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Loud Murmurs is a Mandarin-Chinese podcast about American pop culture, brought to you by four bilingual and bi-cultural women in the U.S. and their friends. We discuss movies, TV, documentaries, and the social, political issues reflected on by a piece of pop culture work. Too often, race, gender and other political and cultural issues are the subtext in pop culture. We seek to make the subtext explicit, question it and challenge it. The show is now in its third season, updated biweekly. We h ...
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S4E16: Loud Murmurs x UrbanCan: “In the Heights” — Glossy Dreams In A Disappearing Community
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In this episode, we talk about film "In the Heights" — a film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Tony Award-winning musical — with our friends from podcast 城市罐头. We mused on a few galactic questions: What exactly is gentrification? Why should we care, and how do we understand it in a Chinese context? Is commercializing the culture of a communi…
Chinese pop star Kris Wu is facing a #MeToo storm, after 18-year-old Du Meizhu accused him of pressuring young women into having sex. Wu has denied the accusations but he the accusations have triggered widespread public outcry. In light of this news, we want to re-share our earlier episode about the 2019 movie “Bombshell” and two books that started…
[Episode theme] This is a special episode. Afra went to the two-week-long Shanghai International Film Festival and talks to our friends Xiaoran and Yaqin about their experiences. In 2021, the success of this event alone feels like a rare victory for Chinese cinephiles. [Timecode] 2:28 Why did we go to the Shanghai International Film Festival? 7:50 …
In light of the recent re-screening of Lord of the Rings, we chatted with physicist Cheng Yangyang and LOTR superfan Wenjin about this classic work that we had the privilege to grow up with. We talked about the exiled human king, re-examined the orcs, and mused on the revenge of the ents. We also talked about how the work inspired us, and how we, a…
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S4 E13 “I’m a helpless believer in love” — A conversation with “Word of Honor” screenwriter Xiaochu
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[Episode theme] This episode is the edited version of Afra and Izzy’s interview with Xiaochu, screenwriter of the popular Chinese wuxia fantasy “Word of Honor.” We talked about why the show is well-received outside China, her experience studying and trying to make it as a producer in the movie industry in LA, and her understanding of the characters…
“Cruella” is Disney’s latest live-action release where a beloved old movie gets a brand new life, starring two crowd-favorite Emmas: Emma Stone and Emma Thompson. Izzy and Diaodiao saw the movie together in the theater, and they dive into the themes of the movie, the complicated history of Disney villains, and the problematic elements in the movie …
In this episode, we continue our conversation on ‘Sound of Metal’, a movie about a drummer whose sudden loss of hearing puts him on an unlikely journey of growth and self-discovery. We also discuss how little we know about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. The conversation is so good and so long that we split it into two parts. See full trans…
This week, we talk about the movie ‘Sound of Metal,’ a story about a drummer (played by Riz Ahmed) whose sudden loss of hearing puts him on an unlikely journey of growth and self-discovery. We also discuss how little we know about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, about sign language and Deaf culture. The conversation is so good and so long t…
“WandaVision” takes place after Thanos snapped his fingers and eliminated half of the people in the universe in Avengers: Infinity War. The show departs from the usual superhero Marvel movies in a number of significant ways: it’s a TV show, the main character is a woman, the heart of the story is about grieving, trauma and intimacy. Like people in …
This episode, we unpacked our reactions to the 93rd Academy Awards that honored films created in 2020 with our dear friend Eileen Chow. Despite being a particularly underwhelming viewing experience, the Oscars created cultural moments that sparked heated discussion across China, the US, and all diaspora in between. We talked about: 1:20 The “Diet O…
In this episode, host Afra talks to Viola Zhou and A-Liang about the hit Chinese fantasy period series Word of Honor. It’s your classic wuxia story but with a delicious twist — it centers around two incredibly handsome men who find soul mates in each other, but never quite fall in love. “Word of Honor” became an internet sensation and cultural phen…
Today, our hosts Afra and Ina are joined by friends and guests of the show, Professor Eileen Chow and journalist Muyi Xiao in our discussion of K-Drama. While some of us jumped into the K-Drama obsession early on, for others, it was a new hobby from the pandemic days. We dive into fan culture and its influence on TV shows, South Korea’s TV and Film…
The pandemic quarantine has fueled new hobbies, and one of ours is the British Monarchy related content: THE Oprah interview, all four seasons of The Crown, and way too many biographies, documentaries and diaries (from the people who experienced it first hand). This episode, we are joined by a fellow unofficial “scholar” of the British Monarchy and…
Korean American director Lee Issac Chung’s semi-autobiographical film “Minari” is one of those films that make you think back to it days after watching. The film tells the story about a Korean-American family seeking the American dream in rural Arkansas in the 1980s. "Minari" is a tender and nuanced film that leaves you feeling nostalgic and reflec…
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S4 E3: Loud Murmurs X The Weirdo Podcast: What Female Characters Do We Want More Of On Screen (Part 2)
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This is our Part Two of our two-part International Women’s Day Special Programming, in collaboration with our friends over at The Weirdo Podcast. Listen to Part One here. Our two-part special centers around the six categories of female characters that we’d like to see on screen. We combed through our Clubhouse discussion notes, our own experiences …
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S4 E2: Loud Murmurs X The Weirdo Podcast: What Female Characters Do We Want More Of On Screen (part 1)
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This is our Part One of our two-part International Women’s Day Special Programming, in collaboration with our friends over at The Weirdo Podcast. In February, we teamed up with our friends at the Weirdo Podcast and hosted a discussion on Clubhouse, inviting our listeners to share what their ideal female character on screen would be like. The two-ho…
In celebration of Chole Zhao becoming the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director, we are revisiting this episode we recorded last year. Our three hosts Izzy, Diaodiao and Ina discuss ‘Nomadland,’ a recent favorite of ours and of the film festival award circuit (winner of the top prize at the Venice Film Festival). We try to put i…
“Soul” is a movie about death, about jazz, about longing and limitation. Since its premiere, many people in the U.S. and in China praise the movie for warming their hearts and nourishing their souls. As we immerse ourselves in the positivity the movie brings, we realize that this heartwarming feeling is temporary and its existence is closely tied t…
What you are about to hear is the trailer of our special episode - "Xianzi and her friends". You can find the full episode by searching "唠得默默” in your favorite podcast app, or add through the rss feed provided below - https://loudermurmurs.typlog.io/episodes/feed.xml On December 2, 2020, the trial for one of China’s most high-profile #MeToo case be…
With a sigh of relief, we’re proud to say that this year has finally come to an end. And what a year it has been! There are not enough words to accurately capture all that has happened this year, and as much we want to forget what this year has brought to us as both individuals and as societies, we shouldn’t. The most important thing to happen this…
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In this episode, hosts Izzy, Afra and Diaodiao talk to our old friend Lin Santu and new friend, standup comedian Huey (TikTok @drhueyli), about two recent political films starring Sacha Baron Cohen. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a dramatized reenactment of the 1969 trial of seven activists charged by the federal government with conspiracy, for thei…
The “Queen’s Gambit,” the new Netflix show about chess genius Beth Harmon, has managed to give us some joy amid this long period of listless pandemic-induced depression. Hosts Ina, Izzy and Diaodiao bring you this free-form, overly enthusiastic discussion filled with feminist (and other types of) rage where we try to get to the bottom of why this s…
In this episode, our two hosts and two guests continued our discussion on Netflix’s “Social Dilemma”. We talked about how the industry shaped us as practitioners (0:47) -- how it encouraged our uninhibited curiosity and restricted our imagination of what the Internet could have been(5:40). We also debated whether users should also be considered “la…
This is the first section of our two-part discussion of Netflix’s “Social Dilemma.” Brace yourself as our two hosts and two guests dive into a collective mental breakdown while breaking down the complex set of problems the documentary shed light on -- surveillance capitalism, attention economy, and social media addiction. We discussed our reaction …
In this episode, our three hosts Izzy, Diaodiao and Ina discuss ‘Nomadland,’ a recent favorite of ours and of the film festival award circuit (winner of the top prize at the Venice Film Festival). We try to put into words the ennui and other hard-to-grasp feelings the film evokes. We examine our own relationships with nature and the land on which w…
