Contact
Unclear and Present Danger
Jamelle Bouie
4.7 • 660 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2025
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Contact, the 1997 science-fiction drama directed by Robert Zemeckis. Based on the book by Carl Sagan, Contact stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Ellie Arroway, a SETI scientist who discovers extraterrestrial life and is eventually chosen to make first contact with the alien life. Foster is joined by a stacked cast of character actors, including Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hunt, Rob Lowe and Angela Bassett.
In their conversation, Jamelle and John discuss the distinctly neoliberal politics of the film as well as the extent to which Contact is a prominent example of the “end of history” utopianism that marked political and cultural life as the 1990s came to a close.
You can find Contact to rent or purchase on Amazon or Apple TV.
For the next episode of the podcast, Jamelle and John will watch Air Force One, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Harrison Ford as the president who punches. And don’t forget the Patreon, where they watch the political and military thrillers of the Cold War and talk about the politics of those decades! On the most recent episode of the Patreon, Jamelle and John watched the 1970 political drama WUSA. You can listen to that and more at patreon.com/unclearpod.
Our producer is Connor Lynch and our artwork is by Rachel Eck.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The message contains instructions. |
| 0:03.0 | Ten, nine. |
| 0:04.0 | We're building some kind of a transport. |
| 0:06.0 | Eight, seven. |
| 0:09.0 | From the Pulitzer Prize winning author, |
| 0:11.0 | Six, and the Academy Award-winning director of Forrest Gump. |
| 0:15.0 | When you come back, everybody that you care about, be gone. |
| 0:18.0 | A journey into the heart of the universe. |
| 0:21.2 | Three. |
| 0:21.7 | Joey Foster. |
| 0:22.6 | Two. |
| 0:22.9 | Matthew McConaughey. |
| 0:23.9 | We are not alone. |
| 0:26.1 | Contact, read it at PG. |
| 0:27.6 | Sneak preview July 5th. |
| 0:28.8 | Opens July 11th. |
| 0:29.7 | The first. The |
| 0:40.3 | The Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. |
| 1:08.8 | I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the substack newsletter on Popular Front. I'm very soon going to be a columnist at the nation. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much. Maybe my first column will be out by the time listeners hear this. I'm not sure yet. But yeah, I'm going to have a monthly column at the nation. And I'm the author of the book, When the Clock Broke, Conmen, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the early 1990s. Oh, that's so great. I'm really glad to hear that. Oh, thanks. I mean, this is a weird thing to ask on air, but who cares? Who's your editor? Well, so far, it's Don Guttenplan, the editor-in-chief. |
| 1:47.6 | I think he might pass me up, pass me over to another editor, |
| 1:51.3 | but that's who I'm starting with. |
| 1:53.2 | Cool, cool. |
... |
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