11.7.23
media that's been knitting itself into a long + tangled scarf inside my head for the past week
maybe this will just become a tuesday substack who knows…
watching
the fall of the house of usher (2023) - tv show
had 2 friends recommend this show + have enjoyed flanagan’s other work (haunting of hill house + haunting of bly manor specifically) so was v excited 2 watch this and! it did not disappoint <3 perhaps a bit more gruesome + a bit less ghost-y than his other work that i’ve seen, but i like a bit of gruesomeness what can i say…
the show is essentially about an insanely wealthy family who begin suddenly + mysteriously dying one after the other. it’s based around various works of edgar allen poe (hence the title) + incorporates many flanagan hallmarks—jump scares, weaving plotlines that go back + forth in time, etc. there were a few things abt it that annoyed me—was skeptical abt the sort of disease model re: drug addiction underlying much of the show, disliked the didactic speech from one character in the final episode, really disliked the sort of ‘takeaway’ we get from another character at the end. but aside from the somewhat lackluster ending i thought the show was v fun <3
five nights at freddy’s (2023) - movie
have never played any of the games but watched this w my sisters since everyone was hyping it up…it was not v good from an outsider’s perspective lol but i can see how fans of the franchise would really enjoy it. plot is about a down-on-his-luck guy raising his younger sister who gets a job as a night security guard at a shut-down pizza parlor/arcade where the animatronics start coming to life. pacing was…v weird + it was honestly not as scary as i expected it 2 be. did enjoy seeing josh hutcherson on my tv screen once again tho <3
teddy (2020) - movie
french werewolf movie about (another) down-and-out guy who gets bitten by werewolf + starts 2 transform…honestly was not super impressed w this movie either. it was like…fine. thought the actors were good (esp. the kid playing teddy, the main character) but the plot started 2 drag slightly as the movie went on + the ending was a bit. meh.
supernatural season 1 (2005) - tv show
have decided that the time has come 4 me 2 watch all 15 seasons of supernatural…will i stick with it? who knows…but i already finished season 1, so. making progress…
i actually watched season 1 (or at least most of it) back when i was like 12-13—had a short-lived supernatural phase in which i watched a few seasons (can’t remember how many) but then abandoned it + never returned…until now. season 1 is honestly pretty fun & dean winchester. character of all time i fear as much as it pains me 2 say it…i miss early 2000s tv when the men were all repressed + so misogynistic it veered into homoeroticism…they’re just not making them like this anymore…
reading
lapvona (ottessa moshfegh) - book
why did this book get so much hype what am i missing. saw so many people either saying it was the most disgusting + depraved thing they’ve ever read (negative) or the most sick + twisted thing they’ve ever read (positive) but i thought it was just. fine. like yeah there’s some gross stuff but i didn’t think it was particularly explicit or difficult 2 stomach…also moshfegh’s writing style is also just. fine. 2 me…like it doesn’t really wow me i’m kinda just like alright! i’d say overall that i…liked the book…i think…like some fun sort of dry satiric bite to it etc, but honestly a bit forgettable imo think it just wasn’t my cup of tea. actual plot is meandering + hard 2 summarize but essentially follows the lives of a shepherd + his disabled son in the feudal village of lapvona so. if medieval historical fiction is ur thing (it’s not mine) i suppose it might be more up ur alley…
in defense of the trans villainess (sessi kuwabara blanchard) - essay
short little 2018 article sort of in the vein of stryker’s words-to-frankenstein about reclaiming the position of the ‘trans villainess’ + finding avenues for political action + empowerment through a subject position that seeks destruction of the status quo rather than assimilation. fun + quick read!
unbuilding gender: trans* anarchitecture in and beyond the work of gordon matta-clark (jack halberstam) - article
longer article + somewhat niche but also w broader implications. halberstam is looking specifically at the work of gordon matta-clark & his pioneering of the ‘anarchitecture’ movement in the 70s, which birthed a sort of destruction-as-creation style of art + architecture that directly challenged the modernist sensibility of ‘form follows function’ that dominated architectural thought at the time. halberstam places anarchitecture in context w modern trans art + a broader paradigm shift in trans theory that sees bodies not in terms of linear means to an end (ie, transition as something w a clear start + end goal) but instead as sites of constant construction, the sort of unmaking and remaking central to the anarchitectural project. really great read, highly recommend!
carrie and the boys (carol j. clover) - book ch
started the research that i should have begun weeks ago 4 one of the papers i need 2 write this semester…already read men, women, and chainsaws a few years back but revisited the introduction 4 this particular project <3 when i first read the book i really enjoyed it, and i still do like what clover’s doing—her book has become foundational within feminist horror studies, and at the time she wrote it she was trying to challenge a predominant paradigm within film studies that assumed men would only ever identify with male characters, and vice versa. clover argues that this isn’t the case, at least within the specific genre of horror—and, even more specifically, slashers. she proposes a one-sex model instead, arguing that sex proceeds from gender in horror films; i.e., that it’s behavior which sexes characters, rather than the other way around. her reading still falls into gender essentialism in many ways, but it provides the outlines of a framework that i find compelling if we’re willing to take it a step further and argue that both sex and gender are a result of behavior, actions, etc, rather than the other way around.
horror and the monstrous-feminine: an imaginary abjection (barbara creed) - article
another foundational scholar in feminist horror studies…didn’t read the entire book that creed wrote on the monstrous-feminine, but this article summarizes the framework which she develops in that text. essentially, creed is drawing on psychoanalytic theory—in particular, julia kristeva’s theory of the mother as abject—to argue that the project of horror is always a confrontation with and eventual triumph over The Abject; what changes is the specific figuration of The Abject across horror. within this context, creed argues that the mother is always an abject figure within horror, an abjection that she deems fundamental to the construction of the ‘monstrous-feminine.’
creed’s project is rooted in psychoanalytic theory which grounds itself in an essentialized sex (& gender) binary, making it a fundamentally essentialist project. what i find so interesting about this work, however, is the way that kristeva’s particular psychoanalytic theory of motherhood/the maternal has pervaded feminist horror scholarship (like creed’s) such that many foundational texts (again, like creed’s) ultimately reify constructed sex + gender binaries.
feminist frameworks for horror films (cynthia a. freeland) - article
really great critique of feminist horror scholarship, in particular its reliance on psychoanalytic frameworks. freeland breaks down the pitfalls with works like creed’s and clover’s and proposes a new framework for feminist readings of horror films that relies less on assumptions about audience receptions and universalized psychic qualities and instead grounds itself in more material questions about what work a film’s representations of gender is actually doing. though i do think freeland herself still falls back on gender essentialism a bit in her example applications of this framework, i really enjoy her critique & think she raises a lot of good points abt the flaws re: psychoanalytic theory as the predominant framework for feminist horror studies.
naturalized (hala alyan) - poem
highly recommend reading the full poem, but this bit in particular:
Here’s your math. Here’s your hot take.
That number isn’t a number.
That number is a first word, a nickname, a birthday song in June.
I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Here’s your testimony,
here’s your beach vacation. Imagine:
I stop running when I’m tired. Imagine:
There’s still the month of June. Tell me,
what op-ed will grant the dead their dying?
know their names: the thousands of palestinians killed in israeli attacks on gaza (mohammed haddad, mohammed hussein, and konstantinos antonopoulos) - article
article abt all the palestinians who have died since oct. 7—this was published on nov. 1, so exact numbers are likely outdated now, but still well worth a read.
understanding hamas: navigating the islamic resistance movement (mu) - article
piece that provides some historical & political context, which i think is important considering that invocations of hamas as a terrorist group are such a big part of the rhetoric being used to justify genocide. this article outlines why simplistically labeling hamas as ‘terrorists’ obscures a fuller picture of the issue, + i found it useful for contextualizing a group + movement that i otherwise knew very little about
hamas in 2017: the document in full - article
again, useful context for understanding current events; this is hamas’ most recent + updated charter, published in 2017.
a newer hamas? the revised charter (khaled hruob) - article
highly recommend reading this in conjunction w the hamas charter, as it provides more context for the historical + political motivations underlying certain shifts in position + changes made to the document from its original 1988 version.
listening
bukowski (modest mouse) - song
won’t lie watched a youtube supernatural edit w this song and. well now it’s the only new song i’ve liked so far in november…was already a modest mouse fan so not shocking i suppose!
other thoughts from the week
decided to knit some scarves as xmas presents! found a bunch of yarn at the thrift store. highly recommend this strategy…saved me so much money <3
wishing everyone a happy november etc xoxo
i look forward to these every week, have saved all the links to read once class has finished <3