Special Topics in Media is back! After an unscheduled hiatus in programming to usher in the New Year (while preparing for the new spring semester!), cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry RETURN with a transitional film conversation that bridges our previous focus on "Astrophobia" with a new emphasis this month, "Nightmarish Nature".  Continuing season seven's sprawling topic "Communicating Fears in Film", the dialogic duo take aim with an eerily troubling thriller from "the master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock, 1963's The Birds. The team comes firing out of the gates with an examination of Hitchcock's brazen shifts between filmmaking and experimentation with television (9:45), before peering into the studio system and gender politics that mark and possibly mar some of the director's most celebrated works (12:36). Coining the term "Heinous Amos" to describe Hitch's Freudian foibles, Garret challenges the aggregated cultural value of Hitchcock's oeuvre while simultaneously appraising the artistic audacity on display through the director's resonant themes that frequently center on troubled women, obsessive manipulation of primary colors, and fateful violence that may belie deeper disturbances regarding this auteur's worldview (27:00).  As a customary sign-off, Scott must answer the call to pinpoint the ways in which Hitchcock's The Birds communicates fear.

Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry

Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)

Recommended readings paired with Season Seven "Communicating Fears in Film":
Kendall Phillips. Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Praeger, 2006.

Stephen Prince. Apocalypse Cinema. Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Murray Leeder. Horror Film: A Critical Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2018.

Alfred Hitchcock (Director). The Birds. California, USA: Universal Pictures, 1963.

Alexandre O. Philippe. (Director). 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene. [Documentary]. Exhibit A Pictures/ARTE/Milkhaus/Screen Division/Sensorshot Productions.

Ways to Connect with us online:
Follow and engage with Special Topics in Media on Twitter at @podcast_topics.

"Like" to follow our Special Topics in Media Page on Facebook (search Special Topics in Media).

Join the Special Topics in Media Facebook Group and share your reviews of the film or this episode.

Subscribe to Dr. Castleberry's academic YouTube Channel.

Garret's academic website is available at https://garretcastleberry.academia.edu/.