Culture Gabfest - What Even Is Garfield?
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 June 2024
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s show, the hosts begin by asking the question: What even is Garfield? Jim Davis’ overfed, Monday-hating (even though he’s jobless) cultural figure first appeared in comic strips in the late 1970s, and since then, has been surprisingly resilient, most recently conquering the summer box-office with The Garfield Movie. But who is Garfield, and more perhaps more importantly, why is he a thing? To answer these questions, each host watched (or endured) a different Garfield entity, including Garfield: The Movie (2004), Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006), and the latest film starring Chris Pratt as the titular cat. Then, the three discuss suspense and its nature in relation to fiction, inspired by Kathryn Schulz’s essay for The New Yorker, “The Secrets of Suspense.” It’s a curious, fantastic essay that questions the human impulse to know what happens next. Finally, it’s a visit from the Gabfest’s oldest and closest Friend of the Pod, June Thomas, who speaks with the panel about her essential new book, A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture.
In the exclusive slate Plus segment, the hosts answer a listener question from Evana: “What is a cultural reference that really bugs Steve/Julia/Dana when they see/hear it being misused or misinterpreted?”
We’re taking submissions for Summer Strut 2024! Send up to three songs that you find particularly strut-worthy to culturefest@slate.com.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Endorsements:
Dana: A wonderful documentary on Apple TV+, From Caligari to Hitler: German Cinema in the Age of the Masses.
Julia: Koeze’s Cream-Nut All-Natural Peanut Butter (with no added sugar!)
Stephen: The musical stylings of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Read a profile on the duo: “How Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Held Onto Optimism” by Hanif Abdurraqib for The New York Times. Listen to their songs, “Beautiful Boy” and “Picasso,” and check out the YouTube video, “Getting Started with Licks & Fills in the style of Dave Rawlings.”
Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.
Hosts
Dana Stephens, Julia Turner, Stephen Metcalf
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Meckaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gap Fest. |
| 0:13.3 | What Even is Garfield edition? |
| 0:15.9 | It's Wednesday, June 5th, 2020. |
| 0:19.2 | On today's show, we discuss the incorrigible, the unkillable IP known as Garfield, |
| 0:26.3 | the overfed Arn Seneca, who is not named Donald Trump, but Garfield. Based on a comic strip |
| 0:31.6 | by Jim Davis, the occasion being the new Garfield movie is just kind of conquering the summer |
| 0:37.3 | box office, which may be more kind of conquering the summer box office, |
| 0:38.5 | which may be more of a statement about the summer movie season, but we'll get to that. |
| 0:42.9 | And then the estimable New Yorker writer, Catherine Schultz, has written a piece for the magazine |
| 0:47.8 | about suspense, its nature in relation to fiction and works of fiction in film. |
| 0:54.4 | But it's surprising ubiquity and really its poignancy in real life. |
| 0:58.7 | We discuss and then finally one of the very oldest and closest friends of this show, June Thomas, has a new book. |
| 1:05.2 | It's her first. |
| 1:06.1 | It's called A Place of Our Own Six Spaces that shaped queer women's culture. |
| 1:11.6 | Very lucky to have her on the program today to discuss. |
| 1:15.0 | Joining me today is Julia Turner of the Annenberg Center for Journalism at the University of Southern California. |
| 1:22.6 | Julia, hey, how's it going? |
| 1:24.4 | Hello, hello. |
| 1:26.2 | I hate Mondays, but it's Tuesday, and you'll be listening to this on Wednesday. |
| 1:30.1 | So let's all have lasagna. |
| 1:33.7 | It's like the hatred's compounding out like interest. |
| 1:36.9 | And Dana Stevens, of course, is the film critic for Slate. |
... |
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