Why Tribalism Matters in Reality Show ‘Big Brother’
Reality television show Big Brother has a traceable racial bias, but its contestants and fans often mistake their tribalism for racism.
racism
‘Land of Gold’ Asks How Do You Raise a Brown Child in Today’s Hostile America?
Talking with Land of Gold director Nardeep Khurmi at Tribeca, he explains how his road trip drama serves as a badly needed “empathy machine” for divided America.
The “Who” in ‘Who Killed Vincent Chin?’ Is a Suggestive Misdirect
The piercing documentary ‘Who Killed Vincent Chin?’, airing on PBS on 20 June, shows how economic anxiety and racial demagoguery make a toxic brew.
Color Lines: 1930 Colonial Film ‘Mamba’ in Early Technicolor
Albert S. Rogell’s 1930 Technicolor film Mamba offers a colonial critique that’s sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, and sometimes contradictory.
John McWhorter’s Polemic ‘Woke Racism’ Covers Controversial Issues with Snark Gnarled by Outrage
John McWhorter’s pushback against the antiracist orthodoxy of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi lands palpable hits but is too scattered to win the match.
The Exoticized Gaze in Lawrence Durrell’s ‘The Alexandra Quartet’
Durrell’s unquestioned assumption of superior European culture paradoxically allows him to be keenly responsive to Alexandria’s multinational mix.
Between the Pages of Contemporary Asian American Literature
There’s an evolution in contemporary Asian American literature from the usual immigrant story to something more nuanced and varied, something that’s more reflective of the varieties of “Asian Americaness”.
‘Test Pattern’ Director Shatara Michelle Ford Wonders if Dissonance Is Exploding Your Brain, Too
‘Test Pattern’ director Shatara Michelle Ford talks with PopMatters about putting everyday fear into film.
‘The Green Book’-Inspired ‘A Parallel Road’ and American Apartheid
Amani Willett's A parallel Road shows how controlling people's right to travel is central to the racist mindset.
Smoking Saved My Life: A Skinny Jewish Kid Comes of Age in the Haze of American Violence
As cool as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Jack Kerouac or Dalton Trumbo, rebel Max "Flaco" Greenbaum grows up in Watts Riots-Vietnam-draft-era L.A. Too smart (and smart-mouthed) for school, the violence of this world is drawn in deep and lingers like the long, slow, life-saving drag of a cigarette.
‘A Peculiar Indifference’ Takes on Violence in Black America
Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliott Currie's scrupulous investigation of the impacts of violence on Black Americans, A Peculiar Indifference, shows the damaging effect of widespread suffering and identifies an achievable solution.
How ‘Watchmen’ and ‘The Boys’ Deconstruct American Fascism
Superhero media has a history of critiquing the dark side of power, hero worship, and vigilantism, but none have done so as radically as Watchmen and The Boys.