Film-maker Olga Yakimenko invites friends to discuss Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Showgirls, Benedetta, and other films directed by Hollywood legend Paul Verhoeven. After the box office success of films such as Robocop and Total Recall, the decades-long derision towards Showgirls, and the misunderstandings surrounding all of these films (including Starship Troopers), dedicated film fans…
Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. But how did Wilde, who died over a decade before the first feature film, help to make the movies? Join Kate Hext, associate professor of English literature at the University of Exeter and author of the new book Wilde in the Dream Factory:…
Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'Barbie changed everything! Then she changed it all again! All of…
Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which…
Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for a series in which we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'We’re all being played with, babe! But usually there’s some kind of separation: there’s the Girl…
Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for eleven weeks as we read and discuss classic philosophical texts in conjunction with brief scenes from Barbie. 'You’re supposed to want to know.' Weird Barbie’s insistent demand echoes the famous beginning of…
Want to better appreciate Greta Gerwig’s highbrow screenwriting, or been wanting to read some philosophy but need a bubblegum pink excuse? Join philosopher Ryan Miller for eleven weeks as we read and…
How are you here? You’re like an idea. A great idea. Sasha assumes, like most of us, that ideas are impoverished abstractions of material reality. Plato, however, held the opposite view—called idealism—in which ideas are more real than their mere material instantiations. In his dialogue Phaedo, set as a last discussion with Socrates before his execution, Plato…
She thinks I’m a fascist? I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce. We just explained to them the immaculate, impeccable seamless garment of logic that is patriarchy. Barbie is taken aback when Sasha calls her a fascist for her role in perpetuating patriarchy. According to her director’s commentary, Gerwig actually had to…
I’m a man with no power. Does that make me a woman? This line from an anonymous Mattel employee might seem like a cheap joke, but MIT professor Sally Haslanger…
All the Kens will head to the polls and vote to change the Constitution to a government for the Kens, of the Kens, and by the Kens! As the Kens…
By giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you robbed it of its power. Hell, yes, White Savior Barbie! Here Gerwig both channels…
