The following podcast contains explicit language.

I'm Stephen McHaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest. Your Boundary is my trigger

edition. It's Wednesday, October 9th, 2019. On today's show, Joker is the Batman

prequel, Supervillain Origin Story of Your Dreams or Nightmares, Who Can Tell? This wild

artifact was directed and co-written by Todd Phillips and the stars in emaciated Joaquin Phoenix

and the title character, of course. And then, when Jeffrey Tambor was canceled for his behavior,

both on and off set, it meant that his creation,

great creation, Mora Pfefferman, was for all intents and purposes dead.

What would happen then did the TV show Transparent?

Well, now we know.

We discuss its two-hour musical finale.

And finally, Wesley Morris was shaping up to be one of the great critics of his generation.

And then he admitted that he loves Gwyneth Paltrow.

We discussed this very odd choice with Wesley Morris himself, friend of the program.

Maybe we'll be able to refrock him.

Who knows?

I'm joined, of course, by Julia Turner, who is the deputy managing editor at the LA Times.

Julia, hey, how's it going? It's going well. Yeah, good. And Dana Stevens, of course, is the film

critic for Slate magazine. Hey, Dana. Bonjour. I've scarcely been more excited to talk about

three topics than this week, So I've just jinxed

the show. Let's see what we can do with that. Also, we have a favor to ask. Our partner is

conducting a survey and would be grateful for your help in answering a few questions. It will

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