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Fake Gender Equality In The Christmas Chronicles
The Christmas Chronicles is this year’s tentpole festive family movie from Netflix. Directed by Clay Kaytis, the script is written by another two men, David Guggenheim and Matt Lieberman. The nice thing about The Christmas Chronicles is that a few of the old gender tropes have been inverted. Instead of an adventurous younger brother juxtaposed […]
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How To Describe A Woman In Fiction
How to describe woman characters in fiction? There must be a handbook somewhere. The following tropes are so common they can be found throughout literature, including in stories for children. On the other hand, writers of children’s literature are also the most likely to invert established tropes.
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Monster House Film Study
Monster House is a 2006 animated feature length film for a middle grade audience. The script was written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. Harmon and Schrab had collaborated on Laser Fart previously, a film which I have not seen and will not be adding to my watch list. Monster House is already 12 years old, but the […]
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Boy Humour, Girl Humour
In children’s literature and film, the big-name comedy series are male heavy. Even when women write comedy and humour, they have the best chance of striking it big if they write about boys. Even better? The girls are arch nemeses (or sexualised enigmas) to the funny boys. Silly as it may sound, critics are still […]
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Silence Of The Lambs Film Study
Silence of the Lambs is an excellent thriller which also does active harm to the trans community.
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What does Gothic mean in literature?
The Gothic is notoriously difficult to define. This is a type of story in constant flux. Each new literary period adds is own spin. “Gothic” is more like a skin layered upon other genres, most often: horror, romance, science fiction and fantasy. Where does one genre end and the gothic element begin?
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Must Fictional Heroes Be Likeable?
Short answer: Main characters don’t have to be likeable. But they do need to be interesting.
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Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole Analysis
Princess Smartypants is an example of a children’s picture book which uses gender reversal to tell a story that would never really happen. What if women of high socio-economic status could choose their own marriage/non-marriage partners? The ending plays into the stereotypically MRA fear — if women were allowed autonomy they may choose not to include men at all. […]
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Girls Who Love Dogs In Children’s Literature
What if you have a canine loving girl and she would like to see herself reflected in literature? Well, girls and dogs have in previous eras and in other cultures been seen together quite often. OLD SCHOOL KIDLIT ABOUT GIRLS AND THEIR LOVE FOR DOGS The 1940s gave us George and Timmy, though Enid Blyton […]
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The Frog Prince Fairytale Analysis
This famous tale is also known as The Princess And The Frog, The Frog Prince, A Frog For A Husband and similar variants. In most of these stories the princess is depicted as a spoilt brat. Sometimes the story goes so far as being called The Kind Stepdaughter And The Frog, which is actually more […]
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Beauty And The Beast Fairy Tale Analysis
Beauty and the Beast is a strongly mythic tale: A girl goes on a journey and ultimately finds her true self. PARATEXT “The Beauty and the Beast” is a tale featuring multiple levels of misogyny and much has already been said about that. For example, Was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Re-Tooled Because Belle Wasn’t Enough Of A […]
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Men Reading Newspapers In Children’s Fiction
Boys studying for GCSEs were more likely than girls to read print products such as comics, with 38% saying they read newspapers at least once a month compared with 30% of girls of the same age. The Guardian In illustrations, men typically read newspapers. Women either read magazines, or busy themselves serving breakfast. The following […]
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Inversion Does Not Equal Subversion: The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt And Oliver Jeffers
Daniel Craig says “why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?” “There should simply be better parts for women and actors of colour.” DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 21, 2021 The Day The Crayons Quit is a bestseller made by two picture book […]
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Gender Problems In ParaNorman (2012)
ParaNorman (2012) is an animated zombie flick, light-hearted in its intent, and follows the adventures of an outcast 11-year old called Norman, who sees dead people. They’re everywhere. I identify with Norman, I really do. These days, whenever I watch a kids’ film, all I see are anti-girl references and tropes. These tropes are like […]
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Million Dollar Baby Film Study
Today is Curmudgeon’s Day, according to Twitter. (Un)happy Curmudgeon’s Day! In that spirit I will take a close look at a film in which a curmudgeonly old man learns to soften up with the help of an earnest and humble young woman. I first saw this film around the time Million Dollar Baby come out and […]
