Ep. 180: Dietland is Unapologetically Fat w/ Lindy West
Pop Rocket
MaximumFun.org
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2018
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Guy Branun, Margaret Wappler and Karen Tongson are joined by Lindy West, New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author of the book Shrill to discuss the AMC show Dietlandand one of TV’s best fat characters ever: Plum Kettle.
Lindy is all about is all about the UK show Grand Designs, which offers a respite of pleasantness in the current world of television. Margaret is all about Michelle Goldberg's NYT op-ed We Have a Crisis of Democracy, Not Manners, which takes a look at the morality behind Sarah Huckabee Sanders being kicked out of a restaurant. Karen is all about The World Cup, especially the Group that includes Mexico, Sweden, Germany and South Korea. Guy is all about the Netflix series Alex Strangelove a show with a lot of potential…but suffers from the unfortunate issue of being stuck in white suburbia.
The group will take an extensive look at Dietland and the history of fat characters on television. Why is it that even the “good” takes on this archetype often end up feeling incomplete? What would it take for people to get past the message of “body empowerment” when writing stories about fat bout fat people?
The Pop Rocket 2018 Summer Book Club is a go! We’re reading Crazy Rich Asians. Join the Facebook group and get in on the conversation.
With Lindy West, Karen Tongson, Guy Branum and Margaret Wappler.
That’s My Jam:
Margaret - The Carters - NICE.
Karen - Germans - Cruel
Lindy - Bobby McFerrin - Don’t Worry Be Happy.
Guy - Lizzo - Boys.
You can let us know what you think of Pop Rocket and suggest topics in our Facebook group or via @PopRocket on Twitter.
Produced by Laura Swisher for MaximumFun.org. Edited by Julian Burrell.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, hey there I'm Guy Branham and welcome to Pop Rocket, a weekly show picking over all the pop culture we love to love. |
| 0:14.1 | We've made to talk TV, film, music, and anything else entertaining. |
| 0:17.2 | Our journalist and novelist Margaret Waupler. |
| 0:19.3 | Hello there, Guy. |
| 0:20.5 | Hello Margaret, you have a rather large eye on your shirt today. I do. It can either |
| 0:25.4 | bless you or put a hex on you. I'm just I feel like a beam may shoot out from it at |
| 0:30.5 | any moment. It Very on Parsons Project. |
| 0:34.0 | Thank you. |
| 0:35.0 | Yes, it is the eye in the sky or the eye on my chest. |
| 0:38.0 | And also here you just heard her as pop culture scholar in Dyke about town, Karen Toxon. |
| 0:42.0 | Hey Guy, hi rocketeers. |
| 0:44.8 | Karen, how is your official summer going? |
| 0:46.7 | It's officially summer now. |
| 0:48.0 | It's so officially summer. |
| 0:49.9 | I've started wearing shorts and I'm losing myself in sports which I'll talk about later. |
| 0:55.0 | Oh that's exciting. |
| 0:56.0 | Also workplace shorts started at my workplace and were not started by me and I was dazzled. |
| 1:01.7 | Like usually I make a transgressive shorts choice and then I feel bad about myself, |
| 1:05.7 | but it was inaugurated by others, my boss no less. |
| 1:08.8 | When you start with shorts, do you go a print or do you go solid? |
| 1:13.4 | I go with solid. |
| 1:14.8 | I go with solid. I let's... |
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