Critical Hits and Misses #3: July 1, 2016

An excerpt from a new book by Andi Zeisler, We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Cover Girl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, this article talks about how Capitalism cashes in on the Feminist movement in the form of women’s underwear. There’s a side discussion to be had here about how the media presented this story not as a genuine feminist piece, but as a trend piece, as if feminism can be reduced to fashion choices. An excellent read! (Ivonne)

The movie Hidden Figures, staring Janelle Monae, Taraji P. Henson, and Octavia Spencer will focus on three women, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA during the early 60s as "computers" ! Can't wait to see this. (Kinoumenthe)

How do you celebrate Midsummer? Well, Sweden stayed home and binge-watched Orange is the New Black. (Tova)

The biggest re-organization of the Academy Awards voters ever makes the #OscarsALittleLessWhite. 89% of voters are still white, but like we said: a little less white. (Tova)

Amid the traditional E3 bells and whistles many smaller games have gone unnoticed. Among those were: Abzû, which can be described as “Journey in the ocean” (trailer), out August 2 on PS4 and PCs; and Bound, a beautiful surreal art game (trailer), a PS4 exclusive. (Dominik)

This article about biracial identity and a recent episode of The Mindy Project is personal and enlightening; it describes the effects of better representation in pop culture wonderfully by talking about stretching our collective imagination. (Tova)



As always, the excellent Tor.com newsletter brings us a number of interesting articles, among them a nostalgic review of Willow, and very pertinent remarks about its message, the lack of objectification of the female characters and other assorted lack of bigotry in the movie! (Kinoumenthe)

Black Girl Nerds explains how the Black Panther movie is possible thanks to black independent cinema, and highlights the importance of supporting independent movies together with some helpful tips on how to do that! (Tova)

A recent episode of CBC's Tapestry features an interview with feminist scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, on the subject of religious rationalizations for American conquest. The exchange between Mary White and Dunbar-Ortiz is a lively one, and its conclusions make for a nuanced historical perspective on contemporary Indigenous representation in American media. (Etienne)

If you want to laugh at male directors of the “auteur” variety, these wooden sculptures by Mike Leavitt are a good start, even if Leavitt might have a different idea behind the project... It’s worth noting there doesn’t seem to have been any intentional decision to only include male directors—but since when are female directors labelled “auteurs”? (Tova)

Did you know there's a peer-reviewed academic journal for research on TV serial narratives? It's not very prolific, but there have been three issues and they’re all available on the website. Here you can read about diversity in Flemish TV drama, Transparent and the "coming out" rhetoric and the relationship between TV shows and their fan communities (using a concept album vid with clips from Buffy as a starting point). (Tova)