The Devil makes White girls do backbends: 150 words on horror films

The more a woman’s body is contorted into a spine-breaking backbend, the more “scary” that horror movie is. Why is it that The Devil only inhabits young, White girls? Because women are devalued in horror films as victims, while men are reserved as the heroes. The erotic element of seeing a woman’s body physically turned […]

The call for an uprising of unbedded women: 150 words on Everybody Loves Raymond

When Raymond can’t remember if his wife’s hair was long when they first met, Debra angrily sends him to sleep on the couch as punishment. When will television writers create wives that choose to leave their husbands in bed, rather than relying upon husband acquiescence? Feminists emphasize women’s agency: exercising power over women’s safety, emotional […]

Sexist, funny, both, or neither?: 150 words on the series finale of 30 Rock

Sexist, funny, both, or neither? After seven seasons, the series finale of 30 Rock re-affirms masculinist logics and gendered expectations about employment by characterizing the desire to work as “male.” 30 Rock’s comedy is a contemporary, cultural artifact of the racial, historical, political, economic, and social ideologies of the United States of America. Its comedic […]