Hello All,
I just wanted to let you know about my new e-book (paperback version will drop in a week), Parables, Vampires, and Pregnant Men: The Narrative Resistance of Octavia E. Butler. Adapted from my graduate work, this little volume refutes C.M. Kornbluth’s assertion that science fiction is unable to work as social critique.
Continue reading “AfroGeek Scholarship”
In honor of Women’s History Month…
Musician Janelle Monae has an empowering motto that she shares with other women: “Come in peace, but mean business.”
There couldn’t possibly be a better motto that sums up Wonder Woman, more specifically her role in the DC Trinity. Too often Wonder Woman is conflated for Super Woman, i.e., a female version of Superman and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Themysciran Princess has her own agency and a most vital purpose. She’s the pristine balance.
Continue reading “The Pristine Balance: The Role of Wonder Woman in the DC Trinity”
Just in time for Halloween, Amazon is giving away a free download of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow through its Audible store. Here’s the kicker for all you SleepyHeads, though. The audiobook is narrated by none other than Ichabod Crane himself, Tom Mison!
Unfortunately, this version is the original Washington Irving classic so there are no references to Moloch, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or George Washington’s secret society of supernatural soldiers, but that’s not stopping Sleepy Hollow fans from downloading the book in droves.
Continue reading “Tom Mison Reads Amazon’s Free The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Audiobook”
We don’t need a Wonder Woman movie. Yeah, I said it.
I can scarcely imagine a worse waste of digital celluloid: flying spears thrown from thin, gangly limbs, a star-spangled miniskirt threatening wardrobe malfunctions for two and a quarter hours, unblemished ivory skin strained under gold and platinum body armor, practicality be damned. Wonder Woman the movie — fangirl nirvana, fanboy nightmare. Whenever people discuss the needless parade of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants who populate superhero movies’ starring roles, part of me appreciates their boredom with the obnoxious identity politics at play; what was The Avengers but a classic fraternity bro-down with human growth hormone, outdated mythology and colorful titanium tossed in for kicks?
The problem is that my stunted imagination cannot anticipate a Wonder Woman movie that would rise above such over-budgeted B-movie camp. For many, it shouldn’t — some progressives argue that corporate movie studios owe their female fans a film that highlights feminine superheroics, a movie that proves that women can helm action films and generate revenue with amoral vengeance as violent as any man’s. I find this argument wanting. Corporate movie studios are not public charities, and the thought of spending one-hundred-fifty million dollars to offer American little girls a superheroine to idolize appears to my mind an obnoxious misuse of movie funding. (That’s like nine Fruitvale Stations). Superhero comics involve White male power fantasies — when creators and fans support properties that challenge this monochrome status quo, we can applaud and demand more.
