A few years ago, Erin and Adri covered the politics of Christmas and how the series was designed around this loose idea of cultural Christianity, even in the wizarding world. Today, we expand on this theme of cultural Christianity as default by having a conversation about what it's like to be a Jewish person living in a majority Christian world with special guest Shoshana, who gives us glimpses of being Jewish in the UK, and with our own Helene, who gives us glimpses of growing up Jewish in the U.S. While these are just two accounts of women living in cultures that have embraced Christianity as a default (think about calendars, holidays, food (kosher vs not), depictions of Judaism in the media, etc.).
Our Patreon Exclusive for this episode is *air horn sounds* everything. We talk about how it would look like if Umbridge had been written as a man, thus expanding our Girl Who Lived universe. Would this male Umbridge be hyper-masculine? Would we find his actions more or less reprehensible? Is your hosts' absolute hatred for female Umbridge based on internalized misogyny?