Special Topics in Media

Special Topics in Media Studies is a lecture-based podcast that tackles media history one artifact at a time. Each season of the series we will investigate a different mass media theme, medium, or programming genre. While our focus is educational (it is an academic podcast after all), we tailor our conversations toward a broad audience of media enthusiasts.

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Special Topics in Media

Film Listology: #80 - WALL*E

February 04, 2025 • Garret Castleberry • Season 8 • Episode 35

0:00 | 38:12

In this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry assess the cultural significance of the 2008 Pixar Animated feature film WALL*E. Directed by Andrew Stanton and released to wide critical acclaim, WALL*E centers on a labor robot fascinated by the haunting reveries of the now-vanished human civilization. WALL*E imaginatively embodies qualities of the silent film in its vaunted first half, and then shifts gears toward a more conventional animated adventure in its second half. Do these two parts combine to enhance or diminish the film's cultural significance factor in our Film Listology super index? Garret and Scott weigh in.

Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry

Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)

Recommended readings paired with our Film Listology season:
Rick Altman. Film/Genre. British Film Institute, 1999.

Jim Collins, Ada Preacher Collins, Hilary Radner (Eds.). Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 1st Edition. New York: Routledge, 1992.

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