I think these things are good because they can help us collectively achieve the kind of empathy that screaming about gun control would never touch. The loss of a child is devastating no matter the context, and documenting and discussing a horror like this makes it instantly, vibrantly relatable for almost everybody,…

I can relate a bit to the controversy here only because we have a similar (though by no means identical) controversy in the gay community starting with relatively small stuff like the word "queer" (which is a much deeper, and sometimes more hurtful, debate than I think I lot of well-meaning liberals realize) ranging…

Even my husband call's Misty's reveries "the Hannibal thing," and he hated Hannibal (mainly because he was not on board with the gory stuff).

Yeah, that's a terrible review, but I think I understand the controversy now. I think the reviewer fundamentally misreads a couple elements of the show, but frankly it seems like the discussion is eventually going to come back to who can and cannot use the n-word. To the extent that it reflects some seriously racist…

That's a helpful illustration for me at least. To the extent that's how we're defining respectability politics, I would generally say that no, as of episode 7, this show does not engage in that, though Mariah does. (Of course, we shouldn't attribute to the writers Mariah's viewpoint considering that she is kind of a…

Yeah, and if they ignored political issues in the show, it would come across as very tone deaf and not of its time. I don't see how a good show about these issues could get away from it.

I think it's also about building social context in the show and demonstrating that Harlem is very different from Hell's Kitchen. And the show is absolutely right to be making those distinctions, lest the setting itself get lost in the mix.

Okay, so if we are going to keep having a discussion about "respectability politics" in connection with this show, I'm going to insist that we all get on the same page about what we mean. Can either Ali or someone else use the term in a vaguely pejorative sense tell me exactly what they mean when they use this term? I…

What is the thing comics writers have where they constantly pair Wolverine with little/teenage girls? They never do it in a creepy way, but it's . . . odd.

Right. Because every time a Japanese property has been adapted for Western audiences since the mid-20th century, they keep intact all character details to identify them as Japanese.

The very fact that Ghost in the Shell is set in "either Japan or Hong Kong" illustrates my point. Ethnically and culturally, those are two VASTLY different things. Would it be okay to cast a Chinese (or specifically, Hong Kong-based) actress as Japanese? It seem to me that would be a disaster on both sides of the Sea…

Don't know what to tell you if you can't see that. Maybe it qualifies as subtle since Midnighter isn't actually blowing Apollo on the cover?

The Ghost in the Shell references do not make this point so well, AV Club. Really, complaining about racial makeup in any anime is rife with problems as race is (probably intentionally) so confusing in those properties. Look at Attack on Titan. Pretty much all but one of those characters is suppoed to be European, but…

I'm sure it's something new and awful. Just wait.

"- A Cronenberg deal, where…I don't know, shaved monkeys mash together, Voltron style, and form a giant, sentient flesh toaster into which virgins are thrown in order to appease a cult of sex/murder toddlers."

Or maybe it's that they actually thought it through this time and will finish strong?

You got ahead of the memo. I suppose I'll just do this now.

OK, so I'm gay, and I like comics, and I agree more LGBT representation would be nice. But that cover? THAT COVER? Jesus fucking Christ. And you wonder why people don't take us seriously.

Dude. Thanks for spoiling that, I guess.

She is a delight. I too am mystified as to why she isn't more popular. Maybe now that more people are watching Penny Dreadful on Netflix, that will change.