I Only Love Robots is a podcast about the robots we love (or love to hate) in fiction and real life. Demetria Spinrad hosts this show with weekly guests.
A questionably written game gave rise to one of the most exuberant and creative fandoms in recent years. What was going on with the fandom that turned a barely-there character into a beloved fan favorite, filmed an entire feature-length movie, and wrote millions of words about playing with wires in a sexy way?
Content notes: The whole episode's about erotic robot fan fiction, so I'm slapping an Explicit label on this.
Listen to Amanda's previous, very thorough breakdown of Detroit: Become Human here
Show notes here
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
3 Aug 2022
Detroit: Become Human - the game
What happens when a writer tries to make oppressed robots stand in for tons of different kinds of real marginalized people in the same story? A confusing, frequently offensive, occasionally interesting mess. Amanda Jean joins the podcast to tackle Detroit: Become Human, a game that tried to make its robots an allegory for everything at once.
Content notes: We discuss some real-world atrocities the game alludes to, including the Holocaust, American slavery, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and antisemitism.
Listen to Amanda's previous, very thorough breakdown of Detroit: Become Human here
Show notes, including some of the scenes we discussed, here
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
Tune in next time for our discussion of the game's fandom, which took the game's characters (and a few who barely appeared in the game) in some unexpected directions.
20 Jul 2022
Westworld (1973)
Cora and Demetria take a trip to a future that's obsessed with the past. Is Westworld a typical 70s western, or is it a twisted nostalgia trip through 50s western tropes? Is it saying something about American masculinity, or is it just a story about scary amusement parks? And are these robots even sentient, or just glitchy?
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
6 Jul 2022
Midjourney
We’re jumping into AI art creation with Magali. When we generate artistic images with a bot, who’s the real artist? And can we make an art bot draw itself?
Get access to Midjourney at this link
Show notes with the pictures we generated (https://isaacmeyer.net/2022/07/midjourney/)
Magali's art on Tumblr (https://mymidjourney.tumblr.com/)
Magali's art on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/my_midjourney/)
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
22 Jun 2022
High Maintenance
Author S.A. Chant joins us again to discuss what it's like to write a story about robots. How does the perspective of the point-of-view character change the way we experience science fiction? What does representation mean in a genre full of non-human characters? And where can trans science fiction go from here?
Links:
Buy Your Body Is Not Your Body directly from Tenebrous Press
Buy Your Body Is Not Your Body on Amazon
Not a fan of body horror? You can donate directly to Equality Texas (https://www.equalitytexas.org/)
Check out S.A. Chant's other excellent books
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
8 Jun 2022
The Matrix
Author S.A. Chant joins Demetria to talk about the conversation about The Matrix when it first came out in 1999—and how that conversation changed when the movie's directors came out as trans. What's it like to rewatch a movie that famously defied easy interpretation two decades after its release?
(Note: This episode is not particularly graphic, but I've marked it as explicit just in case because it does contain some discussion of sexual subjects like the movie's nods to kink culture.)
Links:
Buy Your Body Is Not Your Body directly from Tenebrous Press
Buy Your Body Is Not Your Body on Amazon
Not a fan of body horror? You can donate directly to Equality Texas (https://www.equalitytexas.org/)
Check out S.A. Chant's other excellent books
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
25 May 2022
Metropolis
What on earth was Fritz Lang trying to say when he released a film about one very sexy robot in 1927? Isaac Meyer joins us to talk about a movie so politically confusing that its own creators couldn't agree on the real meaning of its message.
Support the show on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/facingbackward)
18 May 2022
Trailer
Subscribe to this feed to listen to I Only Love Robots, a show about what robots mean to us in art and in real life. Each episode, we'll be asking three crucial questions about a robot: What purpose do they serve in the story? Does the story work? And most importantly, how kissable is that robot?
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