In The Details

Is Brilliant Appropriation a Contradiction? On Gillian Welch and Pastiche

/ 25 April 2017

The historical references the virtuosic instrumental work, and the stunning close harmonies all took intelligence and skill to master, but that doesn't mean that Time (The Revelator) should be beyond critique.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Television

Black and Nerdy? Shattering the Monolith With ‘Atlanta’

PopMatters Staff

/ 30 January 2017

Atlanta goes a long way toward shattering the myth that there's a single black experience.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Television

“What’s Wrong With You?” Girlhood, Genre, and ‘Stranger Things’

Donald Collins

/ 6 September 2016

Stranger Things is part of a long cinematic tradition of boyhood, including steamrolling more nuanced portrayals of girlhood.

Books/Culture/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Music

The Myth of Elvis Presley

John Hansen

/ 7 July 2015

Rock critic Greil Marcus holds that Elvis' songs are simply a facade. But is there not a creative person behind the facade?

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Music

What Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ Is Really About

PopMatters Staff

/ 25 June 2015

At the core of Neutral Milk Hotel's highly acclaimed 1998 album is an exploration of love and the process of unity and separation.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Television

Poverty Prepares You to Survive the Worst – Even the Zombies of ‘The Walking Dead’

PopMatters Staff

/ 11 June 2015

The ways in which poverty shapes the psyche of The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon are very rarely seen in the current television landscape.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Film

Splitting Hairs (of Identity) in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Andrea Tallarita

/ 10 March 2015

James Gunn's epic borrows from the mythologies of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but its characters are on a much more contemporary quest for identity.

Culture/Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Film

May the Force (of Narrativity) Be With You

PopMatters Staff

/ 25 November 2014

The Star Wars universe is a microcosmical example of the long-standing battle over the necessity of narrativity in shaping our lives.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Television

Lucifer Is Free to Roam: (In)Justice and Retribution in ‘Hannibal’

PopMatters Staff

/ 16 October 2014

Hannibal, unlike much-hyped pulp revival shows like True Detective and Fargo, refuses to give its audience neat answers on matters of right and wrong.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Television

‘True Detective’ and the Conventions of Morality

PopMatters Staff

/ 10 September 2014

In the realm of moral ambiguity they occupy, Rust Cohle and Marty Hart become a microcosm of Lawrence Kohlberg's three stages of moral development.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Film

‘I’m Not the Fox I Used to Be’: Wes Anderson’s Changing Seasons

PopMatters Staff

/ 30 July 2014

Far from style over substance, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox fixates over objects to show its protagonist's inability to handle the oncoming winter.

Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Film