Y’all know how much I loved Jessica Jones, but it’s not perfect, and sometimes talking about how the best media fails is just as important as singing its praises. Jenny Trout writes about an instance of fat shaming as a sour note for the show, and the Mary Sue discusses issues of race, particularly for a show set in New York.
Ooh, Netflix is coming out with a sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I’m on the fence generally about the endless stream of reboots, remakes, and sequels, but the trailer, at least, is very cool looking.
Margaret Atwood will be writing her first graphic novel. It’s called Angel Catbird. Angel. Catbird. What. [The Verge]
There’s a trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them now, and I feel compelled to add it here, even though it hasn’t done much to make me excited yet. I’ll be excited eventually, that’s pretty much a guarantee for anything Potter related, but… not yet.
Did you know that “witches riding broomsticks” imagery came from masturbation and drug use? You do now! I’ve shared this little tidbit before, but this piece digs a little deeper and has some great historical information. [Broadly]
This isn’t strictly about SF/F, but everyone should watch this conversation between the legendary Melissa Harris Perry and bell hooks. They do talk about black women’s representation in film, though, so it’s not totally off topic. [Bitch]
I’m a huge sucker for biomimicry design, and even though these cocktail accessories are admittedly kind of useless, they’re still pretty and I want them. [MIT Media Relations]
My friend E. K. Chan wrote some powerful, eerie fiction, and you should give it a look. [The McGill Daily]
Want a Neil Gaiman-penned short film about a girl who can fly? Of course you do. [Project Imaginat10n]
I haven’t even begun to make a dent in the new issue of Ada, a journal of gender, new media, and technology, but its theme is “Science Fiction and the Feminist Present” and it starts with the Donna Haraway quote “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” So you know it’s going to be good.
“What Does it Mean that Most Children’s Books are Still About White Boys?” asks the Huffington Post. Nothing good, is the answer.
Thinkprogress has an excellent and thorough take down of a press conference with comics giants Todd McFarlane, Len Wein, and Gerry Conway that devolved into what was essentially a round of sexism bingo. All the old excuses are there: “Men are as objectified as women,” “comics don’t actually matter from a social justice point of view, so we shouldn’t be held accountable,” “we want superheroes to tell a universal (read: white and male) story,” “superheroes aren’t for girls anyway,” “if people want diversity they should make comics themselves,” and many more.
This one isn’t new, but in light of Doctor Who‘s disappointingly conservative casting decision, Of Dice and Pen’s article on Steven Moffat’s historically terrible treatment of Who women is definitely worth revisiting.
New Cartoon Hangover webseries Bee and Puppycat is so charming I can barely contain myself. Here are the first two episodes, conveniently combined for you as part of YouTube’s Geek Week.
Barbie is going to Mars. NASA and Mattell combined forces to create “Mars Explorer Barbie,” and the doll launched this week, accompanied by a paper cutout of the Mars Science Laboratory. I can’t say I’m totally on board with this (on the one hand, it’s great that Barbie has evolved past the “math is hard” stage, but on the other, it’s Barbie, and a doll that so ardently conforms to unrealistic expectations of beauty will never be my favourite) but I truly hope her next stop will be this new pink planet. [Huffington Post/io9]
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