Feminist Frequency Radio

Latest Episodes:

FFR 141: Blade Oct 21, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to the second episode in our spooky season series, revisiting classic, cult or nostalgic witch and vampire movies as chosen by our patrons. Today we’re traveling back to 1998, when Wesley Snipes starred as the titular vampire hunter, Blade. 9 years after Tim Burton’s Batman, and 20 years before the MCU’s Black Panther, Blade was the first Marvel Superhero theatrical release, the grandfather of every Marvel Superhero movie to follow. Join us as we dive into a grimdark version of LA, populated by blood and power thirsty vampires that can only be stopped by a stoic vampire/human hybrid seeking revenge.

Time Stamps:

5:52 - Main Discussion on Blade

46:10 - What’s Your Freq Out?

Carolyn on the game Hades from developer Supergiant Games
Anita on the novel The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Links Mentioned:

Roger Ebert’s review of Blade when it came out in 1998 - https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blade-1998

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FFR 140: Hocus Pocus Oct 14, 2020

Show notes

In celebration of the spooky season, we’re looking at media depictions of witches and vampires, starting with Hocus Pocus. Starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker, this 1993 Disney classic sparks a feeling of campy nostalgia for many, but how did it hold up for us and what does an almost 30 year old children’s Halloween movie have to say to a modern audience?

Time Stamps:

6:38 - Main Discussion on Hocus Pocus

41:20 - What’s Your Freq Out?

Guest Freq Out from listener Helcio on gendered language

Links Mentioned:

Jessica Zollman’s 30 Days of Horror - www.instagram.com/jayzombie

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FFR 139: Enola Holmes Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

The Netflix film Enola Holmes introduces us to the much younger (and perhaps more brilliant) sister of the infamous Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. The film is based on a series of YA detective novels by author Nancy Springer, and our heroine (played in the film by Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown) is a quick-thinking and fearless young woman who frustrates and amazes everyone around her in equal measure. We discuss who we think the intended audience is, and whether the film succeeds in delivering a feminist-minded moral to a younger audience. We also discuss casting choices for Mycroft and Sherlock, held up against Arthur Conan Doyle’s source material, and offer up some opinions on other recent adaptations.

Time Stamps:

3:37 - Main Discussion on Enola Holmes

42:04 - What’s Your Freq Out?

Carolyn on the film A Hidden Life (2019) directed by Terrence Malick
Anita on Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan

Links Mentioned:

“Is Henry Cavill Too Hot to Play Sherlock Holmes in ‘Enola Holmes’? An Investigation” by Emma Baty, Cosmopolitan, September 24, 2020 https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/a34149946/netflix-enola-holmes-henry-cavill-too-hot-sherlock-holmes/

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FFR 138: The Matrix Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

This week, by popular demand, we're talking about The Matrix, a film once co-opted by the online right that has in recent years seen a kind of reclamation as an explicitly queer, trans text. Carolyn kicks things off by telling us about a 20th anniversary screening of the landmark film that she attended last year which illuminated some aspects of the film that contribute to its reading as a queer work. From there, we talk about the film's systemic perspective, and reveal who among us would take the blue pill. We talk about the challenge of doing the actual work of resisting the cisnormative heteronormative white supremacist patriarchy, and express frustration with some of the film's more conventional aspects, including the role Trinity is wedged into. Carolyn does her best Agent Smith impression, Ebony raises an important point about what it means if humanity only accepts the simulation if it replicates certain forms of oppression, and we talk about finding joy in the struggle.

PLEASE NOTE that this is our final episode before a brief hiatus. We shall return on October 7th to kick off a new season!

Time Stamps:

3:15 - The Matrix
41:20 - What’s Your FREQ-Out: Ebony on Jessica Krug and the idea of “transracialism,” Carolyn on a few other Keanu Reeves movies, Anita on On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis and the documentary Netizens now on HBO Max.

Our main topic this week is the incendiary series I May Destroy You, written by and starring the staggeringly talented Michaela Cole. Our conversation covers the revelatory way in which the show frankly and honestly confronts so many forms of rape and sexual assault, and a larger culture that normalizes and perpetuates them. We also discuss the remarkable complexity of the show’s central characters, as they often make choices that we as viewers may strenuously object to, but never in a way that reduces them to villains or makes them seem worthy of being written off as people.

Time Stamps:

1:40 - Reacting to the Passing of Chadwick Boseman
8:50 - I May Destroy You
46:45 - What’s Your FREQ-Out: Carolyn on Episode 3 of Lovecraft Country, Ebony on P-Valley, Anita on Semiosis by Sue Burke

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FFR 136: Lovecraft Country Aug 26, 2020

Show notes

On this week’s FFR we discuss the first two episodes of HBO's Lovecraft Country, a show that blends horror elements into a tale about racism in 1950s America, but first we talk about how the horrors of anti-Black racism remain so inescapable in America today, where police have once again exacted brutal violence on a Black man. Our discussion of the show touches on the ways in which it draws from pulp fiction and acknowledges the complexity of our relationship to tales that we love even if they don’t love us back, its subversion of classic Americana and fascinating use of audio, and the experience of watching this show right now, while living in a world in which some of us are exhausted from the experience of constantly being dehumanized and endangered.

Time Stamps:

1:45 - The shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin
8:20 Lovecraft Country
43:15 - What’s Your FREQ-Out: Carolyn on the Criterion Channel and three films by Mia Hansen-Løve, Ebony on Rust by Christopher Ruz, Anita on Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Links Mentioned:

Ebony’s Twitter thread on running while Black
The New York Times: Why Are There So Few Black Directors in the Criterion Collection?

This week, we explore the seamy underbelly of 1932 Los Angeles with HBO’s exciting revisionist take on the character of Perry Mason. In HBO’s series, crucial supporting characters have been reimagined--Della Street is now a queer woman, Paul Drake is a Black man--in ways that inform the series’ systemic perspective and help it avoid some of the ideological pitfalls that much hard-boiled crime fiction of the past falls into. As a result, this is a Perry Mason that grapples both with our actual history and with the narrow lens of the classic CBS series, and in so doing, demonstrates how TV and film can use familiar formats and genres without just telling the same old stories.

Time Stamps:

4:00 - Perry Mason
45:15 - FREQ-Outs: Carolyn on current political issues

This week, we dive back into all the wild ups and downs of entertainment news to bring you our reactions to some of the biggest and most politically resonant stories of recent weeks! We discuss Disney’s decision to release Mulan on Disney+ for beaucoup bucks and the larger matter of what it means that some films are going to VOD while others are holding out for theatrical release. We talk about the white fragility of reactions to a recent Six Chix comic, Trump’s Tiktok crackdown, and the encouraging news that Nia DaCosta will be helming the Captain Marvel sequel. Also, how some celebs are closing ranks around Ellen as allegations about the toxic culture of her daytime talk show gain attention, and Bon Appetit’s brazen exploitation of people of color.

Time Stamps:

04:00 - Disney’s online release of Mulan: pricing, the implications of which films get released online and which films are being held for theatrical release, etc.
10:25 - The racist response to Bianca Xunise’s Six Chix comic
17:00 - Trump cracks down on Tiktok
28:15 Nia DaCosta set to direct Captain Marvel sequel
31:55 Celebrities support Ellen amid allegations of a toxic culture at the hit daytime talk show
40:25 Bon Appetit’s persistent exploitation and mistreatment of people of color, and holding people accountable
48:05: What’s Your FREQ-Out: Carolyn on What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, Ebony on Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, Anita on The Outside by Ada Hoffman

This week, we revisit the classic 1980 comedy about sexism in the workplace, 9 to 5. We discuss all the ways in which the film still rings true, the insight with which it depicts women trying to navigate multiple manipulative sexist behaviors of men in positions of power, and how it doesn't lay the blame at the feet of one bad boss but acknowledges that these are systemic issues that necessitate structural change. We also talk about what it's like to watch this film some 40 years after its release, when we seem to have made little progress with addressing these kinds of abuses and power imbalances. At the same time, the film now captures a bygone era of American employment before the days of the gig economy, when it was easier to find jobs that were just jobs and not things we brought home or that absorbed our entire identity. Also, we talk about the one scene that made Ronald Reagan mad.

Time Stamps:

03:00 - 9 to 5
38:00- What’s Your FREQ-Out: Ebony on The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Carolyn on I Know This Much Is True, Anita on The Games and Online Harassment Hotline and on Jade City by Fonda Lee

Links Mentioned:

FFR 132: Palm Springs Jul 29, 2020

Show notes

This week we're off to Palm Springs via the new time-loop rom-com on Hulu starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milotti. We discuss how Palm Springs tweaks the familiar structure of films like Groundhog Day in some significant ways to serve up something fresh, while also acknowledging that it can't entirely avoid some of the troubling matters of consent that often seem to come with the time-loop territory. We also talk about how the film explores questions of what it means to live ethically when every day is the same as the previous ten thousand days, and the surprising sweetness of its love story.

Time Stamps:

02:10 - Palm Springs
37:55 - What’s Your FREQ-Out: Carolyn on I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Ebony on P-Valley, Anita on Carrion and A Mortician’s Tale, Listener Chelsea on The Babysitter’s Club (Netflix)

Links Mentioned: