FEMINISM — all episodes — Fantasy/Animation

Episode 172 - Helen Hill (with Karen Redrobe)

The Fantasy/Animation podcast welcomes as its special guest for Episode 172 Professor Karen Redrobe, who is Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Professor and Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work traverses film theory, animation, and feminism, and she is the author of Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism (2003) and the new book Undead: (Inter)(in)animation, Feminisms, and the Art of War (2025), as well as editor of Animating Film Theory (2014) and Deep Mediations: Thinking Space in Cinema and Digital Cultures (2021, with Jeff Scheible). In this instalment, Karen introduces Chris and Alex to the life and career of the artist and filmmaker Helen Hill, who died in 2007 aged only 36, but whose ebullient imagination on display across her experimental shorts pushed at the boundaries of direct animation, stop-motion, and do-it-yourself methods of animated filmmaking.

Episode 134 - Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023) (with Robyn Muir)

To celebrate Disney’s computer-animated film musical Wish (Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023) and the company’s recent centenary year, Chris and Alex are joined by Dr Robyn Muir, Lecturer in Media and Communication in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantFebruary 26, 2024COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMS, MUSICAL, WALT DISNEY, GENDER, FEMINISM, MAGICComment

Episode 98 - Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi, 2022)

Chris and Alex venture (back?) into the multiverse in this entirely unplanned episode on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Sam Raimi, 2022), prompted by both a last-minute cinema trip and a desire to check-in once more with what’s happening in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantMay 30, 2022MARVEL, SUPERHERO, MAGIC, GENDER, FRANCHISE, FEMINISM, NARRATIVEComment

Episode 10 - Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2016) (with Catherine Wheatley)

For the 10th episode, Chris and Alex travel to Polynesia to tackle their first computer-animated film - Walt Disney’s all-singin’, all-dancin’ and all-digital musical Moana (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2016). They are joined by Dr Catherine Wheatley (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London) to discuss the film’s gender politics and feminist register; its beautiful Samoan and Tokelauan-language soundtrack (with songs written and composed by Opetaia Foa’i, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Mark Mancina); its ambivalent status as typical Disney fare; and the ‘tiny details’ that comprise its message of diplomacy and female empowerment.

PODCASTChristopher Holliday and Alexander SergeantFebruary 25, 2019WALT DISNEY, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILMS, MUSICAL, GENDER, FEMINISMComment