Quickies
Quickies: Clown Motels, Token Strong Female Characters, and Atheism has a Race Problem
- Fred Phelps’s Son is the Subject of a Documentary About His Abusive Childhood and Escaping Westboro Baptist – “Nate Phelps ran away from home on his 18th birthday, but he’s only been speaking publicly about his abusive childhood for four years. In that time, he’s received countless emails, phone calls and letters from people who’ve been inspired by his story to deal with their own issues, be it religious abuse, LGBT equality or physical violence.”
- ‘Strong Female Characters’ Aren’t Enough, Goddammit – Female characters with badass spiky hair are common these days, but if they just exist as tokens and don’t further the plot, they may as well not exist.
- Atheism has a big race problem that no one’s talking about – “In a nation where African Americans and whites are still separate and decidedly unequal, black atheists are forced to form their own organizations, often getting pushback from some whites about creating ‘separatist’ groups.” From Amy.
- Are Facebook rants about harming your wife protected free speech? US Supremes to decide – “Man who wrote of ‘a thousand ways to kill’ wife files appeal.” From Amy.
- America’s scariest motel is haunted… by hundreds of clowns – Who wants to take a road trip?
The comments on Sikivu Hutchinson’s article are right there to prove her point.
Yeah, you know Lewis’ law? It applies to race, too. Ditto for Anita’s irony.
On strong female characters, besides the need to actually play a role in the plot that can’t just as easily be played by a lamp or a $500 gold necklace, there’s also the question of, does she have flaws? Does she go through being raped and tortured only to be more badass because of it? Because…it doesn’t work that way.
And no, threatening violence isn’t free speech. It’s specifically illegal to threaten to murder the president, after all.