If Any Of Yall Are Interested In Poetry And Learning How To Read, Analyse, And Appreciate A Poem, Check

male gaze is not 'when person look sexy' or 'when misogynist make film'

death of the author is not 'miku wrote this'

I don't think you have to read either essay to grasp the basic concepts

death of the author means that once a work is complete, what the author believes it to mean is irrelevant to critical analysis of what's in the text. it means when analysing the meaning of a text you prioritise reader interpretation above author intention, and that an interpretation can hold valid meaning even if it's utterly unintentional on the part of the person who created the thing. it doesn't mean 'i can ignore that the person who made this is a bigot' - it may in fact often mean 'this piece of art holds a lot of bigoted meanings that the author probably wasn't intentionally trying to convey but did anyway, and it's worth addressing that on its own terms regardless of whether the author recognises it's there.' it's important to understand because most artists are not consciously and vocally aware of all the possible meanings of their art, and because art is communal and interpretive. and because what somebody thinks they mean, what you think somebody means, and what a text is saying to you are three entirely different things and it's important to be able to tell the difference.

male gaze is a cinematographic theory on how films construct subjectivity (ie who you identify with and who you look at). it argues that film language assumes that the watcher is a (cis straight white hegemonically normative) man, and treats men as relatable subjects and women as unknowable objects - men as people with interior lives and women as things to be looked at or interacted with but not related to. this includes sexual objectification and voyeurism, but it doesn't mean 'finding a lady sexy' or 'looking with a sexual lens', it means the ways in which visual languages strip women of interiority and encourage us to understand only men as relatable people. it's important to understand this because not all related gaze theories are sexual in nature and if you can't get a grip on male gaze beyond 'sexual imagery', you're really going to struggle with concepts of white or abled or cis subjectivities.

thoughts on death and marriage and girls

(sophocles, antigone 891-4, c. 441 bce; ovid, metamorphoses x.1-7, 8 ce; phrasikleia kore inscription, 550-530 bce; euripides, iphigenia in aulis 1502-3, 405 bce)

inspired by @regenderate and @risissecupido and also joan breton connelly and nicole loraux

ARTICLES I READ THIS WEEK AND ENJOYED, BY GENRE.

— feminism and race.

atlanta spa shootings: how we talk about violence by holly honderich

does your daughter know it’s ok to be angry? by sorya chemaly

hunting the men who kill women: mexico’s femicide detective by meaghan beatley

my mum was born into one of ireland’s mother and baby homes – this is why everyone should know her story by molly mulready 

pm, are you listening? here are our stories. hear us roar (tw for rape, sexual assault)

red river women by joanna jolly (tw for murder and violence against indigenous women) 

the grooming gap: what “looking the part” costs women by mindy isser

when did recipe writing get so… whitewashed? by priya krishna (with yewande komolafe)

women’s suffrage and the democratic peace by joslyn n. barnhart, robert f. trager, elizabeth n. saunders, and allan dafoe 

— fine arts.

a brief history of death by nir baram

a rainy day with ruskin bond by mayank austen soofi

arthur rimbaud: the aesthetics of intoxication by enid rhodes peschel

crying in h mart by michelle zauner

eleven by sandra cisneros

nick cave’s letter to a fan grieving their loved ones

sadako and the thousand paper cranes by eleanor coerr

sunflower sick by sara heise graybeal

— history and science.

cricket and politics in colonial india by ramachandra guha

scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain by yudhijit banerjee

the cosmos from the wheelchair (the economist obituaries)

the death of the department store and a dwindling middle class by jason pallant, sean sands

the gruesome history of eating corpses as medicine by maria dolan

— politics:

amazon has transformed the geography of wealth and power by vauhini vara

caste and politics: identity over system by dipankar gupta

implicit bias against asians increased after trump’s secretary of state and others popularized “chinese virus” by eric w. dolan

making pledges was the easy part but it’s a long road to net-zero emissions by angel hsu

note: some of the articles are behind paywalls, but can be read for free with outline.

fuck does anyone have that poem thats like the speaker used to press her ear to conch shells when she was a child but as an adult the world has closed its second mouth or something

the female killer in hollywood: a mini essay by silas denver melvin

finally making a part three of video essays ive enjoyed in the part few months! one, two.

movies + tv

in search of the distinctively human | the philosophy of blade runner 2049

the tragic beauty of blade runner 2049 explored

sia's music: the trap of symbolic autistic representation

remembering with a twist | a jojo rabbit & the book thief video essay

the stormtrooper paradox

the case against the jedi order

finn: the winter soldier of star wars

finn the lost protagonist

y'all still mad about cuties?

the fetishization of disney princesses of color // mulan revisited

the day rue "became" black

the confused politics of promising young woman

indiana jones – a primer on racist film tropes

exploring the blair witch mythology

what the hell is trolland? (the ugliest animated movie ever)

inspiration p*rn: oscar bait!

color grading and modern cinema – an essay on ugly movies

why terfs misunderstand the handmaid's tale

the tyra show, ego masquerading as empathy

hbo's euphoria is not "real" it's creepy

teen wolf, in retrospect

the secret life is the worst teen drama of all time

dinosaurs, the sitcom before time

the wasted potential of scream queens

fake anime in western media

the impact of dragon ball z: the series that changed everything

music

the dark side of one direction

the rise and fall of the 2000s video vixen

the misunderstood mind of left eye

mariah carey: the magnificence of 'butterfly'

the rise and fall of syco music

banned before debut? the controversial debut of honey popcorn

teen girls, boy bands and objectification, a video essay

video games

rationalizing brutality: the cultural legacy of the headshot

the girl games of lost media (part 1) (part 2)

a deep dive into animal crossing

books

'the secret' and its cult following

gabbie hanna vs rachel oates | authors, stop responding to negative book reviews!

a deep dive into the warrior cats fandom

the mortal instruments is... fine

internet

the man that lost everything for internet fame: dan bilzerian

tumblr's fakest story: the tale of oppa homeless style

msscribe: the harry potter fandom's greatest con-artist (trust me on this one. i wouldn't add this if it wasn't worth it)

family vloggers: something needs to change

we need to talk about true crime youtubers 🤨 | the ethics of monetizing tragedy

the tumblr iceberg (explained)

internet history: dramageddon 1

creepshow art | the lies, manipulation & slander that ruined a community

the weird phenomenon of youtube redemption arcs...

misc

grooming aaron taylor-johnson

why koko couldn't talk (sorry)

the problem with true crime

what we don't talk about in the jeffrey dahmer case: flipping the script

the "rampant transphobia" of bisexual history

a deep dive into littlest pet shop

tiktok is kinda bad for fashion

lifestyles of the rich and famous | wealth p*rn and you

the y2k aesthetic explained

god is weird: a close look at adam and eve

how hollywood damaged the olsen twins

the mouse utopia experiments

anti-maskers

tinky winky vs the religious right

the strange world of breatharianism

doomsday preppers | neoliberalism, f@scism and the apocalypse

let's look at the gruesome world of victorian medicine

make sure you add some neoliberalism when you talk about capitalism | i don't dream about labor

Mothers who can’t love // Susan forward

I wait every year for summer, and it is usually good, but it is never as good as that summer I am always waiting for.

— Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn; in a letter to Hortense Flexner and Wyncie King

a short collection on catering to men. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012) A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (1879) The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (1993)