In Part 2 of the season finale, Christine and Jessica watch and discuss the second half of Birth of a Nation (screenplay by D.W. Griffith and Frank E. Woods). Part 2 is...well, bonkers doesn't cover it. The racist wheels are OFF! What a way to end the season!

Today is release day for Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration! It was selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of their "Summer Nonfiction Picks"!! It had a great review in the New York Times, but our favorite line is from the starred Kirkus review: "Expect to see bans of this powerful book, one that every Texan should read."

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

We'll see you again in August with the launch of season 2! Make sure you watch our Instagram account for more updates!

Links for Episode 17:

• Link to Birth of a Nation on Youtube (it's in the public domain, so anyone can watch for free)
• What's giving Christine hope right now: "This Scientist Has an Antidote to Our Climate Delusions," an interview in the NYT with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
• What's giving Jessica hope right now: "Four years later, has the racial-justice movement lost the fight?," a reflection by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunippa on their Pulitzer-prize winning book and the necessity of the hope they have

In Part 1 of the season finale, Christine and Jessica watch and discuss the first half of Birth of a Nation (screenplay by D.W. Griffith and Frank E. Woods). The movie, which was the catalyst for the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1910s and early 1920s, is groundbreaking technically and cinematically; it is also a deeply offensive propaganda film. It was challenged and banned in eight states after its release. Roger Ebert famously said in his review that Birth of a Nation "is not a bad film because it argues for evil...it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Join us next week for Part 2 of our season finale about Birth of a Nation!

Links for Episode 16:

• Link to Birth of a Nation on Youtube (it's in the public domain, so anyone can watch for free)
• Link to Roger Ebert's review
• Popular reactions to The Birth of a Nation from the Library of Congress
• "100 Years Later, What's the Legacy of 'Birth of a Nation'?" NPR, 2015

Jessica tells Christine about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, an utterly beautiful graphic memoir about Bechdel's coming of age as a queer artist and the death of her father. The layered narrative is funny, poignant, brilliant, and heartbreaking. It's also one of the few books we've talked about to be challenged or banned at the post-graduate level. Come hear what all the fuss is about with this revolutionary, genre-bending book!

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for part one of our season finale about the film The Birth of a Nation!

Links for Episode 15:

• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Alison Bechdel's biography
• Bechdel's website, "Dykes to Watch Out For"
• Michael J. Rosenfeld, "Moving a Mountain: The Extraordinary Trajectory of Same-Sex Marriage Approval in the United States"
• Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Christine tells Jessica about A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. The groundbreaking play premiered in 1879, and yet it's shockingly relevant today. Christine goes into the history of the play, the fascinating plot, and her own personal connection with the twists of this devastating story.

Preorder Jessica's book, We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, which comes out June 18 with Viking, and come see her on tour!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for part one of our season finale about the film A Birth of a Nation.

Links for Episode 14:

• Buy A Doll's House
• Learn more about Henrik Ibsen's life
• A history of women's rights in the US (yay for credit cards?!?)
• A history of ender and revolution in Europe

Jessica tells Christine about The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and the wild number of rabbit holes she went down in researching this fast-paced, often bonkers thriller: she's never seen so many papyrus-font-fueled conspiracy theories in her life.

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion about THE DAVINCI CODE by Dan Brown!

Episode 13 links:

• Dan Brown's website
• The Da Vinci Code (if you haven't already picked it up at a little free library or from your grandparents' basement bookshelves)
• More about Dan Brown's life
• The truly wild story of Dan Brown's first book
• The lawsuit against Dan Brown's UK publisher
• The lawsuit by Dan Brown's ex-wife
• An overview of some of the books written in response to The Da Vinci Code
• One of the many series on the internet "debunking" the book (don't worry, this one does not use papyrus)

Christine tells Jessica about Brokeback Mountain, the 2005 film based on a short story by Annie Proulx, with a screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. Often reduced to being called the "gay cowboy movie," as Christine tells Jessica, this complex film is actually about societal constraints and battering against cultural boundaries. As always, their conversation turns personal as they explore the boundaries they've faced and how their views have changed in the almost two decades since they first saw the movie in theaters.

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion about THE DAVINCI CODE by Dan Brown!

Episode 12 links:

• Annie Proulx's publishing page
• Guardian interview with Proulx, June 5, 2016
• The IMBD page for Brokeback Mountain
• Roger Ebert's review of Brokeback Mountain
• Ang Lee's Academy Awards acceptance speech for Best Director, 2006

In this teaser, you can hear the first 18 minutes of the rich conversation we had with Patty McCormick, author of SOLD, about a banned book that had a big impact on her. Tobias Wolff's THIS BOY'S LIFE is consistently one of the most challenged books in the country, and it prompted a rich discussion about life and art and why we write.

The full episode is exclusively available to paid subscribers--if you want to hear it, head to Patreon and sign up for the Banned Geeks Book Club, for only $3/month! Thank you so much for your support!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion on The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown!

Episode 11 links:

• Patricia McCormick's website, which has pages for each of her books
• This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

Jessica tells Christine about Sold by Patricia McCormick, a 2006 National Book Award finalist about a young girl who was sex trafficked from Nepal to India. The book, which is told through a series of lyrical vignettes, is beautifully written, and builds empathy in its young readers for children who are forced into difficult situations. And yet, according to the American Library Association, it is currently one of the top ten banned books in the country--and you'll never believe the reason why.

BONUS: Next week, with episode 11, we're excited to launch the Banned Geeks Book Club! Every few episodes, we'll feature the author of a banned book talking about another banned book which has influenced them. Full episodes are available exclusively for Patreon subscribers (but you can hear a teaser first, and then sign up to listen to the rest!). Next week, Patricia McCormick joins us to discussThis Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff, a banned book which has influenced her; the conversation was so meaningful to us and we're excited to share it with you!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion with special guest, Patricia McCormick, about This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff!

Episode 10 links:

• Patricia McCormick's website, which has pages for each of her books
• Her searing article in the New York Times in 2018, "What Father Bradel Did to Me"
• Her op-ed about being banned in the New York Times in 2023, "My Book Is Horrifying. My Book Is a Lifeline. My Book Is Banned."
• "Three Questions for Patricia McCormick about SOLD," Yahoo News, September 2023