Thanks to Liam Neeson and edgy action-thrillers like Taken, Americans have a pretty specific idea of what the sex-trafficking industry looks like: naïve young American girls, traveling on their own for the first time, who trust the wrong guy and get kidnapped. In Taken, the girl’s father happens to be ex-CIA with a “very particular… Read more →
Tag: Popular culture
“Good” Teeth: American Dental Care and Classism
I used to hide my own teeth. It started in fourth grade during spring photos. When my big adult teeth were just coming in, I gave a toothy smile as I leaned on a white picnic table fragment in front of a backdrop of someone else’s nice country porch. My classmates snickered. My teeth were… Read more →
The Opioid Epidemic as Metaphor
I watched a lot of drug movies in high school. Maybe it was the clothes, the pulsing soundtracks, or how much I loved a voiceover. It also could have been the incredibly pretty people in these movies. Maybe it was because the Drug Movie as a format involves a type of fantastical world-building absent from… Read more →
Golden Girls, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and the Legacies of Hysteria
On September 23, 1989, the fifth season of Golden Girls opened with a two-episode arc entitled “Sick and Tired.”1 The show as a whole focuses on the fictional comedic escapades of four older women sharing a home in Miami, Florida. The story line that opened the fifth season, however, was deeply autobiographical in nature, as… Read more →
Fighting Back Over Leaning In: HBO’s Big Little Lies as a Lesson in Feminist Solidarity
As powerful men continue to fall in the wake of the viral #metoo movement, and as it has evolved into #TheirTimeIsUp, women are asking how to move forward in order to create a different world. I keep coming back to the critical possibilities of HBO’s Emmy and Golden Globe winning miniseries Big Little Lies. Single,… Read more →
Friday Night Rights: Abortion in Small-Town Texas
Two recent events have made me return to my favorite TV show of all time, Friday Night Lights, a well-written and riveting drama about football and small-town life in West Texas. First, I recently saw Connie Britton, aka Tami Taylor outside a restaurant in Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles. I got so excited I stalled my… Read more →
Outlander: A Story for Historians
While heading out for a quick lunch last week, I found myself in the elevator with a colleague from my department. I invited her to come eat with me if she had time, and she proceeded to give me a sheepish yet excited look. “I would, but I just started book 1 of the Outlander… Read more →