Tag Archives: Racialicious

WEEKEND READING LIST: Witches, whitewashing, International Women’s Day

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  • Oh look the Hollywood remake of Ghost in the Shell cast an actual Asian actor. Still whitewashed as all get out though. Still mad about it. [Angry Asian Man]
  • The new all-lady Ghostbusters remake has been contentious right from the start, and while a lot of the criticism amounts to garden variety manchildren blubbering about cooties, Racialicious has some very valid concerns about Leslie Jones’s character, who is the only woman of colour, and the only Ghostbuster without a scientific background.
  • A musical ode to the clitoris that you didn’t know you wanted, but now must see. [Refinery29]
  • The New York Public Library, an institution that clearly knows what the people want, has a companion reading and resource list for the film The Witch.
  • Witch, queen, mom: fairytale lessons for surviving borderline parents.” [The Establishment]
  • Bitch has a great roundup of magical girl zines, and I’m not just saying that because I stumbled across the first one on the list, Queer Sailor Moon Fan Fiction Saved My Life, while in a doctor’s office waiting room (but also I kind of am).
  • Nola and the Clones is an independent Irish film about a young homeless sex worker. All the men Nola encounters bear a striking resemblance, and it’s that sort of magic realism that lends itself well to a movie that looks truly unique (and is available in its entirety online).
  • Janelle Monáe will be co-starring in a movie about the women behind the American space program! Omg omg omg! [io9]
  • International Women’s Day: why women can thrive in sci-fi.” [BBC]
  • I really wanted to give JK Rowling the benefit of the doubt when it came to her interpretation of North American magic, but as Adrienne Keene of Native Appropriations lays out thoroughly, she really missed the mark. The Mary Sue, quoting Keene, is similarly unimpressed.
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Weekend Reading List: Witches, werewolves, women in games

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Weekend Reading List: Black heroes and blood sports

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Weekend Reading List: Intergalactic love and open letters

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Top image by Tu-Anh Nguyen

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Weekend Reading List: Doctors’ Doctors and zombie-slaying squads

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Top image by Koroa

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Weekend Reading List: Genderbent captains and gaming couples

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Weekend Reading List: Trans* representation and troubles with tribbles

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  • Let’s start things off with a wonderful Medium piece about the history of ambiguously gendered characters in anime and manga, and how the North American versions of these stories are slowly catching up.
  • The Mary Sue interviews Teal Sherer, whose My Gimpy Life webseries was successfully funded and is getting a second season in February. She talks about the upcoming episodes, Hollywood, and being an actress with a disability. You can watch season one here.
  • This piece on Racialicious makes a solid case for an overrepresentation of people of colour in film, that we shouldn’t just be striving for better representation, but should be actively humanizing people of colour by seeing them in a variety of roles, everywhere and all the time.
  • Whether or not you’re generally a fan of the gchat interview, The Hairpin talking to game designer/trans* woman/badass Porpentine is worth the read.
  • Being trans*, genderqueer or an otherwise non-binary person can offer some interesting insights, as this piece, “It is Easier Now That I Look Like a Guy,” about the tech industry, shows. [Geek Feminism]
  • A developer was approached via Facebook by a games reporter, and the conversation very quickly became both harassment and deeply unprofessional. A screenshot of the exchange made the rounds a little while ago, and now Kotaku has interviewed her. She stays anonymous, but does explain the shock you feel when these things happen, and the sense of powerlessness they can leave you with.
  • “So here I was, at the ripe age of twenty-four, actually considering whether the vibrating insides of a tribble would be enough to get me off.” When you try to MacGyver a sex toy from childhood possessions, fun things happen. [The Toast]
  • Lana del Rey’s cover of “Once Upon a Dream” is beautiful, haunting, actually making me excited for the upcoming Maleficent.
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Weekend Reading List: Neville Longbottom and lots of videos

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Weekend Reading List: Russian rebels and pretty floral bonnets

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  • Years ago I went sailing in British Columbia’s Desolation Sound, and for a whole day the water was totally choked with little white jellyfish. They were so thick that it seemed like there were more jellyfish than actual ocean. By evening they were gone though, so I figured we’d passed them by and I could go for a pre-dinner snorkel. I jump in, stick my face in the water, and what do I see? Not even six feet from the surface, WALL OF JELLYFISH. Cue hysterical underwater panic attack. All of this to say that I might not be totally unbiased when it comes to jellyfish, BUT, you guys, ZOMBIE JELLYFISH EXIST, and also there are lots of different kinds that can kill you in minutes and they’re TAKING OVER THE WORLD. [Grist/The New York Review of Books]
  • I’ve started playing Winterstrike, a text adventure written by Yoon Ha Lee over at Storynexus, and I can’t recommend it enough. In the game, you explore the ice-locked city of Iria, trying to figure out what happened during the cataclysmic winterstrike, and a highlight for me is definitely that many of the characters you encounter—merchants, duelists, and militia members—are women. You can also choose to be ambiguously gendered, which doesn’t happen often in games. It’s details like that that are really meaningful and make the world richer.
  • WE ARE GETTING MORE FIREFLY COMICS. THIS IS STARTING TO DAMAGE MY CALM. [Comic Book Resources]
  • Racialicious asks if, in all the hullaballoo about the new Miss America, we’re forgetting that she’s super geeky.
  • Would you like a $100 3D printer? Kickstarter’s got you covered.
  • How does a 15 year-old shoot her way out of a Nazi interrogation room? Find out more about Zinaida Portnova at the Toast.

Top image by Jake Lawrence of Timecowboy!

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Weekend Reading List: Dystopian trilogies and my undying love of Torchwood

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  • Rebecca Solnit writes about the epidemic levels of rape and violence against women in the Nation, and it is wonderfully candid and beautifully written. She manages both to take a global look at the problem, and to examine the individual and very personal consequences. Definitely something everyone should be exposed to.
  • Becca and Neil, the vloggers behind Geek and Sundry’s Geeking Out, recently talked about queer representations in comics and tv. Their discussions are, as always, very engaging, and both videos are worth watching (even if they didn’t mention Torchwood). (Torchwood forever.)
  • Racialicious did a roundup (originally published over at Persephone Magazine) of 45 women of colour in science fiction/fantasy movies, and now I have a bunch more movies to watch.
  • Janelle Monáe (whom I will always think of as the android Cindy Mayweather) has some thoughtful things to say about sexism in the music industry. [Upworthy]
  • Margaret Atwood discusses MaddAddam, the third instalment of her dystopian trilogy (which began with Oryx and Crake in 2003) and makes me even more anxious for it to come out. [Toronto Star]

Top image: “Jimmy went in to see the Pigoons” by Jason Courtney

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