I'll second this! I actually almost threw a Newsies reference into this piece but ended up cutting it.

The greatest irony of Rent is that Roger's song about wanting to write a good song is so much better than the song he actually writes.

Benny is secretly the hero of Rent. He also offers to pay for Angel's funeral and Mimi's rehab without being asked.

I don't know much about First Date, but I do know I've watched this video of

You didn't sound vindictive at all and I think you raised some good points. I hope you're right about Hollywood reflecting the diversity of film schools in the future. In this case, however, I wrote about this issue because I care about it deeply, not because of page views. I actually pitched the piece before the…

Hi Alan! I'm sorry that I seemed dismissive of Iñárritu’s nomination. I don't mean to belittle that achievement at all. The fact that the past two Best Director awards have gone to men of color is also undeniably a great thing. Your comment is a good reminder that I can always do better when discussing the…

Thank you very much for this comment!

Thank you! This means a lot.

I would argue I didn't insert issues of feminism into this piece. Ava DuVernay is a woman which automatically makes this a feminist issue. True she is also a black woman, but her race does not erase her gender. There's a really helpful term I learned somewhat recently called "intersectionality." It's the concept that…

Thanks for this comment! How to talk about issues of race as a white person is a thing I think about a lot and a thing I'm sure I mess up a lot. Sorry if the piece felt mishandled to you. Personally, I really connected with DuVernay's snub from a feminist angle. It's so disheartening to see the Academy once again fail…

I actually address your point a bit later in the article. "Of course female directors can and do admire the work of male
directors, but from a psychological perspective, it’s immensely
disheartening to see no one like you succeed."

Or "ruff."

Both Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy were relatively unknown properties until Marvel turned them into household names. They could easily do the same with a more obscure female superhero.

Well said!

I'm not suggesting they downplay Jennifer Lawrence. I'm suggesting they increase the female representation around her.

That's a good point. But considering I'm sick of Marvel's repetitive endings, I'd be happy if a Black Widow film forced them to come up with something new.

X-Men is able to raise some interesting issues about identity that have real world parallels. But since so many of these identity issues are hard to parse in the real world (particularly when it comes to identity and disability) they become doubly hard to parse in a heightened superhero films.

Thank you for this comment. I always try to address the intersectionality of race and gender when writing about social justice topics, but I think you're probably right that I lost the thread a bit in this piece. I should have made my demands for better representation of people of color (and specifically women of…

Okay here's another line of thought: Widow's "powers" (I know she doesn't technically have powers but she is clearly more capable than an average human being) involve being nimble, strong, fast, flexible, and smart. I know Steve technically has super human strength but when it comes down to it isn't he the same basic…

I totally agree. You can't set up mutant powers as a metaphor for identity and then argue its best to erase them. If the movie wanted to build to an endpoint of Rogue choosing to get cured it needed to do a LOT more legwork to get to that conclusion without sending a problematic message.