Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to What Went Wrong,

your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies

and how it is nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one.

In advance of Monday's coverage of Starship Troopers, we've put together an exploration of

bugs.

How did these minuscule, indispensable workhorses of our ecosystems become such a font of fear on

screen?

And what do those fears reveal about ourselves?

That and more coming up now with bugs.

I loved bugs.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, in an older home damp and inviting,

there was no shortage of critters to capture and observe.

From spiders in the sink to potato bugs on the porch,

I found our arthropod neighbors endlessly fascinating.

Until I didn't.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment it took place,

but a metamorphosis occurred at some point

between adolescence and adulthood, and from a cocoon of wonder birthed, entomophobia, an intense

and irrational fear of insects. My case is mild. I'll happily ferry our homes, insectile invaders, back outside via covered glass.

But it's not unique, at least not in the United States.

And it's hardly a generous reaction, given the heavy lifting said unwelcome guests due for our world.

But were we always this way?

...