Meta WagnerAbout Meta WagnerIn her “Vox Pop” column for PopMatters Meta voices her observations about pop culture, particularly as it intersects with our lives. She is endlessly fascinated by the myriad ways in which our pop culture choices reflect back on us—our beliefs, our desires, our idiosyncrasies, our intellects. Wagner’s published pieces include written commentaries, features, and profiles for Salon, Boston Globe Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. You can visit her blog here. When she’s not writing, Meta is molding young minds as an adjunct professor at Emerson College, where she teaches creative writing. She also developed and occasionally teaches a column-writing class at Grub Street, an independent writing center in Boston. Columns
Health Care in America has Gone to the DogsCompared to the modern-day American, their dogs have the best of everything: questionable intelligence (i.e., happiness), poor memories (i.e., forgiveness), and low expectations (i.e., contentment). [26 October 2009] (more Vox Pop) Jewish is Coolish…At Last!My people can finally emerge from behind their nebbishy personas to assume their proper place in the coolness pantheon. [10 September 2009] (more Vox Pop) The ‘Michael Jacksons’ and All Their Infuriating ComplexityMaybe it’s more fun to idolize or demonize public figures than to have more complex, mixed feelings about them. [12 August 2009] (more Vox Pop) Expire, Please. Go Kaput. Die, Already.It’s not a film, it’s a movie. It’s not a vinyl, it’s a record – and other trendy things that need to go forever bye-bye. [6 July 2009] (more Vox Pop) In Treatment: Fantasy Therapy for AllExplorations of the outer limits of the patient/ therapist relationship titillate viewers with the possibilities of what could happen. [27 May 2009] (more Vox Pop) A Lament on the Deafening Silence of iPodsI miss your impulse to play your music LOUD, to draw me in, to irritate and offend me – and I miss my impulse to do the same to you. [7 May 2009] (more Vox Pop) I Can Almost Taste ItFor someone who wouldn’t know my mortars from my pestles, I seem to spend an awful lot of time observing chefs in action. [17 March 2009] (more Vox Pop) Genius Persona(lities)The mark of true genius is the effortless creation of something wholly new that, once seen, becomes self-evident. [10 February 2009] (more Vox Pop) TV Egos UnboundThe small screen is no longer for small personalities or those without ambition or washed up has-beens. [14 January 2009] (more Vox Pop) You’re Gonna Get a Lot More Girl TalkEven though the presidential and vice-presidential candidates didn't win the posts they were gunning for, Americans have a lot of women winners, this election. [11 November 2008] (more Vox Pop) Hypocritic OathsThe source of most hypocrisy in American politics is a moral certitude that is so unyielding, it’s almost bound to trip up the person espousing it. [16 October 2008] (more Vox Pop) I Miss When Artists Were Artists Instead of Marketing MachinesArt has always had an uneasy relationship with commercialism. But that’s the point: it’s supposed to be uneasy. [8 September 2008] (more Vox Pop) Anywhere, USAIt seems to me that people in the US are actually craving not change, as we're hearing in current campaign rhetoric, but rather sameness -- and more than ever. [18 June 2008] (more Vox Pop) Broads Don’t Blog, Especially in HaikuBroads can only thrive under certain social conditions, and those conditions, alas, no longer exist. But a new species has emerged... [29 April 2008] (more Vox Pop) Obama, Clinton, and CantaloupesThe media will keep playing YouTube videos and speculating about politicians’ intentions rather than doing the hard investigative work -- simply because they can. [2 April 2008] (more Vox Pop) A Return to RhetoricLong past the days of the eloquent Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or John F. Kennedy, Americans have rediscovered the desire to be absorbed by words, stirred by words, even awed by words, again. [12 March 2008] (more Vox Pop) A How-to for HillaryHow we want Hillary to appear before us says a whole lot more about us than it does about her. [4 February 2008] (more Vox Pop) Trouble in ShopaholicstanIf those slim hipped, cigarette smoking, small-portion eating, fast-walking chic Parisians are going to flaunt their fashion sense in Jersey while taking advantage of the weak dollar, then we really must seal our borders. [10 December 2007] (more Vox Pop) Talk About G-generationsMembers of the 'Generation After' are the ones who grew up in the shadows because the previous generation was blocking the sun. [8 November 2007] (more Vox Pop) Can’t You Read the Signs?Cars, guns, values, the US Constitution... like a yellow traffic light, their meaning and importance, relative to oneself, is open to interpretation. [1 October 2007] (more Vox Pop) You Are Who You KnowIf I want reading recommendations, Amazon, I’ll turn to people who really do know me. They’re called friends. [4 September 2007] (more Vox Pop) The Lost in Translation GenerationAmericans Need to Learn English…British English, that is! [13 August 2007] (more Vox Pop) Vexed by BeautyWhom next to blame for society’s infatuation with beguiling young women? [11 July 2007] (more Vox Pop) Surrender Yourself to the Attack of the ComediansThe truth hurts, but in the wake of our welts and bruises, if we've been properly assaulted, we're still laughing. [18 June 2007] (more Vox Pop) Please Do Not Remain SeatedSometimes small gestures contain larger meanings. For me, the decision to sit rather than stand at a concert is a sign of giving up on the youthful exuberance that defines the rock concert experience. [11 April 2007] (more Vox Pop) Gender DividesAre celebrity “girls” really the only gender that’s “gone wild”? Or has the media gone mad -- and misogynistic? [14 March 2007] (more Vox Pop) People SubstitutesContrary to what Babs sang, people who need people might not be the luckiest people in the world, after all. [12 February 2007] (more Vox Pop) Death WatchGuessing whether a celebrity is dead or alive has become something of a modern-day parlor game. [16 January 2007] (more Vox Pop) No! No! No!Finally, a stand-up, face-off, clenched fists, chin in the air challenge to America's bullies. [12 December 2006] (more Vox Pop) Feel Better than You’ve Ever Looked BeforeThere's a quiet revolution happening in self-improvement: rather than addressing our lives from the inside-out, we're now addressing them from the outside-in. [12 November 2006] (more Vox Pop) Gay TV: Making Same-Sex Marriage Safe for AmericaAt the same time that gay TV is shaping the culture, the culture is also shaping gay TV, containing it and restricting it from going "too far". [19 October 2006] (more Vox Pop) A Need for NerdsNow more than ever, as we stumble along the dark, uncertain path of These Troubled Times, we need our brainiacs to help illuminate the way. [12 September 2006] (more Vox Pop) About Those PeoplePeople magazine is more than just a gossip rag or a teller of heartwarming tales: it's a secretly subversive publication, bent on reshaping society's attitudes about beauty and sexual desire. [14 August 2006] (more Vox Pop) When Harry Met Sally It Was Soooo Sweet!Call me crazy but I prefer to see movies about a relationship between two living, breathing (without assistance), fully functioning (but preferably super-neurotic) humans -- not a person and a ghost or a person and a spirit or a person and a coma victim who's teetering on the brink of life and death. [21 July 2006] (more Vox Pop) |
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