Profiling
September 22, 2026
Matthew Fox and Paul Hoppe, a professional poker player and writer, trace profiling from cops and Green Lantern to card rooms, casinos, and comic book stereotypes.
Matthew Fox has been passionate about deep conversations about genre media since childhood, when watching the original Star Trek series with their mother often led to discussions about the ethical questions it raised.
Beyond podcasting, Matthew helps run a small nonprofit dedicated to breaking down barriers to computer science education for youth and also provides consulting services for nonprofits and small businesses.
Over time, their podcasting interests have expanded, launching a Star Wars-focused podcast in 2019 and frequently appearing as a guest or co-host on PandaVision and other shows. While ethical questions are not always the primary focus of their work, Matthew has a knack for finding them in nearly everything they watch.
They are the host and founder of both Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics, and co-host of Once and Future Parent on TruStory FM.
Matthew Fox and Paul Hoppe, a professional poker player and writer, trace profiling from cops and Green Lantern to card rooms, casinos, and comic book stereotypes.
Matthew Fox and Paul Hoppe, a professional poker player and writer, argue quitting isn’t a moral failing but a skill, tested against Captain America, Tony Stark, and a bad guitar comeback.
Classics professor Adam Kemezis joins Matthew Fox to break down what Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey keeps, cuts, and invents about Homer’s trickiest, most cunning hero.
Pete, Kyle, and Matthew close the book on Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The credits roll, Bucky walks into a museum to find out who he is, and the three of us wrestle with what this film did to the MCU — the genre-bending, the action grammar, and the day Cap stopped trusting the institution.
Comedian and podcast host Mandy Kaplan joins Matthew to remember Dolly Parton through the lens of 9 to 5, workplace dignity, and a legacy of radical kindness.
The cemetery goodbye closes every loop the movie has left open, and then the credits turn into the best design lecture of the season. Stay through the stinger, where Joss Whedon introduces two kids Marvel was legally forbidden from explaining.
Comic book historian Jessica Plummer joins Matthew Fox to put HBO Max’s Lanterns through an adaptation ethics stress test, working out where reinterpreting a story turns into betraying it.
Steve wakes up to Marvin Gaye and Natasha tells Congress where they can find her. Pete and Matthew love this ending and think it’s wrong.
Matthew Fox and Paul Hoppe review Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender and ask whether a beloved story needed a sequel twenty years later.
Pierce loses everything, Fury pulls the trigger, and Natasha makes the biggest sacrifice play of her arc in roughly three seconds of screen time. Then Cap drops the shield, and gravity does the rest.