“A Clockwork Orange” Made Me Long to Be a Monster, But It Only Saw Me as a Victim
In the epic battle between good and evil for the fate of the soul, I had never been the soul in question; I had always been the stumbling block on…
Sexing up history: how to study and tell the history of sex
Cultural historian Dr Fern Riddell appears regularly on tv and radio as an expert in Victorian sex and suffrage, and if anyone knows their history in this area, it’s Fern.…
I Think You Should Leave’s Hot Dog Guy Is More Than Just a Meme
The sketch, which isn’t on YouTube but you can watch on Netflix, starts after a hot dog–shaped car has crashed into a menswear shop. As the stunned onlookers emerge from…
Satanic Panics and the Death of Mythos
All the stories in humanity’s history that have had a lasting impact on us, from the Bible to Greek myths to the X-Men franchise, have been rich in meaning beyond…
Hillbilly Elegy Tries, and Fails, to Understand the Working Class
In 2016 Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s memoir of growing up in rural Ohio, became a bestseller in no small part due to the idea that it could “explain” the average…
Capitalist’s vision of the future sucks
it's always high tech stuff because that's what makes them money
Techno Orientalism
racist tropes in western scifi
Generational Wars Serve No One
In the end, there is only one winner in a generation war, and it’s not millennials or boomers or Gen Z—it’s capitalism. These essentialized, whitewashed stereotypes impede the intergenerational organizing…
DMX was a Gen X icon who gave Black men like me a stronger voice
If Jean Michel-Basquiat poured his pain onto the literal canvas of the masterpieces that he created (and sometimes destroyed) during his brief career, DMX turned his personal battles with alcohol…
30 years in, The Silence Of The Lambs’ Jame Gumb still deserves better
Just like a booger-coated finger a centimeter from your face, The Silence Of The Lambs is impossible to ignore. Similar examples of trans exploitation—films as guilty of poor taste as…