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Episode Title: How The Shawshank Redemption Humanizes Prisoners Produced by: Pop Culture Detective Description: Help me make more videos! https://www.patreon.com/popdetective On a narrative level The Shawshank Redemption is a movie about the power of hope in the face of extraordinary hardship. But underpinning Andy Dufresne’s story we also find a blistering critique of the prison system and criminal justice policy in the United States. The film’s narrative and cinematography work in conjunction to humanize, not just our protagonists, but all the prisoners at Shawshank. And that humanization is instrumental in facilitating the film’s larger critique the prison industrial complex. RESOURCES • How to support male survivors: https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-assault-men-and-boys • Just Detention International: https://justdetention.org • Statistics and facts about sexual violence: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence • Criminal Justice and Prison Facts: http...

Comedic scenarios involving the sexual abuse of men can include a wide range of behaviors: from casual punchlines about unwanted kissing or touching to gratuitous one-liners about anal rape. It’s hard to overstate just how common jokes about men being sexually assaulted are in entertainment. Most popular comedic actors engage in this type of humor. The jokes are typically designed demean, humiliate, or emasculate a male character for being the victim, or potential victim, of sexual violence. RESOURCES • Black & Pink: http://www.blackandpink.org • Just Detention International: https://justdetention.org • How to support male survivors: https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-assault-men-and-boys PATREON If you’d like to help fund my video essays, please visit Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/popdetective PAYPAL If you'd rather make a one-time donation you can do it via PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/popdetective TEXT TRANSCRIPT Coming soon! COMMENTS All YouTube comments are h...

The Last Jedi is a movie that’s designed to defy fan expectations. Nowhere is this subversion more evident than in the way the film handles its three male heroes: X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron, renegade Stormtrooper Finn, and legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker.

Kidnapping as a romance is a media cliché in which a man kidnaps or imprisons a woman and eventually falls in love with him. Abduction as Romance is one of a number of popular media tropes that portray violence against women and abusive male behavior as necessary, exciting or romantic.

The 80s movies that left the biggest impression on me as a kid weren’t necessarily from the most popular or iconic films. And they aren't referenced in Ready Player One. The cinematic moments that had the most profound impact on my childhood were unapologetically sappy and sentimental. In this video, I discuss 5 of my favorite lesser known movies from the 1980s that foster empathy and solidarity.

Stalking For Love is a popular media trope where invasive stalker-like behavior is presented as an endearing or harmless part of romantic courtship. The hero will often go to extraordinary lengths to coerce, trick or otherwise manipulate his way into a woman's life.

At their core, George Lucas's six Star Wars films are coming of age stories about boys becoming men. Both Luke and Anakin Skywalker are guided and shaped by the principles of the Jedi Order but buried within Jedi teachings we find some troubling and deeply unhealthy ideas about masculinity.

The Big Bang Theory delights in poking fun at its male characters for their geeky obsessions but there's something even more pernicious going on just under the surface. Beyond the mocking of geekdom, the show is relentless in making fun of its male leads for not being 'real men." In their quest to prove their manhood the four geeks then end up being complicit in many of the most harmful aspects of hypermasculinity.

The Big Bang Theory provides a perfect lens through which to deconstruct a popular media trope I like to call the Adorkable Misogynist. Adorkable Misogynists are male characters whose geeky version of masculinity is framed as comically pathetic yet still endearing. Their status as nerdy “nice guys” then lets them off the hook for a wide range of creepy, entitled, and sexist behaviors.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Awakening of Power reveals something that no film in the history of the Star Wars series has ever brought home to viewers: The film gives a Stormtrooper soldier a human face. Oddly enough, the filmmakers seem unaware of the profound effects that this new aspect of the story has on the remnants of the Star Wars universe.

Why wasn't Donald Trump's blatant and unashamed misogyny a deal breaker for voters? I argue it has a lot to do with the ways pop culture, especially television sitcoms, work to normalizes sexist behavior.

The Cartoon Network series Steven Universe is an adventure show about a boy with super powers derived from an interstellar gemstone in his belly. But in many ways it’s also a coming-of-age story about a young man growing up and trying to find his place in the world. In this episode we discussing how Steven’s empathic superpowers function as a subversion of traditional boy hero tropes.

The sequel to the 1996 mega-blockbuster "Independence Day" hit theaters this summer but there was something a little strange about many of the trailers. What looks like a clever marketing campaign centered on joining the fictional "Earth Space Defense" was actually a cross-branded recruitment tool for the US Army. It’s part of a multi-million dollar joint advertising venture between 20th Century Fox and the United States Military.

You may have bumped into the term toxic masculinity during your travels around the internet. It usually shows up in connection with particularly abusive male behavior, but what does it really mean? In this episode we take a closer look at the term using Biff from Back To The Future as our example.

This is the first in a series of videos exploring what Steven Universe has to say about men, boys and masculinity. This episode covers representations of emotional expression, and highlights the ways in which crying, affection and fear are framed on the show.

The Pop Culture Detective Agency is a brand new video series that looks at media through a critical lens with an emphasis on depictions of men and masculinity in popular culture. We welcome them here, their work is real important!