Pretty Much Pop #18 Discusses Stephen King’s Media Empire

Is the most pop­u­lar writer of our time actu­al­ly a good writer? Or maybe he used to be good but has long since run out of inspi­ra­tion? What are the most effec­tive ways to adapt these very read­able short sto­ries and nov­els? Does show­ing us the evil in a film lessen its impact? While you’ve been think­ing about those ques­tions, King has already writ­ten anoth­er book.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt share their expe­ri­ences with and opin­ions about King’s oeu­vre and the films and shows that have come out of it, includ­ing It, “The Body” (aka Stand By Me), The Shin­ing, In the Tall Grass, The Dark Tow­er, The Stand, Chil­dren of the Corn, From a Buick 8, Under the Dome, The Out­sider, Mr. Mer­cedes, Cas­tle Rock, Pet Sematary, Mis­ery, The Shaw­shank Redemp­tion, and more.

Some arti­cles we read to pre­pare for this dis­cus­sion include:

• “Stephen King Has Spent Half a Cen­tu­ry Scar­ing Us, but His Lega­cy Is So Much More Than Hor­ror” by Aja Romano
• “Is Stephen King a Great Writer?” by Jane Cia­bat­tari
• “Stephen King Responds to Con­tro­ver­sy Sur­round­ing Exclud­ed ‘IT’ Child Orgy Scene” by Helen Meriel Thomas
• “This Stephen King Nov­el Will Nev­er Be Print­ed Again After It Was Tied To School Shoot­ings” by Corey Adwar

If you’ve nev­er actu­al­ly read a Stephen King novel­la, go ahead and read “The Body.”

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.