Adoption Pop!

E043 | The Sopranos "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh" (2006) – Adoption on Television A big "thank you" to Pop! Star Hannah for giving us the chance to revisit what some critics have called "the greatest, and most groundbreaking television show of all time." The Sopranos ran for six seasons from 1999 through 2007, and followed New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, played by the late James Gandolfini, and his journey through the criminal underworld—and through therapy. In episode 4 of the final season we meet Tony in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound with a chief henchman by his side, Peter Paul "Paulie Walnuts" Gualtieri, who is about to learn he is not who he thinks he is. Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer as we revisit this pillar of prestige television. The Sopranos Season 6, Episode 4 "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh" first aired on April 2, 2006. It was written by Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider. It was directed by Alan Taylor. This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on September 30, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon: According to Brooks Vernon in ScreenRant, Paulie would have been nearing 70 in the show's final season, which makes Sullivan feel much, much better. (Also, this is exactly why she doesn't let Kristal call herself an honorary member of Gen X). We covered the film Philomena in Episode 15 of Adoption Pop! Dr. Amanda L. Baden et al., "Delaying Adoption Disclosure: A Survey of Late Discovery Adoptees," Journal of Family Issues (May 2019) Learn more about the US baby scoop era at the Baby Scoop Era Research Initiative The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen. We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.  Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com and on Instagram.   

E042 | Sex and the City "Just Say Yes" (2001) – Adoption on Television It may have been one of the biggest shows of the era, but its adoption story line has aged about as well as a Mandarin chicken skewer left out on the buffet too long. Season 4, Episode 12 of Sex and the City, "Just Say Yes" follows characters Charlotte and Trey as they toy with the idea of adding a Chinese daughter to their clan, much to the chagrin of Trey's mother, and much to the chagrin of podcast journalist, Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer.   Sex and the City Season 4, Episode 12 "Just Say Yes" first aired on August 12, 2001. It was written by Cindy Chupack, Candace Bushnell, and Julie Rottenberg. It was directed by David Frankel. This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on September 23, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon: This is the second time we have explored Charlotte's adoption story on Pop! We covered Sex and the City: The Movie in Episode 5. According to Handwoven Magazine, all tartans are plaid, but not all plaids are tartan. Tartans have an identical pattern of stripes running vertically and horizontally, typically in a two-over-two twill pattern, resulting in overlapping square grids and the illusion of new colors blended from the originals; while the stripes in plaid vary in color, size, and/or pattern. Turns out that Sullivan is wearing plaid in this episode, not tartan. Which is fine, since she's not Scottish anyway. If you find yourself in New York City in April, you can attend the annual Tartan Day Parade. Sullivan won't be there. Turns out Vogue published "The 25 Best 'Sex and the City' Quotes" in 2023 and, surprisingly, Bunny McDougal didn't make the list. Resolve is a national organization offering support and advocacy around infertility issues. It "believes adoption should be accessible to all families, regardless of income" and engages in federal lobbying to this effect, though, according to its website, does nothing to support birth/first families or adopted people. Got it. Adoption Pop! covered the Modern Family "Pilot" in Episode 7. Kimberly McKee, Adoption Fantasies: The Fetishization of Asian Adoptees From Girlhood to Womanhood (The Ohio State University Press, 2023) Cindy Chupack, We Waited for You: Now We're a Family (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2023) Cindy Chupack, The Longest Date: Life as a Wife (Penguin Publishing, 2014) Cynthia Littleton, "Motherhood From the Heart: Cindy Chupack on Celebrating Family in All Forms with 'We Waited for You' Picture Book," Variety (May 12, 2023) Zibby Owens interview with Cindy Chupack, Totally Booked with Zibby (November 15, 2023)  The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen. We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.  Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com and on Instagram.   

E041 | Superman (2025) – Adoption at the Movies   Why are there so many superheroes with parental separation in their origin stories? Wikipedia has whole pages devoted to Marvel Comics orphans, and DC Comics orphans; the latter of which includes Superman, most recently rebooted in 2025 and played by David Corenswet. The film grossed nearly $619 million dollars worldwide, including contributions from the Radke family who partook of the IMAX experience. Haley, alongside filmmaker Kristal Parke and cultural critic Sullivan Summer have takes on this one hotter than the Earth's yellow sun.        Superman (2025) was written by James Gunn, Jerry Siegel, and Joe Shuster. It was directed by James Gunn. This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on September 16, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon: Turns out the superhero hair stylist is already taken. Shamrock, also known as Molly Fitzgerald, comes from the Marvel universe. According to Wikipedia, Molly's father was a militant member of the IRA and, as Shamrock, "functions as a vessel for displaced poltergeists and the souls of innocent people who died during the war." In retirement Molly becomes a — you guessed it — hairdresser to the superheroes. Try again, Kristal! The television show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman ran for four seasons from 1993 until 1997. It starred Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane, alongside an actor so politically misaligned with us that we refuse to type his name.  The television show Smallville ran for 10 seasons from 2001 to 2011 and starred Tom Welling as Clark Kent. The show follows Clark's teenage years in Smallville, Kansas, before he formally becomes Superman.  According to Forbes magazine, Google searches on "adopt a dog near me" spiked 513% following Superman's 2025 opening weekend, with credit to the film's CGI-created dog, Crypto. Hollywood never met a child-pet-adoption mash-up it didn't like. Man of Steel, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Henry Cavill, premiered in 2013.   The OG Superman, written by Mario Puzo, directed by Richard Donner, and starring Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder and others premiered in December 1978 with a 16-month-old Sullivan in the audience. This explains a lot about her taste in movies. Joey Paur, "James Gunn Explains Superman's Controversial Krypton Parents Twist," GeekTyrant. James Grebey, "The New Superman Hinges on a Radical Reinvention of the Man of Steel's Parents," Time (July 11, 2025) The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen. We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.  Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.  Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com and on Instagram.    

E040 | Frontline: Baby Brokers (2026) – Adoption on Television  As Haley works on her investigative series podcast On Adoption, other docs are also telling real stories about the adoption industry, including PBS's Frontline, which in June of 2026 aired an episode titled "Baby Brokers." Produced in collaboration with the not-for-profit, independent news organization Retro Report, the episode looks at the adoption tourism industry — the luring of pregnant women to adoption-friendly states and pressure put upon them to relinquish their children to waiting adoptive parents. Tune in as podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer discuss where the doc pushed on the conventional narrative, and where it didn't push far enough.  Frontline: The Baby Brokers first aired on June 23, 2026. It was written by Gabrielle Glaser and Sarah Weiser, and directed by Glaser. This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on September 9, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon: Learn more about Haley's investigative series podcast, On Adoption.   Sociologist Gretchen Sisson, PhD, studies abortion and adoption. Her book, Relinquished: The Politics and Privilege of American Motherhood dispels many of the myths underlying the adoption industry. Paul Petersen pled guilty to state and federal charges in Utah, Arizona, and Arkansas for his role in an illegal human trafficking and adoption scheme. At the time of this recording, he is in an Arizona state prison. The Offshore podcast season three, "The Blood Calls" can be found here.  Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) is a co-sponsor on the ADOPT Act, as well as the Protect Adoptees and American Families Act, which will grant citizenship to international adoptees adopted as children not otherwise covered in the Child Citizenship Act of 2000. She is not a cosponsor of open records legislation, as indicated by Sullivan during the episode. Adoption Pop! previously covered Apple TV's Shrinking Season 2 and Season 3, which feature a character who is an adoption consultant.  Check out Kristal's adoptee interview podcast, Because She's Adopted.  "Klobochar, Britt, Colleagues Introduce Bipartisan ADOPT to Protect Adoptive Families from Exploitation," (November 20, 2025) "National Council for Adoption Announces Adoption Hall of Fame 2025 Honorees," (October 17, 2025) Jon Husted, "Adoption not only changed my life, but the lives of every member of my family," (November 27, 2025)  The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen. We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.  Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.  Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com and on Instagram.    

E039 | The Blind Side (2009) – Adoption at the Movies When the summer heat burns itself out, kids head back to school, and a hint of fall breeze rustles the trees, one thing becomes clear: football season is upon us. And while Hollywood has made many a football movie, there is one that scores bigger with audience than all the rest. 2009's The Blind Side follows the story of Michael Oher, a once-homeless Memphis teen who, with the help of a community of people throughout his young life, works his way to the NFL. The film is the highest grossing football film and sports drama of all time (unadjusted for inflation) and, as of late, the subject of controversy, all of which we get into in this very special episode of Adoption Pop! Join podcast journalist Haley Radke, filmmaker Kristal Parke, and cultural critic Sullivan Summer live from Kristal's home in Canada (isn't that where all the good stuff is filmed?) as we take a close look at this Oscar winning film and the real people behind it. The Blind Side was written and directed by John Lee Hancock. It is based on the 2006 book, The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis. This episode of Adoption Pop! aired on September 2, 2026. In it we discussed and/or relied upon: Little Giants is a 1994 film starring Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill in which "misfits form their own opposing team to an elite peewee football team, coached by the elite team coach's brother," according to IMDb. For the uninitiated, "D1," or Division 1, are those US colleges and universities competing in athletics at the highest level, and represents the most direct path to professional sports for student athletes. You can read more about segregation academies here. In this episode, Sullivan takes issue with the portrayal of Michael Oher as an implicitly dangerous big, Black man in the book and movie. She wishes she had been more explicit in her explanation of why this is so problematic. The supposed "threat" Black men and boys pose to white women has for centuries been used as justification for their murder, mutilation, torture, and lynching. Michael Lewis, as a white American, knows this. To lean into descriptions of Michael Oher that imply he is a threat to white women is to court violence against him, and against all Black men and boys. This was true in plantation days. It was true in the early aughts when Michael attended Briarcrest and Ole Miss. And it was true at the time we recorded this episode. It is still true. During the discussion, Sullivan says that Sean Touhy and The Blind Side author Michael Lewis were college roommates. They were not college roommates, but rather, childhood friends. I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond by Michael Oher with Don Yaeger Steve Almond, "The back and forth over 'The Blind Side' misses the big picture. So did Michael Lewis," L.A. Times (August 17, 2023) Michael Sokolove, "The Blind Side Made Him Famous. But He Has a Different Story to Tell," New York Times Magazine (August 18, 2024) In re Michael Jerome Williams, Jr. filed in the Probate Court of Shelby County, Tennessee August 14, 2023 Ree Hines, "Sandra Bullock opens up about the challenges of being a white mom raising Black children," Today (December 1, 2021) Emma Banks, "All About Sandra Bullock's 2 Kids, Louis and Laila: She 'Couldn't Be More Proud,'" InStyle (August 19, 2025) Box Office Mojo, "Football Movies at the Box Office" and "Sports Drama Movies at the Box Office." The Adoption Pop! theme music is The Chase by Audiogreen. We'd love to hear what you thought of this episode, and what you'd like for us to cover in the future. Find, follow, like, and subscribe to Adoption Pop! at our website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Podcast journalist Haley Radke is at adopteeson.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.  Filmmaker Kristal Parke is at kristalparke.net, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.  Cultural critic Sullivan Summer is at sullivansummer.com and on Instagram.