Noah Berlatsky

english lit academic. wish fulfiller. thwarted world-changer.

For a second, it looked like the rabid hordes of gamergaters would be joined by metalheads. But #metalgate was never meant to be.

To read Massive isn't to discover a hidden truth, but to see a massive, obvious fact, bulging out for all the world to see.

Critics say call-out culture is mean-spirited and bullying. Not so fast.

The first graphic novel to win a Caldeott gives children the chance to be adults, and adults the chance to be kids.

The history of pop music, and of black pop music in particular, has always been gay history.

A Ghostbusters with a female cast is a thorough violation of the spirit of the original. And that's a good thing.

Katniss is the voice of conscience and morality in the film, and in The Hunger Games series as a whole. In the just released last film in the series, she tries repeatedly to avoid unnecessary deaths. She insists that refugees from an attacked base be given an escape route, for example, and exposes herself in an effort to help them.

Conservative fetishization of the past is myopic, simplistic, and mean-spirited—but progressives can be too quick to cede tradition.

Writing can be hard and uncomfortable and precarious—but it's hard and uncomfortable and precarious in the way that any job can be.