Fantasy: Love Me Some Diversity – Reading The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu – Episode 5

In Alive Poets Society’s fifth episode, we dive into the social, cultural, and literary themes present in the extremely popular fantasy short story, “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu. After spending the first 40 minutes of the show debating on how we should pronounce the author and character’s names, we dive into the story. We debate how horrible each character is, and how the author builds empathy for the mother in the piece. The story leads us to a discussion on racism in American culture, and how Lil Wayne doesn’t think it exists. Our talk expands to America’s sway on the cultures of the world and how capitalism has aided in destroying cultures that are thousands of years old. We end with everyone’s favorite segment, reviewing a review in The Review Review. Tune in to hear all of this and much more.

Come back in two weeks to hear us dissect the movie Snowpiercer with a special guest host! The movie is on Netflix now, so stop whatever you’re doing right now and go watch it. 

Find us on Twitter @Alive_Poets and Instagram @TheAlivePoetsSociety to get the scoop on what we are reading/watching for next episode. Email us with questions, suggestions, or money at [email protected]. Please rate, share, and subscribe if you enjoyed!

Shout out to Mayo Nice for the intro music.