#pop culture criticism

[ailsacraigfannishness]

Absolutely banging essay by Maureen Ryan on the miracles Charisma Carpenter wrought as Cordelia Chase and what that cost her.

I’ve tried to write this essay for a decade. I have written so many versions of it. I don’t know if I cracked the formula. I do know, now, that it’s not about the man. It never was. I want to talk about the woman. The women. Who are not perfect, who are messy, angry, funny, brave. Through the lens of one woman who had to forge through the unknown, with so much pressing on her from all sides.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Franchises will never die

@themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie @thealmightyemprex

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@amalthea9 @princesssarisa @angelixgutz @themousefromfantasyland @the-blue-fairie @professorlehnsherr-almashy @inevitablemoment @thealmightyemprex @tamisdava2 @the-gentile-folklorist

“don’t reduce this female character down to a love interest” does not translate into “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest.”

preventing female characters with strong, compelling narratives from experiencing love, intimacy, and affection is just as regressive as reducing them down to sexual accessories for male characters. it assumes that women must choose between a romantic interest and depth of character and ignores a far more productive message: that women are capable of possessing both. 

[genericpuff]

LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 59 - GOING UP

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Getting to re-invent the elevator scene from S1 was super fun, especially with the accompaniment of Persephone; I always enjoy writing their back-and-forths, it very much plays to my own writing interests and strengths :'3 Thanks so much for reading! <3

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The time lapse for this episode is coming soon to Patreon!

Watch me draw the next episode on Twitch

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

[enbycrip]

YES.

ALL OF THIS.

THIS is why this film still hits so hard after all these years.

It’s not some sugary BS about “you can think yourself out of suicidal depression by just learning to appreciate what you’ve got”.

It’s about the fact that people who work really fucking hard for their communities experience active, targeted, criminal pushback from exploiters.

About the fact that caring, in all its manifestations, is incredibly physically and mentally taxing and is often done by disabled people - YES, George Bailey is a disabled protagonist. His impairment prevents him from military service and actively causes him chronic pain that, as a person who lives with it, *will* affect his energy levels and fatigue constantly.

Notably, IAWL actually has a bunch of disabled characters. Not only is George disabled, but I’d put money on his uncle who loses the money being ADHD and very possibly having other learning disabilities and the film *actively* flagging that fact to the audience, even if it doesn’t necessarily know what ADHD is.

Which casts a whole new light on its principal villain being disabled. Instead of Old Man Potter being a flat caricature of “disability = evil”, what he *actually* is is a fantastic example of the fact that marginalisation in one axis does not prevent someone being an active oppressor - and wealth and class privilege, in particular, tend to mean a person actively acting to oppress other people who share their marginalisation in order to privilege the interests of their own class as a whole. Sometimes even damaging their own individual interests to do so.

It’s also super interesting that the *material* miracle in the film is not the appearance of an angel to show George what life would have been like if he had never existed, but the *community solidarity* that saves him from jail and his family from penury. The supernatural intervention can change his *mindset*, and that is *incredibly* important, given it *literally* stops him killing himself, but the *material* intervention is mutual aid from his own community that he has given so much to.

Which is incredibly radical as a message. It’s not saying “faith is worthless”; it’s saying “faith can be an incredibly important factor in creating resilience in moments of despair, but we can’t, and *need not*, wait for a supernatural miracle to save us; we have the capacity to save ourselves and each other in our hands right now”.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@the-blue-fairie @isareadsandwatches

People will spend hours watching "ending explained" videos and reading about how Ed, Edd, n Eddy is set in purgatory or some such barmy nonsense, but the moment you tell them a piece of media was motivated by racism or corporate interest in affecting public opinion or the Pentagon's funding suddenly you're reading too much into it.

[butchbonerot]

I have such conflicted feelings about the butch/masc dichotomy. I identify as a stone cold butch dyke. My partner identifies as masc, doesn't care much about labels. But to me? She's as much if not more "butch" than me. She balances masculinity and femininity with such prowess, as if it were fucking breathing. I prefer the term butch, by a lot, but I also understand why some people don't feel comfortable with it. There is so much stigma and there are so many people telling you HOW to be butch the right way, what is and isn't butch. It's easy to feel like you don't measure up, and it's easy to feel excluded, and I don't want anyone to feel that way. I AM a butch, but I extend solidarity to all dykes, regardless of how they choose to label themselves, even if I don't get it.

[rivetgoth]

Any time I see someone be like All music is bad now it’s all about tiktok trends spotify radio billboard charts pitchfork RYM it’s all soulless and homogeneous and tame subculture is dead genre is dead I’m just like . This is quite literally a skill issue. You’re just admitting that you don’t know how or are not trying to find anything more obscure than the stuff that’s trending or being algorithmically handed to you. You understand that right. Like there is music out there beyond what 17 y/os on tiktok are recording themselves dancing to in cosplay or what youtube reviewers are making videos about. Subculture exists in the real world in underground more-often-than-not predominantly marginalized communities that are thriving outside of the realm of what’s trending on social media or what’s being sold by fast fashion retail stores. Oftentimes because the hot spots of genuinely boundary pushing underground subculture are literally illegal. You not knowing it exists doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You know this. right.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland

"This anxiety about surrendering a beloved franchise to a new generation of fans with different perspectives and values is also reflected in Doctor Who fandom. Recently, Doctor Who Magazine made the controversial decision to appoint a new “Time Team” of reviewers to analyse the classic series. This prompted a lot of preemptive anxiety from older fans, with many taking to social media with threats of a boycott. Naturally, things exploded when these young reviewers acknowledged the self-evident fact that beloved serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang was horrifically racist. Even the magazine’s editorial lambasted them.

There is something disappointing in all of this. One of the best things about fandom is the way that it is passed on like a baton from one generation to the next, and the way in which that generation are allowed to find their own own way. The archetypal memory for many Star Wars fans is going to see the original trilogy with their parents. Many modern Doctor Who fans might have relatives who remember the classic series. The James Bond film franchise also spans generations, and it’s entirely possible for two generations of any family to have grown up with different iterations, having their own preferences.

My own fandom is rooted in this experience. I inherited my love of Star Trek from my grandmother, who loved the original Star Trek and The Next Generation. However, she never appreciated Deep Space Nine. Indeed, my decisions to press ahead with Deep Space Nine on my own and to reach my own conclusions about it were a massive part of my fandom. Similarly, I inherited my love of horror from my grandfather, who showed me wonderfully inappropriate movies at a young age. He loved Wes Craven and John Carpenter, as did I. However, I had to branch out to The X-Files on my own.

I always considered this an important part of my fannish experiences, and I never begrudged my grandparents for holding slightly different tastes than I did. I’d have similar experiences with people that I introduced to my favourite things; their tastes would inevitably grow and develop in directions that reflected their own interests. They would branch beyond my taste and cultivate their own fandom that overlapped with mine by was also distinct in its contours. This never bothered me or unsettled me, and I never resented these people for that fact. I always saw it as an important part of sharing something; realising that it doesn’t belong entirely and completely to you.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@isareadsandwatches

There is a streak of anti-intellectualism when it comes to talking about films, and it's one of my biggest pet peeves. People are seemingly completely incapable of distinguishing between "what happened in the film" and "what the film is ABOUT."

To cite one of my favorite examples, The Shape of Water is not ABOUT a woman who fucks a fish, it is ABOUT people who are otherized by society finding comfort and beauty is what others see as their flaws. It is a beautiful film, that deserved all the praise and accolades it got.

Joker is not ABOUT mental health. It is a shallow film that uses mental health in a trivial way as a catalyst for its character's mental breakdown. Its refusal to be ABOUT anything is its greatest failure. Arthur stumbles his way into accidentally starting a riot, he admits politics do not interest him, and the concerns of those rioting are not addressed because that's not what the film is interested in. It tries to use all the right buzzwords to fake being deep, but in the end, winds up saying nothing interesting.

Annihilation is not ABOUT women going into an alien environment and experiencing wacky shit, it's about dealing with trauma, and deciding whether to let it consume you, or whether to move on.

Shit like this is why Qanon was so easily able to direct the conversation around Cuties. The director wanted to make a film about exploitation and female agency, but people are unwilling to engage with theme, they only care about surface-level shit. People took one look at the marketing, and decided they already knew what the film was about, and Qanon was able to use that to whip up a moral panic, and get people to harass the director and any critic with positive things to say about the film.

I still see social media making fun of English teachers for asking us to engage with a text beyond what's on the surface, but I think those are valuable skills when it comes to how we interact with art.

Popular YouTube channels like CinemaSins and Nostalgia Critic, which have made their anti-intellectualism into their whole careers, do not help in this regard.

[thoughtportal]

In this episode we explore a relatively new subgenre of science fiction called Solarpunk, which aims to imagine better, more ecologically harmonious, futures on earth. In many ways Solarpunk is a reaction to both the real-world climate crisis and to the many apocalyptic visions of collapse filling our screens. Andrew Sage from the YouTube channel Andrewism joins host Jonathan McIntosh and friend of the show Carl Williams for this conversation.

References & Links • The Andrewism YouTube Channel • Walkaway by Cory Doctorow • Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach • Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation • Fighting for the Future edited by Phoebe Wagner  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler • Princess Mononoke from Studio Ghibli • The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin • Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin • Monk and Robot book series by Becky Chambers • Dear Alice from THE LINE • Dear Alice’ Decommodified Edition by Waffle To The Left • Our History Is the Future by Nick Estes • 3000-Year-Old Solutions to Modern Problems by Lyla June  • Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

[good-to-drive]

Bob Dylan occupies this weird space of being among the pantheon of great American writers while also being a massive pop culture icon and rockstar so as a result the fanbase is a heady mix of people who see him through the lens of very serious and unflinching literary critique and analysis and people who want to put him on top of an ice cream sundae and eat him up with a spoon, and the weirdest part of all of this is that they're usually the same fucking people

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

Ok but can we talk about the absolute horror of being watched and monitored 24/7 that the ancients must have had. The citizenship drones being like an Alexa that's constantly following and listening to you (except it's five pebbles and not Alexa lmao). The fucking OVERSEERS. THEY'RE CALLED THAT FOR A REASON. BECAUSE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING THEIR CITIZENS AS WELL AS THE ENVIRONMENT ALL THE TIME. (I would talk about the fact that they all show arti fucking ads as well but honestly idk what else to say about that. Capitalism got yet another society 😔). That's some fucking nightmare fuel dystopian society settings we are being hinted at. You know the Big Brother Is Watching You thing. The book. Yeah that's what it reminds me of.

The Iterator Is Watching You.

[icedsodapop]

Honestly, we need better, more thought-provoking, intersectional discourse. And for that to happen, people need to stop picking at the lowest hanging fruit or focusing on spectacle and get to the actual issues. People need to be able to fathom that multiple ideas can co-exist at the same time, that 2 or more things can be true or false simultaneously.

Mm... the discourse is lacking these days. Nothing annoys me more than bad public discourse.

[blindmagdalena]

not to be a cheap disney shill but i really like agatha all along so far