Dead Poets Society: Deep Thoughts About the Dubious Psychology of Standing on Desks

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. O Captain! My Captain!Join us as Tracie brings her deep thoughts to the 1989 film Dead Poets Society on today’s episode. Though this beloved film was supposed to be a pop culture defense of the humanities (and remember, both Guy Girls were English majors at private liberal arts colleges), this rewatch made it clear the film thinks poetry is simply cute and that Robin Williams’s John Keating agitated for independent thought–as long as it aligned with his own. While the storytelling does not inspire like it once did, bringing a queer lens to the analysis offers some important lessons on the psychology of becoming one’s full self.Is this a podcast I see before me? Earbuds toward my hand? Come, let me listen to thee!CW: Suicide and mentions of sexual harassment/stalking.Mentioned in this episode:Dead Poets Society Is a Terrible Defense of the Humanities by Kevin Dettmar (Atlantic)Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!