I haven’t yet seen WALL•E, but here is an article I found interesting discussing the genders of the two main robots. It is an interesting discussion of the perceived genders we apply to the characters based on our cultural assumptions. It is also interesting, however, how we can work beyond them.
hat tip

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USC just sponsored a study of gender in movies, animation, and television, coming up with some pretty stark results: essentially, although the number of female characters has increased, most are still locked into gendered activities and are not often main characters. This can be seen quite clearly in Horton Hears a Who: there are many [...]

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Proving that Hollywood is not the hot-bed of liberalism that many people would like to think it is, here is one woman’s list of the most misogynistic movies of the 21st century.

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Or, at the very least, an argument that most anti-Pullman activists probably haven’t even looked at the book:
The trilogy has the Church as the antagonist. Not religious belief in general. If any “message” may be derived, it’s that powerful religious organisation who is above the law and morally degraded (murder is no problem for them) [...]

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Before I begin this post about the Golden Compass, a refreshingly original fantasy by Philip Pullman and a movie that will be released on December 7th, I have to mention that our very own xJane, with her exclusive Hollywood connections, has already seen and pre/reviewed the movie!
Listen to tone of Bill Donahue (sort of the [...]

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I just got back from a screening of the movie the Golden Compass. My initial reaction: it was briskly paced (for a 2 hr movie) and reminds me of the very first HP. If you read and enjoyed the book, you’ll like the movie, because it’s basically an illustration of the book, rather than a [...]

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Deliver Us from Evil is a documentary about the “clergy abuse” problem in the Catholic Church. It focuses on one priest in particular and some of his victims, used as a microcosm of other cases.
It is very well done and very tasteful (although, sometimes the clips of the priest in question are titillating rather than [...]

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I guess I’m not really sure I knew what this was about, but when it came out, I honestly had no interest in seeing it. I was surfing last night, however, and it was making its “network premier” so I started watching it. My husband came home and I stopped, but after the first 20 [...]

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This is inspired by John White’s brief synopsis.�� Take one:
300 Spartans valiantly defend the narrow pass of Thermopylae against a million Persians in this gorgeously-filmed action-packed bloodfest.
In retrospect, this summary isn’t quite accurate. I hope you’ll bear with me as I ponder some of misgivings, and come up with a new review.
I wonder if [...]

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I have an account over at Yelp, which is how I found Rutabegorz. It asks questions to help people get to know me (it’s like myspace for restaurants, instead of music). I regularly go in and change my answers. For example, one is, “What’s the most recent interesting book you’ve read?” to which my answer [...]

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