Death is a Photograph

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Season 1, Gen X — Episode 27 — Sixteen Candles (1984) Jun 07, 2026

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DPP ventures into the North Chicago suburbs as it broaches its first John Hughes film — Sixteen Candles (1984).

What does adolescence look like in the affluent upper middle classes for Gen X? What role does the family play? What did dating look like for those coming of age in the epoch?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 26 — House Party (1990) May 31, 2026

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This week, the DPP boys check out Reginald Hudlin's 1990 House Party.

The film launched a long-running series of coming-of-age comedies under the House Party title, terminating in 2023.

Centring around the exploits of rap duo Kid n' Play, the film did much to introduce hip-hop into the American mainstream. It also foregrounds African American middle-class suburban life on film in a groundbreaking way.

Where did the film's subtle hints at pan-Africanism and 1990s affluence lead in the 2000s and 2010s?

Find out in today's episode.

Special Episode – Hyperpolitics (2026) w/Anton Jäger May 27, 2026

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In the first of DPP's special book episodes, Sam interviews Oxford politics lecturer and NYT contributing writer Anton Jäger on his new book: Hyperpolitics (2026, Verso).

Jäger's text is an expansion of two essays: 'From Bowling Alone to Posting Alone' (2022) and 'Everything is Hyperpolitical' (2023).

Through an analysis of political change in the late 20th and 21st centuries and the curation of various cultural objects: the novels of Michel Houellebecq and Annie Ernaux, plus the photos of Wolfgang Tillmans, Jäger makes the case for five types of politics immediately before, and after, the 'end of history.'

These sequential stages are 1920s-1940s mass politics (high politicisation and high institutionalisation), 1950s institutional politics (medium politicisation and high institutionalisation), 1990s and 2000s post-politics (low politicisation and low institutionalisation), 2010s anti-politics (medium politicisation and low institutionalisation), and, finally, 2020s hyperpolitics (high politicisation and low institutionalisation).

Has the 'end of history' really ended — or are the 2020s just a continuation of 1990s deinstitutionalisation with more posting?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 25 — Fresh Kill (1994) May 24, 2026

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Today's DPP episode explores the little-known 1994 feature by multi-media artist Jessica Hagedorn – Fresh Kill.

Recycling, sushi, yuppies, toxic waste, nameless megacorporations, ethical hacking – Staten Island – Fresh Kill has it all, wrapped up in a dissonant prose-poem of a script.

But did the world really turn into the endlessly diffused and globalised set of networks that Hagedorn predicts?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 24 — Goodbye, Lenin! (2003) May 17, 2026

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The DPP boys were picking through the flea markets of Berlin — looking for Trabant car parts and old jars of Spreewaldgurken. In amongst the clutter, we came across a dusty videotape — Goodbye, Lenin! (2003).

Wolfgang Becker's breakout hit — a deep dive into Ostalgie — only a few years after German reunification — asks the question: what if you could keep living in a dead political system and world? How possible is it to protect ourselves from the shocks of capitalism, to retreat into nostalgia?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 23 — Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) May 10, 2026

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This week, DPP delve into the high school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). The film, directed by Amy Heckerling and based on the gonzo reporting of Cameron Crowe, is a vignette of teenage life in suburban southern California in the 1980s.

With Reagan in power, plentiful jobs, and easy credit, what did adolescence look like for a broad swathe of the American population not normally depicted in films, for lack of interest and dramatic effect? (i.e the Californian middle class). And what was the texture of life like in the early 1980s, before the neoliberal turn had had its full effect on the same group of people?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 22 — i ♥ huckabees (2004) w/Andrew Young May 03, 2026

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Chase is solo on this episode with guest Andrew Young to discuss i ♥ huckabees, an under-the-radar feature film by early Gen-X wunderkind David O. Russell.

NIMBYism, environmentalism, cod-psychology, adolescent existentialism, self-help, the fear of suburbia, ecological doom, space-hoppers – i ♥ huckabees has it all.

Where does a generation go when questions of material survival have been answered?

Find out in today's episode.

Patreon, as always, is here.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 21 — 24 Hour Party People (2002) Apr 26, 2026

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This week, DPP takes on Gen X myth-making about the city of Manchester – namely, through Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film 24 Hour Party People.

Why did Manchester explode as a Gen X-era subcultural and music mecca in the 1980s and 1990s, overtaking places more central to the boomer consciousness like Liverpool? And how did those involved in the post-punk and acid-house scenes of the era understand the sociology and economics of the epoch in retrospect?

Find out in today's episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 20 — Clerks (1994) + Clerks II (2006) Apr 19, 2026

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DPP journeys to the Garden State, and Chase's political domain, this week — that's right, we're covering slacker favourites Clerks (1994) and Clerks II (2006).

Directed by Kevin Smith, these films explore what it's like to spend a decade working marginal, dead-end jobs, without actively identifying oneself as marginal or a failure, because you've got your friends, pop culture, and ever-present escape routes.

Were the lifestyles exhibited in Smith’s oeuvre only possible during a brief period at the end of history?

Find out in today’s episode.

Season 1, Gen X — Episode 19 — Trainspotting (1996) + T2 (2017) Apr 12, 2026

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The DPP boys head back up to Scotland (we can't keep away), in search of meaning in deindustrialised hellscapes — that's right, we're doing Trainspotting (1996) and Danny Boyle's lesser-known follow-up: T2 (2017).

Is there any compensation for the full-scale loss of meaning, association and community brought about by the offshoring of manufacturing and the rise of finance? Individualism, punk rock, raves, heroin — EU redevelopment funds?

Listen to this week's episode to find out.

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