Tender Subject

Tender Subject

The only podcast that bites back! Jay and Kayte talk about the most delicious taboo: cannibalism. Join us as we devour movies, art and theory!

Episodes

July 22, 2025 109 mins

Boils and blood and side wounds, oh my! This week we are joined by artist/professor (and Kayte's MFA thesis mentor!) Jonathan Van Dyke to talk about Renaissance paintings, torture, eroticism and more. On the menu: Jesus's sexuality, saints in ecstasy, leaky artists and why so many old Christian paintings look so queer. 

About Jonathan Van Dyke:   Jonathan VanDyke is a New York City–based visual artist working at the intersection of...

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The shoe is too small for her, the true bride waits for you. This week we dig our teeth into the bloody fairy tale of Cinderella retold as the film The Ugly Stepsister with our guest, writer/editor Payton McCarty-Simas. We talk through the rot of beauty standards, overbearing mothers and fuckboy princes through the many iterations of tale, including Angela Carter's Ashputtle and Grimm's Cinderella.  Media referenced:  "Cinderella"...

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Who are the real cannibals? Spoiler: it’s western imperialism! Kayte, Jay and guest Mark Steven dissect the cult classic Cannibal Holocaust and discover layer upon gristly layer of meaning. Topics we cover: found footage, the complicity of media, anthropology, groovy soundtracks and well-meaning liberals.  a note: this movie contains a lot of SA, violence and animal cruelty. We still think it’s a really important film to watch!  M...

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Out by 16 or dead in the scene but together forever! This week we are joined by writer/performer Addison Peacock to talk about Ginger Snaps! Topics include: being a weird girl, fashion before the internet, becoming a monster and sisterly incest! 

Media referenced: 

The Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed

”Out by 16: Queer(ed) Girls in Ginger Snaps” by Tanis McDonald

Where to find Addison: 

Listen to her on the steampunk fantasy p...

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We're back for Season 2 of Yellowjackets with Dave and writer Madeline Lane McKinley! We talk about mystery box TV and if solving mysteries matters. Plus, physical media, girls eating girls, '90s bangers and over-medicated teens. Buy Madeline’s book Comedy Against Work here 

Buy Fag/Hag here soon! 

And look out for Solidarity with Children here soon! 

Dave is also a co-host on Genre Reveal Party and hosts This is Your Afterlife  K...

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February 25, 2025 114 mins

Kayte, Mae and our guest Rocco are in our shiny tendon suits and, uh-oh, we're in the nightmare mind of Vincent D'Onofrio? That's right, we are talking about Tarsem Singh's surrealist psychological horrror, The Cell. We talk about the lost art of music videos, Jennifer Lopez's unique empathetic heroism and unreal animation vs AI.  Where to find Rocco: The LadyKillers Podcast Read Rocco's Reviews! Mae is also a co-host on The Ladyk...

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January 1, 2025 111 mins

Then we'll all sing together, Society waits for you... This week on Tender Subject, it's finally time for the shunt! Kayte, Dave and our guest, comedian Gabe Pacheco, talk about Brian Yuzna's gooey satirical horror film Society (1989). We talk about Bodies without Organs, capitalism, Luigi Mangione and the possibilities of a Communist shunt.  Media referenced: Some good podcasts to get started on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ...

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This week on Tender Subject, Kayte and Jay are joined by Ash from Horror Vanguard to talk about Alison Rumfitt’s brutal novel Tell Me I’m Worthless. We talk about haunted houses, bodies and territories plus TERFs, RadFems and looming Fascism. 

Media referenced:  ”Battlefield Exctacies” by Sophie Lewis, The Point Magazine.

Capitalism: A Horror Story by Jon Greenaway, Repeater Books.

Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook by Mark Bray, M...

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November 27, 2024 93 mins

Who's hungry? As you travel this week to your own Blood Feasts, we're taking another bite of an old favorite episode!

Kayte and Jay are joined by noted Herschell Gordon Lewis expert LaborKyle to talk about the film Blood Feast (1963). In doing so, we summon Ishtar (which means we talk about all sorts of stuff like treating your artistic work as work, how Victorians ate mummies, and the warm piss stream of Marxism). 

You can find La...

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November 14, 2024 120 mins

This week, Kayte and Mae are joined by writer and professor Jo Isaacson to dissect the polarizing new body horror film by Coralie Fargeat, THE SUBSTANCE! We dig really deep, and discuss camp, old Hollywood and hagsploitation, Marxist alienation, unboxing videos and giving birth to a new beautiful monster.  Sources mentioned:

The Monstrous Feminine and The Return to the Monstrous Feminine by Barbara Creed

”Whatever Happened to Monst...

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October 23, 2024 109 mins

This week on Tender Subject, Kayte, Jay and Dave have cooked up a feast of an episode on the demon barber himself, Sweeney Todd! Join us as we sink our teeth into the movie, the play, the sets, the songs and lots and lots of blood.

Media referenced:

“Is That Just Disgusting?" Mapping the Social Geographies of Filth and Madness in "Sweeney Todd" by Aleksei Grinenko link here 

Six by Sondheim

Jay is also a co-host on Library Punk!

Da...

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In honor of Texas Chainsaw's 50th anniversary and Jo's Post45 cluster (Kayte's collage is in it!) we are re-publishing our TCM episode. Enjoy!

Did somebody order head cheese? If you did, you're in luck! This week, we're joined by Johanna Isaacson, author of Stepford Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror, to talk about the one, the only, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre! We ask the important questions, such as, "does L...

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September 30, 2024 109 mins

Jay and Kayte are joined by Carlee from Hit Factory podcast to talk about a movie near and dear to all of our hearts, Julie Taymor's brutal and gorgeous Shakespeare adaptation, Titus (1999). We discuss intentional anachronisms, faithfulness to texts, how Victorians tried to re-brand Shakespeare (and the Classical Era!) and heroes and villains.  This is an incredible movie that we all love so much but it's hard to find so please enl...

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September 10, 2024 152 mins

Facehuggers, Xenomorphs, Offspring, oh my! This week Kayte and Mae are joined by writer/educatrix Tina Horn (@tinahornsass) to talk about our favorite body horror scenes in the Alien Franchise! We're talking about guts, gore, psychosexual horror and more in our longest, rowdiest episode yet! But hey, we watched SEVEN alien movies in a week for you!  Where you can find Tina:  Buy Tina's new book, Why Are People Into That? Listen to...

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Kayte and Jay and guest R.E. Parrish are zipping up our wyrm-skin jumpsuits and plunging into the gnostic fantasy that is Elytron Frass' Moieties. We talk about Ergodic literature, Ero Guru nansensu, the history of gnosticism, the book as tactile object and all sorts of other esoteric weirdness.

Media referenced:  "The Erotic Japanese Art Movement Born Out of Decadence" by Evelyn Wang, Dazed Magazine. "George Bataille Book Club Bon...

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"The End of the World is Nuts" Writer J †Johnson joins Kayte and Mae to talk about the beautiful and bloody novel Manhunt by Gretchen Felker Martin. We talk about how refreshing it is to read a gender apocalypse book that doesn't deal in binaries. Plus: don't trust rich libs, incredibly hot sex and how to build community at the end of the world. 

Media we referenced: Heat Death interview with Gretchen JJ is the co-editor of Cul de...

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July 11, 2024 96 mins

Guys, are cars bad? We ask this and so many other important questions as we dig deep under the hood of Julia Ducournau's oil slicked film, Titane with writer Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) We're talking about abjection, family abolition, gender fluidity and what it means to f*ck a car. Let's ride! 

Sources referenced:

Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema by Barbara Creed

"A New Humanity: Interview with Titane's W...

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Press play on your PJ Harvey cassette tape, we are talking about season 1 of Yellowjackets with writer Madeline Lane-McKinley! We dissect themes of adolescence, maenadism, fandom and ‘90s culture. Plus! Are teenage girls really that mean? Is there enough cannibalism in Yellowjackets or just enough? 

Buy Madeline’s book Comedy Against Work here 

Pre-order Fag/Hag here soon! 

And look out for Solidarity with Children here soon! 

 

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This week, Kayte and Jay are joined by Jon from Horror Vanguard and we are back in the world of Hannibal Lecter! We talk about Ridley Scott's 2001 movie Hannibal and the Thomas Harris novel (1999) of the same name. On the menu: Dante! Opera! Hannibal shopping! Florence! Surveillance and Mediation!  Sources discussed in this episode:

"A Postmodern Reproduction of Dante Alighieri's Exile" by Antonio Sanna

"“A very well-tailored pers...

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May 24, 2024 84 mins

Writer, worker and agitator Vicky Osterweil joins us this week to talk about the 1999 horror western dark comedy (?) Ravenous! Come along with us as we head out to the snowy wilds of the Western mountains; we talk Wendigos, colonizers, monstrous gays, the myth of the "noble frontiersman" and bravery. Also, a bananas soundtrack by Michael Nyman and Damon Alburn! Subscribe to Vicky's newsletter: https://all-cats-are-beautiful.ghost....

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