Press Kit

Overview

Mad Chat is a podcast that unpacks what our pop culture is telling us about madness and mental health. Hosted by author Sandy Allen.

The Basics

On each episode of Mad Chat, host Sandy Allen and a special guest discuss a piece of pop culture — like a TV show or movie — and together think through its messages about madness/mental health. While some works of pop culture have occasionally broken ground, they've often perpetuated stigma, and frequently offered insight into how society is thinking about mental illness/health, as well as the many things connected to it — like race, gender, class, death, drugs, spirituality, and trauma. Mad Chat approaches a conversation about mental health in a new way, foregrounding a diversity of voices, highlighting especially people with first-hand experience. Each episode’s focus on a piece of pop culture creates an accessible vehicle into a topic space that some listeners might otherwise intimidating or off-putting. Mad Chat is about serious stuff — but it’s a lot of fun. It also sounds great, thanks to the talents of producer Lee Mengistu.

Mad Chat aims to spark conversations about mental health and culture that extend beyond each episode. Listeners are encouraged to join the Mad Chat community, whether it’s to share thoughts and feedback on Twitter or Instagram or to discuss madness in literature during the newly launched Mad Chat Book Club, hosted by Sandy on Instagram Live. Listeners are asked to share the things, big and small, that are helping them get through the day using the hashtag #whatshelpingtoday

Looking for a good place to start? Check out Episode 3, with a Hearing Voices movement activist chatting about HBO’s Six Feet Under and its surprisingly accurate depictions of hearing from dead people. Or Episode 5, in which author Esmé Weijun Wang discusses the particular scene from Dawson’s Creek that obsessed and comforted her as a teen struggling with mental health.

Schedule

Mad Chat launched on May 2, 2019, with new episodes releasing every third Thursday. Following completion of its 10-episode pilot season on October 31, 2019, the show is on hiatus. Sandy is currently securing a funding source in hopes of creating future seasons.

Contact / Social Media

Website: https://www.madchatshow.com/

Email: madchatshow@gmail.com

Twitter: @madchatshow

Instagram: @madchatshow

Where to Listen

Mad Chat is available wherever you get your podcasts — Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, RadioPublic — as well as here, on this very website.

The Team

Host

Sandy Allen (they/he) is an author who writes and speaks about normalcy, especially to do with gender and madness. Their debut book, A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise: A True Story about Schizophrenia, was first published by Scribner in 2018. A critically acclaimed and innovative work, AKOMP was called one of the best nonfiction books of that year by Esquire. In 2020, it was nominated as one of the top works of journalism of the decade by NYU’s journalism school. Sandy’s words have been featured on This American Life, 99% Invisible, BuzzFeed News, Gay Magazine, Pop-Up Magazine, among many others, and they write a column about being nonbinary for them. Sandy lives in the Catskills with their husband, dog, cats, sourdough starter, and many plants. They also host the online sourdough baking series Breb Class. Sandy can be found (infrequently) on Twitter @sealln. Learn way more about them at hellosandyallen.com

Twitter: @sealln | Website: hellosandyallen.com

Producer

Lee Mengistu (she/her) is a freelance audio producer based in Chicago. In a very recent life, she studied at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She previously worked for NPR and The New York Times’ The Daily. In this life, she produces podcasts like Mad Chat and the upcoming Noname’s Book Club.

Twitter: @Lee_mengi | Website: leemengistu.com

Reviews

“While this could sound serious and scolding, the result is not. Listening feels like hanging out with two of your smartest and funniest friends.”
–The New York Times (“4 Podcasts to Help Heal Your Mind”)

”Calling pop culture nerds who love to talk about mental health representation in the media: You need to listen to Mad Chat.”
- Self

“This promising new podcast explores the intersection of mental health and media”
– The A.V. Club

It’s important, has great guests, and is funny. There’s nothing like it.”
– Bello Collective (included in their “100 Outstanding Podcasts of 2019”)

Audio

Download audio trailer (.mp3)

Video

Download video trailer (.mp4)

Episodes

1. BoJack Horseman (w/ Hannah Giorgis, Atlantic staff writer) Sandy chats with Hannah about their favorite cartoon about an alcoholic horse: Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. They discuss intergenerational trauma, romanticizations of depression, and the show’s big ‘reveal’ about a lobotomy. Named one of the best podcast episodes of the week AV Club’s PodMass

2. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (w/ Meredith Talusan, author and them. founding editor) Sandy chats with Meredith about Rachel Bloom’s CW series, which had just completed its fifth and final season. They look critically at the show’s endorsement of antidepressants; Meredith also digs into differing attitudes towards romance and madness in America versus the Philippines.

3. Six Feet Under (w/ Caroline Mazel-Carlton, Hearing Voices Network activist) Sandy chats with Caroline about the HBO series Six Feet Under, which they both adore. They assess the show’s depictions of mental illness and psychiatric care like ECT/electroshock. Caroline talks about how the show portrays hearing from and talking to dead people.

4. Reefer Madness (w/ Amanda Chicago Lewis, Rolling Stone cannabis columnist) Sandy chats with Amanda about “reefer madness” — the 1936 propaganda film, the newer spoof movie musical, a recent scientifically spurious but appallingly popular book, and the whole notion that pot causes insanity causes crime. They look at the racist origins and present of this idea.

5. Dawson’s Creek (w/ Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias) Sandy chats with Esmé about the 1998 teen drama Dawson’s Creek. They cover how horror tropes creep into portrayals of psychosis and how mental health narratives are tidied up for mainstream audiences. They talk about what’s myth and what’s reality when it comes to “mentally ill” people and violence.

6. Killing Eve (w/ Sarah Kay, poet and host of TED’s “Sincerely, X” podcast) Sandy chats with Sarah about Killing Eve, the popular BBC series about the hunt for a supposedly psychopathic assassin. They discuss empathy, sociopathy/ psychopathy and the show’s leaning on sensational, damaging stereotypes.

7. Frasier (w/ Nichole Perkins, poet and host Thirst Aid Kit) Sandy chats with Nichole about the popular NBC sitcom Frasier. They consider the show’s portrayal of psychiatry/therapy, and how Frasier’s deep entrenchment in one experience of the world (entitled cishet white man) puts limits on the quality of mental healthcare he’s able to provide.

8. Batman: The Animated Series (w/ Yassir Lester, comedian, Showtime’s Black Monday) Sandy chats with Yassir about the ‘90s Fox Kids cartoon Batman: The Animated Series. They delve into Arkham Asylum as the stereotypical (but outdated) image most people hold of mental hospitals, how class intersects with who gets to be considered sane/a hero, and the show’s consistent connecting of villainy to mental illness.

9. Donnie Darko (w/ Jonah Bossewitch, psychiatric survivor activist) Sandy chats with Jonah about the 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko. They look at the film’s critique of ‘80s ideologies as well as its misrepresentation of what mental healthcare looked like at the time, and talk about the damaging effects of equating voice-hearing/psychosis with violence. Jonah also offers an interpretation of the film as being a meditation on suicide.

10. Halloween (the holiday, w/ Tracy Clayton, host of Strong Black Legends and former co-host of Another Round)
Sandy chats with Tracy about Halloween — a day where both wonderful forms of self-expression and perpetuations of harmful stereotypes flourish. They also discuss their relationships to fear, true crime narratives, and what it means to be vulnerable about one’s own mental health online.

Community

Mad Chat’s still pretty new but already our fans are sending us notes of appreciation and saying wonderful things online:

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At the end of each episode, Sandy and the guest share “what’s helping today” — highlighting something big or small that’s helping them get through that day. The show’s social media channels feature illustrations of listener’s answers to #whatshelpingtoday, a couple of which are featured in the gallery below.