Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.
“[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)
Eloquently Twisted shares her tale of True Celebrity Crush Love!
“So Charlaine Harris’ last Southern Vampires book, Dead Ever After, is out May 7. Except it’s kind of out now, which is why the interwebs are exploding. Some random asshat got their claws on an early copy, which is sneaky enough, but then posted the ending online, which is borderline sociopathic.” Mary Janice Davidson has [...]
Far East Films has a trailer for Comrade Kim Goes Flying, a romantic comedy about a North Korean miner who travels to Pyongyang to fulfill her dream of becoming an acrobat.
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.”
Actress and singer Deanna Durbin has died. The Los Angeles Times and The Guardian have obituaries. Audie Cornish and Melissa Block remember Durbin on NPR. Here Deanna Durbin sings, “Good-Bye” in Because Of Him (1946)
In April, the Guttersnipes like to mix it up a little. This month, Comics Editor Carol Borden writes about romance. “You hit him with a frying pan,” he said to her. “How come you didn’t grab a knife?” “The frying pan was closer.” Her eyes slid away. “It’s not like I had time to pick [...]
“1987 was a remarkable year for manga adaptations. Not remarkable in volume—manga adaptations were nothing special in themselves—but for the commonalities that emerged. This year, we would find anime reaching for a measure of subtlety.” More at The Golden Ani-Versary of Anime.
[In April, the Guttersnipes like to mix it up a little. This month, Romance editor Chris Szego writes about anime] Only those with excellent social standing and those from filthy rich families are lucky enough to spend their time here in the elite private school, Ouran Academy. The Ouran Host Club is where the school’s [...]
“I’d originally started writing a list of the mistakes made by poor smut writers, but I’ve decided that it would be more fun to write an absolute shit piece of erotica that illustrated, to an admittedly ridiculous degree, most of these errors.” Get your bad smut on here.
“If I had a hidden microphone inside of my heart/I would turn the power on/It would amplify my love for you and swear to always love you/and you’d never be gone.” I love when old movies–that are not musicals per se–spotlight the performance of a song, because it’s symptomatic of a sincere desire to entertain [...]
In considering a discussion about realism, grittiness and “grimdark,” in fantasy, Kate Elliott asks, “How does epic fantasy–and heroic fantasy, and however you wish to define or parse the categories–do in conveying the realities of consensual sex and love?” She continues: “To my mind, we lessen the story we are telling about human experience if [...]
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).
Production Designer Ray Cusick has died. Cusick is most famous for creating Doctor Who’s nemeses, The Daleks, but he also worked on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (1985 & 1987), Cold Comfort Farm (1968) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1975). The BBC reports on his death and the creation of the Daleks here and here.
“Thursday, September 21st, 1939, radio station WJSV in Washington, D.C., recorded their entire broadcast day — from sign on, to sign off.” You can listen at The Internet Archive. (via @SteveSilberman)
“As a Black man in American, I brought something to the screen that hadn’t really been there before.”Jim Brown talks about his film career, making the transition from football to film and producing films in two parts of a documentary by Spike Lee. Here and here.
Monster Island Resort Podcast celebrates Women In Horror Month with a reading of horror forerunner, Romantic and Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe’s “The Supernatural in Poetry.” Terror vs. Horror. Gore vs. No Gore. Realism vs. Atmosphere. It’s all discussed.
Friend of The Gutter, Robert Mitchell interviews Birdemic director, James Nguyen. They discuss film-making, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Birdemic 2 and what people can do to reduce their negative impact on the environment.
The CG editors list their favorite pieces of 2012 here at The Cultural Gutter.
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