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January-February 2024

Hollywood’s mixed-race problem

Movies and TV try to get it right, but they’re missing the mark

Asha Swann

My mom told me that once, when I was a toddler, a stranger advised her to sign me up for modelling. My green eyes, medium-light skin, and curly dark brown hair gave me a certain look, they said, which was super in. My mom said no, despite the fact that mixed-race girls like myself were […] More »
November-December 2016

Hollywood’s problem with Latinx representation

Maid. Drug dealer. Vixen. Popular shows and movies are filled with harmful Latinx tropes. Nadya Sarah Domingo examines the damaging effects of our homogenous media culture

Nadya Sarah Domingo@NadyaWithAWhy

A couple of years ago, a stranger approached me while I was volunteering at a film festival in Toronto. She motioned to a group of friends standing nearby. They placed a bet on my ethnicity, she explained, and wanted to know where I was from. I smiled and patiently regurgitated my now-rehearsed response: I was […] More »

Women: Not coming soon to a theatre near you

Lisa Whittington-Hill

An in-depth review of Hollywood’s problem with women “You could try to hold your camera like this… but your breasts would probably get in the way.” “Women do not belong on set unless they are in hair and makeup.” “Your main job is basically to be my work wife. You need to anticipate my needs. […] More »
July-August 2011

Kristin Nelson’s artwork re-humanizes pop icon Pamela Anderson

Whitney Light

Surfing the internet for a Grey Cup art project in November 2008, Kristin Nelson landed on a saucy image of Pamela Anderson. It immediately provoked a spark of inspiration that she couldn’t explain but also couldn’t deny. Thus emerged the seed of a body of artwork called My Life With Pamela Anderson that documents, in […] More »
January-February 2010

Yes, “awards season” is stupid, but it beats the alternative

Jason AndersonWebsite

If you ever want to get your hands on an Oscar, you’ll probably have to earn it the hard way. Security is tight on those things, and the resale market starts at $50,000 and heads into the seven-figure bracket if the winner was anyone you’ve heard of. (Michael Jackson once paid over $1.5 million for […] More »

ThisAbility #40: Glee is for me

aaron broverman

Sometimes it seems that no minority sits on a higher horse than people with disabilities—give an inch and they want a mile. I bet that’s what creator Ryan Murphy,  executive producer Brad Falchuck and the rest of the creative muscle behind Glee thought, in their most private moments, once they started hearing the complaints from […] More »
July-August 2008

Girls Gone Wild. So? Sometimes being brave means being bad

Megan Griffith-GreeneWebsite

With Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears splashed across tabloid covers, racing toward early graves, it’s easy to think they’re stupid or sick. But there’s something irresistably subversive about women who won’t behave The website “When Will Amy Winehouse Die?” reads like a macabre count-the-jellybeans contest. How many days does a junkie have left […] More »
January-February 2009

Terrance Houle reclaims the Hollywood Indian

Lia Grainger

In a small bright room in downtown Toronto, a young Aboriginal woman is auditioning for a role she never expected to play. “I’d like to read the part of Billy Jack,” she says. With script in hand, the woman narrows her eyes and begins to read: “It’s my medicine bag. Got some owls feathers, sacred […] More »
July-August 2009

“Conceptual comedy” duo turn jokes into art as “Life of a Craphead”

Sean Michaels

For Toronto’s “Making Room” art show in 2006, Amy Lam and Jon McCurley—the duo who call themselves Life of a Craphead— erected a bed sitting on a couch. The couch was large and blue and the bed sat as a human would, folded at the waist, with two wooden legs on the ground. It looked […] More »
May-June 2009

The American Nightmare of Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Wendy and Lucy’

Soraya RobertsWebsite

How global recession, Hurricane Katrina, and social breakdown can strand one lonely woman—and her little dog, too In cinematic terms, the Great Depression is arguably best represented by Mervyn LeRoy’s 1932 classic I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Wrongfully convicted of robbery, First World War veteran James Allen is sentenced to 10 years […] More »

Big screen? Big deal, say today’s viewers

Jason AndersonWebsite

Crappy image quality. Tiny screens. Scratchy sound. No thanks The extent of my snobbery has wavered over my years of film-going, but I have always adhered to one fundamental principle. I was trained to believe that seeing movies projected onto a big screen was always the aesthetically correct choice, even if the conditions were less […] More »