Litsy

Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business | Roxane Gay

Previously published short essays on politics, pop culture, interviews with celebrities, and a snippet from Gay's advice column. I enjoyed the pop culture pieces the most, because Gay geeks out in a way that makes you see the appeal of the stupidest things. (Except the Bachelor. Nothing can make me see the appeal of The Bachelor.) The political sections were hard to read--because now they rhyme. The rest was pretty meh. A soft pick.

#AAM

Soubhiville

24 likes

Amandakay

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate | Anna Bogutskaya

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

10 likes

willaful

Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business | Roxane Gay

The United states has become ungovernable not because of political differences or protest or a lack of civility but because this is a country unwilling to protect and care for its citizens--its women, its racial minorities and especially its children.

When politicians talk about civility and public discourse what they're really saying is that they would prefer for people to remain silent in the face of injustice.

willaful @Soubhiville #AAM 1w

TheBookHippie This exactly. 1w

Soubhiville Yes 1w

Faranae The discourse of “civility“ has always been used to suppress and oppress the vulnerable and the powerless. I just wish we didn't have to teach this lesson the hard way over and over and over... 1w

willaful @Faranae I'm beginning to think it an intrinsic trait of humanity that we *never learn*. 1w

27 likes5 comments

gossamerchild

Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business | Roxane Gay

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I highly enjoy Roxane Gay's non-fiction. Her writing style is very approachable and clear, and I never feel condescended to. I just love her.

#aam

@Soubhiville

Soubhiville I haven‘t read this one yet, but I look forward to it. 2w

gossamerchild @Soubhiville I very much enjoyed it! 2w

31 likes2 comments

shanaqui

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate | Anna Bogutskaya

pan

I didn't DNF this, but I did start skimming. It was just so obvious. And I know it ultimately wasn't going to go *much* into the perfectly likeable female characters who get vilified by pop culture and fandom, but it didn't even touch on it. Disappointing in the end, and definitely makes me wonder if her book on horror was just as obvious to someone who actually likes horror films.

Still somehow avoiding a #BookSpinBingo by following my whim. 😂

16 likes

Elysia.Official

100 Cities of the World | Falko Brenner

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Very informative book if you love geography and travel

4 likes

shanaqui

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate | Anna Bogutskaya

I really like Bogutskaya's more recent book on horror, but I'm kinda reevaluating in that in light of how *obvious* this is. I grew up in fandom with Relena Peacecraft and Rinoa Heartily being vilified for being “unlikeable“, and turned into caricatures that made absolutely no sense -- angry “bitches“, “sluts“, etc. Nothing here is particularly insightful.

Contemplating DNFing, or at least skimming. Disappointing.

Faranae Relena was definitely written to be extremely admirable, but the Western fandom really hated her for the most part. And that's something interesting to examine. I've seen a lot of “stanning women doing bad things“ from white feminists that rather concerns me, because it feels like they are missing that it's not about everyone getting to be equally awful... 2w

shanaqui @Faranae I feel like this is very much in that vein, where I'd hoped for it to discuss more why female characters are considered unlikeable for basically no reason. I'd expected it to deal with Rey from Star Wars, for instance, but not so far... instead it discusses various archetypes of “unlikeable“ characters (“the bitch“, “the slut“, “the angry woman“, “the weirdo“, “the trainwreck“). 2w

shanaqui @Faranae And she has a point in that male characters can be angry or sexual or messed up without the same dislike accruing, but I think really examining “Unlikeable Female Characters“ requires a bit more attention to the characters who we hate for no good reason, too. 2w

Faranae @shanaqui Going for only the traditional “evil woman“ archetypes seems fairly shallow. We have read this listicle before! Male characters often get to be multifaceted yes, but you can also write a male villain that's 1-dimensional like the female archetypes. I think one would *have* to examine why people hate characters for no good reason to get at the meat of “unlikeable women“ and how to write multi-faceted women who get to also be likeable. 2w

Faranae @shanaqui I was fascinated by the different reactions I and my chat had to Jane Austen's Lady Susan versus someone else. We loved it, and read Susan as a lady rake whose real love is Alicia. She's a terrible mother! But we were rooting for her to get her cake and eat it, too. The other streamer and chat hated her for being a slut (their words), a bad mother, and selfish. They didn't see any affection between her and Alicia at all, either. 2w

11 likes5 comments

Smarkies

The Kris Mystic Weapon of The Malay World | Edward Frey

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Picked up this slim volume from the library. Interesting little read about this cultural item from the south east Asian region.

24 likes

Schwifty

The Twittering Machine | Richard Seymour

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This is a must read for anyone interested in or horrified by the ways in which social media has disrupted how we write, communicate with each other and conceive of ourselves, politics and society. Moreover, this essay in book format reads as part philosophy, psychology and history to deliver a thorough analysis of the present danger posed by the “social industry” especially in relation to conspiracy theories and political campaigns. Great read!

4 likes