They’re Just Like Us: Race and the White Working-Class on Roseanne
On Tuesday, May 29th, ABC Entertainment canceled the reboot of Roseanne after Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, comparing the former Obama advisor to... Read More
Roseanne and the Changing Working-Class
When ABC’s Roseanne premiered in 1988, it arrived in the era of Reaganomics with policies that stripped power from unions, sent blue collar jobs overseas and... Read More
Roseanne: A Working-Class (S)hero Returns
The Roseanne reboot promises to tackle love and politics. Pack your bags and hit the road, folks. On March 27th we’re going back to Lanford.... Read More
Phony rags to riches stories
I just finished watching the movie Julie and Julia, and it irritated me in the same way that many books and movies have irritated me... Read More
“Sixteen Tons” brings mine wars of ’20s and ’30s alive
“Are the mules okay?” Not to diminish hard-working mules, but the mine boss’s urgent question after an accident captures the cruel reality thrust upon generations... Read More
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Class themes in Oscar nominees #1
A darling of the film award season this year, the American fantasy drama film Beasts of the Southern Wild (BOTSW) has been nominated for numerous... Read More
Les Miz: Class themes in Oscar nominees #2
The poverty in the Les Miserables movie seems more realistic than most poverty portrayed in fiction in one crucial aspect: the way desperately poor people... Read More
Silver Linings Playbook: Class themes in Oscar nominees #3
Movies about mental illness are a favorite of the Oscars. The nominees are often serious affairs with sad endings and a key point: it sucks... Read More