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From the Lifeless Pages of History Books to the Big Screen: Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022)

By Sabrina Völz

“The lynch­ing of my son has shown me that what hap­pens to any of us

any­where in the world had bet­ter be the busi­ness of us all.”

Mamie Till-Bradley in Till

Photo credit: Maxim Hopman
Pho­to cred­it: Max­im Hopman

The name Till is one that most Amer­i­cans and many peo­ple around the world will rec­og­nize from their civ­il rights his­to­ry lessons. In 1955, while vis­it­ing fam­i­ly, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chica­go, was bru­tal­ly beat­en and mur­dered for alleged­ly flirt­ing with and whistling at a mar­ried white woman near Mon­ey, Mis­sis­sip­pi. His bloat­ed body was lat­er found in the Tal­la­hatchie River.

I must admit that when I first heard about the film Till, it imme­di­ate­ly sparked my curios­i­ty. Yes, I thought. The heinous crime that caused a media fren­zy and gal­va­nized the civ­il rights move­ment needs to be brought to new gen­er­a­tions. But wait. We live in an age of trig­ger warn­ings (state­ments that alert read­ers or view­ers to poten­tial­ly dis­turb­ing con­tent) and audi­ences with a height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty to vio­lence. So how can film direc­tor Chi­nonye Chuk­wu draw view­ers to movie the­aters and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly do jus­tice to the bru­tal­i­ty of that crime?

It also intrigued me that Chuk­wu placed Emmett Till’s moth­er, Mamie Till-Bradley, in the film’s cen­ter. If she’s men­tioned at all in Amer­i­can his­to­ry text­books, it’s main­ly to rec­og­nize the role she played in the deci­sion to show the world what South­ern hatred looked like. She was the dri­ving force to ensure an open cas­ket at Emmett Till’s funer­al. So what does the film reveal that most his­to­ry books do not?

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Recognizing a Freak: An Atheist Reads Flannery O’Connor

By Raul Quinque

Pho­to Cred­it: flan­nery o’con­nor and pea­cock pub­lished by will (50 watts)

The read­er and the writer. Two sides of the same coin. Par­don, the same page. Rela­tion­ship sta­tus: It’s com­pli­cat­ed since only one gets to state what’s on their mind. Thus, it’s only fair to talk back via text. Flan­nery O’Connor (1925–1964) may be long gone from this world, but her lit­er­a­ture endures as an eter­nal mes­sage. And so does the ques­tion how an athe­ist-by-con­vic­tion con­nects to Catholic O’Connor’s South­ern Goth­ic reli­gious themes.

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We Own the Majority: Mayans M.C. Brings Drama, Representation, and Larger-Than-Life Grit

By Hannah Quinque

Pho­to by Ste­qvc at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MayansMC.png#/media/File:MayansMC.png.

FX’s Mayans M.C. is a dra­ma series show­cas­ing a world of guns and drugs around a bik­er gang in SoCal, right at the US-Mex­i­can bor­der. Can a set­ting rid­dled with stereo­types present a back­drop for desir­able rep­re­sen­ta­tion with its prin­ci­pal­ly Mex­i­can Amer­i­can (Chi­cano) char­ac­ters? Let’s look beyond the basic premise and find out how Mayans M.C., for all its machis­mo, tells tales full of life sel­dom fea­tured, off- as well as on-screen.

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The Big Bang Blog: The Toxic Relationship Comedy

By Veronika M. Heinrich

The Big Bang The­o­ry is pure poi­son in a soci­ety that just got a wake-up call.
Just yes­ter­day, I saw anoth­er post reveal­ing its prob­lem­at­ic themes. What tru­ly shocked me were the com­ments – most of them in defence of their beloved series. “Don’t get your feel­ings hurt. It’s just a fun­ny show!” they claim. But it’s not.
Like many oth­ers, I also enjoyed watch­ing The Big Bang The­o­ry in my teenage years. I was hap­py that there was a show that por­trayed nerd cul­ture and ref­er­enced it. I didn’t ques­tion the harm­ful themes the show relies on. To be hon­est, I didn’t even see them. Now that my eyes are opened, I can’t unsee them. I can bare­ly stand to watch an entire episode. The char­ac­ters’ behav­ior around women and each oth­er is just too painful.
I can’t wrap my head around why this show ran for so many sea­sons and wasn’t can­celled ear­li­er. Sheldon’s quirk­i­ness is so fun­ny after all, isn’t it?
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A Story Beyond Words: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson

By Hannah Quinque

Pho­to Cred­it: “No Pride With­out Black Trans Lives” by Janine and Jim Eden

LGBTQ+ Pride is usu­al­ly a cause for cel­e­bra­tion. It is meant to express the joy of being alive and being seen in a soci­ety where an iden­ti­ty that diverges from the norm eas­i­ly leads to exclu­sion, iso­la­tion, and fear. Some­how, it makes sense, then, that the idea of Pride is born from suf­fer­ing, tragedy, and anger, too. The 2017 Net­flix doc­u­men­tary The Death and Life of Mar­sha P. John­son presents a stir­ring tes­ta­ment to a life and death that are uni­ver­sal­ly mean­ing­ful in the strug­gle for LGBTQ+ exis­tence, then and now.

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Going against the Grain: Declaring My Love for Cars 2

By Veronika Heinrich

Every­body hates Cars 2 – and I just don’t under­stand why. First of all, let me make a con­fes­sion: I’m 25 years old and a Dis­ney nerd. I love watch­ing ani­mat­ed movies – as long as they’re well made. And Cars 2, even after more than ten years, is still my all-time feel-good movie.

It has every­thing you could wish for: Uplift­ing words, fun­ny jokes, and a world you can lose your­self in. There’s bare­ly any­thing that’s hate­ful or trig­ger­ing, and I love join­ing the char­ac­ters on their jour­ney. Yet, most crit­ics have char­ac­ter­ized Cars 2 as vio­lent and illog­i­cal, call­ing it the worst Pixar movie ever – and I just can’t wrap my head around it. How could I feel so dif­fer­ent­ly from every­one else?

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