Category Archives: writing

Why I’m Thankful I Had the Opportunity to Write For CWR and Why I’m Stepping Down Now

A little over three years ago, a close childhood friend contacted me because their cousin (Evan) was looking for another writer to become a regular contributor on a blog called Culture War Reporters. I jumped at the chance and, after a very serious interview with Evan and Gordon, became a regular contributor here at CWR.

I’m feeling more than a little nostalgic rereading some of those early posts and conversations with my co-writers. It’s even making me question my decision to stop writing for the blog. Despite my second thoughts and feelings of nostalgia, I’ve considered stepping down for some time now, and I’d like to share a few reasons why I feel the time is right.

1. I haven’t been dedicating the time needed to create quality posts

When I first started writing for CWR, I was so excited and nervous about my first blogging opportunity that I would write my post early in the week and return to them throughout the week to do more editing. Luckily, I was also a full-time student, so I was already spending several hours a day at my computer screen writing. It was a welcome break to stop working on homework and spend a few hours writing about whatever topic I was particularly interested in that week.

This year my schedule began to shift. I was only in school part-time and began balancing several other jobs on the side. While I still enjoyed taking time to write for CWR, I was spending much less time at my laptop and it took a conscious effort to remember to get my posts up on time. The week would often slip by and I’d wind up writing last minute, which inevitably meant lower quality writing and less time spent researching my topic. I’ve come to realize that writing just hasn’t been on the top of my priority list, and, consequently, I haven’t produced the quality of content I want to put out into the world.

2. Other passions are drawing my attention

I’ve always loved to write, and I suspect that I always will. But lately, I haven’t felt nearly as passionate about writing as I’ve felt about some of my other interests. This summer I’ve had several opportunities to teach programs or courses that took up a large portion of my time. This September, I’m going to be starting the teaching post-degree program. As I feel myself getting more and more excited about this new career direction, I can also imagine myself spending less and less time writing (especially while I continue to work on the side). Rather than produce lower quality content, I’d rather take time off from blogging until I once again feel passionate enough about my writing to spend the time needed to produce quality content. Continue reading

What Happened to Comic Book Resources?

“Change is good.” That’s a slogan I very vividly remember from a McDonald’s commercial around the turn of the century. A classroom full of kindergartners is shocked to find out that the Golden Arches are now serving white meat chicken nuggets, and are silent as one of their members takes the first tentative bite. Once she speaks those three words they break out into cheers, ecstatic that their beloved nuggets are just as delicious as before. Change is good. Or, more accurately, it can be.

This past Tuesday I was going through my handful of comic book news sites only to find that Comic Book Resources [also known as CBR], the fourth and last on the list, was borderline unrecognizable. Instead of seeing-

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-like I was used to, I was greeted with-

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While I was taken aback by the seemingly sudden redesign, the truth is that if I’d been more observant I would have seen this coming from a long way off. Continue reading

In With the Old [And In With the New]: The Silver Lining of Intertextuality

Last Friday I asked you all to watch a short video on the concept of intertextuality, which provides the basis for this week’s post.

While Nerdwriter1, the YouTuber responsible, initially describes the device as “something in a text, in this case a movie, that is shaped by another text” he later goes a step further in making the term distinct from mere allusion. Contemporary intertextuality, which he refers to as being “weaponized”, is defined as:

“objects, people or situations explicitly meant to trigger an emotional response”

To use my own visual example, successful intertextuality results in a combination of:

and

Being able to recognize and understand the reference is important, but equally essential is having that recognization elicit feelings, whether they be of awe, or joy, or pleasant surprise. Simply identifying a shot in a film as the replication of a comic book panel matters most if you care[d] about that original work. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E22 “And the Big Gamble”: A TV Review

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An obvious part of my excitement for tonight’s season finale was the fact that it affords me a break from reviewing this show weekly, which is much appreciated given how busy my life has been lately. As far as the actual content of the episode there was finally finding out if Max and Randy have a future, with getting to see more Asian characters appear on the show [which I only realized when putting together the header image above] trailing far behind.

Let’s just say that I’m glad I wasn’t particularly excited about the latter. To get that out of the way before really digging into the plot points 2 Broke Girls continues to be so bad at dealing with racial minorities, particularly when it comes to Asians. This is particularly surprising when taking into account how many have been featured lately, at least in comparison to other groups. In this season alone we had a flamboyantly gay hotel manager in LA [Alec Mapa] and an anal-obsessed realtor [Camille Chen], both of whom had a decent amount of lines and screentime as side characters go.

While it is very fair to say that the majority of bit parts on 2 Broke Girls don’t allow for much more than a few quick, cheap laughs, regardless of race, the problem becomes noticeable when focusing on the main cast. Han Lee is the only Asian character among them, and can be summed up in a single word: pathetic. He exists to be the butt of every joke, and when every other Asian face can be boiled down to “dramatic” and “really likes anal sex” the optics don’t look too great.

Joining those two is Hwang Hwang, a Korean gangster played by Jimmie Saito. He’s meant to be a threat to Han’s well-being but never actually feels dangerous, and after watching his demo reel sounds like the director told him to play it up, and then just kept repeating that over and over and over again. Anyway. This show not doing well with race. Not exactly news. Continue reading

Why I Know “I’ll Be Back” to Watching 90’s Action Movies When I Have Kids

I came to the 90’s action party late.

Sure, I watched a few Arnie movies as a kid, but those were the blatantly child-friendly movies. I’m talking Kindergarten Cop and Jingle All The Way, fun romps to be sure, but nothing to prepare me for the awakening I had last year.

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It all began when John convinced me to watch his favourite films from the 90’s (and a few from the 80’s). I decided to indulge my husband’s nostalgia. How was I to know it would end in an movie obsession that would leave me with a classic-action-movie-sized hole, never to be filled? I’ve had a hard time identifying what it is about these action movies that is still so appealing, so I thought I’d write a post trying to figure it out.

They’re Intensely Optimistic

I recently watched SicarioIt was an intense action (/crime/thriller) flick that follows the story of Kate Macer “an idealistic FBI agent [who] is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico”. While it was certainly a thought-provoking and well-executed film, it was also reeeaaaalllllllllyyy depressing.

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Have you ever noticed that? Some of the “best” films out there also happen to be the ones that leave you feeling like you’ve been punched in the gut. Perhaps it’s the gritty realism of contemporary films that sets them apart from previous action films, but that realism also prevents them from being a true escape from real-world troubles.

If you go back and watch almost any 90’s action movie you can go into it knowing your protagonist won’t come out of his adventure emotionally scarred. Instead, you know he’ll just rampage across your screen, kicking butt and taking names.

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With an endless amount of bullets.

Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E21 “And the Ten Inches”: A TV Review

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It’s weird to type the words “home stretch” without having my mind wander to how the the Raptors are doing in the NBA playoffs. To stick with illustrations involving my hometown’s professional sports team it doesn’t matter if the Raps beat the Miami Heat tonight, tying things up 1-1, since the goal is actually [and I’ll admit, implausibly] winning the entire thing. In a similar fashion it doesn’t actually matter if 2 Broke Girls delivered a spectacular episode or crashed and burned comedically [as per usual, it landed somewhere in the middle] since it’s the season finale that will [or won’t] draw audiences back this fall.

Choosing not to waste time on filler like last week’s episode, “And the Ten Inches” begins to actually move forward with the Dessert Bar idea that Max came up with four episodes ago. Construction is actually underway on what was once Max’s Homemade Cupcakes, with their first hiccup being that there’s definitely not enough room for both the bar and seating [more on that in “The Title Refers To” section below].  Continue reading