Episode 113: Let's Get Sweetweird!
We love Our Flag Means Death, a show that is both extremely weird and also surprisingly sweet
Recently Charlie Jane came up with a new term for stories she's been enjoying: Sweetweird. What does this mean, and is it a subgenre or an aesthetic? And why do we enjoy inventing and debating new genre terms so much?
Notes, citations, & etc.
Charlie Jane first coined this phrase in her writing advice book Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories.
Mike McMahan wrote for Rick and Morty, which is weird but not particularly sweet, but now he’s the creator of the equally weird but much sweeter Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Charlie Jane’s YA trilogy, the Unstoppable series, is pretty sweetweird.
Ted Lasso is sweet, but not particularly weird, except for that one episode.
More soon…