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Stepford Wife (n): a married woman who submits to her husband's will and is preoccupied by domestic concerns and her own personal appearance. That's fairly insidious, and I think we have all come to recognize it as such. There is an over-strong emphasis on stability, "normality," and the value of compliance. But put it side by side with the World Health Organization's definition of mental health: Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual... can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community. Do you see the problem yet?

What happens when we try to separate a person from their identity, from the very traits that make them unique? Golden Compass explores this question when it is revealed that the government, inspired by religious fundamentalism, is violently separating children from their daemons - i.e. animal companions that, in this universe, embody their souls. With our guest, Mad activist Kaz DeWolfe, we discuss the parallels between this procedure and therapies/treatments designed to make people more neurotypical and conforming.

Are superhero movies dead? You know, the kind where a handsome white man saves the city and gets the girl? Ok, maybe those movies aren't dead, but not for lack of trying. Spiderverse makes a point of killing the handsome, perfect Peter Parker in the first five minutes of the movie. This universe - OUR universe - has to be saved by a mixed-race kid from the wrong side of town, a depressed Jewish Peter, and a jazz-drumming young woman. So we're talking with James Aponte, filmmaker and screenwriter, about the death of normality, fragmented identity, collectivism, diversity, and the value of representation. It's one hell of a discussion!

Start with a simple question: what would have happened if Robb Stark had dragons? Game of Thrones is finally coming to a close. We don't know what's coming next any more than you do, but we wanted to talk about how madness (and our perceptions of it) will play a role in the conclusions the show comes to. How Dany's turn to the dark side is foreshadowed not by the plot, but by sexism (see above question). How Tyrion's brand of disability pride has united a kingdom. And how Bronn is the hero we all need. You won't want to miss this one, unless you don't watch Game of Thrones for some reason, I guess   Support our Patreon!

If you have ever wondered what it must be like to hear voices, to see things nobody else can see, then this is the movie for you. Because this time, the guy with the voices was right.    Shownotes: Support our Patreon! Cracks in human perception (the drunk guy in the black box) So what is healthism, anyways?

What does Game of Thrones say about madness and disability? In the Game of Thrones universe, almost no one is fully bad or good, mad or sane - everyone is just trying to survive and navigate the circumstances they’ve been dealt. Join us as we explore the portrayal of madness in this season.

Some say psychosis magnifies your worst fears. If you feel monitored and intruded upon, your brain might plant the idea that the FBI is around every corner. If you, like Arthur Dent, are lost in a maze of bureaucracy trying to save your doomed and demolished home, your brain might just generate a whole galaxy of red tape and hats that also juice lemons. Where the Star Wars universe is fueled by magic and Star Trek by curiosity, the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy is fueled by nothing more than the mundane bureaucratic bullshit you can find in any DMV office. Welcome to the mad side of science fiction. Welcome home.

Have you ever woken up from a dream and not been able to figure out if you are still dreaming or not? That feeling of questioning whether you exist in the same reality as everyone else, or whether anything you do actually matters, is central to a lot of experiences of madness. And now there’s an entire movie dedicated to that exact feeling! Your Name was fucking huge in Japan, but you may not have heard about it in the states. That is, unless you have an Anime expert in your family. Will Collings is our guest for the week as we explore climate change, existential crises, peer support, and what life must be like in Japanese culture   And keep your eyes out for JJ Abrams’ whitewashed remake in the near future! I wish I was joking

If you can’t guess from the title, this is a sad movie where the protagonists die. But who do we blame when somebody dies by suicide? The parents? The community? The siblings? And what does the blame game reveal about the power dynamics of our society? And does writer/director Sofia Coppola really understand those dynamics any better than her characters do?

Eternal Sunshine is a sci-fi that’s not really a sci-fi because it’s set in 2004 and it’s pointedly about you, me, and everyone that interacts with the medical world. No, it’s bigger than that. It’s a bold statement on the ways that we treat trauma like it’s something external, other, that we can discard through the help of science. But hey, at least science is better than exorcisms…………… Right?

In our previous episode about Venom, we had implied that Venom was the first plural/multiple/DID superhero to hit the big screen. Not true! We forgot about Bruce Banner and the Hulk! Plural activist Criss Itterman joins us to help break down and understand the relationship between these two complex characters. Forget “split-personality” movies like… well, SPLIT; this is a much more nuanced look at what it means to share a body with someone else.

At its heart, Beauty and the Beast is a story about embodiment. It raises the question: what does it mean to own a body, to want a different body, to feel trapped inside one’s own body? Is Beauty and the Beast a story of empowerment and radical transformation? Could it be compared to gender transition? Or is it a story of cure? Of conforming to conventional standards of beauty? Is it all of the above? You decide!

This is NOT a “stop watching Rudolph” show. But far too often we let kids’ entertainment get away with spreading terrible messages as long as they can bring it all into a happy ending. And Rudolph feels happy, right? But that’s not how bullying works in the real world. So we asked legendary disabled activist Cal Montgomery to help talk us through the ways we teach our bullied and disabled kids the least helpful messages

In this episode, we present a bunch of different Mad interpretations of The Little Mermaid. Just as an example, Ariel can be read pretty clearly as a trans icon, a victim of horrific intergenerational trauma, or even autistic (when she’s above water, that is). Which interpretation do you think fits the best?

Frozen details the sordid story of a cursed, divergent woman who is denied the love of her family and coerced into constructing a false life defined by isolation. She rebels, makes new friends, and as punishment is imprisoned and forced to watch her sister die. Welcome to the most popular Disney movie of this decade. Conceal don’t feel, y'all.

The Lion King sets up the “Circle of Life” as the driving protagonist behind the film. But it doesn’t take much thought to realize that the Circle of Life is actually a villain that entails eating/killing other animals, getting eaten, or starving, all under the guise of “the natural order of the food chain.” So in this episode, we explore the characters’ different styles of resisting and what they can teach us about our own “Circle of Life.”

Have you heard of the Madonna/Whore Dichotomy? It basically posits that women are forced into a binary choice between doubling down on their sexuality or retreating from it altogether. Can you imagine Hillary Clinton in lingerie? Can you imagine Beyonce NOT singing about her sex life? Black Swan asks us what happens when you try to simultaneously embody both. Answer: it will drive you positively mad.

What’s more valuable to you - happiness, or success? That’s what director Damien Chazelle seems to be asking the audience. If you are successful, does that somehow justify going mad? If you choose not to even try for success, is that some sort of creeping madness in its own right?

Imagine a world where the conspiracy theorists, the tinfoil hat people, the doomsday preppers and alien abduction survivors were all right on the money. Where everything they said or feared came true. That’s what it would feel like to live in the Ghostbusters’ universe. Which raises the question: how do we define and construct a conspiracy theory, and who gets to decide the difference between that and cutting-edge journalism or science? Because telling the difference isn’t always easy. Just ask Walter Peck.

Being disabled in a society that isn't built for you feels like having scissors for hands. At least, that’s what we think. Kick off your Halloween celebration by joining our discussion of Edward Scissorhands, a spooky fairytale about the perception of madness & disability.