Material Girls

We're back from our summer break with an episode about The Hunger Games. Heads up that this episode connects the fictional world of Panem to real-world issues of representation and human rights, drawing parallels between the text and the genocide in Gaza. In this conversation, Hannah and Marcelle dig into representations of violence, resistance movements, and the normalization of child death. They then explore how Suzanne Collins' dystopian series engages with the concept of "grievability" and they consider The Hunger Games' immersive marketing campaigns that cemented the work as a mainstream cultural phenomenon. To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a Material Concerns episode, but until then, go check out all the other content we have on our Patreon at Patreon.com/ohwitchplease! Patreon is how we produce the show and pay our team! Thanks again to all of you who have already made the leap to join us there!***Material Girls is a show that makes sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both. Materialist critique is interested in the question of why a particular cultural work or practice emerged at a particular moment. Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

We have a treat for you today with a drop-in episode from Anne Helen Petersen’s Culture Study. Culture Study is a podcast about the culture that surrounds you. This episode featuring Hannah and Marcelle is all about Royal Family gossip, colonialism, and empires in decline! Together, Anne, Hannah and Marcelle consider how royal fascination manifests differently depending on where you live, how you were raised, and identification (or lack thereof) with “your” generation of monarch.You can find Culture Study wherever you get your podcasts and at culturestudypod.substack.com.Head to Patreon.com/ohwitchplease to become a supporter of the show. On Patreon you’ll get so many ad-free bonus episodes you will stop missing us completely. It costs as little as $5 USD a month to support the show but it is the difference between us paying Coach or not. Don’t you want to pay Coach? Don’t you want to listen to more episodes? Again head to patreon.com/ohwitchplease or wait until next week for a new episode!

We’re still on our Summer Break during this hot and beautiful month of July. But don’t fret, we’re dropping episodes every Tuesday that we’re gone! Today’s episode comes from Gender War Games, the podcast from Cristen Conger and Unladylike Media. Hannah and Marcelle were joined by Cristen on Material Girls for an episode about Avril Lavigne’s Clone “Melissa” and social surveillance. But today's drop-in is from Cristen's show Gender War Games. In the episode, Hannah, Marcelle and Cristen talk about how white womanhood is activated—politically, culturally, algorithmically—to reinforce systems of power. From tradwife aesthetics to terf rhetoric, strategic essentialism to state violence, they aim to makes sense of how white femininity gets mobilized. Cristen is brilliant and we think you’ll absolutely love this episode and her work if you aren’t already familiar with it. Enjoy!We’ll be back next week with another drop-in episode. If you’re missing us - hey we miss you too - and also you can always, always, head to Patreon.com/ohwitchplease to become a supporter of the show. On Patreon you’ll get so many ad-free bonus episodes you will stop missing us completely. It costs as little as $5 USD a month to support the show but it is the difference between us paying Coach or not. Don’t you want to pay Coach? Don’t you want to listen to more episodes? Again head to patreon.com/ohwitchplease or wait until next week for another July Drop-In.

If you’ve been following Witch Please Productions since the early days, then you know our roots go back to Harry Potter with our show Witch, Please. Hannah and Marcelle wrapped up seven seasons of the reboot in 2023 but they occasionally hop onto Harry Potter and the Sacred Text to talk about the book series, again. Today, we’re dropping in an episode from that show about Book 4, Chapter 22. In the conversation, Marcelle and Hannah chat with the charming and brilliant Matt Potts about dress robes, Fred and Angelina, and the joy and horror of school dances. Every episode of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text focuses on a theme and a central question. In this episode we ask: when is ceremony just a formality, and when does it signal a genuine transformation? For more Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, find the show everywhere you get your podcasts or head to www.harrypottersacredtext.com. If you want to visit or rediscover our show Witch, Please, you can find all our episodes in this feed by scrolling back! Or you can go to ohwitchplease.ca where we have listed all episodes of our original run and our reboot. We’ll be back next week with another drop-in episode, but until then, later, Witches.

As we continue our July break, we are dropping into your feed with an episode of Gender Playground! If you don't yet know, Gender Playground is a show about the joys of gender-affirming care for kids — and it's hosted by Marcelle. We love this show and we’re currently releasing new episodes every Thursday. Today we’re dropping in the first episode of season two featuring Hannah McGregor. If you like this episode, please subscribe to Gender Playground wherever you get your podcasts to get new episodes sent straight to you audio player.

As we mentioned last month, Material Girls is taking a summer break for the month of July! We’ll be releasing drop-in episodes from other podcasts that we think you'll enjoy. Today, we're sharing The Real Question: Should I Quit? — a podcast from our friends at Not Sorry. Marcelle was a guest on the show in 2023 and in her episode she considered the question: "Should I quit drinking?" The conversation with host Vanessa Zoltan is frank, funny and goes places you might not expect.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the episode, be sure to check out the The Real Question wherever you get your podcasts.***To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with another drop-in, but until then, go check out all the other content we have on our Patreon at Patreon.com/ohwitchplease! Patreon is how we produce the show and pay our team! Thanks again to all of you who have already made the leap to join us there!Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

No Hannah on this episode! But we still have fun! So much fun, we didn't record a part two... The burnout is real, but we're still so sorry! Part two is coming by the end of the week! Please enjoy this one-on-one chat between Marcelle and Coach until then! And be sure to scoop tickets to our live show in Vancouver! https://riotheatretickets.ca/events/36331-material-girls-podcast-livePart II will be out later this week on Patreon! For as little as $54/year, you'll get ad-free episodes, bloopers, a backlog of content and part two of all Material Concerns episodes! Head to patreon.com/ohwitchplease now to join a tier that works for your budget!***Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

As a podcast all about the zeitgeist, we've wanted to do an episode about James Frey's memoir A Million Little Pieces — and the 2005 controversy around it — for years. So when Traci Thomas (she/her) agreed to join us on Material Girls, we were thrilled to finally have the perfect guest to help us dig in.Among numerous other accomplishments, Traci Thomas is the creator and host of the critically acclaimed literary podcast, The Stacks, as well as the writer behind the incredible Substack, Unstacked. Through her insights into celebrity book clubs, Oprah's cultural positioning in the early aughts, publishing norms and reader expectations, Hannah and Marcelle make sense of one of the most fascinating scandals of the last 20 years.Note — if you don't care about the controversy, but you've always wanted to understand the differences between memoir, autobiography and auto-fiction, then you should give this episode a listen. :)To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a Material Concerns episode, but until then, go check out all the other content we have on our Patreon at Patreon.com/ohwitchplease! Patreon is how we produce the show and pay our team! Thanks again to all of you who have already made the leap to join us there!***Material Girls is a show that makes sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both. Materialist critique is interested in the question of why a particular cultural work or practice emerged at a particular moment. Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

After a quick and dirty check-in, Hannah, Marcelle and Coach dive into Apocalypse Toolkit (music edition!)! They then jump into a very thorough Make It Make Sense and listen to a Voice Memo Dispatch! Happy listening.Head to Patreon.com/ohwitchplease to listen to Part II. For as little as $54/year, you'll get ad-free episodes, bloopers, a backlog of content and part two of all Material Concerns episodes! Head to patreon.com/ohwitchplease now to join a tier that works for your budget!Looking for our Apocalypse Toolkit Playlist? Check it out here!***Music Credits:“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.