Culture Gabfest - Sound of Marvel
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2021
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Stephen, Dana, and Julia take a look at Sound of Metal, the debut movie from writer/director Darius Marder, about a heavy metal drummer who loses his hearing. Then they discuss WandaVision, the new Marvel TV show that's loaded with references to classic TV sitcoms. After that they dive into the world of TikTok sea shanties and theorize about why the craze caught on.
In Slate Plus, the hosts talk about vice president Kamala Harris' recent Vogue cover and the debate surrounding it.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Rachael Allen.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Metcalf and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest, Sound of Marvel edition. |
| 0:14.3 | It's Wednesday, January 20th, 2021. On today's show, The Sound of Metal stars Riz Ahmed as a punk metal drummer who suddenly |
| 0:22.4 | loses his hearing and must remake himself almost from scratch. It also stars Olivia Cook |
| 0:28.2 | and it's streaming on Amazon. And then, what do you get when you crossbreed the Marvel |
| 0:33.3 | Cinematic Universe with Nick at Night, the wildly retro and meta show Wanda Vision. |
| 0:38.4 | It's now on Disney Plus. |
| 0:40.3 | That one stars Elizabeth Olson as Wanda and Paul Bettney as Vision. |
| 0:45.0 | And finally, we only think society is degenerating into epistemically distinct and warring tribes. |
| 0:51.8 | In fact, we are all one happy family, and this has been brought |
| 0:55.6 | home to us finally by something called Sea Shanty TikTok. Joining me today is Julia Turner, the deputy |
| 1:02.2 | managing editor of the LA Times. Hey, Julia. Hello, hello. And of course, Dana Stevens, |
| 1:07.9 | who's the film critic for Slate. Hey, Dana. Hey, Steve. All right, we got good topics. We ready? We're going to dig in here? |
| 1:14.2 | Ready. In the sound of metal, Riz Ahmed plays Rubin. He's a drummer, a punk metal drummer, in a two-person band featuring his girlfriend on guitar and vocals. |
| 1:24.5 | The two live and work together in a kind of Eden, at least as the movie opens. They |
| 1:28.5 | gig together at night. They hit the road during the day in their airstream. They've got a loyal |
| 1:33.0 | following. They may not be famous, but they're making it work. And then one day out of nowhere, |
| 1:37.4 | Rubin loses his hearing. It's obviously a nightmare for him. It sends him into a spiral of |
| 1:42.2 | loss and denial. He ends up in a rural community |
| 1:45.1 | for deaf people who are recovering from addiction. He himself struggled with heroin and is now |
| 1:50.3 | clean. The movie is about learning to live with this loss. When we enter into Ruben's new soundscape, |
| 1:56.4 | it's the first feature from a writer and director, Darius Martyr. In the clip we're about to hear Rubin, played by Riz Ahmed, is with his girlfriend. |
| 2:07.0 | And she phones up his addiction counselor, his sponsor, in order to help him work through what he's experiencing. |
... |
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