Guest Blogging

Adieu, adieu to yeu and yeu and yeu

Thanks so much for the opportunity to guest-post here. I wanted to get one more post in about violence and representation of women on screen in student films (aka “I think your character just raped that lady”) but my semester starts this week so it’s back to syllabi and lesson plans for me for now. [...]

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An experiment in asking politely for accessibility.

The argument that if (marginalized group of people) would just (!) ASK (nicely, in just the right way using exactly the perfect tone and obeying all the unwritten secret rules) for (their human rights), they would be given immediately them by the innocent benevolent rulers who just didn’t know what they needed is so common [...]

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Auf’ed Is A Word In Every Gender: A Few Reality TV Notes

So here’s the thing: while waiting this past weekend in my just-across-the-block-from-the-evacuation-zone apartment for the threatened transformation of New York from this: Into this: …I did not spend my weekend writing posts for Feministe, as was my brief, but instead watching Project Runway. Project Runway Australia. I won’t qualify Project Runway as a guilty pleasure. [...]

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You can just. . .

Via Karnythia’s tumblr, I found this post that summarizes Chef Karl Wilder’s attempts to feed his family for two months on the allotment a family gets on food stamps. Wilder, who did this as part of an awareness campaign for the San Francisco Food Bank, documented his and his family’s experience on his blog. Now [...]

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Go see The Interrupters

I caught this new documentary by Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) & Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) during its sold-out run at the Siskel Center last week. Trailer: The Interrupters Imagine walking down a street where everyone is armed – with guns, rocks, knives – and a fight is breaking out. Imagine walking [...]

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Penelope Trunk’s new “Blueprint for a Woman’s Life:” Same as the old blueprint. Sigh.

I think that Penelope Trunk sometimes gives great career advice. I like that she values being lost, being open and honest, and making interesting mistakes on the way to finding an interesting and happy life. And even when I strongly disagree with her she never bores me. She really pisses me off sometimes, but she [...]

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An appetite for moral panics

Anthony Bourdain has had freakouts over Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Alice Waters, Guy Fieri, and now Paula Deen. The most recent pissiness–the carping on Deen–was because (he said) she is beholden to corporate interests and she features foods (southern foods, by the way) on her show that are “fucking bad for you” (both true, by [...]

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What I mean when I talk about movies that bore the everloving shit out of me.

For some masochistic reason, I ended up watching the trailer for The Art of Getting By today. Here’s the official synopsis: THE ART OF GETTING BY stars Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who’s made it all the way to his senior year without ever [...]

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Not liking The Help that much

(I know Jill posted on the movie. I read the book and I have thoughts, which I was finally able to edit today.) I haven’t seen the movie The Help, but I did read the book. I wasn’t impressed. First, I am sick to the teeth of feel-good, revisionist fiction. I am really fed up [...]

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Kansas Should Serve as a Warning to Virginia Women

This is a guest post by Dr. James Kenley.
These regulations, which demanded precise sizes for janitorial closets, no-variance room temperatures, and other ridiculous requirements, were purportedly established to protect the health and safety of women, but in truth had one and only one purpose: to shut down the three existing abortion facilities in the state.

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Step into my film school! The importance of casting in breaking open movie stereotypes

Did any of you catch Matt Zoller Seitz’s pieces on underrated actors and actresses? Given that the purpose of “top ten” lists is to make people argue about who should really be on the list and obviously there are great people not on the list who are underrated, I’m going to say that any list [...]

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