Citizen Dame

Citizen Dame

The podcast for feminists who love film, brought to you by two female critics who want to broaden the conversation.

Episodes

October 29, 2025 59 mins

It's Halloween week! And what better way to celebrate than with the ultimate spooky movie season movie: HALLOWEEN! John Carpenter and Debra Hill's 1978 slasher is a must for fans of the season. But we only recognize the original as the One True Halloween movie. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode, a 17-year-old babysitter whose night is ruined by 21-year-old mask-wearing, knife-wielding hospital escapee Michael Myers.

Happy Hal...

Mark as Played

Spooky Movie Month continues as the Dames discuss the 1986 horror film The Fly. Directed by David Cronenberg, this adaptation of the 1957 film stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth Grundle, an eccentric scientist whose teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong when he splices himself with a fly. The film also stars Geena Davis and John Getz.

Clip from THE FLY courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

Mark as Played
October 15, 2025 66 mins

Spooky Movie Month continues as we look back at the zany 1980 Disney horror movie, The Watcher in the Woods. Adapted from Florence Engel Randall's 1976 novel, John Hough directed the film that was widely panned by critics, pulled from theaters, and given a new ending. The film stars Bette Davis, Carroll Baker, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, David McCallum, Richard Pasco, and Ian Bannen.

Mark as Played

Spooky Season starts in earnest, and we're kicking it off with a movie that scared the hell out of four-year-old Lauren: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Comedy team Abbott and Costello play baggage handlers who run into a bevy of Universal Monsters including Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange), in a creepy castle in...Florida? The film would go on...

Mark as Played
October 1, 2025 63 mins

This week, we're finishing up our first Cary Grant series AND welcoming Spooky Movie Season at the same time with the 1944 comedy, Arsenic and Old Lace. Adapted from the hit Broadway play, Frank Capra's classic was originally slated for release in 1942, but the stage production was such a big hit that the film was delayed two extra years.

Grant stars as Mortimer Brewer, a playwright and confirmed bachelor who surprises even himself...

Mark as Played
September 24, 2025 69 mins

Get ready to cry! This week, we're discussing An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's 1957 remake of his own film Love Affair, this time featuring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Come for the mature love story, stay for the soap-operatic melodrama. It's the ultimate chick flick, but you will be sobbing by the end.

We also chat a bit about the current state of media and what the Hollywood Blacklist has to do with our con...

Mark as Played
September 17, 2025 58 mins

Cary Grant month continues as we discuss THE quintessential screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby. Howard Hawks directed the 1938 film which stars Cary Grant as engaged paleontologist David Huxley, who is trying to score a one million dollar grant for his museum when he crosses paths with Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a wonderfully chaotic disruption to his plans. From a missing intercostal clavicle to a leopard named Baby (played ...

Mark as Played
September 10, 2025 65 mins

Happy September! It's Cary Grant month (because we say it is), so we're starting out with Suspicion, the first film that brought together Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. They would go on to work together on three more films, but Suspicion is probably the most contentious for casting Cary Grant as a maybe-murderer who falls under suspicion from his wife (Joan Fontaine, who won an Oscar for her portrayal).

Next week, we'll be discussing ...

Mark as Played
September 3, 2025 73 mins

We conclude this Hitchcockian August with the 1967 film, Wait Until Dark. Audrey Hepburn was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Suzy, a woman blinded in an accident who finds herself the accidental target of dangerous drug traffickers, one of whom is a particularly deadly menace. Directed by Terrence Young and based on Frederick Knott's 1966 play, the film also stars Samantha Jones, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Jack West...

Mark as Played
August 27, 2025 62 mins

Our Hitchcockian August continues with Michael Powell's 1960 film, Peeping Tom. Credited as one of the films that influenced the slasher genre, Powell's film tells the story of Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm), a lonely London photographer who murders women, capturing their fear on film in hopes of creating his own documentary.

Creepy, macabre, and bold, Powell's film was not well received upon its release in 1960, but has won over horr...

Mark as Played
August 20, 2025 71 mins

This week, we talk about the meaning of "gaslighting" with the film that originated the term: George Cukor's 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman slowly driven to the brink of madness by her abusive husband (Charles Boyer). This film also featured the cinematic debut (and first Oscar nod!) for Angela Lansbury, who turned 18 during filming.

TW for discussions of domestic abuse and abusive relationships.

N...

Mark as Played
August 13, 2025 54 mins

For the first of our Hitchcockian films, we discuss the best "Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock": Stanley Donen's Charade (1963), a somewhat satirical, fantastically entertaining globe-trotting thriller with a stellar cast featuring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Walter Matthau.

Next week we'll be chatting about Gaslight (1944), which somehow Hitchcock also did not direct.

Mark as Played
August 6, 2025 60 mins

It's Alfred Hitchcock's birthday month and we're kicking off the celebration with one of his quintessential films: North by Northwest.

Cary Grant stars alongside Eva Marie Saint and James Mason in this tale of mistaken identity, espionage, and intrigue. From an attempted assassination via crop duster to the face(s) of Mount Rushmore, one of Hitch's biggest and more iconic films is thrilling, romantic, and funny.

Mark as Played

We close out Pride Month this year with a brand-new film (that's technically a remake, but shhhh): The Wedding Banquet, from Fire Island director Andrew Ahn, and starring Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan, Lily Gladstone, and Kelly Marie Tran as two gay couples who have to try to play it straight. The result is a beautiful (and hilarious) film about found family and queer identity.

We'll be on a break for the rest of July, returning in Augus...

Mark as Played
July 3, 2025 54 mins

We continue our Pride Month series with the 2005 lesbian spy rom-com, D.E.B.S. This gem of a movie, directed by Angela Robinson, is the story of a super hot super spy and a super hot super villain who meet and fall in love. Underrated in its time, but finding new popularity in recent years, D.E.B.S. is the kind of funny, silly girl movie we wish there were more of. How this didn't launch a whole subgenre is beyond us!

Mark as Played

The Dames continue Pride Month with the seminal queercore punk-rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell. While Lauren tries to explain Judith Butler, Karen wonders why Hedwig is kind of a dick?

Next week: D.E.B.S. and lesbians committing espionage!

Mark as Played

The Dames are celebrating Pride Month! And we're starting off with the 1994 road trip movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Terrence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pierce star as a trans woman and two drag queens who embark on a road trip across Australia, encountering good, bad, and dangerous challenges along the way.

Mark as Played
June 11, 2025 58 mins

We close out our Varda series with her penultimate film Faces Places (2017), co-directed by visual artist JR, with whom Varda travels across France, meeting people, taking photographs, and discussing art, image, and the passage of time.

We also decide that Godard is a jerk.

Next week, we're moving into Pride month viewing with some queer classics and even a brand-new film! First up is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of t...

Mark as Played
June 4, 2025 52 mins

This week, the Dames continue our Varda series with the surreal and unique Jane B par Agnès V. Is it a documentary? Is it an essay film? What is this movie? In another inventive film from Agnès Varda, she sets out to help her friend Jane Birkin experience the film roles she never got to play and her fears about turning 40.

Mark as Played
May 21, 2025 62 mins

Our Agnès Varda month continues with a discussion of Le Bonheur (Happiness), following the lives of a happy little nuclear family whose happiness gets challenged (or does it?) when the father begins an affair. Deeply feminist and gorgeously filmed, Le Bonheur fools you into thinking its one thing and then becomes another.

We do recommend watching the film before listening to the podcast!

Next week, we'll be chatting some of...

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

    The Joe Rogan Experience

    The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

    Stuff You Should Know

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

    The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.