I love that Material Girls usually makes me ponder and laugh all in the same episode. The hosts take topics that could be heavy or overwhelming and they add some thoughtful humor and analysis. There’s usually cultural connections I would have never thought but I end up continuing to think about!

Pretty funny how Hannah and Marcelle want to burn down all the institutions except for the ones that provide THEIR status and paychecks.

Love love love Marcelle and Hannah, but I miss Witch Please.

This is one of my fave podcasts—I especially love the rebooted Harry Potter run, but I’d honestly listen to Marcelle and Hannah talk about anything. I’m a queer disabled femme in an English PhD program (currently reading for my exams) and this podcast gives me hope that I can do academia while also being myself.

Great listen! Fascinating subject matter, I learn every time I listen. They have fun while discussing interesting topics in an in-depth manner. Definitely offers takes you won’t get from commercial media.

Love this love them finally I have found my people!

This is an incredible, charming, honest, and thoughtful podcast! So glad I heard about this podcast through Culture Study. Thank you both for helping me make sense of our zeitgesty world!

I listen to a lot of podcasts. Like 4-5 hours of podcasts per day. I’ve been obsessed with listening to this form of audio media since like 2008. So when I tell you that this is my very favorite podcast of all time—the PINNACLE of the form—know that I have listened to a lot of shows before coming to that opinion. I’m just oh-so-thrilled that they’ve rebooted! I loved the original version, and I’m loving the reboot. Congrats, and I hope you gain a much broader audience—you deserve to be extremely broadly listened to!

IMGONNACUMONYOU IMGONNACUMONYOU IMGONNACUMONYOU IMGONNACUMONYOU IMGONNACUMONYOU IMGONNACUMONYOU

Where has this podcast been all my life?! I love both the hosts and their brilliant and insightful ideas. I also love the array of topics and I feel like I learn so much from every episode. Keep up the good work!

Love the show! An incredibly funny, well-researched romp that consistently shifts how I see and think about the world I’m moving through on the reg. Listened to the Athleisure/optimization ep while filling out another w-9 and if that’s not praxis, I don’t know what is!! ((I might NOT “know what is” but they could definitely explain it in a way that really STICKS.)) Big fan. Came for the Coach content, stayed for the consistently amazing podcast, longtime listener first time reviewer etc etc — Looking forward to many more!

Listening to the reboot was truly one of the best educational educational experiences of my life, and I’m working on my second masters degree so I have a lot of different experiences to compare this with!

So I teach Spanish and the other day in class we came across the word "somnolencia" and my students are like "what's that mean?" And I go "somnolence" and they're like ok, what's somnolence? And the ONLY thing I could think of in that moment was the phrase "somnolence of the Kendom," which I knew would not help my students understand at all. I said something about Barbie and a podcast and my students go, "Maestra, do you have time for podcasts?" No, I haven't graded your essays yet, but yes, I do have time for my favorite podcast. Thanks to Hannah and Marcelle for being simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to my pedagogy! Couldn't get through the semester without them.

Both the new iteration as Material Girls and the previous runs of Witch Please have been a delight to listen to this year. As someone with no background in media theory, they are able to make some big academic ideas much more digestible and relevant to daily life (except maybe the idea of ‘publics'. I don’t think anyone can crack that nut for me.) On top of feeling intellectually enriching, the dynamic of friendship between Hannah and Marcelle and their occasional guests just feels wonderfully wholesome. Nice job you all. Since I can’t figure out how to contact the show and don’t follow social media, I have a content suggestion for the hosts, in hope that they still read their good reviews (or maybe at least Coach does). For a ‘Why here, why now’ that I’ve been pondering, I think it would be interesting to look at the recent phenomenon of the Lo-Fi beats hip hop musical sub-genre. Its popularity with Millennials and Gen Z seems interesting, especially as it compares and contrasts with another easy listening sub-genre beloved by the Boomer crowd: Smooth Jazz.

I thought I was too dumb to listen but after a couple rewinds and start overs .. I have came to understand so many things. The “Omg, now it all makes sense” moments are priceless. You don’t have to be a scholar to enjoy this podcast. Just have to be willing to rewind a few times lol!

This is one of my favorite podcasts. I started listening when it was Witch Please but love even more now. These hosts make scholarship come to life and bring me new ways of looking at things I already live in a deeper way. The Reading the Romance episode was especially amazing. Highly recommend!

Hosts giggle too much

What a great way to better understanding all sorts of critical theory tools. Hannah and Marcelle are fun to listen to and incredibly informative. Star Wars is one of my favorite IPs. And I really enjoyed this analysis of the problem with popular culture.

I run a monthly insights group at a healthcare company and used a snippet of the Barbie episode when talking about micro plastics found in a human heart. People went wild for the “medium is the message” knowledge bomb. TY.

I’ve been listening to this dynamic duo for years and years. Love their rapport, intelligence, and content.

Updated for the current Material Girls show: I stand by my original 5 stars and add another 5 stars. These ladies are on fire! Materialist critique of pop culture? Yes, please. Thoughtful, insightful, funny, engaging, wicked smart. And a big shout out to the whole production team as this show is slick, so well made from start to finish including all the bonus content. I love it. My heart cheers with each new episode Previous review: The original version was just a delight to listen to, and the reboot is soooooo good. The episodes are so thoughtful and interesting, well-researched and cited; they are an amazing framework for critically thinking about HP and every other form of media, as well as your normal daily interactions on planet earth. The only thing I would change is to make the episodes twice as long because they are so meaty. I often listen to them twice, but only because I am usually multitasking while listening, and I don’t want to miss a single drop. Love it! Thank you!! And when you finish this project, please apply your approach to something, anything else. I dread the day that I won’t have Hannah and Marcelle in my ears.

Hannah and Marcelle’s hilarious and well researched content has been my favorite for a while and this new podcast is even better!!! Politics, history, philosophy, and more that contextualize the pop culture touchstones we know and love, it’s thought provoking and informative and mostly just fun (for dorks!!) !

You gotta listen ,it’s so good, read the description of the show. Then leave a five star review

Thought provoking, hilarious, intellectually rigorous and so much fun. I am a theory nerd who never actually learned much theory in school and OMG materialist critique! This podcast lights up my brain and warms my heart and helps me process living in late capitalism. Thanks y’all!

Witch, Please has been an all-time favorite podcast of mine for years. It’s the light of my day every time I listen. Their readings are insightful, and I love the way the hosts collaborate to build an argument together. Every episode feels like reading the best of academic essays, the kind that rearrange your mind and make you a slightly better human. Edit: Gotta come back and say that Material Girls is more of the same. Every episode awakens new thoughts in me. Their most recent episode on romance novels with Vanessa Zoltan made me newly aware of the ways that romance as a genre has shaped my understanding of the world and the ways in which the genre does and doesn’t make space for different forms of queerness. Every episode seems to shake my foundations. Please treat your ears, and give the pod a listen. Thank you to the hosts and staff who make the podcast possible.

I can't recommend enough this critical examination of pop culture material. Every week, the themes, guests and conversations stretch my critical reading muscles beyond capacity. It feels like I'm taking a college course - the winders of learning things you never knew without the droll and tests. I'm so grateful to learn about the pitfalls of literature & films that I love while simultaneously exploring how to be a better member of my community through the lenses Hannah and Marcelle choose. Thanks for your work Hannah, Marcelle, Zoe, guests and Coach

Hannah and Marcelle have cultivated a community I’m so grateful to be a part of. I’m a working class girlie who never got the real ‘academia experience,’ and these episodes equip me with a tremendous vocabulary to understand so much of what makes this world an abhorrent and wondrous place. It’s an outlet for my rage against the white supremacist cis-het patriarchal capitalistic nightmare and an ever expanding toolbox that helps me fight against it. And it’s chock full of LAUGHTER, joy, and kinship.

This podcast is for all the people who miss school and learning from cool professors who study awesome topics

And this podcast of perfect for it! Having dedicated time set aside to think critically about pop culture and how it impacts us and the world is such a joy! I learn something new with every episode. I bring topics up in conversations with friends, family, and coworkers. Hannah and Marcelle do such a great job of breaking down uber complex theories and concepts and making them accessible to folks. The show has helped me think about the way I interact with pop culture and how to find ways to still enjoy things while being able to be critical of where they fall short. (I’m looking at you Barbie Movie!) I am a material girl. And thanks to the podcast I’m a much smarter one than I used to be!

This feminist-forward analysis of pop culture is the perfect combination of thoughtful and hilarious. H & M’s insights and observations strike the chord of a song I definitely need on repeat. Most importantly, I feel less alone because I know this song will grow into the anthem that leads us to burn it all down. Thank you, team!

This podcast is wonderful! I recommend it if you’re interested in popular culture (not my particular jam) or if you love learning tools for interrogating stuff that you already love (that’s me). I always come away grateful for what I’ve learned. Five stars also to Marcelle and Hannah for being delightful :)

Love forever to Marcelle and Hannah and Coach and Gaby and Zoe and Erik. This team brings so much joy to my life with each new episode, while always challenging me to think more deeply about the things I consume. Listen if you want to make your world and your heart grow three sizes. And if you think chaos muppets are the best muppets, you’ll love Marcelle.

My brain loves it, my heart loves it, the little ethical moral compass that lives inside my brain love it. Looking to feel seen, heard and held all at once - then look no further. Hannah and Marcelle are wicked awesome and their team is awesome too! SERIOUSLY fall in love with this Pod and feel like your soul mates are reflecting back to you your innermost feelings and reactions to living in this beautiful terrible world 😍

I’m one of those people who genuinely misses the scholarly discussions that occurred throughout my college experience, both in and out of classrooms. Hannah and Marcelle’s conversations bring me a similar joy! These are two people who love to learn with and listen to each other talk about all sorts of delightful nerdy topics, and it’s been so fun to see everything they’ve been diving into lately. If you love having deep conversations about the books, movies, TV shows, etc that you enjoy, I can’t recommend this podcast more highly!

Nothing brings me greater joy on Tuesdays than seeing a new Material Girls episode pop up! These two academic witches replicate the best parts of college/school (new understandings, friends) for free and without the anxiety! Come for the pop culture, stay for the critical theory - or vice versa. Listening to Witch, Please, their prior podcast, was truly life-changing for me, and I cannot say enough how excited I am about Material Girls.

So sharp, so funny. I’ve learned more from Marcelle and Hannah about literary theory than i ever did in a literature class. Absolutely essential listening. Plus, just a joy to listen in on conversations between these two people who clearly love and respect each other so much!

Hannah and Marcelle, the geniuses behind “Witch Please” have a new podcast, this time about broader topics than Harry Potter, stuff in popular culture. I really enjoy their take on things…I’m always left with an entirely different perspective than I started with. It’s academic, but not overly serious. Give it a try!

For some reason I always saw Witch, Please out there in the aether and never processed that it might be something I enjoy. Nowadays I’m more into podcasts, and am so happy to have discovered their new show Materials Girls! I would never have the attention span to learn all this awesome theory unless it was talking pop culture at the same time, and Hannah and Marcelle do that so well. Barbie x petro-capitalism blew my mind, I’ll be thinking about it for ages.

I deeply enjoy this podcast, it is a great intersection between pop culture and humor. Their witty banter makes literary criticism and theory feel accessible, enjoyable, and dare I say, addicting? I recommend this podcast to all my friends, even your mom.

Listen to this podcast. Hannah, Marcelle, and the rest of the folks at Witch Please Productions are brilliant. This podcast has everything you could wish for. Your mind will be blown and your abs will be sore from laughing. This podcast is so good that it’s the only one I listen to on 1x speed. Seriously, I cannot recommend Material Girls enough. Listen!

Listening to Hannah and Marcelle talk is at once calming, engaging and funny. Love hearing them dig into pop culture with hot takes and laughter.

This show is so brilliant. Even if you, like me, know next to nothing about popular culture, you’ll still find your brain tickled by this brilliant podcast. Marcelle and Hannah are deeply funny brilliant humans who constantly make me think deeper about both a wider lens of pop culture AND my relationship with the corners of the pop culture world that I do know. This show also makes me sound super smart when I’m chatting with people at parties. Impress friends, alienate jerks, this show gives you super powers.

The Witch Please Team just keeps getting better. Engaging topics and exciting research. Materialist scholars, feminists, and pop culture enthusiasts alike will be delighted. Just the right mix of serious thoughts and joyful cackles to keep us going through our capitalist hellscape.

Yes plz, this is the stuff. Contextualizing how pop culture phenomenons got to where they are, and why it matters? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Vanessa Zoltan compared HPST to the HS class you wish you could have taken and Witch, Please as the college class you wish you could have taken. She was 100% right. I’m joining in the reboot and love it so much. I’m writing this review in the middle of the trauma episode and as a social worker, I had to stop to leave this review because it is SO GOOD! It is absolutely INCREDIBLE that this text that has been so embedded in my life (started reading at age 8-9) can change with me as I grow and mature with media like this podcast to scaffold this relationship. I am so grateful for your podcast to help me use this text to continue to always strive to be a better human! Turns out…I wrote that review YEARS ago and never posted it 🤦‍♀️ NOW WITCH, PLEASE is OVER and now that I’ve fallen in love with Hannah and Marcelle: I CANNOT WAIT FOR MATERIAL GIRLS! These women are brilliant and put out everything I’m looking for in podcast media which makes me sure that Gender Playground is also wonderful and I’m ready to jump into that as well. Please keep doing what your team does best. I love being along for the ride!

I have been listening to Marcelle and Hannah for years and I have absolutely loved every moment of the reboot. No need to worry that this is HP related conversations that support the bigotry of the author, instead, tune in for thoughtful and humanizing conversations about the complexity of being human and how stories reveal things to readers. Plus giggles! Later, witches!! And now the same incredible folks are taking on a new project with the same flavor but different focus? I know it’s going to be a wonderful treat for my ears and brain every episode 💖

At last! Hannah and Marcelle are free to collect all the odds and ends of material culture and joyfully examine them! I'm excited to see what gets added to the collection. My favorite thing about this podcast is that it gives me new tools to use to think about and analyze the world and I think this new format will make these ideas even more applicable.

I would follow Hannah and Marcelle to the end of the earth, as long as they’re explaining it to me through a theoretical lens to help me learn! This is the brilliant, funny, and academically challenging podcast you didn’t know you needed. Enjoying things is fun; challenging them is funner.

I love listening to Hannah and Marcelle! They will make you laugh, they will make you think. I can’t wait to giggle along with them with their new podcast!

Such a good find! I have listened to some of their episodes through other channels, but you need to follow their feed ASAP. They have an amazing back catalog of academic analysis of pop culture and are embarking on such an amazing journey with Gender Playground and Material Girls.