Where Are the Moms in 50 Shades’ “Mommy Porn?”
I hadn’t heard of the phrase “mommy porn” until I started reading reviews for the 50 Shades of Grey movie. Then it seemed like it was everywhere, from respectable news sites to Urban...
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Is There Too Much TV On Screens Now?
In 2014, the broadcast, cable, and major streaming (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu) networks accounted between them for 352 individual original scripted programs — and we haven’t even delved into imports...
On Loving and Leaving New York
One of the books on my New Year reading list is Sari Botton’s award-winning anthology “Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York,” whose contributors include everyone from...
Can We Prevent Violence? The Stories We Tell Ourselves
It hasn’t been the best month in Australia. As we hurtle towards the year’s end and summer takes hold, the headlines have been far from the usual froth and bubble of December lifestyle...
The Peshawar School Massacre: When Children Are Fair Game
Waqar-Ullah Khattak is a Pakistani teacher at an army-run school in the city of Peshawar. He was invigilating an exam in the morning when he and the school's other occupants by armed militants...
On the Ethics of TV Spoilers
AMC committed a cardinal sin this week — the network spoiled its own show. In a television environment where delayed viewing, time differences, and pirating mean that people watch television at...
The Niqab of the Paris Opera: A Tale of Censorship
Despite divergences of opinion amongst Muslim religious scholars as to whether covering the face of a woman in Islam is compulsory or not, practice testifies that many Muslim women customarily do....
LFF Dispatch 4: Brad Pitt’s “Fury”
Irony rides a pale horse. Where have all the Panzers gone? The architects of blitzkrieg have been reduced to legs and tails and hooves as Patton and Zhukov strangle the Thousand Year Reich. Oblivious...
Showtime’s “The Affair” Fizzles
Showtime’s The Affair is generating a great deal of buzz on the fall television schedule, as a show that might provide an intriguing narrative approach and some insight into the way we view men,...
Australia’s Islamophobia Problem
It’s a scary time to be Muslim in Australia. On 18 September, anti-terrorism raids in connection with IS were conducted in Sydney and Brisbane. Australia’s terror alert has also been raised from...