Culture

Overstating Ohio: How “Law & Order: SVU” Increased Stigma about Abortion Bans

Evangeline’s story is more common than SVU would have us believe. Read more »

99 Percent Savior: In Contemporary Horror, It’s the Final Girl versus the Rich

The Final Girl is no longer a babysitter or camp counselor, but a working-class outsider to wealth and decadence who is treated as an exploitable object to be lured in with money. Read more »

Morbid Awakenings: Caitlin Doughty Is Helping Kids—and Adults—Ask Questions about Death

In the United States, death is hard to talk about; it’s arguably even harder to ask other people questions about. Read more »

(Not So) Real Monsters: Why Do We Still Care about Ted Bundy?

What is there to learn from a serial killer who, like almost all notorious serial killers, is white, male, and wholly mediocre? Read more »

Good As Hex: Lindy West’s “The Witches Are Coming” Brews up Anger and Optimism

Though Lindy West’s sarcasm is as extravagant as ever, it can’t be mistaken for cynicism. Read more »

The Case for a Black Princess Carolyn

For Princess Carolyn, the case for her identity as a Black woman offers a more nuanced lens through which to view her character. Read more »

Finite Love: What Lesbian Period Dramas Lose When We Project Our Fears on Them

Films and television series featuring queer characters are still relatively scarce. Read more »

(Mis)measuring Intelligence: Environmental Racism Is Assaulting the Minds of People of Color

Harriet A. Washington argues that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed or inherited, and that it’s possible to solve the problem of poisons and pathogens attacking the nervous systems of people of color. Read more »

30 Years Later, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” Is Still Inspiring Young Feminists

Kiki’s Delivery Service offers a safe space that makes you feel connected to others, but most importantly a community of powerful women. Read more »

Miley Cyrus Might Be Pansexual, but That Doesn’t Mean She Cares about Queer People

It’s clear that Miley Cyrus’s intention of protecting the LGBTQ community only goes as far as it protects her personally.  Read more »

Pages

No Disrespect: Black Women and the Burden of Respectability

Hollywood still filters (and distorts) the lives and histories of minorities through the eyes of the majority. Read more »

Will Filming the Police Keep Us Safe?

There’s a cultural idea that having someone looking over our shoulder makes us behave better. From fake security cameras to Elf... Read more »

"Moonlight" is an Essential Work of Art for the Current Political Moment

Moonlight displays the kind of empathy and humanity that we desperately need right now. Read more »

Sojourner Truth, Unveiled

The leaders of the [women's suffrage] movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white turban,...

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