Culture
Hulu’s Shrill Is a Revolution for Fat Characters on TV—But It Needs More Breathing Room
It is difficult to overstate how revolutionary these moments are for a television ecosystem that has long relegated fat women to predetermined categories: gross, hypersexual (or, alternatively, asexual), subordinate, unintelligent, and of course, shrill.
ZOU: Writing the Political Millennial in Sally Rooney’s Novels
Nothing feels more millennial than the bravado of vulnerability.
On Toni Morrison
“Toni Morrison, without a doubt, served as the greatest Anglophone writer of the twentieth century…[she] wrote as a Black woman, about Black women, for Black women.”
Review: Stranger Things, Season 3
“Like most of us, the creators of Stranger Things seem unable or unwilling to imagine a storyline in which men can realize themselves as emotional beings without attaching that realization to the trauma of women. To be sure, the show’s female characters are resilient—but should they have to be?”
Gotta Get Up, Gotta Get Out: Russian Doll Review
“Underneath its raunchy humor, Russian Doll makes the case for how important it is to help each other get through the most difficult parts of life.”
ZOU: Review: “You Need To Calm Down”
“Swift’s new politicization retains, at its center, a fixation with her own celebrity.”
Review: Always Be My Maybe: Asian American Romantic Comedy in the Post-Crazy Rich Asians Era
2019 feels worlds away from 2013, and the more recent explosion of Asian American representation in popular culture seems to signal a hopeful shift.