Section
TV
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The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Hijabs On the Small Screen Only, Please!
Why is hijabi representation divided between small-screen success and big-screen blunders?
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The Costs of Having It All: On Netflix’s “Dubai Bling”
“Dubai Bling” reveals contemporary shifts in public discourse on feminism and the patriarchal family unit.
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Pre-Recession Bliss, or Ignorance: “Laguna Beach” @ 20
There’s a connection between Laguna Beach’s lush close-ups of LC’s face and its recurrent, luxuriating shots of Orange County mansions.
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Addiction’s Bestiary: “BoJack Horseman” @10
BoJack’s alcohol and drug use are played for laughs as typical vices of a Hollywood has-been… at first.
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Payback: Korean Revenge Dramas Will Do It for You
South Korean media excels at the revenge plot. Here are seven shows you can stream right now to get your fix.
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Name Drop, No Exit
“The Other Two” and a spate of recent comedies claim to mock celebrities while juicing their star power for references and cameos.
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Reboot, Squared
TV can’t reboot its way out of its past errors, any more than an individual can fix their past trauma by reliving it, over and over again.
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And Just Like That… the Viewer Cringes
The show’s white, middle-age, upper-class liberals clumsily realizing their privilege are an accurate mirror of some of its viewers.
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Refreshing the Fresh Prince
The turn toward an aesthetic of Black excellence on TV reveals a mode of self-fashioning that celebrates neoliberal markers of merit and prestige.
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Fixing Nostalgia: “Star Trek” Boldly Goes to Less Utopian Futures
“Picard” is perhaps the least utopian of any “Star Trek” media. But’s that because its political pragmatism shows how to build a better reality.
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The Reboot Will Be Televised
“Star Trek: Picard,” “And Just Like That…,” “Bel-Air,” “Reboot”: even within our age of the reboot, old stories offer new insights.
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“Succession” & Prestige TV’s Fascism Problem
Prestige TV, which has a presumptively liberal audience, churns out a steady diet of illiberal fare. Shows like “Succession” force the viewer to ask why.
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In the Age of Artpocalypse: Beauty and Damage on TV
Whether destroying the Mona Lisa or whole museums, why does contemporary film and TV want us to watch the art world burn?
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Derry Girls and the Absurdity of Adulthood
A work of absurdist art that entertains, but also carries a surprisingly grown-up message about taking responsibility for the state of our politics.
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Long Cons: The Tragicomedy of Prestige TV
Shows like “The White Lotus” distract us with progressive politics, while stealing our eyeballs for the very people the shows lambaste.
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“Better Call Saul”: No Rise, Just Fall
The show explores the phenomenon Lauren Berlant called “cruel optimism,” where “objects you desire are obstacles to your flourishing.”
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Out of the Closet—and into the Coffin
Interview with the Vampire uses vampirism to reveal fantasies & fears of the social contagiousness of interracial & homosexual desires.
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How To Scuttle A Public Broadcaster
On the 100th anniversary of the founding of the BBC, national public broadcasters across the world are still subject to constant spurious attacks.
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Passion. Mess. Genius. Mother.
Pamela Adlon reveals the mundane project of motherhood to be vast, fluid, and fascinating in its own right.
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Femme Fatale Talks Back: Meenu Gaur on Feminist Filmmaking
“We have to take over spaces because we are not going to be invited in.”
