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It’s the season finale and we’re talking about the wind beneath our wings: FRIENDSHIP. Possibly some tears were shed, and not just about this week’s film BEACHES, starring Better Midler as, well, basically Bette Midler, and prissy Barbara Hershey as her BFF Hillary who dies in a series of large hats and deep breaths on a beach because otherwise how would we explore the depths of their friendship??? Come for our off-key singing and stay for a discussion about how a good friend can change your whole entire life. CW: viral cardiomyopathy 

Nobody puts Dirty Dancing in the corner. OR DO THEY? This week we have THE TIME OF OUR LIVES discussing everything Baby and Johnny with transgender actress and activist Delia Kropp, but don’t worry, it’s unanimous, Dirty Dancing totally rules. Our kingdom for a summer gyrating around with Patrick Swayze! Join us as we break down the surprisingly woke depiction of class and privilege, white lady activism, abortion, and, le sigh, FIRST LOVE.  CW: abortion, gyrating teens

Take a deep breath and hold it because it’s time for Waiting to Exhale! This movie has the best of everything the 90s had to offer: Whitney Houston! Angela Bassett! Oversized suits! A soundtrack by Babyface! It’s all about Black female friendship and what women talk about when they talk about love. To helps up unpack the fuckbois, this week we’ve got Karen Hawkins (@chiefrebelle), Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Reader, founder and head rebelle at Rebellious Magazine, and podcaster at Of Course I’m Not OK and Feminist Erotica.  CW: drug use, abortion

When did it become cool to hate Forrest Gump?? Because way back in 1994 this film won all the Oscars and had people sobbing into their popcorn over Forrest’s love story with the one and only JENNNNNAAAAYYYY. But is the film actually racist? A flippant take on disability? Emotionally manipulative? It’s maybe all of those things and our girl Adrienne is so scared you’re gonna cancel her because she still loves it. CW: war, death, AIDS, drugs use

Dead Poets Society, a teen drama about conformity versus creativity and the poems of many, many, many, many, many, many long-dead white guys. For a movie this white and this male, we knew we’d need to bring in an expert mansplainer to make sure we understood it all, so today we welcome James Beard Award winner and Chicago Reader food critic, Mike Sula, to talk about the creative life, inspiration, and most importantly, the feelings of white men. Apparently, they have them! CW: suicide Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube  

Who doesn’t want to watch a couple of middle-aged guys get high all day and muck up everything they touch? Well, Adrienne Gunn for one. But Elizabeth promises that the stoner classic CHEECH AND CHONG’S UP IN SMOKE is gonna teach us all about the power of friendship and give us a peek into why she’s our fav fun-loving, wild AF, enneagram 7 bae. This week we welcome Chicago comedian Soli Santos to talk about making comedy while female, party culture, and Cheech Marin’s 100% hot bod. CW: drug use Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube

How did the patron saint of the 80s teen flick John Hughes get away with being so, well, rapey? Yes, that’s right folks, it’s time for SIXTEEN CANDLES, a movie about the horrors of high school: stolen underpants, foreign exchange students, sixteenth birthdays, and date rape. This week we welcome Wokefield’s resident lesbian Taylor Maughon to talk compulsory heterosexuality, sexual harrassment, and dreaming of that perfect guy. CW: date rape, racism, sexual harrassment Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube

The Joy Luck Club, a movie where four daughters try to understand four immigrant mothers and come to realize that whether you’re in China or America, motherhood, womanhood, it all just fckn sucks. This week we welcome Dennis Lee, a Korean-American food journalist to chat about the fruitless battle that is trying to understand your parents and…dun dun dun…FAMILY SECRETS! CW: suicide, matricide, generational trauma Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube

What better way to start season two than with the original mean girls, HEATHERS? We’re talking all about toxic friendship, addictive love, 80s fashion, high school power structures, and a simpler time when school shootings were satirical.  CW: suicide, school shooting, fat shaming Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube

Get ready for Season 2 of Wokefield! Comedians Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn re-watch some of the most influential but also cringiest movies from the 80s and 90s and talk about how they completely fucked up our ideas of what it means to be a woman in America! Listen on Amazon Prime / Audible Listen on Youtube

The Wakefield twins have arrived in London for their summer internships and next thing you know there’s a murder and <whoops!> Jessica’s DATING A WEREWOLF. It made us think about our own relationships and for this very special bonus episode, we’ve got no guests at all, just the two of us talking about what happens when you accidentally marry a monster. It’s our most vulnerable discussion yet--marriage, divorce, parenting, friendship, plus a special look back at our favorite moments this season. Written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by JW Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

It’s ten years into the future and that scheming (but irresistible) trollop Jessica Wakefield has stolen her sister Elizabeth’s fiance (and sentient basketball jersey) Todd Wilkins and is about to marry him herself! Elizabeth’s fled to New York to nurse her broken heart and plot her revenge. Sounds pretty good, right? HAHAHAHAA WRONG. Unfortunately good ol’ Francine Pascal showed up to write the final word on Sweet Valley herself and let’s just say . This week we welcome bestselling author and ghostwriter Rachel Bertsche to the pod to talk about the art of ghostwriting and the legacy of Sweet Valley. And do not even think about missing the LAVALIER AWARDS where we’ll nominate the worst sentences Francine has ever written and crown a winner.Wokefield is written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media.

 We’re finally leaving high school behind and joining the Wakefield twins at Sweet Valley University! Join us for a front row seat to Jessica’s deflowering and Elizabeth’s relentless struggle with the freshman fifteen. We’re telling tales of losing our own virginities--key word: WATERBEDS--and welcome the fabulously sex-positive Anita Mechler, archivist, entrepreneur, painter, and retired roller derby baby, to talk about the feminist sex seminars she attended before popping her cherry.  Written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez & Adrienne Gunn. Produced and Engineered by JW Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

Get right on outta here with those All-American good looks and shiny red Fiat, Wakefield twins! It’s time for some good old TEEN ANGST. This week we welcome to the SVH universe the patron saint of teenage depression, songstress Lynne Henry. Girl, we love your bad hair, baggy clothes, and nary a will to live! Join us as we welcome writer Taylor Maughon and revisit our own teenage depression, current battles with self-esteem, and discuss the creative process and a question that’s been bugging us for years—are all artists narcissistic assholes?Wokefield is written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Copyright 2021.

It’s finally here!! The most formative book of Adrienne’s youth, the one where disabled hero Regina Morrow gets dumped by Bruce Patman, does one line of cocaine, and falls over and dies! This week we welcome to the pod comedian, actor, writer, teacher, and Chicago legend Kelsie Huff to discuss why she thinks these books are “hot garbage” and what we did or did not put up our noses in high school. We’ve got some alcoholic parents and some alcoholic tendencies, so buckle up, there’s a lot to unpack. Wokefield is written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez & Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. 

In Sweet Valley, cheerleading is a matter of life and death. New girl in town Annie Whitman dreams of joining the squad but--oops!--this fifteen-year-old has a reputation and our favorite sociopath Jessica Wakefield says NO SLUTS ALLOWED. Jessica will do whatever it takes to keep Annie off the squad, even if it drives Francine Pascal to her most irresponsible plot twist of all time. This week we welcome storyteller and Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inductee Kim Hunt to help us figure out, just how slutty do you have to be to be called a slut? What’s slut shaming like in lesbian culture? Are all single moms drunk losers? And are you even allowed to be a cheerleader if you come from a broken home?Written and hosted by Elizabeth Gomez & Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.

You guys, Jessica finally gets a personality and its BROWN HAIR. And of course the pitch perfect 80s dream of becoming a model at the mall. Because representation is important, this week we welcome poet, sk8erboi, and straight white guy Tim Stafford to the pod to talk about influencer culture, branding yourself, frenemies, and basically how Sweet Valley is no Lyons, IL. And then for the first time, Wokefield’s resident astrologer Zane Biebelle breaks down how the sun, the moon, and the stars have influenced the Wakefield twins—of course those hoes be Geminis!—and how our own birth weeks determine whether or not we could be friends with them. Wokefield is written & hosted by Elizabeth Gomez & Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media.

Uh, hello, 911? Elizabeth Wakefield’s been kidnapped by a mentally ill hospital orderly! Join us as we relive Elizabeth’s thirty-six hour horror, tied to a chair in the only shack in Sweet Valley, while Jessica wears bikinis and poses in the mirror and Todd flexes his muscles. This week we welcome writer and performer Archy Jamjun to the pod and drop him right into the SVH universe in a new game we invented where he has to survive as the only queer person of color at Sweet Valley High. CAN HE DO IT???Written & Hosted by Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn. Produced & engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Copyright 2020

Jessica’s dating an older man. How do we know he’s older? HE HAS A MUSTACHE. On this episode we welcome Alissa Rowinsky Wright, SVH super fan and mother of twins, to help us figure out--are all twins this codependent? Because after Jessica stays out < all! night! long! > Elizabeth is a wreck, running around taking tests for her sister and being a maniac until even Todd has had enough. 

After being blackballed by Pi Beta Alpha, resident fat girl Robin Wilson runs around the SVH track and only eats lettuce leaves to transform herself into this year’s Miss Sweet Valley. (Because, you know, she always had a pretty face.) In this episode we welcome transgender stand-up comedian, actor, and entrepreneur Dina Nina Martinez to talk about body image, shaming, and reinventing ourselves.Hosted by Elizabeth Gomez and Adrienne Gunn. Produced and engineered by J.W. Basilo for Shame The Devil Media. Recorded at Que4 Radio Studios, Chicago.Follow us online @wokefieldpod and @shame.the.devil