On December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 landed on the moon. If you’ve ever read Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars you would know that the inside of the living quarters smells like a mixture of gunpowder and flatulence.
- ATF uses rogue tactics in storefront stings across nation – So, how’s that War on Drugs working out for ya?
- HIV virus returns after cure hope rose – This is in patients who had bone marrow transplants and who were tentatively considered “cured” (at least according to the media). From Will.
- Frozen’s Cynical Twist on Prince Charming – “The Disney hit is a good, subversive kids’ film—until a needlessly jarring surprise at the end.”
- Invisible Child – If you haven’t seen the New York Times piece about the plight of one homeless child, you need to read this.
Mary,
Its disappointing that we still haven’t gotten rid of the horrible HIV virus yet.
Frozen was a lot more subversive than the (apparently very dumb) author of that Atlantic piece knows. They completely undermine the “true love” and “damsel in distress” tropes in a single scene.
I married my Hans, and it was terrifying. I wish this movie had been around when I was small. I loved it. Many of the more uncomfortable elements were there just so Disney could make fun of itself. The only, very small, part of the overall narrative I didn’t love was in the troll song: “We’re not saying you can change him, cause people don’t really change. We’re only saying love’s a force that’s powerful and strange. People make bad choices they’re mad or scared or stressed, but throw a little love their way and you’ll bring out their best. True love brings out the best.” Loving someone can be futile, and loving someone in the hopes you can fix their problems is a bad idea. I felt like they were doubling down against the Beauty and the Beast critiques.
But that is about ten seconds of an otherwise amazing narrative. Impossibly skinny white girls could maybe not be the stars of their next forray into modern sensibilities though. That’d be another good step.