Brienne of Tarth, from Game of Thrones: tough, loyal, and completely un-girly. Jessica Jones, from Marvel comics: badass, superhuman strength, helps people while dealing with her own trauma. Hermione Granger: brilliant, intellectual, compassionate, and brave. Violet, Hannah, Dee, and Betty from Rat Queens: sex-positive, booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens for hire, and also a family. Jo…
Category: Movies and TV
Fast Forwarding
I’ve always been a completionist. I cannot stand starting a series anywhere but the absolute beginning (one reason it was so difficult for me to break into the world of comics), and once I start something, I have a strong need to finish it. So it is pretty crazy for me to tell you that…
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why, by Sady Doyle
Five stars, read in January 2018. This book was like an electric jolt to me. I was genuinely frustrated every minute that I couldn’t be listening to it on Overdrive, and I wish it could’ve been twice as long. I don’t follow much pop culture, so although I’d heard of most of these stories in…
I Do Not Like This
Look, I liked Jennifer Lawrence as much as everyone else, until she was in everydamnthing. She seems very much like someone I would’ve been fantastic friends with in college, and I think I would love her as a person. But she’s the female equivalent of White Guys Named Chris, and she is a ludicrous choice…
A World That Is Disappointing Us Every Single Day
A little while ago I read a great interview with Bob Odenkirk. When asked if he thought of himself as a cynical person, this is what he said: Most people who are described as cynical are truly not. They’re idealists, and the cynical points of view that they espouse are literally their idealistic mentalities reacting…
Supplication to the Gods of Television
A show where people watch The Joy of Painting and try to do what Bob Ross does. They should probably be drinking; in fact, the source material lends itself perfectly to a drinking game. Take a drink anytime he paints the indication of something, creates the illusion of something, or tells the audience they get…
Jessica Jones: Alias, by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos (+ The Pulse)
Five stars, read throughout 2016. Jessica Jones is one of my absolute favorite characters from Marvel comics. She is superhumanly strong, angry, and utterly unapologetic. She has relationships, and they are in no way the focus of her story. She is dealing with trauma, which makes her vulnerable, but never delicate. She wears heavy boots,…
Where Am I Now?, by Mara Wilson
Four stars, read in September 2016. I discovered the grown-up Mara Wilson on Twitter earlier this year, and I was excited to learn she had a book coming out. Like many women our age (including Mara Wilson, who is two years younger than me), I was strongly influenced by Matilda as a child. There were so few…
Hollywood Women Memoirs
Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling Three and a half stars, read in October 2015. I like Mindy Kaling, and I enjoyed her first book. This second one was ninety percent frivolous and fun, ten percent actual awesome shit. The last couple pages made me feel like it was a much more important book than it was the…
It’s Time For More Women of Color in Comic Book Movies — PANELS
It’s official: we’re all mad for Black Panther. You could argue, if you wanted, that people’s enormous reaction to Black Panther’s inclusion in Captain America: Civil War indicates just how thirsty fans are for representation in comics and related media. And even as we celebrate an awesome showing of an awesome character in a huge…
I Have Questions about Into the Woods
I’ve never seen the original production, but I saw the movie when it came out in 2014. Musically, it’s brilliant. Those songs lodge themselves in my brain and I can’t stop singing them for weeks after I hear them. The lyrics, cinematography, cast—everything is fantastic. But I’m not quite sure about the story. I know there…
Miss Representation: or, How I Took a Six-Hour Trip to Watch an Hour and a Half-Long Movie
Originally posted in 2012. Things that went right tonight, in chronological order: I showered, shaved, got dressed, loved how my hair turned out and felt pretty. I left at 4:30, on schedule to be there half an hour early, my route all planned. I was really, really careful eating my tacos in the car and…
Meanwhile the World Goes On 