Man Repeller
Disney Villains: The Most Underrated Style Icons
It’s easy to find fault with a “difficult” woman, and there’s none more difficult that Ms. de Vil. But peel back the layers and layers (and layers!) of fur, and you’ll find a ruthless pragmatist who is simply living out the adage that some fashion is literally “to die for.” Cruella has existed in many incarnations over the years, but in the original novel she is a proto-feminist scammer queen, marrying a furrier solely for his access to this luxury and insisting he take her name in order to continue her family line.
If Hollywood Insists on Deeming Women Good or Bad, I’d Rather Be Bad
Stories are built on tropes, and tropes about women are built on binaries. Whether it’s the Madonna or the Whore, the Maiden or the Crone, or the Ingénue or the Vamp, as women we are often forced to pick an all-encompassing identity from a short-list of pre-prescribed options that rarely represent the fullness and complexity of who we are as people, and that’s never more apparent than it is on television.
As a Young Black Girl, I Needed Cinderella to Look Like Me
Looking back, it seems a miracle the film exists at all. Even if onscreen representation for black women has improved, it hasn’t done so without years of casting us as fat, loud, angry, bossy characters first -- a stereotype that persists today. As Hollywood continues to tell black women that our very existence is too much, Brandy is a beacon from the past, reminding us that there is more than one way to exist and be validated. She’s long-standing proof that representation matters.
The Mindy Project Leaves Behind Far More Than a Happy Ending
A giant congratulations is due to Mindy Lahiri, the fictional doctor in way-too-colorful scrubs who wants nothing more than a sweeping score (and, fine, a huge rock) to mark her happy ending; over the past five years she has helped to usher in stories about one of television’s most neglected audiences. She showed people that Meg Ryan isn’t the only one who gets to have meet-cutes, and that the funny brown girl who loves donuts is worthy of all kinds of romance. She introduced the American public to a new kind of girl next door. Finally.