Pop Classics

A celebration of Nicolas Cage ― the man and the meme Nicolas Cage: leading man or character actor? Action hero or goofball comedian? Internet joke or one of the greatest actors of his generation? Beyond the gif bait and easy punchline, Nicolas Cage continually frustrates easy categorization or understanding. In National Treasure, pop culture writer Lindsay Gibb studies Nicolas Cage's acting style and makes sense of the trajectory of his eclectic career. In the process, Gibb debunks the common claim that Cage makes bad choices. While his selection of roles is seemingly inscrutable, Cage challenges critics and audiences alike by refusing to be predictable or to conform to the Hollywood approach to acting. Much like one of his mentors, David Lynch, Cage aims for art in movie-making. Is there a method to his madness? Is he in on the joke? In this clear-eyed and well-argued volume of the Pop Classics series, Gibb answers both questions with a resounding hell yes.

A deep dive into the groundbreaking and bestselling video game series The critically acclaimed first-person shooter franchise Borderlands knows it's ridiculous. It's a badge of pride. After all, Borderlands 2 was promoted with the tagline "87 bazillion guns just got bazillionder." These space-western games encourage you to shoot a lot of enemies and monsters, loot their corpses, and have a few chuckles while chasing down those bazillion guns. As Kaitlin Tremblay explores in Ain't No Place for a Hero, the Borderlands video game series satirizes its own genre, exposing and addressing the ways first-person shooter video games have tended to exclude women, queer people, and people of colour, as well as contribute to a hostile playing environment. Tremblay also digs in to the way the Borderlands game franchise ― which has sold more than 26 million copies ― disrupts traditional notions of heroism, creating nuanced and compelling storytelling that highlights the strengths and possibilities of this relatively new narrative medium. The latest entry in the acclaimed Pop Classics series, Ain't No Place for a Hero is a fascinating read for Borderlands devotees as well as the uninitiated.

A fascinating investigation of a beloved comic strip The internet is home to impassioned debates on just about everything, but there's one thing that's universally beloved: Bill Watterson's comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Until its retirement in 1995 after a ten-year run, the strip won numerous awards and drew tens of millions of readers from all around the world. The story of a boy and his best friend ― a stuffed tiger ― was a pitch-perfect distillation of the joys and horrors of childhood, and a celebration of imagination in its purest form. In Let's Go Exploring, Michael Hingston mines the strip and traces the story of Calvin's reclusive creator to demonstrate how imagination ― its possibilities, its opportunities, and ultimately its limitations ― helped make Calvin and Hobbes North America's last great comic strip.

An exuberant, incisive look at how Tony Hawk's Pro Skater transformed a culture Going from a hobby toy for surfers to an Olympic sport, skateboarding has had a tumultuous history. Today, professional skateboarders land endorsement deals with Nike and Adidas, while popular television series like HBO's Betty tell the stories of diverse crews of skaters living in New York City. So how did a fledgling subculture rise from its near-death knell in the '90s to become ubiquitous today? It was simply a matter of finding the right messenger. In 1999, the bestselling video game Tony Hawk'sPro Skater was released, and a new generation was exposed to skateboarding culture right in their very own homes. Kids and adults alike could now spend hours playing as actual skateboarders, learning the vernacular, listening to the music skateboarders loved, and having fun onscreen before trying to skate IRL in the driveway. Right, Down + Circle explores how a video game starring the most famous pro skater in the world brought skateboarding culture ― and its ever-shifting markers of music, subversion, and coolness ― to the masses and ultimately transformed the culture it borrowed from in the process.

A sweet and sly exploration of the Jane Austen–inspired teen movie and its evergreen imperative to be kind, do better, and find the activist within We are totally butt-crazy in love with Clueless. Since the movie's premiere in 1995, pop culture has mined Amy Heckerling's high school comedy for inspiration, from Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX's "Fancy" music video to Cher's iconic yellow plaid suit appearing at every Halloween party. In Ugh As If!, Veronica Litt argues that this seemingly fluffy teen romp is the quintessential thinking woman's movie, one in which the audience is asked to seriously consider the beauty and power of naïveté. Cher Horowitz's gradual pivot from oblivious it girl to burgeoning activist is a powerful reminder that even the most unlikely people can change for the better and contribute to their communities. In this bright, shiny film, pursuing a more just society isn't just possible - it's enjoyable. This fun, feminine, feel-good movie is a counter-narrative to nihilism, a refusal to give into cynicism, hopelessness, and passivity. Almost without viewers noticing, Clueless teaches Cher, and us, how to become better. Like the film it examines, Ugh As If! nudges even the most jaded viewer into feeling hopeful about the future.

The right reasons to fall in love with The Bachelor When it debuted in 2002, The Bachelor raised the stakes of first-wave reality television, offering the ultimate prize: true love. Since then, thrice yearly, dozens of camera-ready young-and-eligibles have vied for affection (and roses) in front of a devoted audience of millions. In this funny, insightful examination of the world's favorite romance-factory, Suzannah Showler explores the contradictions that are key to the franchise's genius, longevity, and power and parses what this means for both modern love and modern America. She argues the show is both gameshow and marriage plot ― an improbable combination of competitive effort and kismet ― and that it's both relic and prophet, a time-traveler from first-gen reality TV that proved to be a harbinger of Tinder. In the modern media-savvy climate, the show cleverly highlights and resists its own artifice, allowing Bachelor Nation to see through the fakery to feel the romance. Taking on issues of sex, race, contestants-as-villains, the controversial spin-offs, and more, Most Dramatic Ever is both love letter to and deconstruction of the show that brought us real love in the reality TV era.

A smart, engaging investigation of the show that brought real teens to TV My So-Called Life lasted only 19 episodes from 1994 to 1995, but in that time it earned many devoted viewers, including the showrunners who would usher in the teen TV boom of the late '90s and the new millennium. With its focus on 15-year-old Angela Chase's search for her identity, MSCL's realistic representation of adolescence on TV was groundbreaking; without her there would be no Buffy or Felicity, Rory Gilmore or Veronica Mars. The series' broadcast coincided with the arrival of third-wave feminism, the first feminist movement to make teen voices a priority, and Angela became their small-screen spokesperson. From her perspective, MSCL explored gender, identity, sexuality, race, class, body image, and other issues vital to the third wave (and the world). To this day, passionate fans dissect everything from what Rickie Vasquez did for gay representation to what Jordan Catalano did for leaning, and Soraya Roberts makes an invaluable contribution to that conversation with In My Humble Opinion.

Gus Van Sant's film and the '90s cult of the alternative Gus Van Sant's 1991 indie darling “My Own Private Idaho” perplexed and provoked, inspiring a new ethos for a new decade: being different was better than being good. “Gentlemen of the Shade” examines how the film was a coming-of-age for a generation of young people who would embrace the alternative and bring their outsider perspectives to sustainability, technology, gender constructs, and social responsibility. “My Own Private Idaho”, fragmented and saturated with color and dirt and a painfully beautiful masculinity—also crept into popular media, and its influence can still be traced. R.E.M. Portlandia. Hipsterism. James Franco. Referencing the often-funny and sometimes-tragic cultural touchstones of the past 26 years, “Gentlemen of the Shade” sets the film as social bellwether for the many outsiders who were looking to join the right, or any, revolution.

An engaging exploration into the enduring popularity of Dirty Dancing and its lasting themes of feminism, activism, and reproductive rights When Dirty Dancing was released in 1987, it had already been rejected by producers and distributors several times over, and expectations for the summer romance were low. But then the film, written by former dancer Eleanor Bergstein and starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as a couple from two different worlds, exploded. Since then, Dirty Dancing's popularity has never waned. The truth has always been that Dirty Dancing was never just a teen romance or a dance movie - it also explored abortion rights, class, and political activism, with a smattering of light crime-solving. In The Time of My Life, celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner excavates the layers of Dirty Dancing, from its anachronistic, chart-topping soundtrack, to Baby and Johnny's chemistry, to Bergstein's political intentions, to the abortion subplot that is more relevant today than ever. The film's remarkable longevity would never have been possible if it was just a throwaway summer fling story. It is precisely because of its themes - deeply feminist, sensitively written - that we, over 30 years later, are still holding our breath during that last, exhilarating lift.