Might be a special needs kid whose birth family tried to abandon her. Poor girl — I hope she’s able to get the help she needs.

We thought about this a lot before my now-almost-10 daughter was born, and stumbled into a compromise position. We wouldn’t buy princess stuff, but if it came into the house as a gift, she could knock her sparkly socks off playing with it. That way, it wasn’t forbidden fruit or anything worth having a tantrum over,…

I can accept that argument for team sports, but a gender-neutral track & field or swimming competition would be one in which everyone who won an award was assigned male at birth.

It can be awkward, but I feel like using existing English words that are understood by all is a lot better than bumbling around with ze and hir or whatever. And you’ve probably already used a singular “they” at least once this week without thinking about it — e.g., “somebody left their mug in the sink” or “that troll…

My problem with eliminating actor/actress categories is that, realistically, it would mean acting awards would look a lot like “nongendered” awards such as the Academy’s technical categories, the Grammys, and book awards.

Me too, Katy. Me too.

I thought Hooper’s schtick held up in part because it’s meant to be cringeworthy? The idea is he puts up this fake macho black nationalist front to sell comics, because nobody’s interested in stories by a geeky gay black guy. I wish we were over that by now, but i’m not sure we are.

I think it was a midnight movie at my college cinema, which was a very big thing at the time, and probably with a boy I had a hopeless crush on because that was what I did that year.

Huh. I stand corrected. (And possibly shouldn’t dismiss movies I haven’t seen in 20 years.)

Yup. Absolutely. Basically everyone but straight white dudes has been a paragon of progressive values since the year 0, and it’s just the patriarchy holding us down.

Not sure you meant that to go to me? 

I think Banky’s bisexuality was suggested in Chasing Amy, especially in the way he reacts when Holden accuses him of being jealous of Alyssa. It’s not “he hates gays so he must be gay” so much as “he doesn’t act like a stereotypical gay guy, so he must not want to sleep with men.” But I didn’t pick that up until I saw…

See, I’d call it better in progressive terms than Reality Bites. Reality Bites is more about packaged rebellion against “the man” than about real change, especially with the Ethan Hawke v. Ben Stiller choice where Ben is the bad guy even though Ethan treats Winona like crap. Plus, the whole main cast is white and…

Yep. I just rewatched the last scene. She’s thrown that he comes up to her at a signing and tries to have a ~moment~, and touched that he cared enough to write a comic about their relationship ... but I don’t think it’s meant to imply anything romantic will come of it.

It’s interesting Clover saw it this way, because I always saw the inclusion of Alyssa’s girlfriend in the last scene as a very clear indication that Alyssa and Holden are over. They could have really loved each other, but he was a giant manbaby about her past and she doesn’t trust him to *ever* get over it, so yeah.…

DISCLAIMER: Relationships are complicated, they should do what makes sense for them, and I’m not the type who thinks cheating once is an automatic dealbreaker in every situation.

Ha! I did study abroad in London, and came back even more of an insufferable anglophile.

It’s that they’re British. Somehow even if you can’t hear the accents, just knowing they’re there makes everything 60% more charming.

Oh god, now I’m sad about that too!

I think that movie is silly in general and the cue card scene is one of the worst things ever done in an allegedly romantic movie ... and somehow the trailer STILL made me want to see the special.