The Cultural Gutter

dangerous because it has a philosophy

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

The Words Got Stuck In My Throat

WOG0 thumb

“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 [...]

“Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey”

NPR’s Scott Tobias writes of Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey: “The disparity between Journey’s mercenary nature and Pineda’s inspiring triumph over adversity comes through starkly in Everyman’s Journey.” (via @TrashFilmGuru)

“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 [...]

Interview with Nalo Hopkinson

TVOntario interviews writer Nalo Hopkinson about utopian literature,  the ancestral experience of slavery, “noticing race” and the ideals of Toronto’s Caribana festival.

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.”

Nancy A. Collins’ Swamp Thing

Author Nancy A. Collins talks about writing Swamp Thing at Hasslein Blog.  The Den of Geek writes a paean to Nancy Collins’ al-too-brief run. “As the run progressed, it became evermore enchanting, tense, witty and imaginative (not to mention the fact that it produced the first ever comic to be released under DC’s mature Vertigo [...]

Leia, Amidala and Alison Bechdel walk into a Cantina

At Wired, Laura Hudson writes about the women of Star Wars and the dearth of female characters in film and television in general. she notes,  “Criticisms about representations of gender (or race and other diversity) are often countered in fandom by analyses attempting to explain why the inequality happens according to the internal logic of [...]

“Welcome To Black History Month”

At Comics Alliance, David Brothers takes us on a walk through Black history in comics from Krazy Kat; Orrin C. Evans’ All-Negro Comics; Billy Graham’s Panther’s Rage; Hardware and Milestone Comics to now.

Ann Radcliffe and The Supernatural in Poetry

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.

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.”

RIP, Dear Abby

Columnist Pauline Phillips has died. Ms. Phillips was best known for her advice column, “Dear Abby.” The New York Times has an obituary. At NPR’s Monkey See blog, Linda Holmes writes about why people ask strangers for advice, noting that it’s a “curiously optimistic thing to do.”

“Never Ask Her If She’s Wearing Colored Contact Lenses”

Pages from Dwayne McDuffie’s script for Fantastic Four #547: “I told Dwayne how much I loved pages 6 and 7 with the Thing and Storm. He laughed because someone online had complained about the scene – arguing that a woman would never be bothered by people talking about her looks behind her back. Dwayne’s incredulous [...]

Filmi Top Ten and More

At Beth Loves Bollywood, Beth shares her top ten films of 2012–and adds special recognition categories such as:  “Women Doing Stuff,” “Hip-Flicking Earworm,” and “The Unpopular Movie That Has A Surprising Number of Supporters and We’re Vocal About It.”

End of Year at Too Busy Thinking About My Comics

Colin Smith offers the 10 best superhero comics and the best comics with female protagonists in 2012.  

10 Comics I Liked In 2012

saga_8 reading thumbnail

Tales of derring-do! Girl adventurers! Occult mystery! Infernal foes! Secrets revealed! Pirates! Love, loss & betrayal! Intricate art bound in lovely hardcovers! Indie going mainstream! Original creations! It’s been an incredible year for comics. So many good ones that I can’t even begin to claim to know what would be the best comics of 2012. [...]

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.

“The Year in Comics: Biggest Disappointments of 2012″

At Gutters and Panels, John Gholson shares his 3 biggest disappointments in comics this year.

« go backkeep looking »
  • Support The Gutter

  • Of Note Elsewhere

    Patton Oswalt’s multi-franchise super-movie described in his Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation, animated.

    ~

    Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”

    ~

    The Black Girl Nerds Podcast discusses Black girls and women in the Heavy Metal industry with author and journalist Laina Dawes and Ursula “She-Wolf” Parson from Hear Evil News.

    ~

    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.”

    ~

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

    ~

    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.”

    ~

  • The Book!

  • Spilling into Twitter

  • Obsessive?

    Then you might be interested in knowing you can subscribe to our RSS feed, find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter or Tumblr.

    -------

  • Weekly Notifications

  • What We’re Talking About

  • Thanks To

    No Media Kings hosts this site, and Wordpress autoconstructs it.