Ew. Fair enough. Obviously I was distracted by all that goddess prose and an inattentive reader.

I've been seeing this as a critique of 50 Shades of Grey a lot recently, and I'm kind of confused by it. I haven't seen the movie, but I did read the books, and although there was plenty of the same kind of unhealthy codependency and controlling dynamics as Twilight, I didn't feel like they were problematic as far as…

Ha, I just got back and literally did fume and rant to my partner on the way home. I also got all frustrated and cried, but that's probably more about being 8 months pregnant.

Ha, I just got back and literally did fume and rant to my partner on the way home. I also got all frustrated and cried, but that's probably more about being 8 months pregnant.

Gotta say, I just got back from seeing Kinsmen, and it had two pretty hearty scoops of problematic gender and race issues, plus a sprinkling of some old school U.K. class issues. Not that it wasn't also a fun movie to watch, but I did get all mad about some of that stuff on the ride home. It was clearly made by people…

I am pro-kids, since I think kids at weddings are awesome/hilarious (of course, I may be biased because the weddings I have been to that included kids were in fairly kid-friendly venues and all the kids had parents or grandparents watching their behavior pretty closely).

My child brain totally rejected that she was dead. I seriously saw that and then thought that she was sending him on ahead because she was injured and would slow him down. I was really confused when she ghost-coached him to the Great Valley at the end by then wasn't there for the reunion I had been expecting.

I would tend to agree, which was why I responded to the initial post of "any story or person that romanticizes slavery and southern bigotry can get fucking bent. That's means you Blake Lively and anyone/everyone who has ever had a wedding/event at a plantation." Because there's a big difference between saying…

Yes, absolutely. That was what I was trying to say with "I understand the problem with having events at plantations that have been preserved - taking wedding photos on the porch of the plantation house, etc." Maybe saying "I understand the problem," was too much of a soft pedal. It should have been, "I agree, there is…

I said it because when I ran through the list of major outdoor venues in the area where I'm from, they were literally all former plantations. It's not readily apparent with all of them, but it's true. I was incorrect to then generalize that to the entire south since I have no trouble believing there are plenty of…

I'm not really in a position to speak for the entire southern region of the United States, but where I lived and worked, it was absolutely the case. I'm not trying to defend plantations. I just don't think it's necessarily racist to make use of a large outdoor area that was once a plantation, when there's no surface…

Maybe we're miscommunicating? I get the impression here that you're using "plantation" to refer to the house, and I'm using it to refer to the larger property which, in the scenarios I'm describing, typically no longer have a house. I absolutely think there should be museums about the realities of slavery, and…

It's because I really believe that use of former plantation sites is more complicated than it was presented as being here, due to the fact that in certain areas all outdoor venues available for private rentals were once plantations - even when (as is often the case) you would have no way of knowing that site's history…

Of course not, but I believe that is a false equivalency. Not because slavery was less of an atrocity than the Holocaust, but because the history and ubiquity of slavery (and the many oppressions that followed it), mean that there are areas of the south where practically every location - particularly large, outdoor…

Oh certainly, Blake Lively's thing with the antebellum south seems problematic. I'm not necessarily defending her. My point is more that if you live in that area and you want to get married outside, you're probably getting married at a plantation, even if it has not been preserved as such (like, it might just be a big…

So on the first point, I 100% agree with you. The antebellum south absolutely should not be romanticized. But I guess I have questions about the blanket objection to ever holding a wedding/event at a plantation. Because there are certain areas of the south where every large outdoor venue was once a plantation. Some of…

There was recently a case in South Carolina where a state trooper shot an unarmed black man for reaching into his car to get his drivers license when he was instructed to (fortunately, he was not killed). The whole thing was on dash cam footage. And... the trooper has been indicted with assault and battery of a high…

My high school valued athletics above everything else, and so there were several power-tripping coaches around, teaching PE and a variety of other things. One total psycho who taught my geometry class once cornered me in the hallway and got crazy up in my face because he wanted me to tell him the name of a kid he had…

Obviously I know I could end up disappointed, but I'm not pessimistic at this point. I get why the trailers or other promotional materials might not include the dark stuff (since it's basically the all of the surprises), but I have no reason to assume it's not there, or that they've departed significantly from the…

I mean, obviously the Little Red Riding Hood plot line has serious sexual connotations, but the character is supposed to be that age. And everything inappropriate is implied, so they could keep what they need to from the actress and still have her turn in a good performance in a storyline with adult themes (e.g. tiny…