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Material Girls

Twin Peaks x Cult Television

Season 2, Ep. 3

In honor of spooky season, we bring you an episode about the beloved cult classic, Twin Peaks! This show from Mark Frost and David Lynch, starring Kyle MacLachlan, is widely understood as one of the most influential television series ever! And yet it its original run began April 1990 and ended just fourteen months later in June 1991. In this episode, Marcelle explores why this show, that began as a hit, fell in ratings so quickly. Hannah and Marcelle then discuss the power of cult followings and how pieces of pop culture are kept alive for decades after their initial heyday.


If you're a fan of Twin Peaks, or if you're someone who doesn't understand why it has had a lasting impact on television, then you're going to love this episode that gets into the details of the show's rise and fall and, most importantly, its fandom.


***


You can learn more about Material Girls at ohwitchplease.ca and on our instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Want more from us? Check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a bonus episode, but until then, we mean it — go check out all the other content we have on our Patreon at Patreon.com/ohwitchplease! Patreon is HOW WE PAY OUR TEAM! We need your support to make the show. Thanks again to all of you who have already made the leap to join us on Patreon.


Material Girls is a show that aims to make 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 really 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 ©2020

Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

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