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Feminist Film Review: Mud (2012)
WILL THIS FILM ANNOY A FEMINIST? I really don’t know what to make of this film. I can’t even guess at the politics of its creators. This is one of those stories which will be interpreted quite...
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Another Week In Which I Am Proud To Be Living In Australia
Not only did Australians manage to elect a prime minister who doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change, but now we seem to be running a concentration camp for refugees. On top of that, this...
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Feminist Film Review: Liberal Arts (2012)
WILL THIS FILM ANNOY A FEMINIST? If this film annoys, it’s probably because the audience needs a certain tolerance for liberal arts majors falling in love over books. I started off thinking I’d be...
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A Case For Reading Series While Young
It may be that narrow input is much more efficient for second language acquisition. It may be much better if second language acquirers specialize early rather than late. This means reading several...
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Disney’s Secret Of The Wings, for when you’re sick to death of Frozen
If you’re like me and you live with a young uber-fan of Frozen you will have noticed the huge success of that film and all the merchandising around it. You may in fact kick the cat if you overhear L*t...
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On Gratitude
When the kid started asking for the next swag of presents on Boxing Day last year — after getting pretty much everything she had asked for in her Santa Sack* — I was reminded of this article: It’s...
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Review: Death Of The Huntsman
Oblique angle photo doesn’t do it justice. When I opened the curtains this morning to let some light in I screamed a little bit. Six-year-old came running and screamed also. She soon changed her tune...
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On Cowgirls
Now that my daughter is in Year One, proper homework has started. The kind where a parent has to be involved, because they don’t quite know how to do it themselves. Yesterday it took half an hour to...
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No, you are not entitled to your opinion
Huffington Post publishes some crap, sure, but recently published a list of Books Women Think Men Should Read and I happen to have read a lot of them and it’s a pretty good list. It includes Delusions...
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Are TV Crime Series Becoming Less Sexist?
I wouldn’t call myself a fan of crime fiction. I have a grim fascination for true crime, so long as it’s done well, and if you curate your true crime well, you can achieve a fascinating insight into...
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Some Links On Japan
Most news that comes out of Japan is of the ‘quirky’ kind, in which we’re encouraged to view Japan as some bizarre culture we couldn’t possibly understand. (Note that ‘quirky’ is a loaded,...
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The Male Gaze
One of the most important essays in contemporary film theory: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey (1975), which has some weird Freudian stuff in it but is still relevant for the...
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The Female Gaze
[Guest Post] Young Avengers #1: Sex and the Female Gaze from Bad Reputation The Bachelor, Shirtless Men, And The Dawn Of The Female Gaze from GMP “Hot Dudes Reading” Instagram Reverses The Male Gaze...
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On Little Red Riding Hood
I am currently a bit of an expert on Little Red Riding Hood — self-described — having just done a bunch of reading from the world’s experts, and making my way through Jack Zipes’ anthology of all the...
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The Inspector Gadget Remake Summarises How Children’s Media Has Changed
In which girl character and dog character have equal billing Interestingly, Esquire calls this ‘the digital era’, under the idea that the use of computers has an integral impact on narrative. The...
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Women and Sport
I have recently found myself in the most unlikely position: On the board of a local sports association. Anyone who knows my former real life glasses-wearing book-reading self would be surprised at the...
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Feminist Film Review: Interstellar (2014)
HOW DOES this film RATE FOR INCLUSIVENESS? As I was watching my thoughts were more about race. This story is set in the near future, when current children are about 60 years old. In that real world...
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References to New Zealand in Fiction
Now, I am not generally given over to excitement, but Neutral Milk Hotel sort of changed my life. They released this absolutely fantastic album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea in 1998 and haven’t...
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Helpful Unhelpful Tips For Women
A guy walks into a bar, slips a pill into a woman’s drink. But it’s okay you see, because he’s set up cameras. Surprise! This is a public service announcement. “I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” he...
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Diary of a Goth Girl (free iBook)
If you have an iPad and/or a Mac and an offbeat sense of humour you may be interested in downloading Diary of a Goth Girl, an illustrated short story for YA. I wrote it in 2009, it was published in...
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