Dec 24, 2015
This episode of The
Chauncey DeVega Show features two great guests.
Star Wars: The Force
Awakens is taking the world by storm. The Chauncey DeVega
Show has done several special episodes with friend of the site
Bill the Lizard about the new series of Star Wars films.
Chauncey and Bill the Lizard have finally seen the new movie. They
originally intended to talk for only 20 minutes, but instead ended
up with an almost hour long deconstruction of the film, the future
of the franchise, and other matters about the (for all intents and
purposes) rebooted/remixed J.J. Abrams Star Wars
universe.
This week's episode features 20
or so minutes of that conversation. It will be posted next week as
an end of year full episode of The Chauncey DeVega
Show.
The main guest on this week's
installment of The Chauncey DeVega Show is Michael Witwer. He is the author of the great new book
Empire of Imagination.
Popular culture is social
history. In this wonderful conversation Michael Witwer and Chauncey
talk about the history of pen and paper and dice role-playing games
in the United States, the history of Dungeons and Dragons, share
some great stories about its primary inventor Gary Gygax, laugh
about how the U.S. military infiltrated Gygax's role-playing group,
and explore the legacy of Dungeons and Dragons as one of
the great influences on a whole generation of Hollywood filmmakers,
video game creators, and authors.
Michael Witwer and Chauncey
also discuss questions of "inclusion" around race and gender in
role-playing fandom and events such as Gencon and the subgenre
known as "swine gaming" that features "games" about the Holocaust,
the genocide of First Nations peoples, and white on black chattel
slavery in the New World.
Michael Witwer also surprises
Chauncey with his in depth knowledge of Star Wars and how
his brother does voice-over work for Star Wars video games
and animated series.
In addition to the great
teaching done by Michael Witwer and Bill the Lizard, Chauncey talks
about Donald Trump's use of the phrase "schlonged", reflects on the
death of Sandra Bland, offers up his Festivus grievances, tells
folks about his iron skillet troubles, continues to thank the kind
folks who donated to the fundraiser, and shares why he is happy and
more or less content this holiday season.