Haeny and Nathan talk with John L. Jackson, Jr., an anthropologist, filmmaker, and the Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode John talks us through his days as the host of the radio show “Jackson Attraction” and multimodal scholarship. In their conversation, they learn that scholarship is itself an act of play; that at the intersection of play and art and making is a space for disruption and interruption.
Plus they play "Which GIF?" and share "What's Poppin'".
Our music is selections from “Leafeaters” by Podington Bear, Licensed under CC (BY-NC) 3.0.
John L. Jackson, Jr. is an anthropologist, filmmaker, and the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication. Jackson’s work critically explores how film and other non-traditional or multi-modal formats can be most effectively utilized in scholarly research projects, among many other themes.
Curiosity Studies A new Ecology of Knowledge forward by John
Read more of John's book Racial Paranoia that Haeny mentioned on comedy
View more about John's latest documentary Making Sweat Tea that explores the lives and loves of southern gay black men
@aapiwomenlead
@michellekimkim
@koreangry
@beyonkz
@asianlitforkids
@justlitproject (and justlitproject.com)
Haeny: Hi listeners, last week began the trial of Derek Chauvin, who murdered George Floyd last summer, sparking renewed activism and calls for racial justice. Days before the trial, eight people, six of whom were Asian women, were murdered by a white terrorist in Atlanta, Georgia while they were at work. Those of us who identify as People of Color feel the familiarity of despair, anxiety, and fear. And on a personal note, it is heartbreaking to see elders in our community suffer, to hear about the close to 4000 reported anti-Asian hate crimes just this year alone, and to bear witness (like all of you) to racist rhetoric in the media, in our neighborhoods, and even in the highest political office.
Nathan: And so, before we begin our show today, we reiterate that play is often a privilege, and not everyone is afforded that luxury to play in the same ways or in the same flexibility and freedom. When we imagined this podcast, our goal was to advocate for play. For play as a site of social change. And in this moment, we believe that creativity and play, it really does expand our social imagination. It helps us confront the conditions of today, and it invites us to ask new and, thankfully, different questions. It's obvious, I mean, we cannot tackle today’s problems with the same kinds of thinking,with the same methods, or same modalities. And so, in the spirit of this week’s guest, John Jackson, we really wonder, can play and creativity—multimodal narrative, storytelling, new ways of engagement—can these things open up spaces for an awakening, for a reckoning, or for a transformation to something different. We’ve compiled some multimodal resources that we've been engaging with on the topic and, and we shared them on the Pop and Play website which can be found at tc.edu/popandplay. If you’ve got some other resources or suggestions, please tweet 'em to us.
Haeny: In this episode we talk a lot about multimodality. And by multimodality, or multimodal scholarship, we mean using media and forms of expression that go beyond traditional writing.
Nathan: So our guest this week is John Jackson. He's an anthropologist, a filmmaker, and the Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennslyvania. In our conversation, we learn that scholarship is itself an act of play; that at the intersection of play and art and making is that space for disruption and interruption.
[Music begins, then fades to background]
Nathan: Welcome, everybody to another episode of Pop and Play. I'm Nathan Holbert, Assistant Professor of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design at Teachers College.
Haeny: Hi, I'm Haeny Yoon, and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College and on a sabbatical. Very exciting.
Nathan: Whoo. Very unfair. [Haeny and Nathan laugh] And we are super excited to welcome John Jackson with us today from the University of Pennsylvania. John-
John: it's wonderful to be here. It's great to be in conversation with you. I'm, for folks who don't know, I'm an anthropologist and filmmaker, and currently Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and excited to be in dialogue.
Nathan: Well we're very excited to have you here today to talk with us about play and, and play how it, as it works in, in your, your research and in your life. We like to start Pop and Play when possible with some sort of playful activity to, to kind of get us going [John laughs] and get us thinking about play. So here's the idea. And we'll see how this works over audio but, but the idea is that I'm going to give you a couple different scenarios that I suspect you've encountered at some point in your life. And I'm going to suggest four possible animated GIF reactions that you could provide to that particular situation. So I'll try to describe those. You can of course, see those animated GIFs. And then if you could just, you know, tell us which one you choose and tell us why that would be. That'd be great. Okay?
John: Excellent. Perfect.
Nathan: Okay cool. So, first situation, and this is one I'm feeling deeply these days. You just sat in a two-hour meeting that definitely should've been an email. Which animated GIF do you respond with. Michelle Obama scrolling through her phone before glancing up with a, "Are you still here?" look on her face [John chuckles], Jared from Silicon Valley looking sadly out of an office window; is it Bruce Lee squeezing his Fists of Fury, or Andy Richter looking a bit stressed but shrugging, "It's fine".
John: [laughs] I love it. These are all great, and I will, I will say there are versions of each one of these that I can appreciate and can see being easy to incorporate into one's response in that scenario. But I will say, part of what I like to tell people is that, you know one of the keys to being a full-time administrator is you have to have stamina for meetings. [Haeny laughs] And I can do meetings. [Nathan laughs] I often tell people, it's the ethnographer in me. You know, so for me the meeting is both about what the ostensible topic is we're discussing, but it's also me getting to know my interlocutor. So, I, I never mind long meetings, cause I feel like I'm learning all these other things. So, so I guess there's a version of that that would make me think that the closest to that goal is the "It's Fine," [Nathan laughing] Where I know, really we don't have the time for all these meetings, but there is something I think I wanna pull out of it - and often I do. And, and, it never bothers me, when I have you know more time for meetings, because I realize, that's part of what separates someone who can do this job well from someone who'll pull all their hair out in the process, you know.
Haeny: Hmm-
Nathan: Yeah that, that definitely, that definitely seems to be increasingly important now when we're not around each other-
John: Mmhmm, mmhmm.
Nathan: To find ways to be able to be around each other, right?
John: Exactly.
Haeny: I mean that's a great way to get through it, to, is doing ethnography in meetings. [Nathan laughs]
John: Oh, my, my, my students'd tell you, I'll tell them everything's ethnography. [All laugh] It's all ethnography. All the way down, as they say.
Haeny: Mmm, hmm.
John: But I think it's also a way to, to remind yourself that. You know, it's- very little is just a waste of time, you know.
Haeny: Mmm.
John: It's sort of about what you can do with it and how innovatively you can repurpose, right, and parlay. But, some of-
Haeny: Mmhmm.
John: -that's just sort of you know, trying to find a way to turn lemons [Nathan laughs] into lemonade, but I think some of it's also just, a sensibility, a menatlity that makes sense.
Nathan: The next scenario: a student refers to you in class by a nickname. Is it David from Schitt's Creek saying "Wow, who are you?" [John laughs] Michael Jordan in a 1980s PSA calmly but firmly stating "Stop it. Get some help." John Oliver with a deadpan look to the camera: "Cool." Or Tracy Morgan in the movie Cop Out shaking his head saying [John laughs] "No, no, hell no" repeatedly. [Haeny and John laugh]
John: This is a good one. They're all really good. I, I, I guess for me, I, I love the John Oliver "cool." [Nathan laughs] Where, I, you know I think one of things one has to maintain, especially in a classroom setting, is some semblance of decorum. So you can't just go crazy with you know, the No's and the yelling, but, but I also am always curious about how and why students make the decisions they make about how to talk to folks. So, [Haeny laughs] so for me I'm learning [Nathan laughs and Haeny laughing] and "Wow" is maybe this, this moment of realizing, I just got some new data. [Nathan and Haeny laugh] About this student and about how they think about this relationship or something like that.
Nathan: Right.
Haeny: I love that.
Nathan: Yeah, there's the, there's the- [John laughs] There's the how do you respond for real, and there's the, like, what's going on inside your head
Haeny: Uhuh
Nathan: when that happens. [Nathan laughs]
John: That is tr-
Haeny: Yeah.
John: Probably [Nathan and Haeny laugh] all of it's going on at once in my head in a way, right?
Nathan: Right.
John: I guess it depends on what the nickname is. [John laughs] Ri- so that, [Nathan laughs] so we might need more specificity there, but.
Nathan: Yeah. Right.
Haeny: Yeah, I love that. I feel like the "Cool" actually communicates a lot of different things. [John laughs] And so it's sort of mysterious. [Haeny and Nathan laugh].
John: I, I think you're right. It can go in any number of directions, right, you got, yeah.
Haeny: Hmmhmm. Well thank you for doing that. And I have to say that, I need to compliment you on your impression of David from Schitt's Creek you did that very well. [Haeny laughs]
Nathan: I'll take that as a compliment I guess.
Haeny: So, there's a future for you, Nathan.
Nathan: As opposed to a diss.
Haeny: Uh huh. There's a future, there's a future for you and it's bright. [Nathan and Haeny laugh] Thanks for playing that. That was really fun, actually [laughs].
John: No, very cool. And I have to admit, I don't use though I don't use any GIFs. Really.
Haeny: Oh yeah?
John: I don't know why, I have a lot of folks who work in the office who use them and I always find them funny, but.
Haeny: Yeah. [Haeny laughs] Well thank you for doing that. Okay, so I think we can shift gears a little bit, and I thought that maybe we'd start with this question just to help us get to know you a little bit better. Can you talk, talk to us about how your interest in filmmaking started?
John: That's a good - Can I even remember now, I feel like I've always been interested in film, although I realized there, there's also a moment before film, when I was heavy into radio. So I grew up in New York, Brooklyn, New York, and my junior year, I had a, effectively my own radio talk show in New York. FM radio actually called the Jackson Attraction. It was so much fun.
Haeny: No way! [laughs]. That's awesome.
John: It, I mean, it really I, I used to teasingly tell people, it was clearly the pinnacle of my professional career. [Haeny laughs] Because at first, you know, I was just the host of the show, we did whatev- we just did zany things. I had before then thought I wanted to be a stand up comedian. I, I was never funny, [John laughs] right?
Haeny: [laughs]
John: But I didn't let that deter me. So I would sneak out of the house as a high school kid. And I was in sort of Southern Brooklyn. So it took a long time to get to Manhattan, but I would get there and kind of do my sets and I'd go, I'd record them. Then I'd come back and work on them and then go out again. And as a kind of side hustle as it were, I decided I got in my head that I was going to send these recorded, stand up sets to local radio stations. I don't know why I thought that it made any sen- like and ba-[Haeny laughs] with a letter saying, Hey, I'm a high school kid who's funny, who wants to do radio and if you have any slots, [Haeny laughs] and for some crazy cockamamie reason, I get a letter back from 91.5 FM in New York saying you know what, if you want to do it, come, and we'll figure something out. So they gave me, by the time I graduated, I think I was only at six hours a week, and doing just zany things. Like we w-, I would do things like bring a television into the studio and just watch TV on the radio. And k- just, you know, I was clearly ahead of my time. But, but that got me really excited about the power of communication, what media does, we reached a lot of people. And then when I left to go to Howard in DC, I brought all of my shows down to DC. And Howard at the time had the number one, they might still have the number one radio station in that market. And, I basically went to their radio station and said, you know, I'm here from New York, clearly, I'm a big deal, you all need to sort of part the waters, and they were like "no" [laughs]. And, and at that point I, I've never been in a radio station on my own show again. But I got the film bug. And so I did communication as an undergraduate, was really interested in learning how to tell stories and images and sound and just never let it go. And, and I actually never wanted to be an academic. But I got brainwashed one summer by a program in DC that said, we need more academics of color to get PhDs. And at that point, I didn't even know what a PhD was. I learned that summer that at the top tier programs, they would even pay for you to matriculate if you got in. So I said, Well, if I don't have to spend any more money, instead of going out to the west coast, which a lot of my friends were doing, you know, maybe I can, I can get more stories about the world that would make me a better filmmaker, make me a better storyteller. And I thought anthropology, that had a history of film and anthropology, visual anthropology. It'll allow me to kind of have my cake and eat it. And so that's kind of how I, I married my interest that I was building in film at Howard as an undergrad. And so, so that's kind of how I got into film. Out of radio, always interested in kind of multimodal work in a lot of different ways. And, and was actually open to being in front of the camera too, although always was much more interested in being the, the auth-, the author, right, the person trying to craft it.
Haeny: I mean, we have to start with Radio Jackson [laughs].
John: [laughs] The Jackson attraction, The Jackson Attraction.
Haeny: One, how do we- Jackson Attraction. Yes. How do we bring that back to 91.5 FM if your're listening. [John and Haeny laugh]
John: And, and I have no sense of how many people really were listening, I just made sure my family didn't listen, 'cause I feel like [Nathan laughs] you know, even, even even now, the conceit I use for anything I do really is, and I'm usually right about this is, I can write it, I can film because, most people will never see it. So I don't got to worry about it. Once I start thinking about who might be listening who might be watching or-, it can become a little bit more difficult. I think I have too many sort of voices and audiences in my head. So it was great. My, I knew that my family wasn't listening, so then you know, everything was on the table. At that point [laughs]
Haeny: Hmm. Hmm. I think there's so many parallels to what you're talking about and what's happening now. Cause I think about you bringing your TV into your radio station room and recording watching TV. That's just like modern day Netflix party, right? That's what's happening with that.
John: Mhmm. Mmhmm. Exactly.
Haeny: Or when, you know, when young people record things on YouTube, and you're watching along with them, or when people are playing video games, or opening toys, and seeing all of that stuff. It's just so interesting how the tools have changed, but the way that we engage and socialize, and all of that has just expanded.
John: No, you're right.
Haeny: But it's you know, it's such an interesting parallel what you're doing there. I mean, you're an early innovator of some of these things. [John laughs]
Nathan: That was really fun to hear about all the different kinds of radio work that you were doing, and the movies that you were doing. It's also fun to hear about how you know, you mentally put yourself in a space where you're where you're free to explore, you're free to experiment, you're free to play in those spaces. I wonder if you could say a little bit about, you know, you said you didn't set off to be an academic at all, you kind of found your way, you know, for all sorts of different sort of sliding door moments, maybe. But I'm curious about that sort of mindset, that sort of way of playing that has been such a core part of how you create, how does that show up in, in the way that you do your work today? As an academic?
John: Wow. That's a, I feel like that's a very hard question. But, but, but I do think there's a version of, of what I think for me was the best bit of advice I got in graduate school that I still try to tell my grad students that's central to my answer to that question, which is, like however you do, the Academy, however you do, your version of a life of the mind as a graduate student, is the way you will likely do it, even once you're a full professor somewhere tenured. So if you haven't figured out a way to incorporate play, and fun, and the stuff that makes you whole, into your research and writing process, as a graduate student, when that's all you're really responsible for. Right? Professionally, at least, then it's going to be much more difficult to think you're going to be able to find a way we even have the facility later on to do any of that. So, so for me, it's about finding moments, to continue to do the stuff that buoys me. And a lot of it's media, a lot of it's film and TV. And it's also theater and, my, Deb is my partner was a dancer, with Urban Bush Women for a long time. And so just trying to figure out like, how do you continue to short circuit the, the sort of really impoverished distinction people make between, say, the arts and the sciences, right? Between play and work? And how do we think constructively about the new things we can imagine? And imagine into being in the world when we don't over rely on those distinctions too comfortably and I think for me, that means every day, saying, you know, I want to make sure I'm doing things that, that really nourish me in a holistic way, not just meeting deadlines that are otherwise meaningless to me, cause that seems that seems like a tough thing. It, it would be impossible, at least for me to imagine that something I would want to do on a long time, long term basis, you know?
Haeny: I mean, I really appreciate that answer. Cause it's making me think about how early on when I was doing research in schools and researching play, I think I always felt compelled to have to tie that in with learning or development, or some kind of goal that's related within that institution. And I think, as I'm growing and trying to learn more about ethnography and play and qualitative research, and what play actually really means that sometimes it doesn't have to necessarily be tied into these very specific goals or ways that you're going to make it valuable. And I think about that, cause our original question was, how do you make space for play and loosen the boundaries within the institution, and maybe not everything has to be within the institution, right? Like maybe some things and acts of play can be unbound in other areas of your life. And that's what helps you sustain your work in the institution. But that doesn't have to necessarily be that, you know, A to B sort of thing. So I do appreciate that a lot.
John: No, I appreciate that response. I, I, and I do realize people have different ways of, of answering the question, different ways of operationalizing investments in what you all are calling play. And so it's also realizing it's not one size fits all, either, right? It's kind of finding the stuff that that, you know, lightens you and that and that keeps you moving in these ways that aren't reducible maybe to what we think are the strictures of an institutional academic environment too, but.
Nathan: The process of kind of playing, tinkering, cutting, moving things around in film and in, in, in audio production, like it's certainly a thing that we do when we write papers and, and all that, but I'm just kind of wondering if there's any aspect of the, the actual process and practice that, that is a very playful process in practice in, in certain types of work, whether or not you find it's useful for the way you think about topics you want to explore deeply, or the way in which you structure arguments, or, or whatever it is.
John: I think that is a really good question. And, and a tough one, it reminds me of an attempt we've been a part of here at Penn, to build out a version of what folks have been calling Curiosity Studies. And you know, you can push back against this distinction. But one of the ways in which I've found that project helpful is in the ways in which it tries to make a case, for instance, that there are similarities between, say, curiosity, and what academics usually talk about as innovation maybe, and that there's a version of what innovation is, which is a version of creativity always already linked to the market, right to kind of how it can be monetized, to what its value and function is, and that there are forms of creativity that are far too sort of lazy and haphazard than that. And that, therefore might be undervalued, right, because you can't immediately tie them to some end, some goal. And so, part of what I think we've been trying to figure out is, what are the different, what's the kind of fungibility intrinsic to the notion of creativity that allows it to do all of the stuff we might imagine can link to the bottom line, to some sort of productive end game, while also recognizing it doesn't have to come at the expense of, also, being very excited about, you know, what might be ultimately a complete, quote unquote waste of time, but might be enriching in other ways, right, curiosities that don't seem as obviously attuned to what we think productivity entails. And to know that they're both valuable, they're different. And you want to sort of recognize if you're in one domain, thinking you're in the other, then you're in the wrong place, but that they're both necessary. And to try to find a balance between the versions of investments and curiosity, that are always tethered to something we know is going to be incredibly valuable to the world, and the stuff that you just really want to keep examining. And so, and we have all these examples, I think of almost pathological curiosity, right? Curiosity that isn't as structured isn't as disciplined, as we want it to be. And there's a version of that, I think that does map onto the play question, right? Cause it, you know, someone like Robin Kelly, you know, when I was in grad school, was often talking about the extent to which in a sort of impoverished context where folks on the bottom, especially black, brown and black bodies in urban areas who have been forgotten, and where the job market has dried up, they turn play into the only viable aspiration for what might be imagined as work options, right? So, it's basketball, it's football; how difficult will it be for any kid no matter how good you are to make the NBA or the NFL, but when all the other jobs dry up, play has, in some ways play takes its place. And I think there's a version of that dynamic that's also in the center of your question for me. Because I think it's about recognizing that play is valuable, as long as we understand on whose terms-
Haeny: Mmm.
John: -the play is taking place. And in service to what ends, and the ends might be exclusively psychological, it might simply be about trying to, you know, since um, since we've been home, with the kids, more, because of the pandemic, we've been playing more card games and board games, and they even do puzzles, I'm not a puzzle person. So I just make fun of them when they do puzzles.
Haeny: [laughs]
John: But they even do puzzles, and, and I think there's a version of all of those things that I have to admit I'm constantly, I'm, I'm an ethnographer, I'm constantly thinking about kind of what, what are the implicit cultural assumptions that bound this, that give it its form and meaning. But I think there's another version of what's happening there that's just building, continuing to develop relationships and continuing to understand yourself better. And I think all that stuff is already packed into what we think play is and, and the folks who study it well, I think do a really good job of reminding us we should be curious about that. And that play is another example of that curiosity. And there's a version I think of play being immediately monetized, right? or, or, or turned into a road that leads directly to professions and productivity that is inevitable. But we want to make sure we're thinking purposefully and carefully about the implications of moving along one or other sort of trajectory of what we think play implies about what happens afterwards, right? What happens afterwards, afterwards, can be I win the game so I can gloat for, you know, a week until we play again, or it can mean I'm thinking I can put myself in position to actually turn this into something either research wise, or, that goes beyond simply, you know, the, the benefit I get from saying, I'm the best Spades player in the house this week or something, you know, I don't know if you all are Card Players. But-
Haeny: Nathan is, I'm not.
Nathan: It's been a while but I definitely grew up playing spades with my, with my family all the time in, in rural Missouri. [John and Nathan laugh]
Haeny: And I think it's important that you frame that in terms of curiosity. It really reminds me of Vivian Paley. She's an early childhood educator, and she talks to, she always talked about how it's curiosity that we model for kids. And a lot of times what happens is it's evaluation and productivity or getting somewhere that we often model or show. And so I think that is really important. I wanted to ask you, this que- and I would, I would be remiss if I didn't get to this, but there is an artist, artist, activist, Professor, Theaster Gates, and he talks about the place of art, creativity, and I think for you also expands to multimodal scholarship, and creation and products and how it helps us reimagine or remake what the current conditions of the world are. And so he has this great quote, and I'm not going to butcher it. So I wrote it down. He says art has the ability to help us imagine the world we all live in, is really just today's condition. And he talks about how the world is like ripe for a remaking and a redoing and a reimagining, and I can't think of how mu-, how important that is right now in this particular moment. And so I just want to hear from you about what you think the space of multimodal scholarship or art and creativity can have in speaking to today's condition. And I'm going back to the beginning when you talk about comedy, right. And I think comedy is also an art form, right? Stand up comedy is an art form. I think about your book, Racial Paranoia, and that whole chapter you have about Dave Chappelle. And I think there's a lot of people who have been talking about the art of comedy, and speaking about race and speaking about, you know, tensions that, that exist right now in the world. And so what do you think can be the potential of multimodality and creative arts and, and that scholarship in speaking to today's condition,
John: I mean, so part of me does believe that multimodal scholarship is the future of the academy full stop. Like, I don't know if that's 10 years from now it becomes normative, 50 years from now. I think it's inevitable. I think the question is, do we go into that future kicking and screaming, right? And lamenting the days of yore when there were only seven journals? And, or are we more purposeful and proactive about what form it should take and how we use this, these opportunities they didn't have before, to the fullest. And so for me, I do believe that there's a version of what multimodal offers, that's about potentially bringing into the world, bringing into the academy bringing to life, things that have never existed before. And, and that's exciting, right? I mean, it, it, it, it, it's being able, that there's a commitment to being able to imagine what isn't even possible now. That I think the multimodal gestures toward, especially in an academic context, right, which is to say, there isn't even necessarily a model for what I'm trying to do. But I, but one of the things we can boast, I think as a specie, is the ability to image things, to aspire to things that aren't tangible, that aren't real. And, and I think that's a version of what multimodal kind of represents, to me, it's, it's a version of saying, let's keep pushing, let's keep moving, to see what this can become. To see how, how wide we can open up this space to other folks who may not otherwise think it, it was built for them. And maybe it wasn't built for them, but who can do some really transformative work under its auspices. And to me, that is really exciting and something that I think we, we, we miss out on if we just imagine the multimodal discussion is about whether or not you train students to make films, or, or you incorporate dance or graphic arts? And, yeah, that's it. But that's really just the beginning of a much more profound conversation about what intellectuality even is, you know about what scholarship can be. And about who controls the terms on which it changes and evolves in the 21st century. And I think the multimodal packed into that sort of multisyllabic term is all of that stuff. And I think the implications are pretty significant. And at least I want to imagine our job is to continue to push ourselves to see what its utility might really allow us to do and to say about the world, you know. And to bring into existence in the world.
Haeny: Yeah, I think that's a great, a great call for future researchers, and, you know, students and even myself, I'm just thinking about how, you know, am I, you know, reifying just things that have been already said, or in the past, or am I thinking about and imagining new futures? And I think that's really important. Okay, so we only have a couple more minutes with you. And so we, this podcast is called Pop and Play, because we like to end, start with play and end with pop culture. And so our question is, what's poppin?
John: [laughs]
Haeny: And the, i-, the idea behind the question is something in pop culture right now that is exciting to you, or that's been on your radar or something that you've been thinking about? And so I, I'll give an example of what I've been thinking about a lot lately, and this might be, you know, I think people can collectively agree, but right mow I've been really into Bernie Sanders's inaugural look, and all the different memes [laughing] that have arisen from that has been awesome. And I think at first while I was watching the inauguration, I was thinking, oh my gosh, look at those mittens. [John laughs] [laughing] Those mittens are hardcore. And I did not realize that millions of other people are thinking the same thing. And so I think that's been really fun for me to look at. And so in honor of memes that starting off our, or GIFs and memes starting off our time together, I end with that. [Haeny laughs]
John: That's a good one. That's a good one. I feel like so much has been, so much attention has been placed on the political, that it's, it's hard to even think, of I'm trying to get, so Bernie Sanders is a good one. And I, I love the gloves. I'm trying to think of something non sort of politics related. I feel like I want to, but I, I'm try- so you, you know what I've been, I, and I know I'm fixated on this, cause we're doing a documentary on it. I'm fixated on sort of the, the changing nature of television itself.
Haeny: Hmm
John: And so, you know, one of the things we did a while ago, was interview all the living former heads of HBO that founded it in the 70s. And they, I mean, they talk about the founding of HBO in such amazingly dramatic ways. I mean, really, I mean, we're we're going to, we're doing a documentary on sort of how it transformed television and American culture in the 70s. But, it, it really should be like an AMC, Madmen-esque [Haeny laughs] serial about like television execs and, and American culture, cause it really is incredible. And everyone's a character. But there's a version I think of what Netflix and Hulu and all the newest ones I don't even know represent that really is changing how we even imagine we approach sort of televisual popular culture. And to me, that's fascinating. And to see how quickly it's moving.
Haeny: Well, so what have you been streaming on HBO?
John: Oh, everything. And, and I love sci-fi. So I just finished Star Trek Discovery, which was also pretty good, in the, in this season.
Nathan: Yeah, I, I, I haven't. I haven't gotten into Star Trek, Star Trek Discovery very much, but I didn't watch recently. I was a little late to it, but I did watch the, the Picard series. And I thought that was pretty interesting and fun to, to go through.
John: I, I did. I did too. I liked that one. Yeah. And, and, and, push come to shove, to be honest, I'm more of a Star Wars than a Star Trek person. But I like sci-fi, so I, I think th- [John and Haeny laugh]. So we certainly watch the Mandalorian.
Nathan: Yes, absolutely. Because this is audio y'all can't see that Haeny and I are both like yeah, Star Wars.
Haeny: [Haeny and Nathan laugh] I mean we spent like half an episode of talking about Star Wars last time. [laughs]
Nathan: Yeah, this is actually Pop and Play, but also a Star Wars appreciation podcast I think. [Haeny laughs]
Haeny: Yeah.
Nathan: Inspirational from sort of the television. I watched when it first came out The Good Place the TV show The Good Place.
John: That's a good one.
Nathan: But I've just started rewatching it again, because it's just, you know, sometimes you need to sort of like find yourself in a, a place where you can laugh and you can smile, and you can feel good about things. And that show I think is such a smart, hilarious, delightful show that, that I find myself frequently. Eve- again, even though I've seen it, even I know most of the jokes, laughing out loud, still to it. And that [Haeny laughs] feels very cathartic and nice right now.
John: I agree. And, and so philosophical. You know, I mean, just very deep. Like, you know, it's surprisingly deep too. You know, I'm a big fan of that show. Maybe I'll go back and rewatch that.
Nathan: That's a great one I just rewatched the other night the episode where they, they, they simulate the trolley problem. [Nathan and John laugh] By all getting inside of a trolley and actually is like running people over again and again and again. [Haeny and John laugh] And it is so hilarious and so ridiculous. And yet so profound. It's wonderful.
John: No, agreed, agreed, agreed.
Haeny: Well, thank you this was a good fork'in time.
Nathan: [laughs]
John: Oh thank you all. [laughs] That's funny. It was, I, I, I do feel like if, if one way you gauge the success of what you all are doing is how fun and play filled the experiences for your interlocutor, I definitely think this is success. It was fun to talk with you all for a little bit and hang, and I'm glad you're doing it. So keep keep keep doing it. And I hope it doesn't feel too much like work for you although, maybe that's not, not a bad thing, too.
Nathan: [laughs] Thank you very much, John, for being here. This was a lot of fun talking to you.
John: Thanks, you all.
Haeny: Yeah.
John: You too.
Haeny: Thank you very much.
John: And, and hopefully we'll chat again soon.
Haeny: Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, that'd be great to see you again.
John: in, in person at some point maybe in 2021.
Haeny: Yes, definitely.
John: Thanks you all.
Haeny: He was so fun to talk to, holy cow.
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Nathan: Thanks to Dean John Jackson for joining us this week, and thank you all for listening. This episode was edited by Lucius Von Joo and Joe Riina-Ferrie. Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Lalitha Vasudevan and Joe Riina-Ferrie, and myself, Nathan Holbert at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. For a transcript and to learn more, visit tc.edu/popandplay. Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Bear, used here under a creative commons attribution non-commercial license. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time!
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