Rachel Bloom’s stunningly refreshing Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, soon entering its third season, has been a whirlwind of ups and downs, but despite the tongue-in-cheek name of the show highlighting our main character Rebecca Bunch as a boy-crazy (literally) stalker, it’s her female friendships that take the starring emotional role in the second and most recent season….
You’re a Comedian: Trans Characters and Jokes in “Comic” Books
You’re a comedian. You’ve been working in the comedy business for a few years, getting a few laughs here and there with your crude style. Things have been good thus far, and you’re feeling more and more confident in your dark humor. In fact, you’re in a whole new city with one of your first…
25 Years of Never Being Alone: Sailor Moon and Me
It was an afternoon cartoon, scheduled between other familiar kids’ shows. The art was a little different, a little more dynamic and alive, more unabashedly feminine than I was used to seeing, even at eight-years-old. I don’t remember seeing commercials for this new show, with its pigtailed heroine in a sailor suit, but I remember the…
Political Issues: The Self Fulfilling Misogyny of “Seminal” Comics
Content Warning: Femicide, rape, and the violence of misogyny All art is political. This seems to be a controversial statement, but to me it has always seemed objectively correct. Making art is an inherently political act; you bring your own feelings, lived experiences, and subjective beliefs to anything you create. Even the choice of what…
Riverdale Fashion Report: Power-à-Porter
Fashion has a significant history in the Archie-verse. Straddling the line between slice of life and romance comics, Archie Comics have frequently featured the fashion spreads or pin-up pages of romance comics. Even as romance comics faded in popularity, Archie Comics long carried on the tradition. My very own ’90s Archie Comics, particularly the Betty…
Elle: A Study On Trauma
Content Warning: Rape and sexual violence. A film that is centered solely around rape will never be a film for everyone. Though as a rape survivor, I felt that every moment of Elle was made with me in mind. Paul Verhoeven’s study of a woman dealing with the aftermath of a violent rape in her…
Others, Mothers and Monsters: Body Diversity and Fatphobia in Video Games
Like many people, I’m beyond excited for the next Mass Effect game, Mass Effect: Andromeda. So excited I want to know every bit of information about the game as it (slowly) comes out. I got super excited when they finally started to release character dossiers a few weeks ago, because character information is something that…
The Structural Shift of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
At the beginning of its second season, The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend had an uncertain future. Although it won two Emmys for its choreography and editing, as well as a Golden Globe for Rachel Bloom’s performance as main character Rebecca Bunch, the show’s ratings left a lot to be desired by the first season finale. The…
Idle Animations – From Skyrim, With Love
Idle Animations is a recurring series in which I play games without playing them, exploring quiet, still moments, how games fill space and time, and what happens when you let a game play itself.
Wildcats, Superheroes and the True Female Power Fantasy
When Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster invented Superman in 1938, they created a new kind of power fantasy. Yes, Superman stood for the oppressed and downtrodden, but what excited readers most was his ability to do what normal people could not. His super strength and endurance, his ability to leap from place to place (his…
Women Of Auteur Film: Isabelle Adjani
What is an Auteur? Well, the technical definition is a simply a filmmaker who has a singular, recognisable vision, though you can guarantee they’ll also be a man as no women have been deemed important or visionary enough to become members of this elite club. As we all know, the singular vision of men is…