Toxicity within fandoms is pervasive and reduces the enjoyment of film and television — A couple of months ago, I joined a Marvel fandom group on Facebook called “We Are Marvel” which has 150,000+ members. I immediately noticed its members’ constant negativity. Members meet every innocent question with ire and disgust. Are you an idiot? Did you even watch the show before asking stupid…

Black people don’t have to prove their worth to anyone to deserve to live — I am a member of a writer’s group on Facebook. Recently, a fellow writer who also happens to be a former law enforcement officer wrote a story, musing about the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and how we might collectively move forward. Another writer, also former law enforcement…

Piers Morgan mentioned Meghan Markle 834 times between November 27th, 2017, and May 20th, 2021 — Piers Morgan is an English television personality and journalist who previously served as the host of the popular British morning show Good Morning Britain until he suddenly quit in March 2021. These days, whenever Piers Morgan is trending on Twitter, there’s a 99.9% chance that it’s about something he said…

They keep moving the goalpost. — Being a racist is the hardest job in the world. You’re probably waiting for a sarcastic qualifier for that statement, but I have none. It’s true. The role is unimaginably taxing. It requires the analytical and technical know-how of skilled engineers, the flexibility of Olympic gymnasts, the delusion of starving…

Everything that could go wrong in an adaptation went wrong in The Last Airbender — Thunderdome is a Fanfare series where our writers good-naturedly debate some matter of pop culture and then leave it to the readers to decide. Read each post and vote at the bottom! I once heard someone say they couldn’t stomach Kate Winslet movies anymore after watching Titanic because it reminds…

It is significantly more critical to capture the essence of a character in an adaptation than a strict physical description — I’ve wanted to write some version of this article for months. It started as a defence of Halle Bailey’s Ariel in the upcoming Little Mermaid movie in response to a TikTok I saw last January condemning the choice. …

Or literally any woman you disagree with — I took a trip to Vancouver with a friend last week. While there, I learned two things. One, Vancouver is gorgeous, and its public library is the thing of dreams. It also rains…a lot. One of those dreary rainy days coincided with the news that someone attacked infamous comedian Dave…

I feel so safe now — Huzzah! Rejoice, noble elves, for Netflix has curb-stomped the racist fiends by zapping Community’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode out of the realm. Do people talk like that when playing Dungeons and Dragons? It feels like they do. Community was a not-so-hidden gem I discovered during this pandemic, and it…

Kindly calm the fuck down — I don’t work at McDonald’s. I’ve never worked at McDonald’s. If you ever see me wearing a McDonald’s uniform, just know that life took a dark turn, and I’m probably nearing my thirteenth reason. This is not an indictment of service jobs, but it is an indictment of the rude…