Ep. 1 - Black & Brown Representation in Media

Bourbon 'n BrownTown

PODCAST OVERVIEW

SoapBox Productions and Organizing's affiliate podcast pairs critical analyses of media, culture, politics, and everyday happenings with the tastiest of spirits. With a Chicago focus, BrownTown (friends and colleagues Caullen Hudson and David A. Moran) unpacks current events, social issues, and gives personal insight into various topics with the occasional help of the most talented and creative activists, artists, filmmakers, academics, and social entrepreneurs. Find more at SoapBoxPO.com/Podcast. Follow @BourbonnBrownTown on Facebook/Instagram, @BourbonnBrwnTwn on Twitter; and @SoapBoxPO on all social media.

EPISODE OVERVIEW

In the inaugural episode of BrownTown's first ever podcast, we begin with the opening song to the pilot episode of Atlanta, Donald Glover's (AKA Childish Gambino) new series on FX. Caullen and David of BrownTown deliver a critical analysis on the comedy-drama that succeeds in exploring everything from mass incarceration, mental health, Black identity, to the sexual landscape all within the first two episodes without really even trying. The nuanced, character-driven nearly all-Black show, which premiered in fall 2016 sets the tone for the explosion of breakout Black films Moonlight and Get Out that followed in 2017. The recent Star Wars films are also a topic of discussion as their diverse cast among ethnic and gender lines has made actual white supremacists upset (...tear). With Moonlight, BrownTown briefly touches on the complexities of toxic masculinity amongst men of color (noting, of course, The Boondocks). Furthermore, we take our sights to critique the credit given by the white mainstream from instances like the Oscars Best Picture fiasco to a VOX video on late night comedian's satirical coverage of the Trump Administration, which somehow ignores Trevor Noah, Black South African host of the 21-year running Daily Show on Comedy Central. Four months into 2017, we continue to see the media landscape as an ever-evolving social ecology of paradoxical relationship between the problematic systems of the past and the progressive ideals of the future.

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CREDITS: Intro/outro music - "No Hook" by OJ Da Juiceman from FX's Atlanta season one. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro. Episode art and Bourbon 'n BrownTown logo by Desirae Gladden.

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