The Cultural Gutter

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"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.

On The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

“Of course I have a copy of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes on video, but I don’t watch it very often. I even have, on tape now, the audio and video versions of those missing scenes. But it comforts me to know that they are still incomplete, and that there remain other scenes from [...]

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.”

Venture Bros. Season 5 Promo

New clip promoting Venture Bros. season 5.

How Not To Write Smut

“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.

The Latest Whovian Feminist News

The Feminism of Dr. Who Tumblr rounds up the news: “First, it suddenly seemed to strike the media this week that Doctor Who is severely lacking in female writers….Second, the sequel for ‘The Bells of Saint John’ premiered this week.” Click through for a discussion of female writers in science fiction in general and a [...]

“What Is Your Consensual Sex And Love Doing In My Epic Fantasy?”

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 [...]

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)

Women In Horror Month: “Celebrating Shirley Jackson”

Erin Horakova looks at author Shirley Jackson’s masterful, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In The Castle.  “Haunting is stunning, and while it’s a must-read for anyone interested in ghost stories, haunted houses, or psychological horror, it also stretches beyond its demographic.”

Twilight’s Anti-Fandom

Emma Vossen examines Twilight hate and anti-fans, writing: “People have become eager anti-fans of the series, creating an active subculture that manifests in hateful dialogue and value judgements on a seemingly arbitrary slice of a very large pop culture pie.”

Boy Band Madrigal

Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay performs–as a boy band–the madrigal, “Come again sweet love”  written by John Dowland. (thanks, alex!)

Escaping the Truck Stop Killer

“[It] occurred to me that this investigation of mine wasn’t a detective novel. It was a ghost story.” In 1985, Vanessa Veselka escaped a terrifying trucker who probably was Robert Ben Rhoades, the Truck Stop Killer and, years later, tries to understand her experience and learn more about the teenage girls who disappeared while hitchhiking.

Apple, Nudity and e-Books

At The Globe and Mail, Michael Posner writes on Apple’s corporate censorship of Peter Ovig Knudsen’s books, Hippie 1 and 2. “The Hippie book controversy follows a series of similar attempts by Apple to censor–or deny market access–to artistic material it deems offensive.”

“Raymond Chandler’s Private Dick”

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes an interesting post about Philip Marlowe, masculinity, biology and misogyny at The Atlantic: “I’ve consumed art like this all my life–men claiming invulnerability, against all I know of maleness and human attraction. Misogyny is not merely a moral problem, but a problem of art. It takes half the world and caricatures it. [...]

“Misconceptions in the Diversity Discussion”

Joking over lunch at the Game Developers Conference leads to Gamasutra‘s Leigh Alexander delineating “a few worrying misconceptions out there when it comes to what people want when we ask for equality.”  

RIP, Sylvia Kristel

Actress Sylvia Kristel has died.  While she worked with many directors on many films, Kristel is best known for the 1974 film, Emmanuelle, and its many sequels. The Guardian and  The New York Times have obituaries. The Guardian also has a review of her memoir, Undressing Emmanuelle: “I was dressed, but people preferred me naked. [...]

RIP, Koji Wakamatsu

Director and producer Koji Wakamatsu has died. Wakamatsu had just been named filmmaker of the year at the 2012 Busan Film Festival. Wildgrounds has an interview, which Kimberly Lindbergs of Cinebeats helped translate, Keyframe has an obituary and Subway Cinema had a brief overview of Wakamatsu’s career paralleling a 2008 retrospective in Los Angeles.   “Divisive, exploitative, [...]

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”

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    The Atlantic profiles Spectral Motion, creators of monsters, “effects, and other mechanical grotesqueries that have since become household nightmares, if not names.”

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    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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