Sometimes, a TV show is so jarring and takes you so far downward to the worst of humanity that you can’t help searching for levity. It’s an irresistible prospect when you’re a) a fan of femslash and b) watching The Fall, which is essentially a dual character study of a serial killer and the lead detective assigned to his case.
To understand Petra and Jane, we have to first look at who connects them: Rafael. Or rather, what draws them to Rafael, for often ill-advised romances stem from trying to find in someone else what you yourself struggle to grow in yourself.
Previously in Femslash Friday: The Devil Wears Prada. I'm not proud of this one, exactly. There's been no rush to write it, in no small part because I cannot possibly encourage you to watch The Big Bang Theory. It isn't a very good show. It hasn't been unfairly overlooked by critics, there are no hidden gems. It's a predictable, unpleasant show and you probably shouldn't watch it. And yet, I do. Not, you know, live,…
Secretary. 50 Shades of Gray. I can't think of any other movies right now that fall along those lines, but two seems like sufficient cause and also you know what I'm talking about. The kind of movie where a white man with a good job is sexually rude to a stammering woman in a cardigan, and says things like "Sexually, I'm more important than you, and my father invented helicopters," and the lady says things…
Previous Femslash Friday posts can be found here. This Femslash Friday is brought to you by Hans Christian Andersen. Yes, that’s right, Hans Christian Andersen, of such straight friendzone classics as “The Little Mermaid” and ladies-be-frail stories like “The Princess and the Pea.” Allow me to bring your attention to his work “The Snow Queen: A Tale in Seven Stories” -- or, as I like to think of it, “A Tale in Six Stories…
Previous Femslash Friday installments can be found here. One night not long ago I was reading online, which I often do, and I ended up reading an interview in The Advocate about an brand-new comic-book series, which I don’t often do. After reading it, I grinned at the doll who sits near my computer. She went on thinking, as she always does, placidly balancing a glittering plastic guitar in her lap. Because yes,…
First of all, the premise of The Other Woman is delightful and I love it. An asshole named Mark cheats on his wife (Kate, played by a hilarious Leslie Mann) with two other women, and the three ladies band together to take him down, becoming best friends in the process. At one point his former girlfriend, Carly (Cameron Diaz), explicitly declares to Kate (and to the audience): “We’re not in competition [with each other].”…
Previously in this series: Root and Shaw, Pyschopaths in Love.
Some kind and loving soul has re-edited all six seasons of Sex and the City such that it tells the story of a lesbian sex writer's search for the perfect woman.
Previous installments of Femslash Friday can be found here. Friends, how do you feel about murderesses? To be more specific: how do you feel about women who have little use for men beyond the expedient? Who find humanity, as a general category, to be dull, silly, exploitable things clambering after some irrelevant significance? Who kill with little remorse and no regret? Who even in their deep ennui about humans are more engaged with women than…
Previously in this series: Deep Space Nine. What is it, exactly, about modern witchcraft that screams "ambient lesbianism"? Candles are not inherently lesbian (although they are beloved by dykes and bi women the world over); ditto long, flowing skirts and scarves and essential oils and wearing multiple chunky silver rings. The whole is gayer than the sum of the parts. It has something to do, I think, with the mainstream co-opting of a…
I'm flying today -- involuntarily being dragged through the sky while crying with a certain soft and quiet dignity -- so please enjoy this video of lesbian subtext from Star Trek set to the tune of Abba's "I Fell in Love With A Starship Trooper."
Previously on Femslash Friday: The Young Avengers. Star Trek's greatest appeal, if you talk to the nerds who are really into it, is its bold embrace of a post-scarcity structure. In Star Trek, technology has allowed humanity to earnestly and fully eliminate sexism, racism, poverty, even extreme weather disasters or pollution. Every single structural problem on Earth is truly gone forever, they're all really gone, and now humanity is doing the only thing…
In a perfect world, Hawkeye would be everyone’s favorite superhero. Both Hawkeyes—Clint Barton, the original Hawkeye, whose tragic upbringing didn’t turn him into a brooding Bruce Wayne but rather an endearing screw-up with a love for strays and commitment issues, and Kate Bishop, a sharp-tongued but level-headed young woman whose insecurities ring far truer than those of the superhumans surrounding her—are exemplary characters, worthy of their own titles and roles in the Marvel cinematic universe.
