Tag: identity

Interview, Movies, Streaming

‘Dinner is Served’ Director on Trying to Fit in and Finding Himself in the Process

Laura Sirikul

Hao Zheng is no stranger to creating stories that touches on the human spirit. The award-winning director, who was recently named a 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and recognized at countless film festivals, has been recognized for his work with the 2019 First International Film Festival Directing Lab and now as a 2020 Disney Launchpad Director and 2020 HBO Access Directing Program Fellow, where he continues to explore themes of identity and belonging.

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Movies, Streaming, Television1 Comment

The Lessons Learned and To Be Learned from Darren Criss in ‘Hollywood’

Lauren Lola

Hollywood, a new miniseries created and executive produced by Ryan Murphy, will be coming to Netflix this Friday. Audiences will both travel back in time to the 1940s and explore an alternative universe where a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers — who’re female, people of color, and/or LGBTQ — break into the business and dismantle the boundaries against them in the process.

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Movies, Star Wars1 Comment

Some Things are Stronger than Blood: The Core Theme of ‘Star Wars’

Lauren Lola

WARNING: The following contains major spoilers from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The latest and final installment of the Skywalker saga of Star Wars is now out in theaters. In The Rise of Skywalker, the Resistance must face the First Order once more, in the midst of the mysterious return of Emperor Palpatine.

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Marvel, Television11 Comments

Race, Politics, and the Third Self: Why We Need Iron Fist and Ms. Marvel to be Asian American

Raph S

It’s been quite a while since I’ve contributed anything, but with the news that Iron Fist has a showrunner and also with Donald Trump wasting our time and being overtly bigoted, I thought it was an opportunity to look at the importance of introducing more POC characters in our fiction, and the importance of identity, on a wide range of levels.

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Animation, Marvel, Movies32 Comments

An Open Letter to The New York Times’ Critic Manohla Dargis about Big Hero 6

Bao Phi

It’s too bad that in making its first movie based on a Marvel comic Disney didn’t decide to take a real leap into the future, say, by making Hiro a girl…

— Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Dear Ms. Dargis,

I was born in Vietnam shortly before the tanks rolled into Saigon and my family was forced to flee. Raised in South Minneapolis’ largest, poorest, and most racially diverse neighborhood, my father taught me to walk to the library and got me hooked on free books. Later, I would learn to run there, mostly to avoid the myriad groups of bullies wanting to beat me for whatever reason they could conjure that day, and I would read books and comics to take me far away from who I was and where I was. It is safe to say that the majority of my boyhood was spent imagining that I was anything but who I was.

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Comics, Marvel2 Comments

Sana Amanat’s TED Talk: Myths, Misfits, & Masks

Keith Chow

As you know, we’re pretty big fans of Kamala Khan’s turn as Ms. Marvel around here. And last week, the original inspiration for the character — Marvel editor Sana Amanat — became the inspiration for even more people when she addressed a TEDxTeen 2014 in New York.

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Comics, Fantasy4 Comments

Identity in the World of ‘Locke & Key’

Jenn

There’s a comic book out there written by Joe Hill. It’s called Locke & Key (from IDW Publishing). And, it’s the best comic book you’re probably not reading.

In fact, it’s proof that while the conventional superhero comic might be for children, the comic genre can and does create compelling, sophisticated, and intelligent stories for adults. And, it can do so while appealing to the cape-and-cowl crowd.

This post contains very minor spoilers. Please read with care.

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