Search Results for: Mad Men

Lauryn Hill Performs Signature Nina Simone Numbers at New York Premiere of ‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’ at the Apollo

Earlier on the red carpet, I mentioned to Garbus that Nina Simone is having a moment. Gina Prince-Bythewood has her protagonist sing “Blackbird” in ‘Beyond the Lights’ and Simone’s music seems to be getting a new audience as well. Garbus said, “It’s very interesting. You know I can’t explain that. I was in Starbucks this morning for half an hour and what was playing was Nina Simone. I guess we just needed her.”

Call For Writers: Masculinity

Masculinity is a pervasive concept in our culture, setting the tone for our entertainment, our politics, and our interpersonal lives. This is because masculinity itself traditionally belongs to men who are, to quote blogger Twisty Faster of ‘I Blame the Patriarchy’, “the default human.”

Vintage Viewing: Germaine Dulac, Surrealist Theorist

While America was building its clout as the commercial center of the global film industry, it was France that became the center of film theory, driving experimentation. A key figure in that development was Germaine Dulac.

Bad Mothers: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Bad Mothers Theme Week here.

Controlling Mothers in ‘Carrie,’ ‘Mommie Dearest,’ and ‘Now Voyager’

These three “bad moms” fashion themselves the Moirai, the Fates, the three women in control of everything on earth. … These films were just the start of audiences’ obsession with controlling mothers. We continue to see these tropes replayed in a multitude of ways.

The Strange Love of ‘Mildred Pierce’

Elements of ‘Mildred Pierce’ play on the maternal sacrifice narratives that made films like ‘Stella Dallas’ (1937) and ‘The Sin of Madelon Claudet’ (1931) so powerful, and updates them for a more cynical era, positing that her sacrifice has not saved her children but ruined them…

Emily Gilmore and the Humanization of Bad Mothers

They’re complicated women who have both scarred each other over the years, and there’s no getting past that easily. But they both try. And in trying, we get a better picture of who they are as human beings. Like I said in the beginning, there’s something so valuable in seeing a character like Emily who is, unequivocally, a bad mother also be a good person. Because she is a good person. Sometimes. Mostly.

Spy Mom: Motherhood vs. Career in the ‘Alias’ Universe

This conflict drives Sydney’s arc and establishes a recurring question at the heart of ‘Alias’: can you be both a mother and a spy? … Sydney’s own mother Irina figures powerfully into this conflict. … Yet Irina’s arc throughout ‘Alias’ is the tension between her desire for a relationship with her daughter and her independence as a spy.

Bad Mothers Are the Law of Shondaland

It’s fascinating that all four of Shonda Rhimes’ protagonists have strained relationships with their mothers… Shondaland’s shows work to combat the stereotype that if you don’t have a functional family unit, replete with a doting, competent mother, you’re alone in the world.

‘Ever After’: A Wicked Stepmother with Some Fairy Godmother Tendencies

As an orphan of common origins, Drew Barrymore’s spunky protagonist, Danielle de Barbarac, is forced into a life of servitude to her father’s widow, the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, and the Baroness’s two natural daughters, Jacqueline and Marguerite. As Baroness Rodmilla, Anjelica Houston is equal parts breathtaking as she is fearsome, as cruel as she is oddly sympathetic.