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Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, filling in for Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest.

I guess we should ask you for money edition. It's Wednesday, March 6, 2013. On today's show,

the writer Mark Harris comes in to talk to us about his GQ piece on the definition of a real movie star.

Then we'll talk about Amanda Palmer's TED Talk, which has gone viral, about crowdfunding music. And finally, the PBS documentary, Makers, which is about feminism in the 20th and early 21st century. But before we get into the meat of today's show, a lot of you have been writing into the Facebook page asking what's up with Julia. She was phoning in remotely to the show for a while, and she's been gone for the last couple weeks.

Well, I've now been authorized to officially announce that on February 25th, Julia became the mother of twin boys. She didn't want to announce this in advance on the show that she was expecting twins because multiple pregnancies can be risky, and she wanted to make sure everything came out all right. But now that everything has come out all right, the truth can be told, and we're very, very happy to welcome Julia's twin boys. So Julia will be on leave for the next few months with her new babies, but she can't wait to come back on the show, and she sends you all her best. As for Steve, he's just plain out sick this week, no secret pregnancies for him, and we look forward to welcoming him back next week. So in the absence of Julia and Steve, I find myself hosting the show,

and I'm joined this week by Slate staff writer Forrest Wickman. Hey, Dana. Nice to have you. And our beloved David Hagland, editor of Slate's Browbeat blog. Thanks, Dana. Good to be here. Actually, both of you are on Brow Beat. So Browbeat is just held up while you sit in here and talk to me about culture.

God knows what's happening on the blog right now.

So we'll start off by welcoming Mark Harris. Actually, both of you are on Browbeat. So Browbeat is just held up while you said in here and talked to me about culture.

God knows what's happening on the blog right now.

So we'll start off by welcoming Mark Harris, who's a freelance writer who's just published a big piece in GQ called the New and Improved Leading Man. That's sort of about the fate of male movie stars in today's Hollywood. Mark, this was a really interesting piece. we're really happy you could come in and talk about it.

I have a bunch of questions.

I wanted to ask you first to just sort of provide a little pracy of your argument, particularly the way that you frame it. You start off framing it with these two arguably, well male actors. We won't call them both movie stars, but Taylor Kitch is one and Channing Tatum is the other. And you say that both men started off last year, 2012, sort of well positioned to become a movie star, but not quite there yet.

Right. I used these guys as sort of test cases for how you become a movie star because they felt like a good parallel to me.

They're both in their early 30s. They both had a bunch of chances last year that were sort of similar.

Taylor Kitch had two big, at the time, potential franchises, now definitely not franchises, Battleship and John Carter, and also an Oliver Stone movie. And Channing Tatum also

...