Welcome to the Badland Girls Archive! New episodes can be found here.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Episode 30: Sexy Sexy Instagram


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This week, we Skype-it-up all the way to Georgia to speak to teacher, writer, PhD student, and transmedia editor Alexandra Kingsley! We get cerebral about fandom/fandom platforms, boy band aesthetics, and the easily-forgotten history of internet fan culture. We also break down what's wrong with dissecting One Direction fan behavior on Tumblr, freak out about mens touching one another, and convince you to play the very dangerous Badland Girls drinking game.  

Spoiler Alerts for the Following:
Iron Man (both movies)
MTV's Teen Wolf    

Corrections: The Gael Garcia Bernal/Diego Luna soccer movie where they're brothers is called Rudo y Cursi. What was tumblr for? The correct title of the Jon Stewart book of humorous essays was called Naked Pictures of Famous People.    

Relevant Links: Alex's website
Alex's Tumblr
Alex on Twitter
Alex's Youtube channel  
Organization for Transformative Works
Lizzie Bennet Diaries Youtube Channel
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present  
Casa de mi Padre Holograms band DMT: The Spirit Molecule (full movie)
More information on DMT (drugs are bad, mmmkay?)
Telegram zine Ed Sheeran, "Pony" cover
One Direction, "One Thing"
Safety Objects as Secrets to Survival (Daisies and Bruises)
Maranda Elizabeth on tattoos as safety objects  
Story and fan art about The Little Mermaid/Hans Christian Anderson
Cloud Atlas trailer
Ben Whishaw is cuuuuuute
Deconstructing Storyboard’s 1D fandom coverage (part 1 from Alex's Tumblr)
Deconstructing Storyboard's 1D fandom coverage (part 2)
Description of the Iron Man 3 trailer (unconfirmed)    

Fucking Books: Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Episode 29: Just Going for the Whales


This week, Rhea and Destiny speak to Lisa Fary of Pink Raygun! Wetalk about the start of Pink Raygun, make some Superman apologies (sort of), and nerd out over Bobak Ferdowsi. We also talk about Lisa's personal history with watching all things Star Trek, our childhood nerd trajectories, and we read some superhero-tastic fan mail.

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Spoiler alerts for the following:
True Blood (current season)
Battlestar Galactica(reimagined series)

Corrections:It wasn't the 37th Heaven on Adventure Time, it was called the 37th Dead World. The unmade Superman movie starring Nic Cage was to be made circa '96-98. It cuts out a little when we're talking about what a dreamboat Peter Dinklage is. I want you all to know that we all were "mmm-hmming" in approval.

Relevant Links:
Pink Raygun
Lisa on Twitter
Apocalypse Couture
Fuck Yeah Bobak Ferdowski
Mitsuko Nagone photography
Joan Jett, "Bad Reputation"
Casa de Mi Padre trailer
Dum Dum Girls, "Lord Knows"
Wild Beasts, "The Fun Powder Plot"
NYTimes: What's So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?
Information on the Nic Cage/Tim Burton Superman Film that never was
Alfred Hitchcock was a total asshole; no one is surprised
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai trailer
Philly Zombie Prom info
Zombie Walk Omaha
Man of Steel trailer
Intergalactic Law (Lisa & John's old webcomic)
Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower
Get the Age of Bronze app!

And here's the complete email we received from Mel. Thanks for writing in!

Hi there Badland Girls,

I'm sorry that I can't recall which episode you mentioned this in (I'm leaning towards 20 or 21), but you spoke of the upcoming Superman movie and the darker tone that it will be taking, and the phrase 'Superman is not meant to be dark' may have been dropped. A comparison to Batman surely happened, and the two were treated as opposites - Batman is dark and gritty and angsty, and Superman is... not that. Whenever I see and hear comments like this, I have to wonder about the last Superman trade the person read. Because Superman has not been happiness and light for a long, long time.

This actually legitimately upsets me - I got into comics in a big way around the mid-two-thousands, and I gorged myself on runs from the nineties (ESPECIALLY those involving sidekicks - if you know who Impulse is, let's be friends?). However, just as I got ready to spend my money on current comics, DC felt the need to have another reboot, and basically spent the next six months making me cry. I don't know why, but DC decided to make everything gritty. Even Superman. (Especially Wonder Woman. They even decided to get grit all over the Justice League International. I don't know if you know your Justice Leagues, but COME ON. JLA can be as gritty as you want, but JLI is where they stuck the screwballs and the smart-mouths. Or it was, before the darkness came. Don't even get me started on Justice League Antarctica getting retconned out of existence.) Wow, that was a tangent.

But even before the latest crisis, Superman was not a squeaky clean character. I think the Lex Luthor: Man of Steel run was the turning point for me. If you haven't read it, you should. You only need to know the basics of who Superman is, and that there's this guy called Lex who doesn't like him. The art is stunning, and the conviction laid out on the page does a great job of casting what we know and love about Superman in a new light. Superman for Tomorrow actually focuses on the Superman's POV, and still manages to make him morally questionable and a little unhinged. Somewhere along the way, Superman has stopped being the nice guy who rescues kittens from trees and has revealed himself to be an essentially indestructible alien who plays by humanity's rules only as long as they suit him. Which, let's be honest, is a great element of his character to be explored! But it sure does get gritty in there. The dominant discourse of a character in the comics changes (whether I want it to or not), and I guess I find it frustrating that people seem unwilling to see similar ideas in their movies. Would you really go and see essentially the exact same superhero movie released in the cinema every six years? Wouldn't you want to see something a little more?

Sorry, Bandland Girls. I've had a feelings explosion all over this e-mail.

I guess the core argument of 'movies are a reflection of the comics' can be applied to your critique of the Toby Maguire Spiderman movies - the claim was made that Spiderman is a young character, and that aging him up so fast was a mistake. While I love my teenaged superheroes, the first Spiderman comic I ever read had Peter Parker in his twenties, fighting vampires with Blade while Mary Jane was a successful model who had taken up smoking again and was questioning her engagement to Peter because he was too busy fighting vampires to go on vacation with her. Which certainly sounds a little soap opera, but Peter Parker has a long run in the comic books of being post-pubescent. With all of the tv shows and comics and alternate universe comics and Marvel teen comics and that whole first movie in which Peter was a teen, I'm was actually glad to see Peter as an adult on screen. Peter had some really interesting story arcs as an adult before he sold his soul or got reborn or whatever exactly happened there. I think someone died. Anyway. The trilogy is not a set of perfect films by any means, but the specific criticism about seeing Peter graduate high school just gets my nerd rage hackles up. Critique the movies for doing really boring and stupid things with Peter for an adult, but critiquing the raw adulthood itself seems kind of redundant to me.

Is that a big enough nerdfight for you? Because I also have a lot of opinions about Robins...

Your fan, even in nerdfights,

Mel

Monday, August 13, 2012

Episode 28: And Huell Howser as Principal Howser


This week on the "broad-cat," the Badland Girls talk to Ultimate Parker Bowman and Jason Frisbabe Frisbie from Pool Party Radio! We have a darn skippy fun time talking about action movies, their tropes, and movies that bend the genre. There's actually a lot of confusion as to what actually constitutes an action movie, so we talk about that, too. We also read another amazing fan letter and dream up a high school TV show about the 4 of us. It's real California Gold, you guys, except only one of us is actually in California. Note: this is our first Skype interview, so beware yon glitchy Skype noise!


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Spoiler Alerts for the Following:
Cabin in the Woods
Total Recall (both movie versions)
Taken
Captain America
The Avengers

Corrections: Total Recall is based on We Can Remember it For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick. Here, you can read it in PDF form!

Relevant Links:
Pool Party Radio
Jason Frisbabe on Twitter
Ultimate Parker Bowman on Twitter
Junk Food Dinner
Invasion USA (the whole movie!)
Wavves, "Hippies is Punks"
Cat Power, "Ruin"
John Brown, "Sarah Palin (I Wanna Lay Pipe)"
Free Pussy Riot
Downtown Dayton 1970 short film
Taken 2 trailer
Joss Whedon is going to do all the things
OSS 117: Lost in Rio trailer
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies trailer
Improper Conduct (the whole movie!)
Comic Book Confidential trailer
American Scary trailer
Rick Ross, "Big Meech"
Marvel Item 47 clip
REO Speedwagon, "Roll With the Changes"
Hunter Prey trailer
Sparks, "Mustache"
Sparks, "Mickey Mouse"
Sparks and Rita Mitsouko, "Singing in the Shower"
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out music
Lookout Records (RIP)
Toynbee Tiles

Fucking Comic Books:
Irredeemable by Mark Waid
The Defenders
Winter Solider

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Episode 27: Tech Famous


This week, Rhea and Destiny meet up at Blue Line Coffee to talk to Des Moines comic Dan Umthun (and silent "corporate sponsor" Martin) about cool things going on in the Iowa comedy scene and comic books! We recorded the first part of the episode in a parking lot downtown, where we battle the vicious streets to ramble about Arrested Development's influence on current sitcoms, the beauty of breaking the fourth wall, and get a bit real.

Direct Download


*We apologize for the smooth jazz, squeaky chairs, and overlapping conversations during our interview.

Spoiler Alerts for the following:
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Earth 2 Green Lantern

Corrections: Lecy Goranson left Roseanne at the start of season 5. We cannot remember the name of the rad queer lady rappers we blanked out over early in the episode. For some reason Destiny keeps saying "yellow ribbons" when she means pink. The man who wrote The Celluloid Closet was named Vito Russo. Ian's response to the Sexy Pizza tweet was: "Nope, just bomb ass 'za."

Relevant Links:
Dan's Twitter
Des Moines Underground site
Shop Assistants, "All Day Long" and "I Don't Wanna Be Friends with You"(both live)
My Little Underground 80's UK indie mix (via Suicidewatch on Tumblr)
Iggy Azealea, "Pu$$y"
Comic Book Crossfire letter on breaking Up With Comics
Identical Beckys gag from Roseanne
Greg Rucka
Kreayshawn: Another Case of Appropriating Black Culture (via Clutch)
Review of Tig Notaro's Largo show from earlier this week (via flamelikeme on Tumblr)
Beyond the Black Rainbow trailer
Tolstoi Made Shoes podcast
Stand Up Des Moines
Iowa Comedy Festival
The Celluloid Closet trailer
Sharon Needles doing a scene from Silence of the Lambs (NSFW)
Olde Main Brewing Co. (We love you, Martin!)
Sexy Pizza of Denver
Laugh Track Comedy Fest (Congrats to Zach Peterson and Ian Douglas Terry)
How to Support Breast Cancer Research W/out Supporting Komen (Jezebel)

Fucking Comic Books:
Fear Agent
Black Heart Billy
Swamp Thing
Frankenstein
Fantastic Four (Johnathan Hickman)
Nightly News
Pax Romana
Earth 2