Pop DNA

BONUS: The Best of 2025!

It's that time of year again! We came back from our long hiatus to talk about our favorite TV and movies of 2025, plus a few books, and a few things that were NOT our favorite.First we had to spend a good chunk of time talking about all our feelings on Wicked: For Good, or should we call it... Wicked: For Bad...We also talked about the different common themes or through lines we noticed in the media we were drawn to, before popcorning some of our personal best-of lists.Things we talked about (in order of mention):Wicked: For GoodHamnetSinnersHeart EyesThe DropWolfman The Summer I Turned PrettyHome for ChristmasThe PaperEternityMickey 17K-Pop Demon HuntersThe PittNobody Wants ThisOne of Them DaysMaterialistsThe Chair CompanyPluribusTusk LoveKatabasis Freakier FridayFrankensteinOther things we loved but didn't have time to talk about:Wake Up Dead ManCompanionThe HousemaidWe Bury the DeadSeveranceThe RosesFackham HallThe Wrong ParisMerrily We Roll AlongThe Four SeasonsSirens We'll have a brand new series starting in February revisiting The Lord of the Rings. Please join us!#wickedforgood #sinners #hamnet #bestof2025

REGIFTING! The Wizard of Oz: The Politics Behind the Curtain

Wicked: For Good has officially been released into the world! To celebrate, we are regifting one of our episodes on The Wizard of Oz in which we discussed Wicked. We talked about other adaptations of the 1900 novel, as well, including the 1939 film and the musical The Wiz, focusing on how each new iteration of the story traced shifting ideas in American culture and politics.#thewizardofoz #wicked #thewiz #wickedforgood

Sex and The City: It's Finally Over

We are finally done talking about Sex and the City!We conclude our discussion with an examination of Miranda and Charlotte as foils of one another, and through the lens of archetypes rather than fully developed characters, branching off from our talk last episode about the theory of the three other women as facets of Carrie.This leads to the most interesting part of the entire series, where we delve into the classic four-character-group dynamic, with the archetypes of Patriarch, Matriarch, Craftsman, and Clown. We spend way too much time (probably) talking about famous groups of four characters and how they fit in to these archetypes, leading with Sex and the City, The Golden Girls, and the March sisters from Little Women. We found the pattern fits for the Beatles, the Plastics from Mean Girls, the Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and many more...Further Reading:Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz talks about the archetypes and the Bluth siblingsBuzzfeed breaks down a bunch of four-character groupsBuzzfeed also highlights how Miranda was always the worst

Sex and the City: 'Tis Pity She's a Wh*re

This episode's title comes from the 1626 play by English dramatist John Ford, because we are very smart. And turns out, it kinda fits for discussing SATC's apparent attitude toward Samantha Jones. We dive into Sam's key romantic relationships to explore how her attitude toward sex and dating was contrasted with that of the other three women, and what that says about how the show viewed women's sexuality.We also discuss different iterations of the fan theory that Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are all really aspects of Carrie's personality. Are they fictional aliases for the women Carrie wrote about in her column? Are they figments of her imagination? Or do each of Carrie's friends represent her id, ego, and superego? That's right, we're getting Freudian. Because we are very smart.

Sex and the City: Men are Like Plants

Is Sex and the City a feminist text?That's the question we sort of attempt to answer in this episode, but ultimately we find it more interesting to talk about Sabrina Carpenter's 2025 album Man's Best Friend and the 2009 romcom film He's Just Not That Into You starring Ginnifer Goodwin. Our rambles meander through discussions of how male characters are written on SATC, and how the show explores the assumed gender binary in general, before detouring through more current works of media that are often brought into feminist discourse, like the aforementioned Man's Best Friend, and the 2023 film Barbie.Can a work of fiction BE inherently feminist? Or can it merely propose ideas or messages that the viewer must consume critically and form their own conclusions?If you are still following us on Instagram, thank you for believing in us.