Addendum: Strong Male Characters (or, That Rogue One Review is Full of Crap)
Two days ago, I wrote a post about “strong male characters” that took to task some comments made in a review by Todd McCarthy. At the time, I had not seen Rogue One, so my argument essentially rested on the idea that we don’t need “strong male characters” in every movie. Now that I have seen […]
Strong Male Leads (Or, Why You Don’t Need Them in Every Goddamn Movie)
The Bourne Identity, 007: Specter, The Fast and Furious, The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones, and Rocky. What do these films have in common? Well, aside from being action films and most of them featuring the name of the main character in the title, all of these films have male leads and, at best, female supporting characters. Is this a problem […]
On Brad Torgersen’s Straw Man Left
If I could have a nickel for every time a Sad/Rabid Puppy used a straw man version of the left to defend unethical behavior, I’d probably be a lot less broke than I already am. Alas, straw man arguments don’t come with free nickels. Instead, they come with a headache.
On Academic Brain and Compartmentalizing
As an academic, it is often very difficult to shut off the faculties I’ve spent the last fourteen years building. Since I spend almost every day of the week analyzing literature, reading or thinking about theoretical/philosophical texts, I generally use my brain in a very particular way. Turning that off is a chore, but a […]
On Unofficial Blacklists: Why I Keep a Mental List of Authors I Won’t Read
In April of this year, I posted a list of five reasons I won’t read someone’s work. Whether it’s because you don’t write what I read or you’re a giant turd nozzle on the Internet, there are a variety of reasons for why I skip on someone’s work. By implication, that means I keep a […]
On the SF/F Novel: What Happened to Short Novels?
Later tonight, I’m recording an episode of The Incomparable with Jason Snell, Scott McNulty, Paul Weimer, and Fred Kiesche. We’ll be discussing the Nebula Awards novel finalists, and among the topics I intend to bring up is the fact that I have been bouncing off of novels hard lately.