The Waves: No Longer Keeping Up

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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior editor Allegra Frank and Robin Boylorn, a professor at the University of Alabama and occasional Slate contributor, discuss the enduring appeal of Keeping Up With the Kardashians as the E! reality show it comes to a close at the end of its 20th season. The pair digs into the show as a backdrop for the creation of a family dynasty of internet celebrity, track the diminishing role of television in their multi-billion-dollar empire, and parse out the curious appeal of the sisters who became famous just for being famous. After the break, Allegra and Robin dig deep on the Kardashian-Jenner clan’s history of appropriation of Black culture, and discuss the impact of their adopting working-class Black aesthetics to great personal gain as several of them became mothers to Black children themselves. The sisters haven’t shied away from airing their learning moments for the world to see. But have they been able to use their enormous platform to any meaningful end? For Slate Plus members, Allegra and Robin continue our new segment, Gateway Feminism, where they talk about one thing that helped make them feminists. For Allegra, it’s the manga and anime series Cardcaptor Sakura, and for Robin it’s her favorite Toni Morrison novel and feminist blueprint, Sula. Recommendations Allegra recommends a new EP, Whole Damn Body from Los Campesinos! Robin thinks you should check out the Crunk Feminist Collective’s new newsletter, The Remix. Podcast production by Asha Saluja filling in for Cheyna Roth. Editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas. Additional production help from Rosemary Belson. Send your comments and thoughts about what The Waves should cover to thewaves@slate.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.
0:12.8	Welcome to the waves. Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and this week,
0:18.2	five glamorous sisters, all of whose names start with a K. Every episode you get a new pair of
0:24.4	women to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds. And today you've got me,
0:28.8	Allegra Frank, senior editor for Slate. And me, Robin Boyleur, Professor at the University of
0:34.7	Alabama, Krunk Feminist, and occasional Slate contributor. Thanks for joining me, Robin.
0:39.6	I'm excited to talk about how we have finally reached the end of an era because after 14 years,
0:46.9	20 seasons and almost 275 episodes, we are no longer going to keep up with the Kardashians.
0:55.5	Well, not on TV anyway, because although its e-network reality TV show is coming to an end,
1:02.7	the family that's famous for being famous has plenty of other ventures for us to pay close attention to.
1:10.0	But keeping up with the Kardashians brought a sea change, not just to reality TV, which we'll
1:14.6	get into, but to celebrity culture as well. From how the sisters define what it means to be an
1:20.4	influencer to the embodiment of the hashtag girlboss to their pretty constant controversies,
1:27.6	keeping up with the locus for it all. So I've been really interested in the Kardashians and sort of
1:35.0	their celebrity mystique for a long time now, just because I've also been obsessed with celebrities
1:42.8	for a long time. And it's always been kind of hard for me to explain why, because there's
1:47.8	something superficial about celebrity that isn't something I generally like to be too emotionally
1:53.1	invested in, and yet there's the strange compulsion that I have to the lifestyles of the rich
2:00.9	and famous. And the Kardashians, even though I never actually really religiously followed the show,
2:06.0	you know, I would just watch it like at the gym or something when it was on. I always still managed
2:11.5	to join millions of other Americans and keeping up with everything they were doing, and all of their
2:17.5	various business ventures and going on and dramas because of how they seem to really encompass and
	...

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