Wondering Irene

After the death of her husband, a middle-aged woman decides to broaden her horizons and discover the true meaning of pleasure, which determines her to hire a sex worker by the name of Leo Grande, in hopes of exploring her sexuality. What could this lead to? A partially comedic, but realistic portrayal of what lack of sexual education and stigmatising sex can lead to. You might think: do we need another story about sexual liberation in the 21 st century? After all, the sexual revolution has been taking action in the US since the beginning of the 1960s, gradually raising awareness around the globe. So, hasn’t society already achieved an open-minded perspective on bodies and sexual pleasure? The simple answer is: no. In an age where unreliable social media still dictates many people’s beauty standards and female representation in visual culture is still heavily influenced by the male gaze, I’d say Good Luck to you, Leo Grande is the breath of fresh air viewers needed in 2022. It has b...

           Are you fantasizing about a life of perilous adventure? Does the word “pirate” intrigue you? Well, what you have in mind is probably the image of a charming and witty Johnny Depp-like figure. Despite this being an attractive alternative, reality was in fact far from it. So how did we deviate so much from the initial public perception of pirates? It is the typical process that an image goes through, due to the influence of popular culture and today’s tradition of consumerism. (source:  @battu_mando on Twitter) Despite only sailing the oceans for fifteen months, centuries later, Blackbeard became famous once again, as the face of piracy in popular culture. In the 20 th century, cinematographers were already taking advantage of its mysterious and intriguing personality by transforming him into an infamous villain for their adventure movies. The year 1952 brings the first image of the cruel pirate to the big screens, with a movie called Black...

In case you haven’t watched the recent announcement for this years’ Academy Awards nominations, one of the contenders for the ‘best actress in a leading role’ award is Jessica Chastain, who plays the protagonist in Michael Showalter’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye , a biographical drama that has been attracting a lot of attention since its release in the autumn of 2021. The movie focuses on the ups and downs of Tammy Faye’s life, a promoter of Christianity, who went from preaching in local churches to becoming a religious television star. There have, in fact, been two other documentaries about her, one in 2000, also entitled The Eyes of Tammy Faye , and another in 2005, called Tammy Faye: Death Defying . Therefore, you might be wondering: why is Tammy Faye such an interesting figure and why have directors though her story to still be relevant in 2021? To be able to answer this question, let us take a closer look at the latest of the films and gather enough information to paint a realistic por...

  If we were to reconstruct the world of tv shows in the early '90s, it would be a crime not to mention the Sex and the City series, which many have probably relished in watching at the time. As time went by, the public’s opinions regarding this series retained their duality, some sustaining it is a revolutionary feminist manifestation, others arguing it is a shallow and problematic cheap comedy show. Before diving into depicting each of those two perspectives, we have to acknowledge that, hated or loved, Sex and the City was extremely popular at its time and, still, to this day, it attracts viewers with the humane, relatable characters, the catchy plot-line and the non-conformist topics approached. In fact, the show is mentioned even by the former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, in her autobiographical novel, Becoming . Moreover, its maintaining popularity determined HBO to plan revival of the show which is in the making right at this moment, reuniting three o...

  In case you ran out of movie ideas during this pandemic, let me come for the rescue, with yet another recommendation. A few months ago, I found myself on the “children’s movies” side of Netflix, wondering whether there might be anything there which I haven’t already seen. That is when I came upon “The House with a Clock in its Walls” (2018) and I thought I’d give it a try. The film is actually an adaptation of the spooky children’s book with the same title, published by John Bellairs in 1973. However, in terms of the construction of the characters, director Eli Roth is more faithful to Edward Gorey’s illustrations instead of the descriptions in the book. The film has a very interesting choice of cast, starring Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Owen Vaccaro, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sunny Suljic and Kyle MacLachlan. To my surprise, not only did I end up enjoying the story a lot, but I also realised how deep and complex it actually is. At first, it seems the usual children’s wizard story,...

  In case you haven’t heard about Mrs. America , it is FX’s latest miniseries created by Dahvi Waller, based on the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. The show captures the continuous battle between liberals and conservatives, in the context of the feminists’ fight for gender equality. Besides creating a realistic image of an important event in feminism history, Mrs America also discusses other relevant topics such as racism and homophobia. In 1964, The Civil Rights Act addresses the issue of discrimination against women, but only regarding employment. Therefore, the need for more complex statements regarding sex-based discrimination in the American Constitution can still be sensed throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The Equal Rights Amendment, supported by the second-wave feminists, aimed to solve this issue once and for all, stating that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”...