Kitten Natividad is a pleasure polymath. Over the past fifty years she’s been an adult film star, two time Miss Nude Universe, Burlesque Hall of Famer, and longtime collaborator and partner of director Russ Meyer. Although Kitten’s incomparable assets and joie de vivre made her a superstar of the Sexploitation genre and she graced screens […]
Mother’s Prayer Our mother who art underfoot, hallowed be thy names, thy seasons come, thy will be done, within us as around us, thank you for our daily bread, our water, our air, and our lives and so much beauty; lead us not into selfish craving and the destructions that are the hungers of the […]
What’s not to love about camp, queerness, and positive representations of sexuality (and some seriously INSANE makeup and costume talent)? Make Out Party looks like everything I love about John Waters and 60s sexploitation, but with a warmth and familiarity that’s evocative of a night out with friends at a DIY warehouse party. Filmmaker Emily […]
There has been outrage online at Mark Ruffalo’s casting of cisgender male actor Matt Bomer to portray a trans woman in the upcoming movie, Anything. Ruffalo, who is supposedly an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, chose to cast Bomer before the film even went into production, according to tweets he sent out. Even though trans actress Jen […]
The 1973 Japanese animation feature film Belladonna of Sadness defies its roots in the sexploitation genre by spending as much time on sex as it does feudal politics and superstitions, witchcraft, Satanism, and even the Black Death. A bizarrely beautiful film, its slow-paced animation style and strangely apt treatment of themes of exile, detachment, violation […]
Mae West could have been famous for any one of her remarkable qualities. A stunning, magnetic screen star, a scandalously witty writer, and an outspoken believer in free expression, Mae lived large in every sense of the phrase. More inspiring still, she retained complete control over her career and public image throughout her life. To […]
The vainglorious zeal of religious fundamentalists, the fear of immigrant outsiders, and the suspect power of female sexuality are thematic threads that stitch Robert Eggers’ The Witch together. Although this highly anticipated horror film offers up well-worn cinematic tropes of the woman-as-witch, it does so to thrilling effects. Full moons, horned goats, flying witches and the maiden, mother and crone all figure […]
Lithe, elegant, and eccentric, Russian-born actress Alla Nazimova embodied a type of decadent Hollywood glamour that hasn’t been seen since the mid-1940s. Her romantic entanglements with women and her lavish private parties may have been scandalous, but she possessed a captivating acting presence and creativity as a filmmaker that made her more than just another […]
In fall of 2015, I had the opportunity to teach an introductory course to New School freshman based upon Slutist’s music, art and burlesque festival, Legacy of the Witch. For a final project, students created visual interpretations of the witch as a feminist icon: this short film and artistic statement conjured by Samia Finnerty and Elisabeth […]
In 2009, Jessica Valenti heralded the dawn of 4th wave feminism with a supposition: “Maybe the 4th wave is online” the Feministing founder mused. Nearly seven years later, a new incarnation of the century old movement is far less questionable — and yet not entirely uncontested. Navigating this liminal space between 3rd and 4th wave feminism and between IRL […]
