Feminist Frequency Radio
Feminist Frequency Radio is coming for your media. Each week, Kat Spada invites you to listen in on entertaining and stimulating conversations about films, games, and TV... from the latest blockbusters to classic hidden gems, and more. With special guests bringing their distinctly different feminist perspectives to the mix as they celebrate and critique it all—including media critics, entertainers, academics, and everyone in between—Feminist Frequency Radio is there to help you dig deeper into the things you love. Warning: Feminist Frequency Radio may significantly enhance your media experience. Created by Anita Sarkeesian, Feminist Frequency ran as an organization from 2009–2023, providing video commentaries exploring gender representations, myths, and messages in popular culture media. Now, host Kat Spada continues Feminist Frequency Radio's legacy as an independent podcast, with fun new conversations about entertainment that asks you to be critical of the media you love.
Episodes
It was tough to pick which Baz Luhrmann movie to include in our Summer "Camp" season, but ultimately went back to the beginning, with his 1992 filmmaking debut. And right out the gate, his style is already so well-defined. Throwing sequined spaghetti at the walls, he combines classic sports movie tropes with mockumentary and melodrama to make something that lets you completely in on the joke and still wins you over at the end.
In which Kat mistakenly says "Joan Collins" a bunch of times, instead of Joan Crawford. We knew that our Summer "Camp" series needed to include a hagsploitation film. So we revisited this famously-fraught 1962 psychological thriller starring Crawford and Bette Davis. It's campy, but it's also a darkly serious horror movie, and the play between those tones is super effective.
Discussed in this episode:
We're halfway through our season of Summer "Camp," and it was a treat to revisit Paul Verhoeven's controversial camp classic Showgirls. The full episode is a special bonus for upper-level Patreon supporters, but also available as a one-off purchase for non-subscribers. Listen to the full episode HERE.
Find Kat:
In the canon of "camp" cinema, there are so many examples of movies that are queer-coded, so we wanted to make sure we focused on a textually-gay example of the genre. Nothing nails it better than Jamie Babbit's 1999 satire But I'm a Cheerleader. Natasha Lyonne stars in this portrait of a conversion therapy camp that uses stylistic exaggeration to remind us that policing of heteronormativity is something we all grew up with.
Discus...
This season's focus on "camp" cinema had to bring us to Joel Schumacher's 1995 film Batman Forever. From Val Kilmer's rubber nipples to Jim Carrey's unsanctioned buffoonery, there's so much of an aesthetic sensibility that it's a perfect example of superhero camp. AC had never seen this movie before, and his life could have been so different if he'd grown up with it. Plus, Kat comes up with a game about all the awards that this mov...
One question we wanted to ask in our Summer "Camp" season was: does a remake add or remove layers of camp? Especially when it's one of John Waters' best-known films that's moved to the mainstream with a musical adaptation turned Hollywood. Does the overall cartoonishness of Tracy Turnblad's world flatten all of the story's core messages about society? We tied ourselves in knots talking about it... and of course, the casting choice ...
Welcome to our new season: Summer "Camp"! What better film to kick off these episodes with than Roger Vadim's 1968 space romp Barbarella. It's a perfect example of a movie that succeeds in its aesthetic endeavors, but isn't enough of a good sum of its parts to be considered well-made. What we can't deny is that none of it works without Jane Fonda's commitment to the optimistic naïveté of the character. We also talk about the diffic...
Before we dive into our brand new season all about camp cinema classics, we had to reacquaint ourselves with the aesthetic sensibility at the heart of the style. So, we re-read and discussed Susan Sontag's 1964 essay Notes on "Camp." Of course, we digressed into the 2019 Met Gala, Kat's personal history with James Charles (yikes), and the economics of film production. Do we totally nail our understanding of what fits the definition...
A.C. and Kat experienced Andrew Ahn's remake of The Wedding Banquet across somewhat of a generational divide. He finds it relies on a millennial aesthetic portrayal of queer identity, with inauthentic politics. She (who watched it with Gen X family members) thought it was sweeter and more satisfying than he did. But, having also seen Ang Lee's 1993 original, Kat thinks the movies might be trying to accomplish two different things. ...
It was an absolute joy to spend time in the world of Spike Lee's 1994 bildungsroman Crooklyn. Co-written by Lee and his siblings Joie and Cinqué, the film follows nine-year-old Troy navigating herself, her neighborhood, and her extended family in 1973. We're refreshed to see Lee's rich visual language as the backdrop for a young girl as the hero of the story of growing up. Especially when so many other auteur's attempts at this hav...
Kat and A.C. go through the films that will be fêted at this Sunday's Academy Awards. We feel a big shift in our relationship to Oscar movies, and aren't sure how much of that is the disintegration of the entertainment industry, and how much is just growing up. Plus, we play a new game all about The Relentless Diane Warren's 17 Oscar-Nominated Songs. (Don't laugh: her career trajectory has been a real cultural bellwether!)
Discusse...
Our "Focus on the Family" season is back after an unexpected hiatus! [Once again: sorry for the interruption; a member of our team had an ongoing family medical situation, but we're happy to be with you again.] It was a big nostalgia kick for Kat to revisit Patricia Cardoso's 2002 Sundance darling Real Women Have Curves, but this was a first-time watch for A.C. We talk about how America Ferrera's body has been perceived by Hollywoo...
For the first episode of our "Focus on the Family" season, we're taking it back to 2010—a time before Prop 8 when a Sundance movie could really make a big impact on the widespread film landscape. Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right is a great example of a specific early 21st-century portrayal of queer families with a "coastal elite" filter, and how it straddled the line between caricature and accuracy.
Discussed in this e...
FFR is going to be back soon with a new season focusing on the family... just in time for the holidays! Listen to our mini preview ep where we'll explain the theme in more detail, and give a little teaser of the special bonus segment each episode will include. From festival favorites to reality TV, we're looking ahead to discussing onscreen portrayals of all different kinds of families, and what Hollywood thinks it's saying about a...
"Bingo." As the epic conclusion to our season of Musical Mayhem, we watched Jacques Audiard's 2024 extravaganza Emilia Pérez. Did we hate it? Kinda! Did we love it? Kinda! We also have a teaser of next season on Feminist Frequency Radio, coming soon. This full episode is a special bonus for upper-level Patreon supporters, but also available as a one-off purchase for non-subscribers.
>> Listen to the full episode HERE <<
D...
It's Andrew Lloyd Webber week in our Musical Mayhem season, and to turn the volume all the way up, we've selected Joel Schumacher's most renowned superhero flick, The Phantom of the Opera. And for those of you who couldn't care less about musicals, but have been along for the ride with us on this journey... this episode concludes the season!
Next week we're bringing a special bonus episode for Patreon supporters at the Fearless Femi...
Watching the 1968 film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Wiz, we can't help but feel that director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Joel Schumacher deeply underserved their stars, craftspeople, and source material. It's impossible not to be captivated by the performances, especially as the movie is such a memorable intersection of the careers of Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, but the staging and writing continually let us down.
D...
We couldn't do a whole season about movie musicals without watching a Barbra vehicle. There are so many elements of 1968's Funny Girl that elevate the form, from William Wyler's direction taking a stage show to the screen, and Streisand's performance as her character Fanny Brice evolves from fame-hungry teenager to worldly star and wife. We found a lot of nuance in the film's exploration of labor and gender dynamics, and can't help...
Halfway through our season of Musical Mayhem, we decided to dive deep into the shallow waters of 2021's Dear Evan Hansen. After covering Glee last week, we felt like we had no other choice. This full-length episode is a special bonus for Patreon supporters at the "Fearless Feminist" level and above, but it's also available as a one-time purchase for non-subscribers.
>> Listen to the full episode HERE <<
Discussed in this ...
Never has the micro-generational divide between Kat and A.C. been sharper than in their relationships to Glee, arguably the most influential musical series ever on television. It's hard not to get glib in our discussion of the "issues" the show attempted to tackle over the course of its six seasons. Especially when the show's tone varied from mean-spirited to earnest representation politics throughout the course of the series.
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