What does it mean to know? “Epistemology” describes a way of knowing, and, as you might expect, many different epistemologies exist. One episteme that has come to define the Western world is heteropatriarchy, a power-knowledge system organized around white, masculine supremacy. In the seventeenth century, French philosopher René Descartes theorized that the mind is separate from the body. As...
In August of this year, Epic Games collaborated with TIME Studios to host a special, virtual event dedicated to the 58th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Fortnite’s March Through Time, an interactive experience inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s 17-minute “I Have a Dream” speech, is accessible through the free-to-play game’s creative mode. Creative mode...
[Trigger Warning: brief discussions of sexual assault.] It’s been nearly ten years since Bryan Fuller’s TV show Hannibal (2013-2015) debuted. Since then, it has garnered a cult viewership and a devoted online fanbase, often referred to as “fannibals.” However, to their (and my) chagrin, the show was preemptively cancelled after Season 3. As a late-comer to Hannibal (in that I’ve only just started...
Okay. It’s pretty much impossible to write anything about representations of the Holocaust (from here on our referred to as the Shoah) without talking about Adorno, so I’m going to get that out of the way immediately. German theorist and philosopher Theodor W. Adorno once wrote, “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”[1] It’s amazing that this guy can just say something like that and...
I first decided to watch Jordan Peele’s Us on a relatively bright morning … on my phone … while I was on an airplane. This is far from the best context to get a good impression of anything, much less a densely loaded horror film like Us. The fact that these opening moments stuck with me despite all of this makes it worth examining for this series on interesting introductions. Here’s a link to the...
This week, we return to the archive for a post by Molly Cavanaugh, where she discusses the non-traditional erotics of the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. In the same vein as Mark’s posts, which have considered representations of gay relationships in film and television, Molly’s post contemplates the homoerotic tension created between predator and investigator within the...
Unlike My Beautiful Launderette, whose narrative refused our identification with Omar and Johnny’s romantic life, the 2013 Australian TV show Please Like Me is structured almost solely around relationships. Queer love and intimacy are a complete spectacle, where most of the narrative (and much of the comedy) comes from Josh’s (Josh Thomas) sometimes awkward —and other times heartedly tepid —...
What does queer media beyond mere representation look like? This week, Mark Muster begins to answer the question that he posed in last week’s post. In a 1986 New York Times interview regarding My Beautiful Launderette (1985), director Stephen Frears notes, “It’s a completely ironic film, isn’t it? We wanted people to have a wonderful time, but to make the film provocative, turning...
Recently, there has been an uptick in the amount of “gay-centric” media created by the mainstream film and television industry. Movies like Call Me by Your Name (2017), Moonlight (2016), Carol (2015), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), etc. mark a notable shift in LGBT narratives to being not only more mainstream—more desired—but actively produced for recognition among the Hollywood award circuit. In the...
In 1170, Henry II, King of England, is alleged to have complained to a group of knights within his household, “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest.” Speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, this statement was alleged to have been interpreted as an order, and a group of knights travelled to Canterbury in the ensuing days, during which Beckett was killed. While the specific...