BOOK: Ducks (2022)

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Ducks: Two Years in the Oil SandsYear: 2022Author: Kate BeatonLength: 430 pages Having only really experienced Kate Beaton's web comic, Hark! A Vagrant and her sillier material, I was interested to see how a graphic novel of her life would play out on the printed page. I was shocked to find her somewhat whimsical style had so much emotion for a story that was assuredly a difficult one to tell. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is as gripping as it is frustrating that such working conditions remain this dangerous for women. Telling the story of how Beaton paid off her student loans from art school in the fastest way possible, Ducks highlights the misogyny and sexism present in the (frankly) male-dominated field of petroleum. Working on the oil sands isn't safe in a physical sense, but add to that the "hanging with the guys" tropes that eventually lead to assault. It was hard to read sections of this book, knowing...
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MOVIE: Women Talking (2022)

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Women Talking Year: 2022 Rating: PG-13 Length: 104 minutes / 1.73 hours Some conversations are difficult. Things that people in power want to be covered up are often the conversations that need to happen the most. And while revealing these topics to the public is a great way to raise awareness, sometimes the most impactful way to effect change is to band together. A unified front against an egregious sin does more than merely asking those in power to stop. Women Talking (2022) takes on the heavy topic of sexual assault and makes it a not-so-simple conversation about what to do in a helpless situation. While I feel She Said (2022) received more visibility, the heaviness of the circumstances of these Mennonite women hit significantly harder. Granted, neither film really captured the tension the way Spotlight (2015) did. It's great that movies like this are coming out, despite being heavy topics that require introspection into the systems that enable them. Heck, even Promising Young Woman...
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MOVIE: She Said (2022)

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She Said Year: 2022 Rating: R Length: 129 minutes / 2.15 hours After the gripping Best Picture winner Spotlight (2015) brought to light the struggles of journalists to expose systemic sexual abuse in our society, it's a little sad that the somewhat similar She Said (2022) hasn't gotten the same amount of attention. And perhaps that's just highlighting the continuation of the issue at hand: sexual assault rampant throughout the Hollywood film industry. One wonders if this introspective piece would have done better without Spotlight's shadow looming over it or the movie industry wanting to continue to silence the voice of these women. She Said has plenty of gripping moments where women put their entire careers on the line to become named sources to out the deplorable practices of producers like Harvey Weinstein. The trouble is, the whole movie plays out quite similarly to how Spotlight did seven years ago. If you want to see more thrilling investigative journalism that brings to light the abuse...
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BOOK: Louisiana Catch (2018)

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Louisiana Catch Year: 2018 Author: Sweta Srivastava Vikram Length: 254 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM THE AUTHOR*** At a time when the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are at their peak, a book like Louisiana Catch is poised to address something that many American’s might choose to ignore: abuse of women in foreign countries. Sure, there’s sexual harassment in the United States, but in other cultures where there is a firm patriarchy in control, there are much more severe issues like throwing acid and marital rape. While Louisiana Catch does cover these abuses in the context of India, there are other elements to the story that distracts from the impact of overcoming past abuse. First of all, Louisiana Catch is a somewhat misleading title, since most of the action happens in either New York City or New Delhi. Sure, there’s some amount of Louisiana in the characters, and the women’s conference is held in New Orleans (not sure why, since New York would have been a better fit), but the focus of...
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MOVIE: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Year: 2017 Rating: R Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours The first film by Martin McDonagh I saw was Seven Psychopaths (2012). I enjoyed how he was able to take the audience through many entertaining twists and turns. For his follow-up film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), McDonagh has improved on the twists, as well as the darkness of the comedy contained therein. In fact, the comedy is so dark that at times it was almost uncomfortable to laugh. All this being said, the two areas that make this a standout film are the characters and its complexity. Let’s start with the characters. Almost every single character is introduced in a way that the audience wants to dislike them. And yet, over the course of the film, the significant amount of character development makes the audience root for people who threw individuals out of second-story windows or chucked Molotov cocktails at a police station. Part of what helps in these character developments...
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