Hey kids, it’s been a while! Lots to catch up on:
- “No world for us: broken girls and embodied trauma in Porpentine’s Psycho Nymph Exile.” [Autostraddle]
- In this film, Broadly’s documentary series explores the witches of Romania.
- In a similar vein: “the game developers who are also witches.” [Kotaku]
- Tibeb Girls is Ethiopia’s answer to the Power Puff Girls. [Afropunk]
- My friend Kai Cheng Thom wrote a beautiful, magic realist queer coming of age novel, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, and amid many, many glowing reviews, here’s one from Autostraddle.
- Today’s tearjerker: A tribute to Carrie Fischer
- “Stardew Valley gave me and my sister a chance to swoon over girls together for the first time in our gay lives.” [Autostraddle]
- Have you seen Get Out? Do that immediately:
- B. Willis on Medium on how black women are the most overlooked characters in the film.
- “What Becky gotta do to get murked: white womanhood in Jordan Peele’s Get Out.” [Very Smart Brothas]
- Intelexual on the character of Rose and America’s legacy of racist white women.
- Buffy turned twenty! And everyone’s singing the show’s praises:
- People have feelings about the new Beauty and the Beast remake:
- “Why I want my son to know that boys can find beauty in a beast, too.” [Washington Post]
- Autostraddle charts Disney’s journey from gay-coded villains, to the textual representation of LeFou.
- But Buzzfeed thinks the film, and company, are receiving too much credit for such a small step forward.
- And the new Handmaid’s Tale show has just premiered! It’s pretty amazing:
- Anne Helen Petersen writes about the “radical feminist aesthetic” of the show. [Buzzfeed]
- Autostraddle is thrilled with the adaptation’s additional queerness. Their book club also takes a closer look at the source material.
- “Margaret Atwood on what The Handmaid’s Tale means in the age of Trump.” [The New York Times]
- The New Yorker on how, despite some disappointing cast comments, the show is very much a feminist work.
- “I grew up in a fundamentalist cult—The Handmaid’s Tale was my reality.” [The Establishment]
- ELLE on how the show, in Serena Joy, depicts a modern day anti-feminist by charting their rise from Phyllis Schlafly to Ivanka Trump.
- Little White Lies sings the praises of the voice behind that idiosyncratic Twin Peaks ambiance: Julee Cruise.
- “Twin Peaks was the most visually striking TV show ever made. And still is.” [Slate]
- “How to become a deadly misandrist fairy vampire.” [Austostraddle]
- Great British Bake Off alum Ruby Tandoh wrote about her new zine Do What You Want, which explores how queerness and mental health are represented in film. [Little White Lies]
- “The casual racism in nerd/gaming communities needs to stop.” [Afropunk]
- Pop Culture Detective takes on the “born sexy yesterday” trope so often present in science fiction film.
- Black Girl Nerds discusses the American Gods adaptation, depictions of lynching, and the realities of race in America.
- Over on Youtube, Jill Bearup has a multi-part series on the history of fanfiction, from its earliest manifestations, to its rise in the Star Trek fandom, all the way to a discussion of the Mary Sue character type.
- And lastly, Feminist Frequency’s Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series has, sadly, come to an end. But the last film, a discussion of lady sidekicks, won’t be the last we see of Anita Sarkeesian. The channel is still going strong with the FREQ Show: the first episode tackles Hollywood whitewashing.