Noah Berlatsky

Their sexuality traps and destroys male innocence, as they grad hold, by the penis- the better to lead him to castration. Make no mistake that castration is greeted with fear, terror, and disgust—but also with glee. Women as super villains allow their characters to be super powerful; a force for evil is at least a force. In a media landscape where women are often rendered secondary, invisible, and passive, the femme fatale, in her icy violence, seizes female agency along with the phallus that she so efficiently cuts off.

This doesn't mean that the outcomes of domestic violence are always equal; men tend to be bigger and stronger than women, and therefore are more likely to cause serious harm, even in situations where violence is reciprocal. Still, the fact that women are frequently perpetrators of violence in domestic situations substantially undermines the typical story of domestic abuse—and helps to show just how harmful that story is.

The rom-com's worshipping of power and wealth comes with a gender twist.

Rodriguez is confused when she says that people want her to steal white people's superheroes. But she also has a point.

Irritation is the way of all flesh. The question is, if you're going to be annoyed for all of eternity, who do you want to be doing the annoying?

The surface text of the film is that you can't trust some guys. The (barely) subtext is that you can't trust any guys.

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

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

Let's not ignore the fact that the original James Bonds wasn't just white. He was a white supremacist.

Talking about race can get you into a lot of trouble . . . especially if you don't have a lot of class power or status.