5 Star Tossers
5 Star Tossers
5 Star Tossers
Playful academic podcast that looks at movies and other cultural objects through the lens of 5 groovy themes.
Bioshock Infinite: Jesus, that's Racist, right?
5 Star Tossers throw up their first video game toss, focusing on Bioshock Infinite, the 3rd installation of the Bioshock series. They debate whether there's racism in the way the Black uprising is portrayed. They also get lost in the pleasure they take in gameplay, wondering whether a video game's story is all that important. 
Dec 14, 2021
1 hr 28 min
It's Jennifer's Body, not the Abject Corpse of the Female Gaze
Tossers turn to Julia Kristeva's abject to think about how repellant Megan Fox actually is in the 2009 film Jennifer's Body. Does she upset the hipster male gaze of the band Low Shoulder, or does she confirm its innermost secret? We also reference the SNL clip called The Librarian with Margot Robbie.
Nov 16, 2021
1 hr 17 min
Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Rock, Flag and Hegel
5 Star Tossers throw some Hegel and Isaiah Berlin at you, in the name of freedom.  There's Positive Freedom, Negative Freedom, Absolute Freedom, and then the Good Ole' U.S. of A brand: don't tread on my property. Oh yeah, this is all framed around the Always Sunny in Philadelphia Episode entitled "Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody's Asses"
Nov 5, 2021
1 hr 23 min
Showgirls: A Hoax on Both Your Hosts
5 Star Tossers try to make sense of the Paul Verhoeven "Masterpiece of Shit" "Showgirls." Did we? We sure wrestled over it, and we churned out some humiliating memories, some Marxist feminist theories à la Silvia Federici, a hypothesis about the difference between satirizing violence and satirizing sex, a theory of the hoax, and we introduce Deleuze's cinematic concept "the crystalline element."
Oct 25, 2021
1 hr 31 min
The Golden Buzzer: America's Got Spirit
This week The 5 Star Tossers look at the cultural phenomenon that is the Golden Buzzer from America's Got Talent. We do a shallow deep dive into Kant's Critique of Judgment to think about the Christian humanism at the heart of any universal celebration of beauty and talent. We also introduce for the first time our Star il vaut mieux Lyotard que jamais, so expect some Saussurean talk about fracking the signifier. Also, if you want to meet someone who thinks Susan Boyle can't sing, we somehow managed to find one amongst us.Here's a link to the Databyss Page, it includes some youtube clips of the Golden Buzzer: app.databyss.org/g_hkmh8nkoqm1lsk…s/8ukwggtvkh9wn9
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 31 min
Rotten Potatoes: On The Turin Horse and the Impossibility of Left Nietzscheanism
The Five Star Tossers joyfully lambaste the Béla Tarr movie The Turin Horse. This leads them to think about what happens when you try to mash Marxist and Nietzschean ideas together.
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 16 min
Grizzly Man: The Fable of Colonizers
We look at Werner Herzog's fascinating film Grizzly Man. Herzog compiles and analyzes the footage Timothy Treadwell filmed when he traveled to Alaska each summer for 13 years to live with Grizzly bears. We think about the colonizing tendencies in both Herzog and Treadwell, and discuss, via Jacques Derrida, the fabled relation between man and animal.Jake's Databyss notes: app.databyss.org/g_hkmh8nkoqm1lsk…s/ofxj8cai4ag6dp
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 46 min
Eyes Wide Shut: What's the Fuck?
We discuss Eyes Wide Shut from a psychoanalytic angle. Specifically, we discuss the closing line of the movie by way Jacques Lacan's provocative statement that "There is No Sexual Relation."Here is the link to Jake's Databyss notes for the Podcast: app.databyss.org/g_hkmh8nkoqm1lsk…s/4t0d0ivmi1wetv
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 38 min
Beast With A Billion Backs: Jesus, Jews, and Polyps
Watching the movie Futurama, Sagi develops a theory about the distinction between the Jew and the Christian. Jake tries to connect this theme to the Polyp and the material gags of comedy. We refer to the following Databyss page throughout the podcast, it's basically our notes: app.databyss.org/g_g57y7hond69irt.
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 30 min
They Live: Looking Cool, Marx
The 5 Star Tossers analyze They Live, via Zizek, via Marx, and via their own star Marx Grudge
Oct 19, 2021
1 hr 29 min