{"podcast":{"title":"Slow Burn","slug":"slow-burn-474574","podcast_index_feed_id":474574,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a","website_url":"https://slate.com/slowburn","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/1778157374914-ae3ee4b6-49a1-4ca8-b5ab-9ddd01fce140.jpeg","author":"Slate Audio","episode_count":226,"summary":"Slow Burn illuminates America’s most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time. Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to Slow Burn and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe from the Slow Burn show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 11: Becoming Justice Gorsuch How Neil Gorsuch laid the foundation for a SCOTUS supermajority and then became its most unexpected wild card. Season 10: The Rise of Fox News How a cable news channel became a cultural and political force—and how a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it. Season 9: Gays Against Briggs A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him. Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Pod…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-01T18:18:26.361960+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574"},"episode":{"title":"Decoder Ring | Was \"Eyes Wide Shut\" a Warning?","slug":"decoder-ring-was-eyes-wide-shut-a-warning","published_at":"2026-03-11T07:50:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-ring-was-eyes-wide-shut-a-warning","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574","url":"https://shows.acast.com/slow-burn/episodes/decoder-ring-was-eyes-wide-shut-a-warning","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/e/69b091bdc36fc2d58b2be385/media.mp3","summary":"When Eyes Wide Shut opened in the summer of 1999, it was widely considered a disappointment. This final film from legendary director Stanley Kubrick had been sold as an erotic thriller, and potentially even a peek into the real sex lives of its then-married stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. But Eyes Wide Shut was stranger than that: a meditative art film whose much-hyped orgy scene is more creepy than sexy, run by a cabal of rich and powerful men who prey on young women. But Eyes Wide Shut has received a burst of new attention in the last few years, amid constant revelations about a real-life cabal of rich and powerful men who prey on young women. Across the internet, cinema sleuths have been asking: is it possible Eyes Wide Shut was not fictional? Was Stanley Kubrick trying to warn the world about a real conspiracy? And if so… was he murdered for it?  In this episode of Decoder Ring, we follow Lane Brown—a lifelong Kubrick fan and features writer for New York Magazine—as he investigates this conspiracy theory and what it says about how we deal with ugly facts and murky fictions. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman and edited by Willa Paskin. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Barbezat, Michael. “ ‘Pizzagate’ and the Nocturnal Ritual Fantasy: Imaginary Cults, Fake News, and Real Violence ,” The Public Medievalist, May 4, 2017. Brown, Lane. “ The Eyes Wide Shut Conspiracy ,” New York Magazine, Dec. 17, 2025. Ebiri, Bilge. “ An Oral History of an Orgy ,” New York Magazine, June 27,…","meta_description":"When Eyes Wide Shut opened in the summer of 1999, it was widely considered a disappointment. This final film from legendary director Stanley Kubrick had b…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2841,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/slow-burn-474574/episodes/decoder-ring-was-eyes-wide-shut-a-warning/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-ring-was-eyes-wide-shut-a-warning.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}