The Blind (Drunk) Leading the Blind (Drunk): Masculinities and Friendship in Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy

Two distinct masculinities pull the Trilogy’s heroes in different directions. Given Wright’s frequent use of pop culture references, I’ve opted to borrow Dungeons and Dragons’ terminology and describe these extremes as lawful and chaotic. Lawful masculinity is characterized by competency and order; it is the hallmark of the responsible (but rigid) adult. Chaotic masculinity is characterized by hedonism and anti-authoritarianism, usually embodied in the series by characters in a state of adolescence (whether age-appropriate or not).

‘Dogtooth’: The Blindfold of Socialization

By introducing the audience to a tight-knit family with a very peculiar upbringing, the film allows a glimpse into socialization, explores gender politics, and shows how art can lead to individualism.

Fucking with Fate: Sexuality, Loss, and Irreversibility in ‘The Returned’

The first episode opens on a 15-year-old girl, the eponymous “Camille” (Yara Pilartz), as she finds herself alone at dusk in the mountains above her town. She starts her journey back home, disoriented and a little confused but otherwise intact, despite having died in a school bus trip four years prior.

Self-Made Orphan: Why We Cringe When Karen Cooper Snacks on Her Dad

The crumbling cement in this relationship is the injured little girl lying on the table downstairs. Her parents are united only on the question of her safety. Unsurprisingly, Karen has no voice or agency of her own. The adults perceive her as entirely helpless— “Maybe it’s shock,” her mother says of her condition. “She can’t possibly take all the racket…”

The Terror of Little Girls: Social Anxiety About Women in Horrifying Girlhood

Horror films hold a mirror up to these ideals, distorting the images and terrifying viewers in the process. The terror that society feels while looking at these little girls echoes the terror it feels when confronted with changing gender norms and female power.

The “Blurred Lines” of Body Horror and Rape Culture

The idea of “coulda, shoulda, woulda, didn’t” in regard to the source of most body horror films is very reminiscent of the way we as a society deal with victims/survivors of rape. Why is it that people immediately feel bad for MacReady and the boys when they’re attacked by The Thing without ever telling them they were “asking for it” by playing with a stray animal, but at the same time we’re still seeing news reporters and politicians try and discredit rape victims and assume it was the victim’s fault? Body horror is very closely related to rape culture because it puts a mask on the violence of rape by putting it in the context of an “other worldly invasion” and makes it permissible to revel in the other person’s destruction.

‘Life After Beth’ and the Trouble With Absent Presence

Though Plaza gives a committed physical performance, clearly having a ball in monster make-up, it’s really all she’s given to do. She isn’t even given much room to be funny in the supposed comedy. It’s as if Plaza has been cast in a feature length sketch-show, playing all manner of stereotypical “girlfriends from hell.” I imagine it on ‘Saturday Night Live’: first a short musical theme, “The Girlfriend from Hell,” then Plaza making a snarky comment to her boyfriend and vomiting pea soup all over him.

Meg Griffin vs. Tina Belcher: A Feminist’s Take on Beanies and Butts

The primary difference between Meg and Tina is that Tina comes from a loving and supportive environment, whereas Meg does not. Tina’s parents accept her unconditionally, despite her displaying much of the same repressed eroticism as Meg. She writes “erotic friend fiction,” eagerly shares fantasies of dating an entire zombie football team at once, and does little to hide her attraction to the family dentist. Hell, her defining characteristic is an obsession with butts, an obvious manifestation of tween lust that has inspired a spectacular increase in pro-butt artwork across the internet.

Add It To Your Netflix Queue: ‘The Returned’

‘The Returned’ is not explicitly about male violence against women, but this is an unmistakable through-line for those who are watching for it. Violence against women is, perhaps, more normalized in our culture than death itself; yet in truth it is as damnably unnatural as the dead returning.

‘Orange Is the New Black’: The Crime of Passion in Media

‘OITNB’ does not always blame the id. It also wonders whether larger societal forces are culpable too. Take, for instance, adorable Lorna (Yael Stone) a modern day zeitgeist for Bridezillas. As a compulsive shopper, she’s a victim of the consumer industrial complex that taught her happiness and fulfillment can be bought. When a cute man rejects her after one date, she realizes she can’t buy or scam her way into love so it triggers a fatal attraction in her. Pornstache’s adopted patriarchal mindset that women are merely pleasure objects leaves him jobless, in jail, and alone. Officer Healey’s misogyny leads him to procure a “traditional” wife via mail order, only to discover that true companionship can’t be bought or found through biased gender roles.

The Sounds of Change and Confusion in ‘The Graduate’

Mike Nichol’s ‘The Graduate’ has one of the most popular soundtracks of all-time. The songs reveal the dynamics of a character, theme, and a moment without the use of dialogue or a backstory, but simply through the lyrics of a Simon and Garfunkel song.