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…
An Interview With the Guy Who Yells “Mortal Kombat” in the Theme for Mortal Kombat
Yeah, we did it in the downtown Wall Street area. We went down there and started getting directions from this guy. And he started placing us in groups and saying,…
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…
The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Still Feeds on Insecurity
The manic pixie dream girl trope simply puts down girls who don’t fit the blueprint. Manic pixie dream girls — or rather, the men who write them — feed off…
How Hollywood Is Complicit in the Violence Against Asians in America
Reducing Asians, women and sex workers to flat punchlines isn't just degrading — it's dangerous {read}
“Frog and Toad”: An Amphibious Celebration of Same-Sex Love
A series of illustrated children’s books endures as a classic. Was it also the author’s attempt to come out? {read}
Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny
Today’s stars are action figures, not action heroes. Those perfect bodies exist only for the purpose of inflicting violence upon others.
‘The Dig’ – Hiding Sutton Hoo’s women
My immediate impression after watching the film was to question why the three female leads were presented as a vulnerable, passive, with a dull ongoing focus on their fictional problems,…
The rise of Indigenous horror: How a fiction genre is confronting a monstrous reality
Indigenous writers, on the other hand, acknowledge the mundane horror of living in a country that dehumanizes you, weaving the reality of Indigenous life with fiction to scare audiences. In…