In Bed With The Right

"Tolkien is turning in his grave", Elon Musk tweeted on September 5, 2022 having watched (i.e. not watched) the first episode of Amazon's new series The Rings of Power. Whether it's a new Galadriel-centered TV-show, the Peter Jackson trilogies or just people writing fantasy a little differently: right wingers are very happy to claim J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) as their own, their own reactionary impulses as fealty to his legacy, and his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings (1954) as a source of right wing shibboleths. As guest Michael Lutz (part of the Ranged Touch network of podcasts) explains, that view manages to be both not entirely inaccurate and somehow completely misguided. Moira and Adrian ask Michael: What role does Tolkien's Middle Earth play in nurturing reactionary impulses within sci-fi/fantasy fandom? (If you'd like to hear more of Michael's analysis of The Lord of the Rings, head over to Shelved by Genre, where Michael, Cameron Kunzelman, and Austin Walker read their way through all of Tolkien!)

Moira and Adrian continue their deep dive into science fiction fandom. After spending Episode I with the inner workings of right wing fandom (also pod racing), they now delve into the kinds of fan objects right wing fans congregate around. What specific authors, specific subgenres, specific tropes seem to inspire right wing fans (sometime deliberately, sometimes through no fault of their own)? What do right-wingers come to science fiction for?

This fall, Moira and Adrian will take a deep dive into right wing fans. In recent years, right wingers from Milo Yiannopoulos to Elon Musk have leveraged science fiction fandom to stoke media outrage and build onramps to the far right. But when they have done so, they have built on something of a tradition. While we'll eventually end up with the kinds of "fans" who get upset about Black actors portraying elves or storm troopers, this first episode delves into the forms of fandom that right wing culture war skirmishes have traditionally drawn on, or as which they have camouflaged. What's the role of gender in fan communities? What version of “fealty”, possessiveness and community come into play in these skirmishes? How come so much of our contemporary politics seems to be routed through fandom?

For this episode, Moira and Adrian are joined by Matt Bernstein of A Bit Fruity to talk about the resistible rise and precipitous fall of Milo Yiannopoulos. We trace Milo's origins living parasitically off of fan cultures, the culture war-politics of Breitbart, and explore both the power and very real limits of right wing politics of outrageousness. What happens to the provocateur when provocation becomes a tool of governance?
CONTENT NOTE: Yes, Adrian knows that it was national treasure Jennifer Connelly, not Jennifer Garner hanging with the goblins in Labyrinth! He will not be taking questions on this matter at this time.
CONTENT NOTE: Also, there's discussions of a lot of hateful ideas, actions, terms in this episode. All the content warnings that come naturally with discussing Milo Yiannopoulos apply to this episode.

For this episode, Moira takes Adrian on a trip into the long, many-colored history of the iconic Dolly Parton (1946-2026), from the Tennessee mountains where life was as peaceful as a baby's sigh, via Nashville to a corner office where you tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, and naturally pour yourself a cup of ambition. Throughout her life, Dolly modeled a very particular style of femininity, one that managed to be both pastiche, an expression of American mores circa 1970, and very much her own. Moira and Adrian talk about what to make of this style of campy, self-mocking, but also very assertive womanhood -- and what contemporaries made of it across the six decades of Dolly's presence in American life.