{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Messy Liberation: Feminist Conversations about Politics and Pop Culture","title":"Why Everyone's Obsessed with Wicker (And What It Says About Us)","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/313b3340\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2630,"description":"Becky and Taina are back from their summer Everything Is Political series with their regular weekly episode, kicking things off with the internet-breaking trailer for Wicker — the upcoming movie starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, and Peter Dinklage about a woman who marries a man made of wicker. What starts as trailer reactions turns into a wider conversation about the booming romance and \"smutty romance\" book industry, the trad wife movement's contradictions, media literacy, and who gets conditioned to be curious versus who doesn't.\nWhat we discussed:\n00:00 – Welcome back after the summer Everything Is Political series\n00:28 – Introducing today's topic: the Wicker trailer\n01:33 – First reactions to the trailer and the Bookstagram/BookTok buzz\n04:11 – Breaking down the premise (and the jokes about it)\n09:52 – \"It's all men until it's not all men\" — men continuing to fall short\n10:08 – The wicker husband, village jealousy, and the metal-collar marriage symbolism\n12:17 – Why this topic: free publicity and the bigger conversation about romance/smut\n15:39 – Trad wife influencers, rising conservatism, and the contradiction underneath it (Nara Smith)\n16:54 – Aside on the novel Yesteryear\n20:16 – Romance publishing stats: 52% revenue growth, $1.44B a year\n22:59 – Wicker as a modern fairy tale / parallels to Beauty and the Beast\n24:26 – Entertainment as propaganda: military movies and Hollywood contracts\n26:14 – Media literacy: why it matters for everything we consume, not just news\n31:21 – Privilege, curiosity, and who gets conditioned not to question things\n34:07 – Curiosity as joy; how liberal arts education changed things for Becky\n36:22 – The power of \"why\" and \"what if\" as questions\n43:00 – Wrap-up and plans to revisit after they've both seen the movie in October\nResources mentioned:\n• Wicker trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP0BWBWn14I\n• \"The Wicker Husband\" short story: https://www.scribd.com/document/163478512/The-Wicker-Husban1\n• \"Yesteryear\"...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/aNtkeONUK2JFF10pE30y12Nynv6W5wgwicUSi78cNts/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMmU0/NjgyMWQ2YWYxMDE4/MTE0ZGIzY2I3MDEx/MTlhYS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}