NYLON
'Jojo Rabbit' Is A Dark Comedy That Finds Balance Between Farce And Contempt
Waititi leans hard on the ridiculous and the absurd, making every Nazi adult in the film a hyperbolic cartoon, implying that these ideas only make sense to the unformed logic of a child. But for as much wit as he injects into the proceedings, Waititi cannot escape that this is still a story about a historic act of genocide, even though it's being told through the eyes of a child. Jojo's immature perspective might help clarify the stakes and simplify the morality, but they don't change the very real circumstances of the war or Jojo's proximity to it.
Why I’m Glad Good Trouble Let Malika Be Right About The Bias Against Black Girls
What Good Trouble gets right in its examination of this dynamic is that Black women's feelings about Black men dating white women are complicated and not simply rooted in bitterness. Wrapped up in what, yes, maybe sometimes be residual jealousy, is the learned understanding that our Blackness renders us inherently undesirable even to the men who look like us. Boys who grow up with Black mothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins become men who denigrate the very women who nurtured them.
'Greta' Is A Twisted Addition To The Classic Stalker Movie
It's hard to put a new spin on a stalker story. Whether it's Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or Ali Larter in Obsessed, the mundanities of women being driven to criminal madness by men they've convinced themselves they love is well-trod territory. But Neil Jordan's Greta manages to infuse something fresh and almost comical into the female stalker genre by performing a simple narrative trick: He undermines the gender dynamics and subverts the stereotypical premise.
Rafiki Is A Stunning Lesbian Love Story—In A Place Where That’s Forbidden
What Kahiu does with Rafiki is present a queer love story that exists outside the mainstream narratives of gay romance. Young black women in Africa are not at the forefront of queer representation, and by centering them, she reminds us of the intersections that exist for these women and the additional barriers they have to overcome to be with each other
What about the Marthas?
Largely on the margins of the main narrative, Marthas have mostly been seen on the margins of the action, usually observing the Wives and Handmaids. Very few of them have lines or names. Instead, their presence often felt like a way to score easy diversity points by casting the roles with non-white women. But a small number of the Marthas have made significant enough appearances that they reveal how many stories are being erased by the show’s stated race-blindness.
Cardi B Is Changing How Black Women Are Pregnant In Public
Black celebrity women have recently started taking active control over how their pregnant bodies are seen in public by crafting specific narratives that center both their motherhood and their blackness. What makes Cardi B’s newly revealed pregnancy so notable is that she has intentionally deviated—and quite heavily at that—from the accepted and expected narratives of how black pregnant women should relate to their bodies in public spaces.
On The Guilt of Finding Joy in Kesha's Album Rainbow
Much of Rainbow exists in a conflicting binary: breezy, if contemplative (and, yes, sometimes even aggressive) tracks that speak to larger truths about shaking off the haters and rising above, followed by pleading, soul-searching numbers clearly written as a means to process trauma. They’re broad enough to apply to anyone and anything, but it would be hard not to conjure one specific face while listening.