- By s.e. smith | April 1, 2013
- “A series of endless stupid romances”: Doctor Who returns
I wasn’t aware that Doctor Who/Twilight crossover fic was making its way into the writers’ room, but apparently it has.
Doctor Who came back from a brief hiatus this weekend with a rather unremarkable episode revolving around a plot to steal human minds over wifi networks in order to feed a mysterious client. Its main purpose seemed to be to introduce Clara Oswald as a companion rather than occasional character, though she still hasn’t committed to traveling space and time in his ‘snog box,’ as she so quaintly put it.
- By Kristin Rawls | July 13, 2012
- Alan Chambers and Exodus International Abandon “Ex-Gay” Talk but Keep the Politics
Exodus, International may not be calling itself an “ex-gay” movement anymore, but it is still very much an anti-gay organization.
Last month, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, the largest ex-gay organization in the world, had a coming out of sorts. That is, he posted a letter at the organization’s website distancing the group from so-called “ex-gay” therapy — and claiming that the idea of conversion therapy as such has never worked. Or, as Erik Eckholm put it in last week’s New York Times, in the course of a phone interview, “He said that virtually every ‘ex-gay’ he has ever met still harbors homosexual cravings, himself included.”
- By s.e. smith | June 23, 2012
- True Blood: Time for the True Death?
You know you’re in trouble when you start to root for the stake.
My response thus far to the fifth season of True Blood on HBO has been one of overwhelming ennui. The show appears to have long-ago passed its ‘use by’ date, and right now it’s skulking in the back of the refrigerator, waiting for someone to notice and throw it out. Until then, we all need to suffer through the mysterious smell of unknown origins permeating our television sets on Sunday evenings.
- By Emily Manuel | May 22, 2012
- Sex Online? The Ultra-Orthodox Rally Against the Internet
To rail against the Internet today in 2012 feels much like protesting the printing press or electricity or modern medicine – pointless and self-defeating.
In New York yesterday, forty thousand Haredim (“ultra Orthodox”) and Hassidic male Jews crammed into Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, in an asifa (rally) against the Internet. It was a striking sight, a sea of austere black clothes, forelocks, beards. Like the Haredi women unable to attend this single-sex gathering, I, of course, watched it on the internet live stream.
- By s.e. smith | May 18, 2012
- A Study in Pink: Sherlock and Steven Moffat’s Woman Problem
In Sherlock, the man who has trouble writing female characters had an ideal fix to his problem: a world where women aren’t expected, wanted, or needed.
BBC’s Sherlock has just started running its second season in the US on PBS, and viewers are flocking to watch, particularly after last week’s somewhat controversial Irene Adler storyline. Created by Steven Moffat of Doctor Who fame, the show is brilliant, but shows many of the fatal flaws Moffat’s demonstrated in Who, especially with regards to women. Moffat infamously has trouble grasping social justice-rooted critiques of his work and doesn’t seem to understand why people get so riled up about the women of Who.
- By Feature Writer | April 24, 2012
- The Threat of Women’s Autonomy: The Vatican’s Crackdown on Nuns
The bishops are playing politics here, and it’s the sisters who are staying steady with their orders’ commitment to doing the work they understand themselves to have been divinely assigned.
Working to eradicate poverty! Promoting better healthcare! The Catholic Church has been responsible for some atrocious things over the centuries, but working towards economic justice and helping sick people are two of those things towards which the average person would generally direct a great big thumbs up. In fact, the Leadership Conference of the Women Religious, a body to which about four in five of the United States’ Catholic nuns belong, is admirably dedicated to these very matters. The Vatican, however, has just come out with a condemnation of these foci.
Yes, I was rather taken aback myself.
- By s.e. smith | April 18, 2012
- Who is HBO’s Girls For?
Girls has some interesting potential. Despite the fact that it’s about the lives of privileged women, the fact that television is airing anything about the lives of women is exciting.
Watching HBO’s Girls felt like standing around at a party with a bunch of people trading insider jokes I don’t get; at the same time that I was being welcomed as part of the club, it was obvious that I was not one of them. Girls is definitely for someone, but I didn’t get the impression that this someone was me. The question is: who is Girls for?
- By s.e. smith | April 13, 2012
- Baby and Booth Makes Three: Can Bones Still Work As A Family Drama?
Will the creators be able to walk the tightrope here, balancing the disparate elements of the show to keep viewers engaged? Or is Bones about to go off the rails? Or has it already fallen?
Bones is back with a bang—and a baby—after its long hiatus. Nearly four months after viewers last saw Booth, Brennan, and the gang, ‘The Prisoner In the Pipe’ swung people back into the action, while ‘The Bump In the Road’ helped to establish a new normal for the series in the wake of upheaval for the main characters.
Impatient fans were chomping at the bit for the next installment after the break, timed to coincide with Emily Deschanel’s maternity leave. Were they satisfied with the latest episodes, and what do they presage for the future?
- By Kristin Rawls | March 23, 2012
- Sex Scandals in America: Jason Russell, John Edwards and Our Hashtag Attention Spans
Politicians and activists beware – the viral video may be your friend for a moment, but its impact dissolves once the next big scandal comes along.
If Jason Russell’s public masturbation meltdown means anything at all, it surely has nothing to do with Ugandans or central Africans as such. No, if anything, it illuminates the cluttered and – let’s face it – histrionic mind of the collective American public. Though many of us have been scratching our heads for years about the misinformation that Invisible Children spews in the name of “public awareness,” it wasn’t enough to trouble the public in general when the “Kony 2012” film hit the internet. In just a few days, the video amassed tens of millions of hits and quickly became the most wide-reaching viral video of all time.
- By Feature Writer | February 14, 2012
- What Love Looks Like: Seeing Valentine’s Day Anew
There’s something wrong if we’re having to default to a cultural script rather than following feeling.
Who likes to show Valentine’s Day a bit of love? Show of hands. I, for one, never have, because it has seemed to me that squishing expressions of love into one day of socially-approved heteronormative fluff is pretty empty. Apparently, however, you were in want of some musings on this holiday, readers, and in my journalistic strivings to bring it to you, I have, can we say, thought about it a little harder? This year, I’m going to overcome my dyed-in-the-wool side-eyeing cynicism and give Valentine’s another chance. That’s because what I resent is not actually the day itself, but what it represents about how culturally stagnant ideas of love are.
