The Cultural Gutter

taking the dumb out of fandom

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

Why Does Mars Need Women?

Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.

Jane Eyre is a Darker than People Think

“[T]he mainstreaming of Jane Eyre as a vanilla romance, or even as an exploration of a woman’s pure, uncompromising, and uncomplicated (and religious! and feminist!) integrity, says all kinds of things about our inability to speak honestly about violence and sex.” More on Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, consent, sex and submission, here. (via K.A. Laity)

“Cross-Cultural Representations of the Female Cyborg”

At Babbler Dabbler, Briana discusses female cyborgs in Ghost In The Shell and in Alien: Resurrection.

BGN on Interracial Relationships

The Black Girl Nerds Podcast focuses on interracial relationships.  “The highest rated BGN podcast yet is about guess what?  Interracial Relationships.  We actually received more calls from men on this topic then women which speaks volumes to men’s thoughts on the hot button issue.”

Interview with Kim Gordon

“What the breach of generations shows is that there’s more than one way to be feminist.” Lizzie Goodman interviews musician and artist, Kim Gordon.

“The Feminist Comedy of Louis CK”

David Haglund writes about how “Louis C.K. has been making feminism funny for years.” (The bit mentioned).

Interview with Kurt Busiek

In honor of Lois Lane’s first appearance 75 years ago, Kurt Busiek talks about Lois with DC Women Kicking Ass. “If you’re a ne’er-do-well, the last person you want trying to get the goods on you in Lois, because she just doesn’t quit.”

“We Can Be Superheroines”

The Gutter‘s own Carol Borden wrote a review of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines for the 2012 ActionFest Blog: “I’ve seen reviews suggesting this movie is a great one to show your daughter or niece, and it is.  But it’s not just about letting little girls know that they can be heroes, [...]

“Nerdiness and Whiteness”

The Black Girl Nerds Podcast ponders nerdiness and whiteness: “Does Being Nerdy Mean You ‘Act White?’”

“My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life In Arts and Letters”

“There’s a reason J.K. Rowling’s publishers demanded that she use initials instead of “Joanne”: it’s the same reason Mary Anne Evans used the pen name George Eliot; the same reason Robert Southey, then England’s poet laureate, wrote to Charlotte Brontë: ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.’” [...]

“Think The Walking Dead has a Woman Problem? Here’s the Source”

At The Village Voice, Simon Abrams writes about The Walking Dead and its female characters.

“First Person Perspective and The Untroubled Gaze”

Kaitlin Tremblay examines why she prefers first person perspective to third person perspective when gaming: “If female characters have typically existed only to be looked at, then removing them visually and collapsing them in gamer/character removes this gendered aspect of the gaze. There is no gendered complication between playing as Salvador or as Maya, but [...]

The Rants of GDC 2013

Games Industry International is publishing transcripts of this year’s rants at the Game Developers Conference. The first rant is from Tiniest Shark founder, Mitu Khandaker. “I’m 100 per cent able and willing to identify with white male characters – I don’t need characters to look like me to identify with them. That would be really [...]

Following How Your Dreams Make You Want To Be

princess cookie crown thumb

I’m going to talk a bit about Adventure Time, but I want to tell a story first. When my nephew was a toddler, he liked to play princesses with his mother and me. Usually, we were all beautiful princesses. Once, to show his displeasure, his mother was a “Bad Princess,” which actually was kind of [...]

Flappers!

The Flapper Girl has amazing resources on Twenties and Thirties art, design, illustration, millinery, and, especially, Flappers. Meanwhile, The Library of Congress has a sweet selection of articles on “The Rise of the Flapper!“

“The Rape of James Bond”

Sophia McDougall writes about “sexual assault and ‘Realism’ in popular culture.” (via @Pornokitsch)

“Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Damsels in Distress”

The first episode of Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women in Video Games is live. Watch “Damsels in Distress” here.

Stepping Back with The Great And Powerful Oz

“With such a rich tapestry on and off the Oz page, it’s depressing that 2013 finds our return to Oz burdened with a reluctant hero (the dominant kind in the 21st century), and not one of Baum’s plucky young heroines. In a bitter reversal of Baum’s stories, ‘Great and Powerful’ casts the women as the [...]

Diverse Writers, Diverse Readers and Happily Ever Afters

NPR talks about romance written by and for people of color with authors Brenda Jackson, Michelle Monkou, Camy Tang and romance critic Sarah Wendell at the Romance Writers of American convention. (The radio piece is stronger than the written synopsis).

Wonder Woman and “Blood-Curdling Masculinity”

At The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky writes about the new incarnation of Wonder Woman. “[M]aking Wonder Woman more violent doesn’t make her more mature or more real. It just makes her more conventional.” (via @BlackComix)

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    A novelist takes revenge on writers he doesn’t like via wikipedia. Slate has the story. “Qworty’s edits undermine our trust in this great project. Qworty’s edits prove that Wikipedia’s content can be shaped by people settling grudges and acting out of spite and envy. Qworty alone, by his own account, has made 13,000 edits to Wikipedia. And Qworty, as the record will show, is not to be trusted.”

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    Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.

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    “[T]he mainstreaming of Jane Eyre as a vanilla romance, or even as an exploration of a woman’s pure, uncompromising, and uncomplicated (and religious! and feminist!) integrity, says all kinds of things about our inability to speak honestly about violence and sex.” More on Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, consent, sex and submission, here. (via K.A. Laity)

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    Comic Book Attic talks about comics about comics, with plenty of pages from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s The Newsboy Legion for your enjoyment.

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    At Babbler Dabbler, Briana discusses female cyborgs in Ghost In The Shell and in Alien: Resurrection.

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    Commander Chris Hadfield performs David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in space.

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