00:00:00.000Hey everyone, it's Melody. If you listened to last week's AAA, you know that Anne ran her fifth marathon over the weekend, so while she recovers, it's up to me to run through some housekeeping.
00:00:11.560First, for next week's episode, you have some optional homework. We're talking to Switched On Pop producer Rihanna Cruz about Tate McRae.
00:00:20.720They did a deep dive on her music back in February, and it blew my mind, taught me everything I know, made me feel like I'd been dropped on another planet.
00:00:29.040it. So you may want to give that a listen before we expand upon it in next week's episode. But
00:00:34.340again, totally optional, and we will catch you up to speed either way. I also wanted to fill you in
00:00:40.340on some new recordings we have booked so that you can start submitting your questions. We're doing
00:00:45.280an episode with Melinda Moyer on all things American parenting culture. We've also lined
00:00:51.820up an episode with Sophie Gilbert about how pop culture in the early 2000s shaped a generation of
00:00:58.020women. I know all of your wheels are turning, so take this any direction you like. Another episode
00:01:04.400that I'm particularly excited about is one on how private equity ruins everything. Like many of you,
00:01:11.840I am distraught at the downfall of Joanne Fabrics, and I know private equity is responsible for it,
00:01:17.840but I don't really know how or even exactly what that means. So this episode is going to be
00:01:24.080super enlightening. And there are no such things as dumb questions here. Another episode we're
00:01:30.480doing is about technology's role in parenting, not just now, but throughout the 20th and 21st
00:01:37.460centuries. So you can reach back into the archives for your questions on this if you want.
00:01:43.140For some lighter fare, we are going to do an episode on Texas culture with who else? Sam
00:01:49.520Sanders. And we have to do a celebrity image deep dive on Katy Perry. And we're going to do that
00:01:59.040with Zach Stafford. So we are stacked. But as always, these episodes will only be as good as
00:02:04.640the questions you submit. So head to the Google form at tinyurl.com slash culture study pod and
00:02:11.500fill it out. And just FYI, I'm the one who goes through those submissions. So if you want to
00:02:17.420submit multiple questions for multiple episodes in one form, that is totally fine. I will figure
00:02:23.020it out. And then, of course, it wouldn't be the pre-show checklist if I didn't ask you to become
00:02:29.720a paid subscriber. I know times are weird and bad right now, understatement, and if we are a bright
00:02:37.380spot in your week at all, we would really appreciate your financial support. As you know, paid subscribers
00:02:43.020always get the full episode, they get access to the discussion thread, and they get a deluxe
00:02:48.840ad-free experience. culturestudypod.substack.com is where you can sign up. Okay, that was a lot,
00:02:56.020so thank you for sticking with me. Your reward is a really great episode with Josh Gondelman,
00:03:01.480so I hope you enjoy. What's the most Massachusetts thing about you?
00:03:08.200oh um god inferiority complex probably chip on my shoulder yeah it's the real attitude of you
00:03:19.420think you're better than me kid is like that that is like really deep in me that i like really have
00:03:24.080tried to scrape away over years oh you know what it is it's i'm jewish but i'm not in therapy
00:03:29.740that's the most massachusetts thing about me not that jewish is a specifically massachusetts trait0.80
00:03:34.140But the Massachusetts is so strong that it keeps Jews out of therapy.0.74
00:03:44.080This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.0.84
00:03:47.760And I am Josh Gondelman, Massachusetts native and writer of the free weekly pep talk newsletter, That's Marvelous.
00:03:56.400And you're a comedian. We should just notice.
00:07:34.600And the kind of traditional is a brand called James River, which everyone calls Jimmy River.
00:07:40.320So like this is an important cultural artifact.
00:07:44.540There are arguments of where the best is.
00:07:46.900It is like a true – it is like a version of the Philadelphia cheesesteak debate that is like so local and regional that like people outside of the North Shore usually haven't heard of it.
00:07:59.300Right. And, you know, like every hyper-specific food that has like the equivalent of a Facebook group that argues about how to do it best and terms like three-way that are kind of like vague and you only understand them if you understand them, right?
00:08:14.560Like it's a way of establishing insider-outsider knowledge.
00:08:22.460So I'm a Massachusetts native, but I lived in New York for almost 14 years now.
00:08:25.920And I do feel very at home in New York City. I've lived in Brooklyn for about a decade. And I feel very at home here. But I do miss the regional thing because I think some of New York's regionalisms become broader culture because so much entertainment and culture writing is located here.
00:08:52.220So stuff gets kind of like people from other places feel more aware of it and fluent in it, where something like, you know, Junior Beef Threeway is like something that is completely inscrutable unless you've spent a lot of time from like, let's say, Somerville at the furthest point southwest up through like Newburyport in Massachusetts.
00:09:13.700Yes. This is the first in our series about the culture of different places. We're starting with
00:09:19.360the U.S. We're probably going to expand to other places where listeners are. Part of the reason
00:09:24.680I'm interested in it is because like you, I love regionalisms. I think it's part of what keeps our
00:09:29.620country distinctive or keeps any regions distinctive against the onslaught of globalism
00:09:36.260that's trying to flatten everything to look like everywhere else. It's cool. It's wonderful.
00:09:42.160it makes us where we the place is where we are and yes there's all sorts of like other shit that0.92
00:09:47.520intersects with that that's like exclusionary and racist and like all that sort of thing and we're
00:09:53.420going to talk about all of that but you know I've lived in a lot of places because of my career and
00:09:58.360my path but I am not an expert in all of the cultures that we are going to talk about that's
00:10:03.760we have a co-host so my expertise in like massachusetts regionalism and culture is that
00:10:13.380i used to live over the border from massachusetts in putney vermont so that's it that's it what's
00:10:19.500yours and that's and that's we're talking that's kind of far from this culture right because that's
00:10:24.640out in like central to western yes massachusetts where it's like very culturally different and i
00:10:30.320would almost say like New England culture more than like totally yeah and we'll talk about that
00:10:35.380yeah yeah totally um what are your bona fides gosh I spent the first 26 years of my life there
00:10:42.920including college outside of Boston but not Harvard um when I have to specify because I
00:10:49.060didn't go to school in the city but I also did not go to Harvard which that's often code for
00:10:52.680I have also toured, as a comedian, I started stand-up in Boston.
00:10:58.620So I worked with and for all the kind of like big Massachusetts and New England headliners, really.
00:11:09.540But more importantly, I am very well-traveled around New England, having performed in like small theaters, large theaters, bar back rooms, bar front rooms, comedy clubs all over the region.
00:11:22.280And I am like a real Massachusetts partisan and homer.
00:11:27.140I'm like a big local sports, especially Celtics fan, Boston Celtics fan.
00:11:31.420I have a playlist on my phone that is just songs that reference the Massachusetts Turnpike, which is Interstate 90, which goes coast to coast.
00:11:41.300But from essentially east of Albany, New York to the Atlantic Ocean is the Massachusetts Turnpike.
00:11:50.260i am currently drinking polar seltzer which is from worcester massachusetts out of an empty
00:11:56.980duncan iced coffee cup if anybody wants to question my allegiances to the commonwealth
00:12:03.260of massachusetts i will say as well that when i lived in vermont that was my real introduction
00:12:07.620to like this is 10 years ago more than 10 years ago but like this is before even like the lacroix
00:12:14.920boom so it was my introduction to like exquisite seltzer culture right like the idea that there
00:12:21.840would be a whole wall yeah of polar and like adirondack was the other one like a whole wall
00:12:27.260of like incredible flavors that weren't just you know lemon lime clearly canadian or something
00:12:31.820like that yeah polar is i think the superior seltzer it's got a great bubble it's got a great
00:12:38.700selection of flavors i think they do both the kind of sharp biting citrusy flavor as well like
00:12:44.420a really cool lime seltzer yeah raspberry lime is good and cranberry lime is really good too
00:12:50.840and that and i think that the degree of difficulty on a sweet seltzer flavor is often higher because
00:12:58.520it can taste more chemically and i think the polar orange cream the polar vanilla um their
00:13:04.040seasonals are really good yeah so this is like it's like deep in me and it's not you know it's
00:13:09.580this is kind of the the razor's edge between like cuisine and consumerism right where it's like
00:13:17.900it's not like my grandmother's recipe for for chess pie from the south but it also isn't like
00:13:24.360uh i i only wear carhartt because that's what everyone at the auto plant wears and i would
00:13:31.120never wear dickies wait can i actually have a confession uh we got a question from a listener
00:13:37.320are asking for your rankings of polar flavors,
00:13:41.260but I did not clock that that was a Massachusetts question,
00:13:45.280so I didn't put it in the spreadsheet.0.95
00:39:56.100It's just like how progressive can a place be big picture?
00:40:02.820I think it's a lot of it is how progressive can an American city be?
00:40:07.640Because what you have is the progressive politics shaped by a lot of people in that place having advanced levels of education because that's how politics is sorted is largely by education level.
00:40:21.900So you have that, but then you also have this incredibly individualistic streak.
00:40:27.660And so I think a lot of that thinking is very class-based.
00:40:31.120It's very class-based and it's very individualistic, right?
00:40:34.000Where you're like, I, of course, think that we should have higher tax rates on the wealthy.
00:40:51.480Like it's it's that kind of thing where it's like I'm all for the collective until it infringes upon my individualism.
00:41:00.260Do you think that there's something about that that's more Boston?
00:41:03.400Like when I think about cities like Boston or cities like Seattle or Portland that have very long histories of racial segregation, I think it's very difficult to change those systemic.
00:41:20.700When you have that legacy, there's so much more work to be done, and the progressive identity politics cannot get you over that hump of this is what needs to be done.
00:41:32.620I think especially when it is, yeah, racially segregated, and especially when there are a lot of people with money and a lot of people with less money, when there is also racial segregation at play, I think, like, those two factors can become proxies for one another in a way that is, like, not fair and doesn't serve the greater good, if that makes sense.
00:41:58.460Like, yeah, I think it's tough. And, you know, you see it other places, too, but it's just like forever there that like it feels like, right, always this pendulum of like super conservative governor, liberal senators, which is interesting, where it's like America should be more liberal, but here.
00:42:20.240And even then it's like, I think like the Mitt Romney example is so fascinating because Liz Lenz was just writing about this in her newsletter about Romney care, which was essentially like the conservative compromise back when conservatives could be convinced to compromise on anything that was like what they wanted instead of like single payer universal health care, which was like a big Ted Kennedy thing is my memory, right?
00:42:48.340Like, he was a big proponent of, like, better, more nationalized, socialized health care.
00:42:55.680Do you feel like Protestant Puritan elements of, like, New Englandism bash up against the Catholic elements?
00:43:11.240Our next question is related to this, what I just said.
00:43:13.960It comes from Anna, and Melody's going to read it.
00:43:16.520I saw your note about Boston and mass culture, and I wanted to go beyond the mass hole trope. I'm curious why Boston seems uninterested in changing its reputation as a racist city. They have a great mayor, but there is a real lack of underinvestment in their black history museum and highlighting their large immigrant populations.
00:43:37.080Full disclosure, I don't live there, but I'm married to somebody from Dorchester.
00:43:41.360And part of why I dislike visiting is because as much as they decry their racist stereotype,
00:43:46.600they really don't do much to support small businesses by people of color or highlight their non-American revolutionary history.
00:43:54.440So my question, why does Boston like being seen as a racist city or less inflammatory?
00:44:00.640What work is needed for Boston to change its reputation as white Irish Catholic?
00:44:05.100All right. I'm glad someone asked this. What's your response here? And I also, Josh, you do not have to answer for all Irish Catholics of Boston as you are not an Irish Catholic.
00:44:17.640I am not one. And again, from the burbs, so I can't speak to like growing up in the city, although I did live there for several years.
00:44:25.500I think, sincerely, part of it is the bigger cultural thing, right? The stories of Boston are told, in many cases, on bigger stages by white people who are telling their version of what that place means to them. So I think that's part of it.
00:44:49.660I also think there are thriving, vibrant parts of the city that are less white. And I think you can go there. You can go to Roxbury and you can go to the black parts of Dorchester and you can support businesses and restaurants, people who have come from Caribbean nations and live in the city of Boston now.0.97
00:45:18.440I think there are a lot of white people there. And that can dominate the flavor, right? Especially when, on average, maybe the white people have more resources and have become the people who tell those stories.
00:45:40.440Like, do I blame Mark Wahlberg primarily for this?
00:49:35.480because she thinks that the people who put on the race
00:49:39.720refuse to grapple with racist experiences
00:49:42.340that people have had during the race, right?
00:49:44.860and because most people like the loudest voices are like oh my god the boston marathon's so great
00:49:51.680marathon day is so great like we just like everything is great instead of thinking about
00:49:55.940here are the experiences that people have had while running this race totally right and like
00:50:01.000and because an experience is a like numerical minority experience that doesn't mean that you
00:50:09.920can write it off as an outlier experience unless you are willing to consider full demographics of
00:50:16.940people outliers and not people first right like if you're gonna go like well there's not that
00:50:22.380not that many of them so it doesn't happen that often it's like yeah but if it happens a lot to
00:50:27.340this group of people then it is something that needs to be addressed right yeah so i think that
00:50:34.920that's like part of what's going on when we say like why why doesn't boston address
00:50:39.920its reputation as a racist city i mean who is boston right that's part of it right i think some
00:50:49.400people are very engaged in this work and some people are stymied by this work and some people
00:50:55.300think it's someone else's job right of course yeah and i think to address the question in like
00:51:01.340the words that it is phrased of like why does boston want to be thought of as a racist city
00:51:07.120which like obviously is a little tongue-in-cheek yeah she's like that's inflammatory yeah but i do
00:51:12.440think that that is like such a small group of people and that doesn't mean that the other like
00:51:19.760bigger structural racism doesn't exist or like subtler microaggressions but it is like i don't
00:51:26.500think there is a large-scale pride in racism that defines the city.
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00:53:12.380culture. I want to touch on this last question because I think it would be offensive if we only
00:53:20.780talk about Eastern Mass in this podcast about Massachusetts culture. So let's hear from Hannah.
00:53:27.280So I grew up in the Pioneer Valley, also what's known as Western Massachusetts or Western Mass.
00:53:33.240Why does Massachusetts culture always have to exclude this region? It's definitely not that
00:53:38.480western mass doesn't get its own pop culture treatment what with the berkshires as well as
00:53:43.220the five colleges and i've also even seen areas like north adams captured in different shows
00:53:49.440but it often feels like it's treated as a distinct entity from this mass culture that often latently
00:53:55.680refers to boston and eastern mass in reality there's this whole other part of this very small
00:54:01.560state that is massachusetts but it's often not thought of as such why is that great question
00:54:07.860great question and i think one of the things you said is really helpful that it is closer to the
00:54:14.980broader new england culture in some ways right like western it when you're in north adams
00:54:21.500massachusetts the culture is closer to like southern vermont than it is to eastern mass
00:54:31.160right right and when you're in providence that is closer to like south shore yes massachusetts than
00:54:38.440it is to western mass too i mean like when i was young we would call worcester which is like
00:54:43.380at best the middle of the state western mass and it's like there's a whole hundred miles
00:54:49.380100 plus miles past worcester that you just don't think about unless you went to umass
00:54:55.240Totally. Well, and it's like in Idaho, it's like Boise is the south of the state. No, there is so much more. Or like Billings is eastern Montana. Billings is like essentially central Montana. But I think that to me, this always calls to mind the arbitrariness of state lines. Like the fact that Western Mass has much more in common with, I think, with Vermont and New Hampshire. Right.
00:55:21.240yeah like totally it's more about ruralness and like proximity to an airport and whether or not
00:55:28.680you're a college town all of that is more distinguishing than the fact that you are part
00:55:35.120of the commonwealth of massachusetts in some ways right and and there are i would say fewer people
00:55:41.500yeah so that's part of it it's like when you look at an electoral map right and you're and like
00:55:47.020there's that conservative thing of like why did this much land choose the president for this much
00:55:52.320land and it's like because that's where the people live and and i think like that's part of it too
00:55:57.660right is like it is less dense like somerville massachusetts is about as dense as a area in
00:56:05.360the united states exists i believe i think there are parts of somerville are like the densest
00:56:10.260population in america in america and that is not true in like deer field no offense to deer field
00:56:19.340a lovely place but it is just like culturally like it is more overlap with even upstate new york i
00:56:26.780think and so you know like your closest city and airport if you're way out in western mass is
00:56:31.460probably uh i mean way out it's albany for sure it's albany yeah and then in certain parts you
00:56:37.480know if you're in um like stir bridge massachusetts off of route 84 which goes you know or charlton
00:56:45.460that goes south into connecticut like you're probably flying out of hartford yeah and so like
00:56:50.040it is all massachusetts and it i i would never say like that's not massachusetts culture but i do
00:56:55.820think like the the cultural the national cultural footprint and maybe international cultural
00:57:01.340footprint of massachusetts is so rooted in boston and eastern massachusetts because like
00:57:04.780that's where all the people are well and this is the the hard thing i think when we talk about um
00:57:10.340what the culture of a place is is that it is simultaneously established by the place where
00:57:17.900the most people live mass culture of an area not just massachusetts but like mass culture
00:57:23.640but then it is also understood in the imagination oftentimes by the act a very small handful of
00:57:31.880individuals so like an infamous crime or like idaho being distinguished by neo-nazis when there
00:57:37.900are like the neo-nazis live up in this particular area and this has always been the reputation i'm
00:57:43.260like this is if you want to talk about idaho culture let's talk about mormon culture not about
00:57:48.040like the the 0.0001 percent that make up the nazis at the nazi compound but that's just that
00:57:55.540you have to always grapple with that the massness versus the distinguishing components
00:58:02.460yeah the holdovers uh recent oscar winning movie right was like a very massachusetts movie
00:58:11.080that the first half is western massachusetts way west and then like going to boston circling back
00:58:18.540to another topic going to boston was such a big deal for them right to like spend time in the city
00:58:23.480although uh very clearly the bowling alley they went to was the one it was the Wakefield
00:58:28.400bowling room which is 30 minutes north in the suburbs so um but they didn't even go to Sacco's
00:58:35.680Bowl Haven in Somerville anyway um I so I think that that is like two very distinctive strains
00:58:42.600of culture and I think one that's a great example publicly outweighs the other in part just because
00:58:48.400of like how numerous the stories have been which is partly because of how numerous the people are
00:58:53.980and like and I wonder if a lot of the people who tell stories about Boston are people who spent
00:59:00.140time there for college right which like some of that is in western Massachusetts but a lot of that
00:59:04.320is you're talking about Harvard and Emerson in the entertainment industry and MIT and you know
00:59:11.120all those schools there not not to discount Amherst and UMass and Smith and Mount Holyoke
00:59:17.100But by population, far fewer people go to those schools than the schools.
00:59:22.000And like, I'm not even talking just about Harvard.