Olivia Rodrigo + Pinay pop, with Karen Tongson

Hello from karaoke! 

This week, we bring you more Olivia Rodrigo content–with Karen Tongson, USC professor, podcast co-host, and lover of all singable musics! [28:50] Jay and Tammy* go deep with Karen on her childhood with musician parents, AzNs in California’s Inland Empire, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), transpacific music circuits, and why it’s racist to pile on a twenty-year-old Pinay pop star. [3:25] But first, some takes on Hasan Minhaj’s “emotionally true” standup act. (*Sorry for Tammy’s absence partway, then fully halfway, through the ep… and all the water noise, lol. NY apartment life, what can you do?)

In this episode, we ask: 

• Why are Filipinos so often accused of copycat artistry? 

• How does Filipino music resist the long tail of American colonization?

• What makes Olivia’s music so delectable (and so suburban Asian American?!)? 

• When is race comedy funny?

For more, see: 

• A 2021 TTSG episode about the Inland Empire (Environmental justice, Amazon logistics, and immigrant workers, with Andrea Vidaurre) 

• Bruno Mars doing Pandora on SNL (at 23:50)

• Jay’s review of “GUTS” on behalf of Gen X dads 

• Karen’s newest book, out this November, Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us, and an earlier exploration of her namesake in Why Karen Carpenter Matters [excerpt here]

• More on Filipino performance and colonial histories in Puro Arte: Filipinos on the Stages of Empire, by Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns

• Clare Malone’s story on Minhaj and his slippery “emotional truths” 

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