Parks & Recreation: April Ludgate, The Secretly Optimistic Cynic

Go to http://zocdoc.com/thetake to find and book a top-rated doctor today.💍 Unpacking First Wife Tropes, First Wife Syndrome, and the First Wives who are taking back their power The first wife trope on screen often sees married woman learning that her marriage was just her husband’s trial run, and now he’s moving on to someone else (who he often plans to treat a lot better.) Being the “first wife” was long seen as a major loss – but in recent decades many have started turning it into a win. Let’s dig into this trope to learn more about who the First Wife is on screen, how she’s taking back control, and why being first might not always be such a bad thing in the end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Jan 12min

Being the ‘baby’ of the family is usually seen as a major win, scoring you all of the attention and none of the consequences. But it turns out that being the youngest sibling isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. For all of the many positives that can come with being the youngest, there are also some surprising downsides that don’t get talked about nearly as often. So let’s take a deeper look at Youngest Child Syndrome in movies and tv versus real life to get a better understanding of the full reality – good and bad – of being the last born child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Jan 13min

New Girl’s Jessica Day always quietly believed in herself, but over the course of the show we got to watch her find her own kind of strong, quirky confidence. It wasn’t always an easy road – while she never lost her positive demeanor for long, she definitely had to deal with her own fair share of ups and downs. But no matter how much the world tried to drag her down, she always found a way to come out on top and turn it into a great lesson for herself and her friends. So let’s take a look at Jess’s confidence journey and see what she has to teach us! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

31 Dec 202411min

Make sure to check out cyclingfrog.com and use our code THETAKEHOLIDAYS to get 20% off of your order! The leadup to the new year is often filled with a range of emotions, from joy to dread, anticipation to full on anxiety. And there’s one New Year’s Eve tradition that can pull all of these emotions together at once – getting a kiss as the clock hits midnight. A superstition with a surprisingly long history, it’s become the way to greet each new year for many, but that doesn’t mean that things always go as planned… Let’s take a deeper look at the pressure to get the perfect midnight kiss, the variations that have arisen over time, how even securing that smooch doesn’t mean things will play out the way you had hoped, and how this tradition is changing today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Dec 202411min

Go to http://factormeals.com/50thetake and use code 50thetake to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping! From writers to singers to actors and beyond, there’s long been a trope that creatives are so filled with passion and emotion that they just can’t help but spread their love around... Sometimes this takes place in acknowledged, consensually open relationships, but often it seems to come through cheating – cheating that they then often find ways to put into their art for all to see. Of course, people of all kinds can and do cheat, but artists have spearheaded this trope to some degree in the popular culture because they keep making art about them doing it. So… why do artists seem so obsessed with this rather destructive form of love (and telling us all about it?) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

20 Dec 202410min

Go to http://zocdoc.com/thetake to find and book a top-rated doctor today! ❄️Romantic comedies set around the holidays have been criticized for being formulaic, but their big problem isn't that they replay beloved tropes, it's something deeper (that they have been actually working to fix! Kind of...) Romantic comedies are a beloved genre any time of year, but they’ve got a particularly strong hold on the holidays. From classics like Love, Actually and The Holiday, to modern hits like The Merry Gentlemen and Hot Frosty, these movies are generally very formulaic escapism that promises the audience an amusing love story unfolding during the happiest time of the year. With that being said, even fans have started to notice and comment on how glaring some of the genre’s problems still are even today. So let’s take a closer look at how holiday rom-com’s longtime dedication to old-fashioned messages about gender roles and lack of representation held the genre back, and how it’s finally changing to meet the times and we’re getting even better, more enjoyable rom-coms as a result! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

17 Dec 202414min

Go to http://ro.co/take to find out if you’re covered for free. || Nightbitch is a searing, painful portrait of motherhood – where the titular character just happens to lose herself so dramatically in parenthood that she winds up turning into a dog. It was a hit book in 2021 and has been adapted for the screen by Marielle Heller, with Amy Adams in the lead role. So, does the film live up to the gritty, surrealness of the book? And what does it really have to say about the experience of trying to hold onto your own individual personhood while being consumed by motherhood and societal expectations? (And could this finally be Amy Adam’s Oscar moment?!) Here’s our Take! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Dec 202411min

The eyes are the windows to the soul, and on screen, from blue eyes to brown eyes to green eyes and beyond, the color that adorns those eyes can tell you a lot about the soul within. So, let’s take a deeper look at what each eye color has come to represent on screen, and how that’s changing! Watch the visual episode here: https://youtu.be/6f9wpdNcoFY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Dec 202413min