The Cultural Gutter

hey, there's something shiny down there...

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

Chris Benoit vs. Triple H

Paul Casey illuminates “Wrestling’s Dark Heart” in discussing responses to the lives and careers of wrestlers Chris Benoit and Triple H. “Chris Benoit, unlike Triple H, is not just a sign of ‘business as usual.’ He is the sign of not only a callous indifference to the health of these athletes by the audience who [...]

Maybe Reality Isn’t the Point

Define reality. I’m not a big follower of reality tv shows, although I find myself sucked in to an episode if I start watching. Sometimes I appreciate the talent and sometimes I’m just rubbernecking at the train-wreck drama or the otherness of other people’s lives, but when my favorite contender on The Glee Project was [...]

RIP, Macho Man Randy Savage

Wrestling superstar Macho Man Randy Savage has died.  The L.A. Times has responses from members of the wrestling community, including Hulk Hogan, Mick Foley and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  Wade Keller of ProWrestling Torch remembers Randy Savage here.

Evil Seen

The Vault of Horror has a behind the scenes look at the development of the script for World Wrestling Entertainments’ original film, See No Evil.

Learning Vince’s Dirty Moves

Wrestling with issues of exploitation.

In July 1996, Hulk Hogan shocked the world by becoming what oppressed him the most as a hero in the 1980s: he turned heel. As the garbage filled the ring, he told Mene Gene Okerland, “As far as I’m concerned, all this crap in the ring represents the fans out here. ” That year Pro [...]

  • Support The Gutter

  • 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.”

    ~

    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.”

    ~

    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)

    ~

    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.

    ~

  • The Book!

    From ETC Press

  • 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

    1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s action adaptation animation art Canada capitalism China comedy comics fandom fantasy feminism film history games geekery gender history horror interviews Japan martial arts monsters movies music RIP romance science fiction space superheroes the ladies trailers tv UK USA video writing

  • Thanks To

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