Culture

Bitch Popaganda: Ch-Ch-Changes Edition

Welcome back to another episode of Bitch Popaganda! Tune in as Kjerstin, Kelsey, and Kristin discuss ’90s nostalgia and Project Runway; then get whisked away to the movies to hear Andi, Jacob, and Kelsey’s review of The Change-Up. Plus, Bitch faves! Links after... Read more »

We're All Mad Here: <em>Inception</em> & Dom Cobb's Crazy Lying Dead Wife

This post includes spoilers for Inception. It also discusses domestic violence. There are multiple interpretations of Inception, but for the basis of this discussion I’m going to take the movie at face value. The central story is about Dominic Cobb needing to come to terms... Read more »

Douchebag Decree: New York Post

The New York Post likens the US stock market to “a hooker’s drawers” with a “hooker” on its cover. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is back in town. Read more »

We're All Mad Here: Of Course We Should Dislike This Character! She's Crazy!

One consequence of this kind of character presentation is that audience members can experience a sense of “she deserved it” when something bad happens. Take, for example, the domestic violence depicted in the Schuester kitchen, where Will grabs Terri, shoves her aggressively against a counter, and... Read more »

Adventures in Feministory: Ann Richards

Ann Richards, born Dorothy Ann Willis, was Texas’s second female Governor and one in a long line of Texan women badasses. Read more »

We're All Mad Here: Case Studies of "Crazy Bitches" in Cinema

This post includes spoilers for the movies Single White Female, The Craft, and Perfect Blue. These three movies have several things in common: The main point-of-view character in each one is what I’ve called “fake-out crazy.” Each one exhibits some sort of behavior... Read more »

Murder, She Blogged: The Thin Man

The Thin Man gave us one of the wittiest crime-solving wife-husband duos of all time, retired detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora (Myrna Loy*), who spit one-liners, soak up a tremendous amount of alcohol and stumble around solving crime. Read more »

Sexual Inadequacy: Body Shame and Sexy Fat

I started rounding up my weight, started posting pictures of myself displaying my less photogenic qualities—if I was going to get rejected, it was going to be right at the start. Every time I’d meet a man in real life that I found attractive I would reject him immediately. “Nice try, sexy... Read more »

BitchTapes: Gone Too Soon

It's no secret that musicians often die far too quickly. In this Only the Good Die Young, Part II mix, I recognize some of the artists we've lost in the past twenty years... Read more »

We're All Mad Here: Race, Gender, and Mental Illness in Pop Culture

Cast your mind back over the depictions of mental illness you’ve encountered most recently; there’s a chance many of them were women, from madwomen in the attic to crazy exes, and there’s a chance that at least some of them were people of color.... Read more »

Pages

All Hail the Queen?: What Do Our Perceptions of Beyoncé's Feminism Say about us?

The policing of feminist cred is the real moral contradiction. Read more »

Mad Science: Deconstructing Bunk Reporting in 5 Easy Steps

British scientists have uncovered the truth behind one of modern culture's greatest mysteries: why little girls play with pink toys. Is it...

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In a Bizarre 1976 Comic Book, Spider-Man Fought the Villain of Misleading Sex Education

Last week, I came across a very strange comic book: in 1976, Planned Parenthood teamed up with Marvel to publish a one-off comic in which... Read more »

It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women

The marginalization of transgender women in feminism is not new, but the decades-long debate has taken on new dimension thanks to social media and the ease of finding strangers’ personal information online. Read more »