After watching the preview episodes of Dramaworld we were sent, and having discussed it with Angel and Ardo, I was keen to talk to director and co-writer Chris Martin. Happily, despite the eight hour time difference, I got the chance! We talked about culture, media representation, fandom, and how connections are formed (or prevented from…
2014 Hugos Versus 2015 Sad Puppies: Novels
Throughout this series I have been comparing the 2014 Hugo nominees with the 2015 Sad Puppies slate that was, in part, drawn up in response. Out of the five categories that I decided to cover, I have so far looked at Short Story, Novelette, Novella and Related Work. Now it is time for the last of…
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being (in Comics Academia)
June 2015. The run-up to my first conference abroad as an official comics scholar — and I don’t want to go. I’m panic-crying after reading a chain of emails which, on the face of it, have little to do with me. Short background: we were supposed to have a panel on Charlie Hebdo. A month before…
Race and Romance in Daredevil Season Two
Netflix’s Daredevil is, on the surface, a pretty progressive show when it comes to romance: Matt Murdock is romantically linked to two women of color, Claire Temple and Elektra Natchios, during the course of two seasons, which is definitely more than can be said about any of the MCU films so far. But a deeper read shows…
Rurouni Kenshin vs Inuyasha: How to Do a Love Triangle Right
Love triangles, a trope that appears in most media as a convenient plot device to create drama within a story, as a narrative device aren’t inherently bad. They’re like near any other narrative device. The effectiveness of the device can change depending on the creator and how the device is used. The love triangle as…
From Haute Cuisine to the Guillotine: Class in Hannibal
Bryan Fuller’s cancelled drama Hannibal is nominally billed as being about the cannibal Hannibal Lecter. It also tackles a number of weighty themes, such as love, the nature of evil, and even the subtle ways in which people may be divided by forces both moral and class-related.
Good Girls Like Gambit
First, Fox delayed the planned Channing Tatum Gambit movie; now it looks like it won’t be made at all. Fox seems so impressed by Deadpool‘s monster box office that its interests have shifted: a Deadpool franchise looks like a sure winner, a Channing Tatum-led Gambit solo film like more of risk. But there are enough…
Why I Love Erotic Fanfic and What I Learned From It
Fanfiction has a historical relationship to erotica and porn Slash: the subset of fanfiction that now encompasses all sorts of queer relationships that originally denoted a sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock through punctuation (K/S) as opposed to other punctuation markers which denoted friendship or non-sexual relationships (K+S). But contemporary mainstream media, thanks to stories like 50 Shades…
Mom’N’Pop Culture: Let’s Not Talk About Sex, Like Ever
In my family I would call myself the truthsayer. I don’t hold back, and more than often I tell my kids the truth when it comes to life. If they try to run off in a parking lot, I will quickly tell them that getting hit by a car means they die. If they die,…
NSFW: It’s Better (For Me) On Top
I own a hoodie that says “It’s better on top” across the front of it. It was my high school senior sweatshirt, now it’s my stealthy queer-coded clothing item. Recently I explained to my mother what it means to be a lesbian “stone top.” Even though my mother is more like an annoying older sister, it…
Avengers Academy: Everyone’s Playing It
Recently, TinyCo released MARVEL Avengers Academy, and it’s been all many phone gamers can talk about. Tea Fougner reviewed the game for us when it first came out, but after hours of gameplay our writers still had more to say. So, why is this game so addictive? Kate: So, I play my games on my…
Diamonds in the Rough: Our Problematic Faves, Who Coincidentally, Are Women
WOMEN. We hate’em. Well, a lot of people hate’em. Us. Hate us. Okay, we don’t hate women. We are women. We love women! We love woman characters … whom other people hate. And we’ll defend them. Okay? Just listen.
