I was sceptical going into House of the Dragon, HBO’s new(ish) Game of Thrones spin-off. The grim-dark edginess of the original and the increasing prioritisation of plot twists over thematic coherence caused me to abandon it after the sixth season. I was particularly irked by Game of Thrones’ use of rape to add texture to […]
With frequent discourse over historical accuracy, ‘iPhone faces’, and workplace safety, costume design and styling in film and tv has become something of a minefield, particularly in period pieces. Just this past month, Bridgerton has come under fire after Simone Ashley commented on the frequent physical discomfort she experienced wearing stays (a corset, if you […]
In the popular imagination, frontiers are uniquely male places. Whether it’s the physical frontiers of the American West, the digital frontiers of the internet, or the metaphorical frontiers of early literature, film, or, more recently, video game production, these spaces are remembered as being inhabited almost exclusively by men. Male pioneers conquered the Wild West, […]
Twenty minutes into Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s acclaimed series Fleabag, our distraught and grieving protagonist confesses her greatest fear: “I have a horrible feeling that I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.” The first time I watched this scene, it felt like a revelation. There were […]
“Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?” In 2017 our screens were blessed with Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird. The film follows a young girl, self-named Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan), at the end of her time in high school as she navigates the next stage of her life. Lady Bird is […]
With the emergence of self-proclaimed tradwife influencers and the rise of gender essentialist “divine feminine” rhetoric on TikTok, we are currently living through an undeniable anti-feminist backlash. Despite somehow already being seven years old and a painstaking recreation of late ‘60s aesthetics, Anna Biller’s The Love Witch provides the perfect antidote to the regressive trends […]
Blood-curdling screams and spine-chilling serial killers… It’s the 80s – slasher horror is at an all-time high, and thrill seekers are grabbing onto their cinema seats whilst adrenaline pumps through their veins. Film billboards read Halloween II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Hell Night, and Friday the 13th – only to name a few. You […]
Note: Spoilers for the first half of the episode The Last of Us has recently taken fans by surprise once again — and this time, it’s not through a fungus-filled jumpscare. ‘Long, Long Time,’ episode three of the ongoing television series, had fans enthralled in an unforgettable love story between two of the hit video game’s […]