Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours
This is a podcast where we treat movies, television, and other popular culture artifacts not just as entertainment, but as cultural evidence. As artifacts that reveal how we think about crime, justice, power, and culture. I’m Kevin Buckler, PhD in Criminal Justice, and a professor at a four-year public university. On Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours, I bring you sharp, unfiltered content about how film, television, and media shape the way we understand crime, law, and justice — and what those stories reveal about our legal system, our communities, and the world around us.
Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours
Latest Episodes
America's Forgotten Holiday: The Case for a *Celebrated* Constitution Day
In this episode, Crime and Popular Culture Office Hours takes a brief departure from the American Crime Landscapes series to examine a different kind of artifact. Instead of analyzing a film, television show, or work of literature, we turn our ...
S1 E12 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The Degenerate Family Beyond the Last Gas Station — The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Franchise
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is widely regarded as one of the most influential horror films ever made. Over the past fifty years, it has grown into a sprawling franchise of sequels, remakes, prequels, and reboots that have conti...
S 1 E 11 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The Landscape that Demanded Blood — The Wicker Man (1973) and Folk Horror
The Wicker Man (1973) is widely regarded as one of the greatest folk horror films ever made. Although set on a fictional Scottish island, its themes profoundly influenced American depictions of rural crime, isolated communities, and al...
S 1 E 10 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The River with Memory but no Witnesses — Deliverance (1972) and the Myth of the Mountain Man
Deliverance (1972) is a film that for generations has shaped how Americans imagine rural danger. For many viewers, the film is remembered for its famous dueling banjos sequence and its brutal sexual assault scene. But what does Del...
S 1 E 9 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: Sheriff Taylor's Small Town America — Mayberry and the Myth of Rural Justice
For generations, "Mayberry" has served as shorthand for a simpler, safer, and more orderly America. But what does The Andy Griffith Show actually tell us about crime and justice? In this episode of Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours, host Kev...