vox Conversations.
1:25.0	Lately, it seems like people who make pop culture are all telling us that their stories are really about the same thing.
1:34.0	It's what. One division is really all about.
1:37.0	What makes you think that talking about it would bring me comfort?
1:42.0	And Ted Lasso?
1:44.0	I knew right now that I was never going to let anybody get by without understanding, they might be hurting inside.
1:49.0	Even the new Halloween movies.
1:51.0	You can't close your eyes and pretend you isn't there.
1:55.0	It's become very cool lately to say that your new superhero movie or horror franchise or wholesome sitcom is all about trauma.
2:08.0	And we're also in the middle of a backlash to that movement.
2:15.0	Part of my job is to follow the conversations people are having about storytelling, and lately the trauma conversation has been a big one.
2:24.0	At the New Yorker, the literary critic Carl Sagan wrote the case against the trauma plot.
2:30.0	She argued that today's storytellers have turned trauma into a cliché, into something weak and flattening.
	...

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