Culture Gabfest - Heads Are Gonna Roll
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2021
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Stephen Metcalf and Dana Stevens are joined by Working co-host and longtime Slate contributor Isaac Butler. First, the panel discusses David Lowery’s new movie The Green Knight, a retelling of the medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Next, they talk about Billie Eilish’s new album Happier Than Ever with Slate music critic Carl Wilson. Finally, the hosts dig into the questions raised by Scarlett Johansson’s breach-of-contract lawsuit over the way Disney handled the release of her movie Black Widow, with Peter Labuza, a historian of creative industries. In Slate Plus, the careers the hosts almost pursued.
Outro music is "Pike Place Market" by Rockin' For Decades
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews.
Endorsements
Dana: The word maieutic
Isaac: The audiobooks of Simon Armitage’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, narrated by Bill Wallis, and The Death of Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, narrated by Philip Madoc
Steve: Picture, by Lillian Ross and Crash Landing on You on Netflix
Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen McHaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest. |
| 0:13.2 | Heads are going to roll edition. |
| 0:14.8 | It's Wednesday, August 4th, 2021. |
| 0:17.7 | On today's show, The Green Night, it sounds like a Marvel movie, but its IP derives from |
| 0:22.4 | the 14th century, this new and very trippy take on the ancient chivalric epic stars Dev Patel |
| 0:28.5 | as a knight, maybe a knight, and he doesn't exactly love the term, but he's in search of, |
| 0:34.4 | dot, dot, dot, question mark, question mark, uh, himself, I think. Dana will tell us. And then |
| 0:39.5 | Billy Elish has a new record, happier than ever. It's a downbeat take on celebrity, love, public |
| 0:44.8 | shaming, cancel culture. It's great in my estimation. And we will discuss it with Slate's own |
| 0:50.0 | Carl Wilson. And finally, the Black Widow was meant to be a blockbuster, but also a kind of a |
| 0:55.1 | mens. Scarlett Johansson would star in and carry a Marvel movie. Disney would make a ton of money. |
| 1:00.9 | Fanboys and feminists rejoice. So why is Scarjo now suing Disney? We discussed the latest chapter in |
| 1:07.2 | the streaming wars with legal historian Peter Labusa. Joining me today is ICFOP, Isaac, |
| 1:13.4 | what's an ICFOP? Hi, Stephen. First of all, great to be here. And second of all, I have no |
| 1:19.6 | idea. What is an ICFOP? You tell me. It's an inner circle friend of the program. Oh, nice. Great, |
| 1:26.1 | great. That's awesome. That's awesome. I look forward to being a hyrophant friend of the program in the future. An H-Fop. That's very foppy. Hyrophant is an extremely foppy word, Isaac. Wait a minute. I consider myself a vocabulary nerd, but I have no idea what hyrophant is. So I'm presuming some listeners don't either. What does that mean? It's like when you're a sycophant and then you get a promotion. Isaac? Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. I was trying to look up the technical definition here. Using words you have to global the definition of. Jeez, geez, geez, geez. I know, I just want to, don't want to get it exactly right. |
| 2:02.4 | A person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy. |
| 2:11.2 | So perfectly apt choice of words. |
| 2:15.5 | I should also say you are co-host of the working podcast from Slate, |
| 2:19.6 | but Isaac also you, I should say you've got a forthcoming book about method acting called |
| 2:22.9 | The Method. We play a little game here also. What's your subtitle? I'm very proud of this subtitle |
| 2:28.1 | because I actually wrote it myself, and it is how the 20th century learned to act. I love it. Oh my gosh. And what's your pub date? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.