Our series on 1990s/2000s comedy continues this week with a conversation about Seinfeld. Justin and I watched two episodes (S5E5 "The Bris" and S7E4 "The Wink"), and reflect on the show's weird elevated "dream vision" of 90s bourgeois culture.  Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-30-76564956

This week Justin and I watch Elf (2003) and talk about Will Ferrell's late 90s/early 2000s comic persona in the context of male bodies, George W. Bush, and a particular cultural turn toward "dumb assholes" in the digital era. Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-23-76298993

What makes disturbing, graphic shows like CSI and Intervention so morbidly appealing? How does our desire for uncomfortable entertainment reflect a larger normalization of fear, precarity, and violence in our everyday reality? Hunter Hargraves is Associate Professor of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University, Fullerton. His new book, Uncomfortable Television (Duke University Press, 2023), examines how 21st century television invites viewers to find pleasure in discomfort, training us to survive in a neoliberal world that’s just one cringe experience after another.  Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap and get access to all our bonus stuff

This week Justin and I jump off our previous discussion of Groundhog Day with a look at Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), a deceptively complicated film about class, gender, and the queer social dynamics of American capitalism. We talk a lot about John Candy as a performer and celebrity here, finding lots of unexpected connections with the life and death of Kurt Cobain, another figure who introduced working class conceptions of embodiment (think butts, buttholes, blood, semen, foot odor, etc) at a critical moment in American pop cultural history.  Subscribe to listen to the whole episode and access our massive library of bonus content for just $5

Since clever people are now declaring the end of college education, Ryan and I thought it might be fun to survey the highs and lows of our own respective "college" experiences, from undergrad to Ph.D. What worked for us, and what ruined our lives forever? Like any good academics, we're making a list!  Listen to the whole episode Go read Ryan's Substack  Check out David's grad school rant on YouTube

Daniel Horowitz is a historian and the author of many books on American consumer culture, economics, and political ideology. In this conversation we discuss his latest book, American Dreams, American Nightmares: Culture and Crisis in Residential Real Estate from the Great Recession to the COVID-19 Pandemic (UNC Press, 2022), which connects the dots of our 21st century housing crisis, from HGTV reality shows (with titles like Flip or Flop, Hot Mess House, etc.), to Airbnb real estate moguls and the new era of working from home. How did buying, selling, and living in houses become such a social, cultural, and economic war zone?  Check out the Nostalgia Trap YouTube Channel: youtube.com/boozeshaman Subscribe to our Patreon: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

This week Justin and I talk about China's Zero Covid policies coming apart as Apple demands MORE IPHONES, which leads to a wider consideration of what it means when a state drives people from the farms to the factories. Plus, we reflect on Ye's new Christofascism in the context of violence against LGBTQ+ communities, as we ponder how to confront an enemy that LOLs at the damage they create. Listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-9-75725406

On this episode of TRAP TV, we examine a critical moment in the history of the Walt Disney Company, when the tremendous success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 gave way to a period of rapid expansion and ambitious, ultimately unsuccessful projects that nearly bankrupted the business and ended the Disney era. Then, the war came. This is the story of how World War II not only rescued Disney from financial ruin, it sharpened the company’s aesthetic and ideological purpose. With an unprecedented animator’s strike nearly paralyzing production in 1941, the war and its fallout on the homefront began a new period for both Disney the man and Disney the cultural product, as hyper-nationalism, militarism, and explicit anti-communism entered Disney’s bloodstream and brought the company to unimagined new heights of profit and influence.  Subscribe to watch/listen to the whole episode: patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

This week Justin and I talk about the fight between labor, management, unions, and the state now being waged in the railroad industry, and trace the longer history of rail and transport as central spaces for navigating the class violence bubbling under the surface of the American economy. Plus, Christmas nostalgia for all the boys and girls! Full episode: patreon.com/posts/livestream-12-2-75429714 

This week Yasmin and I watch Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) and Birth (Jonathan Glazer, 2004),  two films about trapped women, pixie haircuts, beautiful New York apartments, stifling bourgeois social norms, and creepy children born of Satan. There’s plenty for us to chew on here—from architecture and occult power to deeply unsettling notions of childhood, death, and sexuality—as we consider how these films locate an atmosphere of dread and horror in the fantastic spaces of elite New York.