OSCARS WATCH 2025 – The Substance: Youth, Body, Women, Success (Part Two)

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OSCARS WATCH 2025 – The Substance: Youth, Body, Women, Success (Part Two)

This piece is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 97th Academy Awards. In this in-conversation piece, Do Own (Donna) Kim, Utsav Gandhi, and Gabrielle Roitman exchange critical, intercultural, and personal readings of The Substance (2024). In Part One, Donna opened the conversation with the “love yourself :(“ South Korean (henceforth Korean) Internet meme. Now, in Part Two, Gabrielle and Utsav expand on her reading by exploring other connections, from American pop culture to immigrant experiences and queer bodies. “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger. More beautiful. More perfect….The one and only thing not to forget: you are one. You can’t escape from yourself.” (excerpt from “The Substance” product introduction video) Is “love yourself” the solution? Can we? How? We welcome you to join our conversation.

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EMMYS WATCH 2024 – Frederik Cryns Interviewed by Henry Jenkins on ‘Shogun’

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EMMYS WATCH 2024 – Frederik Cryns Interviewed by Henry Jenkins on ‘Shogun’

This piece is part of a series of critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series at the 76th Emmy Awards. Here, Henry Jenkins interviews Frederik Cryns, historical consultant for Shogun and a professor of Japanese History at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan.

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OSCAR WATCH 2024 — Feminist Frankensteins

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OSCAR WATCH 2024 — Feminist Frankensteins

This piece is part of a series of critical responses to the films nominated for Best Picture at the 96th Academy Awards. In this dialogic post, Henry Jenkins and Kris Longfield dissect three recent feminist re-tellings of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Lisa Frankenstein, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, and Poor Things. By centering women in traditionally male roles, these newer Frankenstein films ask different kinds of questions, renewing the story by mapping alternative meanings onto its core figures.They're continually asking “what are we taking from the past and what are we taking from the present?” so their leading ladies can solve problems.

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The Revolution is Female: How Luiza Trajano Has Been Transforming the World with Disruptive Technology, Civic Engagement and Community Logic — An Interview with Renata Frade

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The Revolution is Female: How Luiza Trajano Has Been Transforming the World with Disruptive Technology, Civic Engagement and Community Logic — An Interview with Renata Frade

Renata Frade interviews entrepreneur and activist Luiza Trajano about her many projects with Magazine Luiza and Mulheres do Brasil and what inspires her work. As Luiza Trajano points out, "The digital is a culture. It is not software or an application; it is a way of life."

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The Queen’s Gambit Is Not a Total Win for Women

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The Queen’s Gambit Is Not a Total Win for Women

Everyone has been telling you the truth: The Queen’s Gambit is a fabulous time. As you’ve likely heard by now, the show is brilliantly acted, gorgeously shot binge-worthy television. The writing is fluid, the production and costume design impeccable, and the chess depicted in a way that is accessible, suspenseful, and cinematic. And every intelligent woman I know who has watched the show has had a variation on the same response: what a thrill, to watch a smart, ruthless, messy, extravagant woman take on the world—and win. The show is a pleasure. But at risk of holding an unpopular opinion: it isn’t an unadulterated one. The Queen’s Gambit may feel empowering, and in certain ways it is. But the show tells the same, old, cis-male story of exceptionalism that Hollywood has been stuffing down our throats for years. Here it feels empowering; but only because that story has so rarely been told via the body of a woman.

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