e382. How Catch ’em? Exploring the Inverted Mystery

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The VoxPopcast

Vox Populorum

410 episodes

4 days ago

We’ve all had a discussion or an argument about popular culture. Sometimes it happens on Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter. Maybe it was in a literature, history, philosophy or psychology class in college. Perhaps it was at the local comic book shop. Or maybe it was at a bar and you ended up stabbing someone with a bottle or bludgeoning them with a pool cue. All of these discussions are exactly the same. The tenured professor at an academic conference deconstructing Batman through a Derrida lens is really doing the same thing as a bunch of teenagers passing a joint around in their mother’s basement. One just uses bigger words and the other swears more. Honestly, though, we’re not sure which. So why not bring them all together? Vox Populorum is a blog and podcast devoted to pop culture criticism. We believe that the best way to understand culture is to discuss it. Please join our weekly round table of media critics, academics and fans for engaging discussion about movies, novels, comic bo

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e382. How Catch ’em? Exploring the Inverted Mystery

The VoxPopcast

3 months ago

e382. How Catch ’em? Exploring the Inverted Mystery

One of the most tried and true genres of fiction is the Whodunnit mystery. The premise is simple, a crime is committed and the reader or audience watches the a detective solve the mystery. They are our eyes and ears. We know only what they know, and we must solve the crime along with the detective. This is not an episode about those. Instead, we want to talk about a related genre, the Howcatchem, aka the inverted mystery. There are a surprising amount of entries int he pop culture landscape about crimes where the audience is fully aware of details of the crime that the detective is not. Often, we may even see the crime committed in the opening scene. On this crossover episode with the Protagonist Podcast, Mav is joined by returning guests Joe Darowski and Stephanie Siler to explore this phenomenon and what makes it great. Why do we enjoy mysteries so much when what is traditionally thought of as the defining trait of the genre is rendered moot? Listen and then let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Citations and Links:

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