unfridged

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:
  • USAToday on the wonder the show provided fans.
  • Vulture on the show’s ongoing legacy.
  • Vice on how Willow helped kids everywhere come out.
  • Hazlitt with a heartfelt roundtable discussion on the show’s emotional resonance.
• 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.