Why is there that knee-jerk rejection of any effort to "overthink" pop culture? Why would you ever be afraid that looking too hard at something will ruin it? If the government built a huge, mysterious device in the middle of your town and immediately surrounded it with a fence that said, "NOTHING TO SEE HERE!" I'm pretty damned sure you wouldn't rest until you knew what the hell that was -- the fact that they don't want you to know means it can't be good.
Well, when any idea in your brain defends itself with "Just relax! Don't look too close!" you should immediately be just as suspicious. It usually means something ugly is hiding there.
Seems to me that the problem is, well, precisely as stated: overthinking. It's the same problem as with close reading: look too close at a sample of one and you'll start getting noise, things the author didn't intend and were ultimately caused by, oh, what he had for breakfast on a Tuesday ten months ago and not some ominous plan.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: