Category Archives: Movies + TV

A Sapphic Mixtape of What You Should Be Watching/Reading/Obsessing Over Right Now Instead of Stalking Your Ex on Instagram

1. Ibeyi

Yes, they’re only 20, yes they’re twins, and yes their music is dreamlike. Born in Paris, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz are daughters of the famed Cuban percussionist Anga Díaz who died when the girls were 11, but not before teaching them how to play the cajón and batá. I’m obsessed with their mix of Afro-Cuban beats with electronic textures, and with their English overlapping with Yoruba. Here is an NPR piece where Anastacia Tsioulcas calls their entrancing music “a world of intoxicating beauty, in songs that are smart, sweet and emotionally cracked wide open.” Do stop Instagramming and be lost in their brilliance. Also, here is a list of their upcoming shows. Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episodes 7, 8 AND 9: The Playboy Triptych

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Hi! My name is Lizzy Acker and I am not Marisa Crawford. However, I am a feminist who watches The Bachelor. In fact, I started on this journey because of Marisa, years ago in a romantic land called San Francisco, where we used to watch the show together and drink drinks. Please note that I am absolutely here for the Right Reasons—those reasons being: I am going to tell you what happened on this season’s most commitment-heavy week while Marisa was out of town. I’m going to try to make sense of the madness and magic for you, as Marisa might, were she able.

This week was a two-day, four-hour extravaganza that began with a lot of dimly lit, confessional interviews with Chris Harrison. Especially on Sunday, there was a lot of time to fill, okay? And a lot of summarizing the season for anyone who, you know, decided to just start watching now, halfway through the season (who are you and why why why?).

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Throwing (Fifty) Shades

With the movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey out in theaters now, and the conversation around both the film and the books reaching a fever pitch, I want to weigh in on it as a cultural text. And in case you’re wondering—although I have not yet seen the film (my hope is to see a Mystery Science Theater-style screening with a hundred of my closest kinky friends), yes, I have read the books. Or, at least, I took one or two of the books down from a public library shelf while my children played nearby, and I speed-read through it in horror, taking pictures of particularly appalling passages with my phone, because, after years of making assumptions about this piece of self-published fan fiction turned cultural “mommy porn” phenomenon, it turned out to be even worse than I’d imagined.

How is it worse? What are my issues with it? Well, for starters, I feel that the prose is so bad, you guys. SO. BAD. It is trite and clumsy and repetitive and dull. It’s not even worth it for me to bother quoting it here: you can find plenty of excerpted examples online, or you can do what I did, and pull a copy off your local library shelf and flip to any page at random. But trust me: I’ve been teaching and editing creative writing for many years: I know what I’m talking about here. E.L. James writes shoddy, sorry-ass prose. Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 6: Do We Even Like Chris?

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Illustration by Matt L Rohrer

OMGGGggggg there is so much to say about this week’s episode that I don’t even know where to begin! I guess I’ll start at the beginning, which was really the end of last week’s episode (which is annoying, The Bachelor, end each episode with a fucking rose ceremony, we already have enough confusion and mayhem in our lives). Kelsey is on the floor and having or staging a panic attack. They’re basically playing her sobs in a loop because they think we won’t notice, and the paramedic tries to distract Kelsey by asking her about some brownies (what brownies?!), which works like a charm. Kelsey laughs “I better get a rose tonight,” and asks to see Chris, then returns to the group of other womyn, who are all pissed. Kelsey laughs off her panic attack and says things like, “these puppies don’t come out every night” about her choice to wear a dress that shows off her cleavage. That’s what we all call our breasts right, “these puppies”?

At the rose ceremony, Farmer Chris speaks more words than we’ve ever heard him utter in all five preceding episodes combined, Exhibit A that we May Not Actually Like Him. And then Kelsey’s like, wait, why am I, a 28-year-old guidance counselor, fighting over this dumb-as-box-of-hammers farmer guy who has marbles in his mouth all the time? JUST KIDDING, you guys, that would of course never happen. You know that moment when you’re dating someone and obsessively asking yourself “does ze like me???”, and then your feminist BFF has to remind you to ask whether or not you’re even into said love object in the first place?? As women, we are socialized to please. And sometimes we forget to think about our actual desires in light of other people’s. If this were the real world, these ladieeeeesssss likely would have moved on from Farmer Chris by now. But this is the Bachelor universe, and there are no feminist best friends, and no alternative suitors. There’s just Farmer Chris, with his mouth slightly agape as he hands out roses to Jade, Kaitlyn, Megan, Becca, Hot V Ashley, and Kelsey, and they all gleefully accept. He sends home Samantha (who is this person?) and 21-year-old Mackenzie (Thank God. Although I was enjoying seeing her and No Longer Hot Virgin Ashley’s friendship forming over a bond of incredible immaturity.) Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 5: Shit-Talking & Storytelling

This week’s Bach brought Farmer Chris and his clan of ever-more-uniformly blonde ladiesssssttttthhh to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chris talks up this wonderful city while wearing a chic leather jacket, and one nondescript blonde thinks she is going to actual Mexico, ’cause, you know, girls are dumb.

Welcome to Mexico

The first date is a one-on-one with Cruise Ship Singer Carly, and the date card reads, “Let’s come together.” I know what you’re thinking—simultaneous orgasms with Farmer Chris = every womyn’s dream date! But Carly puts the accent on “let’s” and pretends all ladylike like she doesn’t know what orgasms are… but not for long. Cue “spiritual music” and Farmer Chris and Carly walking into a room where a woman who identifies as a “love and intimacy mentor,” or “love guru” as Farmer Chris prefers to call her, waits for them on a pile of sensual Southwestern blankets. She burns sage and leads the pair in a chant, and it’s all really vaguely racist and cultural appropriation-nation and gross. She encourages them to like, hold their gross open mouths near one another without kissing, and then they sort of start dry-humping, ewwies all around. And also a totally insane first date, since the “love guru”’s goal is clearly to help couples reconnect. Oh yeah and love guru tells Farmer Chris and Carly to take each other’s clothes off (because clothing is different masks we hide behind you guys) but they’re too nervous and can’t do it (thanks a lot, Eve!). At dinner, Carly tells Chris that her last boyfriend didn’t want to touch her and it made her feel like she isn’t beautiful while I ran downstairs to get my sushi delivery. When I got back, Carly was still crying. (I hear her, because I had the same ex-boyfriend, basically.) Chris says he’s scared his farmer lifestyle isn’t good enough to make someone happy, and Carly assures him he’s wrong. Carly is confident and nice and normal when she’s around Farmer Chris. Which makes me almost like her, except that I have to remember her talking shit about/gender-policing Jillian last week. And then I’m like, oh right I live in the real world and Carly is horrible. Continue reading

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In the Shadow of the Father: The Power of the Patriarch in Ginger & Rosa

Based on her previous contribution to feminist cinema, it comes as no surprise that Sally Potter’s latest film delivers a female coming-of-age tale that is deeply personal and deeply political. Ginger & Rosa, which was released in 2012, failed to achieve the kind of attention a film of its caliber deserves. A striking indictment of masculinity, male entitlement, and a treatise on the varying motivations behind political action, Ginger & Rosa tells much more than the story of its two teen protagonists’ ascension to adulthood. The two father figures in the film, one present, one not, frame the story, embodying the Western notion of the “patriarch.” Potter invites us to examine the power of the father figure, the complex relationship women have with the men in their lives, that the power of the father figure is not always evil, but it is always present.

Set in 1962, in the flurry following the bombing of Hiroshima, the film features Ginger (Elle Fanning), a young woman who’s swept up in the Ban the Bomb movement, dragging her best friend Rosa (Alice Englert) along with her. The two, who were born on the same day in the same hospital, embark on what begins as a sweet and intimate friendship. They share baths, cigarettes, dating tips, and straightening irons. The gulf between them is slowly revealed as Ginger becomes more enmeshed in protest movements and Rosa shows herself to be more preoccupied with boys. Continue reading

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But She Really Was: Gone Girl and the False Accusation

When I was reading Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl—sometime in early October, right before the movie came out—there was this one plot twist I was scared of reading, and as I got further and further into the book I got more and more scared. It’s kind of the main plot twist, and I’d read spoilers, but that was before I had any interest in reading Gone Girl, so my understanding of how it was going to work was hazy. “This is fun so far, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle it when that happens,” I worried early on. “Oh my God,” I thought to myself, about a third of the way through, “that’s who NPH plays, oh no.” Then I got to a point where I was like, “Wait, maybe this will be okay. Maybe I can bring myself to read it if this is what happens.” And then I was like, “Oh, wow, that’s how it’s going to happen.I was glad it was going to happen. I was like, “Hooray for Amy Dunne! What a brilliant and accomplished young woman.”

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I hope I grow up to be this alert and well-coiffed!

I describe this process not to demonstrate how I developed Stockholm syndrome from drinking in too much of the brilliant prose of Gone Girl, like how you read Lolita and you’re like, “Ooh, I hope Humbert Humbert gets to make out with Lolita,” at least you are until he says something like, “You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.” I’m describing how my feelings about this plot twist shifted because that was how I realized that everyone had lied about it.

Well, they misrepresented it.

HERE IS WHERE I AM GOING TO SPOIL GONE GIRL: Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 4: The Princess & the Patriarchy

This week, NYC’s Snowmaggedon allowed for totally unfettered, cozy watching of The Bachelor live on Monday night, and OMG, this week’s episode was a feminist Bachelor recapper’s dream/nightmare.

You know what’s the best? Putting up a tent while wearing only a bikini.

Let’s start with the group date. The date card said “let’s do what feels natural,” which spurred highly philosophical conversation addressing what “nature” is anyway. “What does he mean by natural?” one womyn asked. “Natural beauty?” pondered another. And Mackenzie, in fully mascaraed and eyelinered hypocrisy, said right to the camera, “most of these girls aren’t very natural in the way they look.” Thank goddess though, no one was forced to not wear makeup, and instead they just were brought to a lake, where they spent the night camping. Funny Canadian Kaitlyn took off her bikini bottom and jumped in the water, and Hot Virgin Ashley took off her top. Beautiful Widow Kelsey was not having it—she called the whole experience “a date for bimbos,” and continually dissed the whole camping experience, brattily calling the lake a “hellhole” and claiming that it doesn’t compare to her native state’s Lake Michigan. Then she gets stung by a bee, and the camera panned down to her incredibly wide thigh gap. Continue reading

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The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 3: Jimmy Kimmel & Jealous-Kissing

“One of my wives is punk as fuck.”

This week’s Bach featured the very special guest host Jimmy Kimmel, a delightful reprieve from Chris Harrison. The episode began with him sneaking into Chris’s bedroom and waking him up, and Chris pretending to be totally surprised. Then they greeted the ladiesssszzz, and Kimmel made some funny jokes that commented on the ridiculousness of the whole Bachelor scenario: “I’m going to help Chris make his decision by making love to each of you.” LOLZ. And some jokes that took it a little too far like “If anyone would like to join me in the bedroom…” Ew, Jimmy Kimmel. Continue reading

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Why I Won’t Be Watching the Oscars This Year

Dude Oscars

Let me start by saying that I love the Oscars. I love them more than the Olympics. More than watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Only slightly more than the Golden Globes. I’ve hosted countless Oscar viewing parties. Participated in, and won, multiple betting pools. Spent hours watching red carpet coverage and cried at every “In Memoriam” tribute. It is the one live television event that I truly care about. The only thing that kept me from watching last year’s live broadcast was the fact that I spent the night in the hospital with my husband because he had fractured his jaw. And when we returned to our apartment the next evening—even though I already knew who had won and which of Ellen DeGeneres’s jokes had flopped—I still watched the whole damn thing on Hulu.

Ever since I was a little girl, Oscar night held a glamour and excitement that I can only compare to Christmas Eve. In my family, we didn’t watch the Superbowl; we went out to our favorite pizza place because it would be empty and my parents hate waiting to be seated. But staying up late to watch the Oscars was tradition. Billy Crystal was like a God to us and we still talk about his big opening numbers. Like that time Billy arrived on horseback! The time when he was wheeled onstage Hannibal Lector-style! Even today I could watch his various “It’s a wonderful night for Oscar! Oscar, Oscar! Who will win?” medleys on YouTube for hours. My mother and I played a game during every thematic movie montage to see who could name as many of the films as possible. I even loved the ridiculous choreographed dance numbers. After the last award was given, I would return to my bedroom and practice my own heartfelt acceptance speech while standing on my bed in my nightgown. Continue reading

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