Landline with Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney
  • 4.8 (23)
  • History
  • Updated Biweekly

Landline is the podcast where pop culture gets some context. Each episode, historian Mary Mahoney calls up guests to connect today’s celebrity culture, TV, movie, music, and online trends to the histories that make them make sense. It’s like a group text for people who love footnotes, or the answer to the question, “Why can’t history feel more like US Weekly?” You can find the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 4d ago

    Will You Light My Candle? Revisiting Rent 30 Years Later with Kait and Renata of The Worst Bestsellers Podcast

    Happy 30th anniversary, Rent. I've been waiting 525,600 minutes for this one. This week on Landline, I hand my nostalgia tour over to Kait and Renata of the Worst Bestsellers podcast. They teach me about the history of Rent, including the behind-the-scenes drama. We get into everything: the wood-burning stove I'm genuinely concerned about, Jonathan Larson's death the night before Rent opened off-Broadway, a plagiarism lawsuit that I still can’t believe, the infamous fan who faked a terminal illness to get rush tickets, and what it was like to tape bootlegs, wade through early Rent message boards, listservs, and write fan fiction. Kait and Renata first met online as Rent fans, and I’m so glad they could join me on this journey through the history of Rent, which asks: what was this, what did it mean then, and what does it mean to us now? Thirty years later, does Rent hold up? Kind of. Does it still make us feel things? Absolutely. Note: Paid members will get a bonus segment with Kait and Renata’s hot takes on Rent. Hint, one involves Joey Fatone and stunt casting.  Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Timestamps00:00 — Cold open: "You two said off mic that you really loved the film" 00:18 — Welcome to Landline, meet Kait and Renata of Worst Bestsellers  04:23 — So what is Rent, actually? We talk about the hot plate. 06:52 — Jonathan Larson, his death, and the real AIDS crisis backdrop the show was written into  13:45 — The legal drama begins: the Billy Aronson handshake deal  22:21 — The tragedy: Larson dies the night before Rent's off-Broadway opening  28:37 — Rush tickets, sleeping on the sidewalk, and the birth of Rent fandom (message boards, fan fiction, listservs, taping bootlegs) 32:37 — The infamous fan who faked a terminal illness to get close to the cast  54:37 — The plagiarism lawsuit: Sarah Schulman vs. Rent  1:03:01 — The Rent Live 2019 disaster (Renata won a contest and lived to tell it)  1:09:19 — Where Rent sits with us now, on its 30th anniversary TranscriptFull episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2QodlDoxGF8t044yTwnOdh6sFby5l9UkXIVZteBKQ0/edit?usp=sharing  Follow Landline: Instagram: @landlinewithmaryTiktok:@landlinewithmaryYouTube:@LandlinewithMaryWebsite: https://landlinewithmary.com/ Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: landlinewithmary@gmail.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney Connect with Renatta and Kait, and Worst Bestsellers Podcast: Website: https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/ Instagram: @worstbestsellers  Renata’s Instagram: @renatasnacks Kait’s Instagram: @fourteenacrossLove the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Will You Light My Candle? Revisiting Rent 30 Years Later with Kait and Renata of The Worst Bestsellers Podcast

  2. Aug 4

    Selling Sunset, the Kardashians & the Cruel Architecture of Reality TV with Jack Balderrama Morley

    This week I'm talking reality TV and architecture with Jack Balderrama Morley, author of Dream Facades: The Cruel Architecture of Reality TV. We take a tour through the homes reality TV has taught us to want — Selling Sunset's glossy nothing-houses, the SoHo loft that launched The Real World, the Kardashians' frontier fantasy in Hidden Hills, Real Housewives of Atlanta's Chateau Chérie, and the current Mormon-wife renaissance on Bravo and beyond — and what all of it says about the American dream of homeownership, especially now that it feels further out of reach than ever. Jack is a delight, and left me wondering, “what if the cruelest architecture on Reality TV are the Below Deck yachts?”   Timestamps 00:08 — Intro: reality TV, architecture, and Jack Balderrama Morley's Dream Facades 02:45 — What inspired the book 04:49 — Heidi Montag, Laguna Beach, and reality TV's turn toward the aspirational 10:26 — Selling Sunset and the "beige-ification" of reality real estate 13:50 — The architecture of Selling Sunset: from mid-century modernism to "shellacked modernism" 19:20 — The Real World, the SoHo loft, and the birth of reality TV 34:00 — The Kardashians, Hidden Hills, and the American frontier myth 50:45 — Real Housewives of Atlanta and Chateau Chérie 1:01:52 — Trading Spaces, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and the makeover-show genre 1:13:46 — Mormons, reality TV, and Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Resources & Links Mentioned Topics Discussed: Selling SunsetThe HillsLaguna Beach: The Real Orange CountyThe Real WorldKeeping Up with the KardashiansThe Real Housewives of AtlantaThe Real Housewives of Salt Lake CitySister WivesTrading SpacesExtreme Makeover: Home Edition Further Reading/Viewing: For more information on the gap between black and white homeownership, check out this report from Stateline: https://stateline.org/2022/10/13/black-families-fall-further-behind-on-homeownership/  Want even more resources, deep dives, and behind-the-scenes context on this episode's topics? Patreon members get access to my exclusive newsletter with extended research, additional links, and insights that didn't make it into the show. You can get the weekly newsletter when you join for free. Paid members get a monthly bonus episode and a weekly newsletter of things I'm loving in pop culture. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EL3u6H2HaPkyPLTj13o12i32_q541v2jIG4WSlaTdbk/edit?usp=sharing  Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.comLove the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Connect with Jack Balderrama Morley: Website: https://www.jackbalderramamorley.com/ Instagram: @jackbaldmoRead Jack’s writing at Dwell: https://www.dwell.com/@jackbalderramamorley1760/articles Read Jack’s book: https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781662602924  Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Jul 21

    A Room of Our Own: A Very Deep Dive Into Bedroom Culture with Rachel Moss

    Bedrooms have always been sacred ground for girls; the one square footage where you got to decide who you were before anyone else weighed in. This week I'm talking to Rachel Moss, author of In the Girls' Room: Essays on Bedroom Culture from the 90s to Now, about the long, weird, footnote-worthy history of what girls actually do behind a closed door: making zines, starting bands, papering walls with posters of their heroes, filling notebooks with genuinely bad poetry. We go from the Riot Grrrl scene in 90s Olympia and Kathleen Hanna's outsized (and under-credited) cultural footprint, to the moral panic of Reviving Ophelia and the Cassie Bernall myth, to Tavi Gevinson and Rookie Mag, all the way up to "bed rotting" as bedroom culture's more depressed, more online cousin. It's a conversation about privacy, creativity, and what happens to a private space once the internet — and your own phone — starts listening in. Grab your zine scissors, we're getting into it. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Timestamps00:08 — Intro: what "bedroom culture" is, and welcoming Rachel Moss 02:28 — Rachel's zine shelf and the joy of meeting a fellow zine person 03:04 — Making zines in secret in rural Ohio, and the Courtney Love conspiracy zine detour 05:26 — Defining bedroom culture: making, consuming, and archiving 09:21 — Where it starts: the 1950s "invention" of the American teenager 10:40 — Riot Grrrl 101: Olympia, Kathleen Hanna, and Bikini Kill 14:18 — Sadie Benning's bedroom video diaries and the tangled Riot Grrrl web (Le Tigre, etc.) 17:26 — The dark side: Prozac Nation, Reviving Ophelia, and the Cassie Bernall myth 22:51 — Shared family computers, Net Chick, and the first wave of girls building websites 28:35 — Rookie Mag, Tavi Gevinson, and Petra Collins' uncredited influence 36:00 — Bed rotting, depression, and Qualeasha Wood's 2025 gallery performance 44:44 — Building Internet Bedroom, staying independent, and resisting the algorithm 53:32 — Where to find Rachel's book, Substack, and Instagram TranscriptFull episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19mENoNtmGvp4XVh_7MELEsh1laxpvIVMx-meN9-OaZk/edit?usp=sharing  Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.comConnect with Rachel Moss: Order Rachel’s books here: https://www.internetbedroom777.comYouTube: Rachel Moss (@internetbedroom) Instagram: @girlguttersSubstack: https://internetbedroom.substack.com Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Jul 7

    Little House on the Prairie, The Bicentennial, and How History Came Alive in the 1970s with M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska,

    I sat down with historian M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive, to figure out why America decided to throw itself a birthday party in the middle of Watergate, and what that has to do with the strange, sputtering rollout of the 250th happening right now. We get into Nixon hijacking a nonpartisan commission, a very wagon train crossing the country to meet Gerald Ford, and the queer and Black history organizers who used the bicentennial's grant money to build the public history field as we know it. It turns out nostalgia isn't good or bad, it just is, and the receipts are more interesting than the fireworks. This month’s patreon episode is a 411 episode on the bicentennial. Join the $5/month tier to hear it now.  Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Suggest a future episode topic here: https://www.patreon.com/MaryMahoney/posts/running-list-of-159302658?collection=1744255  Timestamps 00:08 – Welcome, and why the bicentennial matters for America 25002:05 – MJ on stumbling into a dissertation topic nobody else wanted06:32 – How Americans went from watching history to living inside it14:23 – Reenactment, Reagan's Oval Office for kids, and "Hippies Living History"20:37 – 1966: Johnson forms the first bicentennial commission29:12 – Nixon takes over and wants fireworks, not history32:56 – Philadelphia's World's Fair collapses under its own weight34:33 – The People's Bicentennial Commission crashes the Boston Tea Party38:26 – The Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation and the fight for historic sites1:04:05 – MJ's hot take: the 250th is just the 1893 World's Fair with worse merch TranscriptFull episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nuDQ8GbcGKv4DmoAJ3jkPUutO8dpuDzq2oFO3SCnWpY/edit?usp=sharing  Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.comConnect with M.J. Rymsza-Pavlovska: Website: https://mjrymszapawlowska.com/ Book: History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. Jul 2

    Vanilla Ice, the Queen, and 8,000 Alphabet Noodles: The 411 on the Bicentennial

    America is turning 250 this year, and to make sense of the chaos of America 250 (Vanilla Ice on the National Mall, a Confederate flag at the Great American State Fair) I had to go back to the last time we tried this. The Bicentennial, 1976. LBJ started with an earnest planning commission. Nixon gutted it and replaced them with his buddies. Sound familiar? The country was exhausted by Watergate, Vietnam, and inflation, so we reached for nostalgia instead. Little House on the Prairie, anyone? On this episode, I take you on what The Bachelor would call "a journey" through the highs, lows, and huhs? of the bicentennial. On tap: why America is so obsessed with celebrating itself and what that's looked like in the past, the mission and merch of the bicentennial, the protests, and, inexplicably, the queen.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Vanilla Ice, the Queen, and 8,000 Alphabet Noodles: The 411 on the Bicentennial

  6. Jun 23

    The Field Guide to Nepo Babies with Fran Hoepfner

    This episode, I chat with Fran Hoepfner — critic, Vulture writer, and author of The Field Guide to Nepo Babies — to trace nepotism from the medieval Catholic Church all the way to Bronny James and Kai Trump. They get into who's doing it right (Ben Platt's Rachel Zegler solidarity era, Romy Mars booking a helicopter and owning it on TikTok), who's doing it wrong (Jack Schlossberg, reheating his family's nachos), and whether Jesus Christ is technically a nepo baby. Spoiler: it depends on your theology (but it’s also making me want to rewatch Jesus Christ Superstar). Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Timestamps(00:00) Cold open / Fran's cat Bandit joins the show(03:10) The meritocracy myth and why nepo babies make us angry(08:08) Ben Platt's PR redemption arc(12:29) How nepotism started in the Catholic Church (hi, Borgias)(15:10) Was Jesus a nepo baby?(20:00) Emeril Lagasse IV and the "no seriously he earned it" profile(28:21) Bronny James and the tragedy of an impossible legacy(32:06) Chet Hanks: performance art or just vibes?(35:24) Jack Schlossberg, least favorite nepo baby, explained(43:38) Fran's favorites: Laura Dern, Jason Schwartzmann, the Gummers(48:18) Kai Trump's "just a regular girly" era and Tiffany Trump's strange tragedy(53:23) The takeaway: don't apologize, don't be boring, and if you have money, do something good TranscriptFull episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ghO5c8muWn77GzbPfNGP84l06ixrr8RNt4URRQDdn8/edit?usp=sharing  Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.comConnect with Fran: Read Fran’s Book! The Field Guide to Nepo Babies (https://bookshop.org/a/102042/9781523530465 ) Subscribe to Fran Magazine: https://franmagazine.substack.com/ Website: https://www.franhoepfner.fyi/ Instagram: @franhoepfner  Love the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. Jun 18

    Anne of Green Gables: The One and Only (A Love Letter to the Miniseries starring Megan Follows)

    Is your life a perfect graveyard of buried hopes? Have I got the episode for you! This month, I sit down with fellow historian and lifelong Anne devotee Samantha to talk about the thing that started it all: Kevin Sullivan's 1985 miniseries adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, starring Megan Follows. They get into what it meant to find Anne as a girl, why it still hits different as an adult, the queerness you can absolutely read into it if you're paying attention, the absolutely wild copyright drama that shaped the whole Kevin Sullivan universe, and what Lucy Maud Montgomery's own life might tell us about why she wrote the story she did. Plus: trivia, a trip to PEI, a lunch with Lucy Maud Montgomery's actual granddaughter (and what it's like to attend a conference with her descendants), and a very firm stance on Part Three. Long episode. Worth every minute. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Anne of Green Gables: The One and Only (A Love Letter to the Miniseries starring Megan Follows)

  8. Jun 9

    "Does She Sing?" Sarah, Plain and Tall and the History of “Wives Wanted” with Sara Petersen

    We need to talk about Sarah, Plain and Tall. Yes, the children's book. Yes, it will make you cry. I'm joined by the brilliant Sara Petersen — writer of the In Pursuit of Clean Countertops newsletter and author of Momfluenced — to revisit Patricia MacLachlan's 1985 masterpiece, and I promise we are not being dramatic when we say it holds up. It more than holds up. It destroys you. We get into the very real and very wild 19th-century practice of advertising for a wife (one man received 794 letters, 13 daguerreotypes, and one thimble — just leaving that there), why Sarah Wheaton is a genuinely subversive heroine who would absolutely not survive the Ballerina Farm comment section, and what tradwife culture fundamentally misunderstands about what life on the prairie actually looked like for women. Spoiler: it was not sourdough and calico aesthetics. It was getting on the roof. We also talk grief and longing, Frontier House (the PBS show that radicalized a generation of history nerds), the Hemingway comparisons this book actually deserves, and why a scene involving three colored pencils might be the most emotionally efficient ending in American literature. Stay tuned for a future 411 episode connecting all of this to the longer history of Wives Wanted culture — and yes, 90 Day Fiancé. Become a Patreon member → https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney  Timestamps00:00 – Introduction: Why Sarah, Plain and Tall made us cry  05:30 – The real history of Wives Wanted ads (794 letters, 24 shirt buttons, one thimble)  13:00 – What this book is actually about: grief, longing, and Caleb's unanswerable question  22:00 – The yellow bonnet arrives: why Sarah puts everyone at ease immediately  27:00 – Tradwives vs. homesteaders: what trad wife culture gets completely wrong about the past  36:00 – Frontier House, Doctor Quinn, and our shared disease of prairie nostalgia  44:00 – The colored pencils ending, and why Patricia McLachlan is a genius TranscriptFull episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1543EYkJM9RvhFTP3nh0Dy_mxzQOPO5DhxlLoINm0fUk/edit?usp=sharing  Connect with Mary: Website: www.marymmahoney.comInstagram: @mimimahoneyEmail: MaryMargaret.Mahoney@gmail.comConnect with Sara: Website: https://sara-petersen.com/ Twitter/X: @slouisepetersenInstagram: @slouisepetersen Book: Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer CultureNewsletter: In Pursuit of Clean CountertopsPodcast: Clean CountertopsLove the show? Please leave a rating and review! It helps other listeners find Landline. Sponsor Message:  Landline is sponsored by Libro.Fm. Listen to your favorite books and support your local bookstores! (Link: https://tidd.ly/40tPrKb )  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Landline is the podcast where pop culture gets some context. Each episode, historian Mary Mahoney calls up guests to connect today’s celebrity culture, TV, movie, music, and online trends to the histories that make them make sense. It’s like a group text for people who love footnotes, or the answer to the question, “Why can’t history feel more like US Weekly?” You can find the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/MaryMahoney Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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