September 6, 2015
from Ned
GUTS contributor Madeline Lane-McKinley and Johanna Isaacson unravel the novelty of the “comedienne” and the ascent of “feminist” comedy in cinema. “While these SNL alum / Judd Apatow comediennes have absorbed the attribution of a ‘feminist boom’ in comedy, they describe the emptying out of feminism – the Nancy Fraser thesis of second-wave handmaidens of capitalism.”
The final book from Elena Ferrante’s addictive Neapolitan series was released this week, renewing discussion about the elusive author, and in the Atlantic, a profile of Ann Goldstein, the translator Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. “Ferrante, by insisting on preserving her own anonymity despite her international audience’s growing curiosity, has (perhaps unintentionally) managed to create an unlikely spotlight for her American translator.” Also, via The Toast, “How to Tell if You Are In An Elena Ferrante Novel.”
We are all this woman falling asleep as Jeb Bush speaks.
“Disappearance is not just a euphemism for state murder; it’s intrinsic to capitalism’s need for disposable classes.” On the arrest and murder of “students, communists, socialists, union members, indigenous people” under Augusto Pinochet’s regime.
A comic on the effects of climate change in Syria.
Post VMAs, “What We Can All Learn from Nicki Minaj Schooling Miley Cyrus on Tone Policing.”
Briar Patch exposes “Higher Education’s Silent Killer.” Audit culture, “one of the more subtle aspects of the corporatization of universities,” affects “what types of research are permissible and determines which scholarship is legitimized and which is delegitimized.”
A short piece on getting by and the decline of the welfare state. “There is no money to be made selling blood anymore. It can, however, pay off to sell plasma, a component in blood that is used in a number of treatments for serious illnesses.”
A look into why Canada’s immigration department rejected Aylan Kurdi’s family’s refugee application. (Note: there’s automatic sound upon loading.)
The latest revelation that Ashley Madison “bots” posing as woman users more frequently interacted with male customers than actual real-life women exposes an interesting truth: that the dating site itself “was meant to sell a fantasy, to be a woman without all the inconvenience of actual aspirations and feelings.” The Jacobin on the new “Commodified Ideal Woman.” Also, somewhat unrelated, would you date a robot?
Elle Beaver celebrates Mrs. Universe winner Ashley Burnham, who has leveraged her recent pageant win to draw attention to the abuses of Harper’s government.
In response to GQ’s recent article exploring the “Sugardaddy/Sugarbaby” dynamic, Charlotte Shane shares 15 thoughts on the stigma of sex work. “The root of contemporary feminist antipathy towards sex work concerns male entitlement. Thus it seems ironic to me that you can’t talk about the needs of people who sell sex without a self-identified feminist demanding that men who buy it occupy equal space in the conversation.”
Can a rape joke ever be funny? Sady Doyle doesn’t answer this tired question, but rather approaches the “PC Comedy” debate from another angle, looking at the after-effects of a joke or lyric gone wrong.
A summary of Never Home, a multi-media project that investigates and documents the changes in immigration legislation over the last decade. The findings conclude hat “citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to lose.”
This excellent interview with the incredible Anne Boyer, author of the new collection Garments Against Women, dwells on the politics poetry and the class character of literature.