I attended the 2025 Pop Culture Association (PCA) Conference because I got a paper accepted. Liveblogged my days at the conference as one does. Today’s post is all about day two. You can read about day one here.

PCA-ACA 2025 Day 2 (April 17)

11:30 AM Panel 1: Television IV: WandaVision and Agatha All Along

11:36a – 6 minutes late to first panel for dumb reasons, and one is definitely that I followed the wrong sign to get to the room.

First presenter: A Regular Husband and Wife: Gender and Genre in Marvel Studios’s “WandaVision”, Viola Burlew

• I am impressed by all of these people who have actually written scripts/papers for their presentations. I should probably practice mine more…
• Basically, the argument is that there’s an inversion of sitcom gender roles and tropes for the husband and wife which therefore subverts the superhero genre and its gender roles.
• Desire to fulfill gender role of mother with children is what drives Wanda to fulfill the archetype of the mad woman in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness..

Second presenter: Representation of Trauma in the Music of Marvel’s “WandaVision” and “Agatha All Along”, John Dunn

• MCU is all about nostalgia and grief/trauma.
• Wanda’s nostalgia was also a time of nostalgia for audience since WandaVision aired during height of COVID-19 pandemic/lockdown.
• Today I learned Robert Lopez is the youngest person to EGOT (win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), and the only person to EGOT twice (!). He also wrote the music for Book of Mormon.
• Dunn gives a bit of musical theory about the half step and some other things I don’t understand as a non-musical person. Something something inversion of theme at the end of each episode. There is some humming and vocalizing from the panelist involved.

Third presenter – Was it Really “Agatha All Along”?: Queer Temporalities in WandaVision and Agatha All Along, Andre Favors

• Paper will become a chapter in a book on time travel
• Another reader with no visuals

Two very important things happened during this panel:

1. I saw my friend Cari’s husband’s name in the program and thought she might be there because, you know, trip to New Orleans. However, her name wasn’t in the program AT ALL. But! Guess who was sitting in the room when I got there? I was late and then she left early, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to her. Thanks to the glory of technology, I did text her and we made plans to meet up.*
2. During the Q&A, I asked how the spoiler from the end of Agatha All Along impacted/complicated the first presenter’s argument, and then we all had a nice, long rant session about how awful Multiverse of Madness is and how it made no sense given what we knew from the show. Someone in the audience said it didn’t make sense because the movie people (men) were not talking to the TV people (women) so, of course, the movie was a sexist hot mess. So. It was nice to be amongst people who agreed with me, basically. Hahaha.

1:15 PM Panel 2: Adaptations and Retellings III: Modernizing and Romanticizing the Regency Period

1:17 pm – I was late to this one because I couldn’t find the room and my keycard wasn’t working

1st panelist: Accepting Change in the Bridgerton Stories: Adapting Julia Quinn for the Screen Two Decades Later, Anastasia Bierman

• I already disagree with the panelist because she’s arguing season three is more feminist than the book, but I think a lot of the changes actually make it less feminist, so we’ll see
• Ok, her first argument is that book Penelope’s glow up is because of weight loss vs the tv show, which I’ll give her that point
• No mention of the age change, though she does mention the queering/gender switch of Michael to Michaela, and I totally disagree about the Lady Whistledown reveal, so.

Sidenote: Romance panels are always fun

2nd panelist: Austentatious Adaptations: Filmic Adaptations of Austen’s Work and How They Retain Relevancy, Kerri Bennet

• Bennet says her research picks up where Bierman’s presentation left off in terms of questions of fidelity
• She uses theoretical lens of Lawrence Levine book Highbrow Lowbrow and how Shakespeare went from anybody can lampoon (sensational) to very respected and for the well-learned (sacred)
• Austen has been the opposite, going from highbrow (sacred) to “chick lit” (sensational)
• Movies tried to make Pride & Prejudice sexy which didn’t work until 1995 BBC miniseries and Mr. Darcy Wet Shirt
• “Austenian adaptations…can successfully attract new audiences and lead them to Austen’s original texts…because Jane’s genius seems to lie in the remarkable relatability with which she imbues her characters.”
• A successful adaptation retains the spirit of the work (specifically the inherently relatable characters)
• Shouts out Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary as successful indirect adaptations

Sidenote the second: This is the first panel going out of order of the program order

3rd panelist: If You’re a Five in London, You’re a Ten in Bath: Modern Lingo’s Influence in Netflix’s Persuasion, Marnie BechoCannon

• BechoCannon started by saying, “Let’s get a little spicy”
• Fans and critics hated the movie, apparently
• Presentation will be about WHY the changes to dialogue matter rather than a comparison/contrast of the language in the book vs. movie
• Another nod to Clueless as successful vs. the Netflix Persuasion
• The problem is abrupt change from modern to period language
• Director Carrie Cracknell’s Anne also diverges wildly from Austen’s in characterization
• The big problem is that readers coming to Austen from the movie will not encounter the same heroine they did in the movie

4th panelist: Representation and Imperialism: Reading Netflix’s Bridgerton as Speculative Romance, Lakshmisree Marar

• Marar is another reader with no visuals
• Main argument is that Indianness is presented in private and secluded spaces
• Plastic representations in Bridgerton (I don’t remember what this means, sorry) (That sorry is for me as well as you, gentle reader)

And that’s a wrap on day 2!

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*I forgot to mention that on day 1, I saw my friend Casey! We had a delightful social media moment where we realized we both were going to be at the conference and then a not so delightful one where she found out our panels were at the same time so we wouldn’t be able to see each other in action. Still, we had a lovely dinner and catch up, and I hadn’t seen her in YEARS, so thanks to PCA for giving me an opportunity to catch up with some peeps!