Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours

Kevin Buckler
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Society & Culture

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.

  1. Jul 13

    America's Forgotten Holiday: The Case for a *Celebrated* Constitution Day

    Send us Fan Mail 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 attention to perhaps the most influential artifact in American criminal justice: the United States Constitution. Why do Americans celebrate Independence Day with fireworks, parades, and family traditions while Constitution Day passes with relatively little notice? Is the Declaration of Independence simply more compelling, or have we overlooked the document that has shaped our government, protected our liberties, and structured our criminal justice system for two and a half centuries? Host Kevin Buckler explores the Constitution as a cultural artifact, traces the history of Constitution Day, examines how the Constitution and the Bill of Rights influence everyday criminal justice, and argues that Constitution Day deserves to stand alongside Independence Day as one of America's great civic holidays. Along the way, he reflects on a personal experience that sparked this idea and imagines what a true national celebration of constitutional literacy could look like. The American experiment did not end with independence. It began there. The Constitution ensured it could endure.

  2. Jul 6

    S1 E12 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The Degenerate Family Beyond the Last Gas Station — The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Franchise

    Send us Fan Mail 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 continually reimagined Leatherface, his family, and the rural landscape they inhabit. But what does this franchise actually tell us about rural America, crime, justice, family, and the cultural meanings attached to place? In this episode of Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours, host Kevin Buckler examines one of popular culture's most enduring and influential portrayals of rural crime and violence. This episode explores The Texas Chain Saw Massacre franchise through the lens of the American Crime Landscapes series. We examine how the films transformed isolated rural spaces into landscapes of fear, how documentary realism blurred the boundary between fiction and reality, and how changing sequels reflected evolving American anxieties from the 1970s through the 2020s. Along the way, we explore the franchise's connections to the Ed Gein case, the symbolic role of gas stations and other transition institutions, intergenerational violence, blood loyalty, degeneracy, conspiracy culture, institutional corruption, urban-rural conflict, and the remarkable ways each film reconstructed rural America to reflect the fears of its own era. More than a horror franchise, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre offers a fifty-year cultural history of how Americans have imagined rural landscapes, family, violence, and justice. Join us as we examine why Leatherface became an enduring cultural icon, how the franchise reshaped the popular imagination of rural America, and why its influence extends far beyond horror cinema. *Part of the American Crime Landscapes series.

  3. Jun 29

    S 1 E 11 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The Landscape that Demanded Blood — The Wicker Man (1973) and Folk Horror

    Send us Fan Mail 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 alternative systems of justice, culminating in the 2006 American remake. But what does The Wicker Man actually tell us about crime, authority, belief, and the power of place? In this episode of Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours, host Kevin Buckler explores one of the most influential portrayals of community, violence, and rural identity in horror cinema. This episode examines The Wicker Man through the lens of the American Crime Landscapes series, exploring how landscape shapes belief, how belief shapes legitimacy, and how legitimacy can transform violence into something viewed as necessary rather than criminal. Along the way, we analyze the origins of folk horror, Sergeant Neil Howie's investigation, the competing moral worlds of Christianity and paganism, the relationship between land and identity, and the remarkable portrayal of an entire community functioning as the offender rather than a single criminal. We also examine why rural isolation has become such a powerful symbol in popular culture and what distinguishes geographic isolation from social isolation. More than a horror film, The Wicker Man offers a compelling meditation on authority, legitimacy, community, and the cultural meanings attached to rural places. Join us as we ask what happens when outsiders enter a landscape governed by a different moral order, why communities can become more frightening than monsters, and how one Scottish film became a foundational influence on American stories about rural crime, justice, and fear. *Part of the American Crime Landscapes series.

  4. Jun 22

    S 1 E 10 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: The River with Memory but no Witnesses — Deliverance (1972) and the Myth of the Mountain Man

    Send us Fan Mail 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 Deliverance actually tell us about crime, justice, fear, and rural America? In this episode of Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours, host Kevin Buckler explores one of the most influential portrayals of rural crime and violence in American film history. This episode examines Deliverance's depiction of environmental loss, cultural misunderstanding, masculinity, survival, and moral decision-making. Along the way, we explore the competing worldviews of characters Lewis, Ed, Bobby, and Drew, and consider how the film portrays rural residents, outsiders, local knowledge, law, and social order. We also examine the enduring figure of the rural degenerate (the mountain man), the legacy of the film's famous dueling banjos scene, and the ways Deliverance helped shape popular culture's understanding of the American countryside. More than a wilderness thriller, Deliverance offers a powerful cultural narrative about fear, place, and the relationship between urban and rural America. Join us as we ask what happens when outsiders enter a landscape they do not fully understand, why perceptions of place matter, and how one controversial film became one of the most influential stories ever told about rural crime, justice, and survival. *Part of the American Crime Landscapes series.

  5. Jun 15

    S 1 E 9 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: Sheriff Taylor's Small Town America — Mayberry and the Myth of Rural Justice

    Send us Fan Mail 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 Kevin Buckler explores one of the most influential portrayals of rural America in television history. Using the classic episode "Crime-Free Mayberry" as a case study, this episode examines how The Andy Griffith Show constructed a vision of rural justice grounded in community trust, informal social control, legitimacy, and local knowledge rather than bureaucracy, punishment, or coercion. Along the way, we explore Sheriff Andy Taylor, Deputy Barney Fife, Otis Campbell, the Darling family, and other iconic Mayberry residents while considering how the series portrayed outsiders, authority, social order, and community life. More than a nostalgic sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show offers a powerful cultural narrative about how Americans have imagined rural crime and justice. Join us as we ask what Mayberry reveals about the relationship between community and law, why legitimacy matters, and how one small fictional town became one of the most enduring symbols of rural America. *Part of the American Crime Landscapes series.

  6. Jun 8

    S 1 E 8 American (Rural) Crime Landscapes: Shirley Jackson’s The Summer People — Rural Degeneration or Misplaced Fear of the Rural Other?

    Send us Fan Mail American Crime Landscapes is a series exploring how popular culture imagines crime, justice, deviance, and social control through place. Across novels, films, television, music, and other cultural artifacts, the series examines how urban, suburban, and rural settings become more than locations. They become symbols, myths, and cultural narratives that shape how we understand danger, belonging, and community. In this first episode exploring rural American crime landscapes, host Kevin Buckler examines "The Summer People" by Shirley Jackson. At first glance, the story appears simple: an older New York couple decides to remain at their summer cottage after Labor Day, breaking an unspoken local tradition. But as deliveries stop, communication falters, and familiar routines begin to unravel, the couple becomes convinced that something is wrong. Are the townspeople quietly pushing the Allisons out? Or are the Allisons interpreting ordinary rural realities through a lens of stereotype, anxiety, and urban assumptions? Drawing on criminological concepts of fear, perception, and social control, this episode explores rural ambiguity, outsider status, the mythology of rural degeneration, and the enduring cultural construction of the rural other. Along the way, the podcast connects Jackson’s story to later popular culture texts such as Deliverance and Wrong Turn, showing how rural landscapes have often been portrayed as both idyllic and threatening, welcoming and exclusionary. Because sometimes the most powerful crime story is not about a crime at all. It is about fear. And the stories we tell ourselves about the people and places we do not fully understand. *Part of the American Crime Landscapes series.

  7. May 31

    S 1 E 7 American Crime Landscapes: An Introduction to the Crime and Place Series (Urban, Suburban, and Rural)

    Send us Fan Mail This is the introductory episode of a new series of Crime and Pop Culture Office Hours. The series is called "American Crime Landscapes." It begins with a simple question: What do we really mean when we say urban, suburban, and rural? In this introductory episode, the host Kevin Buckler explores how popular culture teaches us to think about crime, justice, danger, and belonging through place.  Drawing on films and television series such as Se7en, Joker, The Wire, Halloween, Disturbia, The Lovely Bones, The Andy Griffith Show, Wrong Turn, and Yellowstone, this episode introduces the framework that will guide this series. Cities, suburbs, and rural communities function as more than settings. They become cultural narratives that shape our assumptions about where crime happens, why it happens, and what justice should look like. Why do cities so often appear as places of systemic breakdown? Why do suburban stories teach us to fear what hides behind normalcy? And why is rural America portrayed as both a sanctuary of shared values and a place where outsiders may not belong? The answer lies in what this series calls the emotional geography of crime. Because crime has a ZIP code. At least in our cultural imagination. Before we debate crime policy, policing, punishment, or public safety, many of us have already absorbed powerful assumptions about where danger lives and where justice works. This episode lays the foundation for a journey through America's crime landscapes and the stories that continue to shape how we understand crime and justice.

  8. Apr 6

    S 1 E 6 The Juvenile Super Predator: The Monster We Imagined and the Crime Wave That Never Came

    Send us Fan Mail This episode of Crime & Pop Culture Office Hours examines the rise and impact of the juvenile “super-predator” myth through two influential 1990s articles by John DiIulio. Using these texts as cultural artifacts, the episode explores how academic claims, media amplification, and political rhetoric converged to construct a racialized narrative linking youth, crime, and Blackness. The episode critically analyzes the demographic and “moral poverty” arguments underlying the prediction, highlighting their analytical flaws and broader social consequences. The episode then contrasts this narrative with empirical reality, drawing on scholarship such as The Crime Drop in America to show how changing social conditions—not demographic inevitability—explain both the rise and decline in youth violence. Ultimately, the episode underscores how powerful crime narratives can shape public perception and policy, even when they are fundamentally wrong.

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About

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.

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