Slate Culture Feed

On this week’s show, Dana is joined by Slate’s own Nadira Goffe and Richard Lawson, of the Critical Darlings podcast. Their first agenda item is Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, the second installment of the workplace comedy/reality show hybrid which places an unknowing everyman in a made-up scenario populated entirely by actors. Does the second season deliver a heart-warming moral test in the form of comedy or a manipulative prank? They discuss.

Next for more funhouse mirror television, they take up Bait, the Riz Ahmed-starring and created show about a Riz Ahmed-like actor vying for the role of James Bond. The show is stuffed with ideas and Ahmed’s charm, but they debate whether its conceptual martini sufficiently shaken or stirred.

Finally, it’s time to go out, wear something nice, and push as they take a listen to Sexistential, the new album by Swedish dance pop queen Robyn. Though the “Dancing On My Own” singer has a new partner on the dancefloor in her young son, motherhood and midlife make for some real club classics.

On a bonus episode for Plus subscribers, they take up the question, as posed in a recent New Yorker article, of whether “plagiarism is that bad?”

Endorsements

Richard: The compulsively watchable time travel family drama The Way Home, a Hallmark Channel Original. (And subscribing to Critical Darlings)

Nadira: The ten minute disco cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Linda Clifford and the album WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA by Slayyyter.

Dana: The new book by Mason Currey Making Art and Making a Living as well as his newsletter Subtle Maneuvers.

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Email us your thoughts at [email protected].

Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Defector co-owner Alex Sujong Laughlin, whose recent piece about “lip filler accent” identified a new way TikTok is changing how we speak. Even people who don’t have any plastic surgery at all appear to be picking up on the trend, because when it comes to status, sounding like someone who has had plastic surgery is really all that matters.

This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help from Kevin Bendis.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosts Lindsay Gibbs and Ben Lindbergh discuss the maddest moment of March—from the UConn buzzer beater, to Women’s Final Four redux. Alex Kirshner rejoins for two interviews: the first with author and professor Seth Tannenbaum about the growing class divide inside baseball stadiums, the subject of his new book, Bleacher Seats and Luxury Suites: Democracy and Division at the Twentieth-Century Ballpark. The second with Nina Mandell about an Ohio gymnastics dynasty, chronicled in her book: A Fraction of a Point: A Gymnastics Dynasty on the Line.
Finally, Ben closes with an Afterball about the historic and cringey N64 video game Mia Hamm Soccer 64.
In this week’s bonus episode for Slate Plus members: the T-Rex hunting for a draft spot in the NFL.

March Madness: (6:37): Duke’s demise
Bleacher Seats (26:32): The haves and the have-nots
Fraction of a Point (42:42): The gymnastics world beaters
Afterballs (57:49): Mia Hamm Soccer 64

(Note: time codes are only accurate for Slate Plus members, who listen ad-free.)

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You can email us at [email protected].

Podcast production and editing by Kevin Bendis, with production assistance from Patrick Fort
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A listener we're calling Natalie received over a million dollars after being sexually abused by her university gynecologist in one of the largest abuse settlements in American history. She talks about the strange math of converting a bad experience into a dollar amount, and why she’s barely spent any of it.
*This episode includes descriptions of abuse. Please take care while listening.
Death, Sex & Money is now produced by Slate! To support us and our colleagues, please sign up for our membership program, Slate Plus! Members get ad-free podcasts, bonus content on lots of Slate shows, and full access to all the articles on Slate.com. Sign up today at slate.com/dsmplus.
And if you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our new email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is [email protected].
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by New York Magazine features writer Rebecca Jennings, who recently profiled the now-cancelled Bachelorette, Taylor Frankie Paul. Paul’s season was pulled after a video of her 2023 domestic violence incident was published by TMZ, following news of another domestic violence investigation from February of this year. While the video is upsetting, knowledge of Pauls’ 2023 arrest is not new, and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives continued to use her volatile relationship for ratings. Now, parent company Disney is turning on her over a situation that may be more complicated than it seems.

This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.