Feminist Frequency Radio

This week, the crew hosts writer, designer, and founder of Sweet Baby Inc, Kim Belair for a hilarious discussion of the 1992 cinematic classic Batman Returns! Before that, though, Caro serves up a heapin' helpin' of cringeworthy Pop Culture News (this week's topics included info about James Gunn's rehiring for Guardians of the Galaxy 3; Operation Varsity Blues; and Dean Cain confirming why he was...

FFR Ep 68 - Captain Marvel The crew is back together as we dive into all that is Captain Marvel, the newest entry in the Marvel Cinematic universe. Entertainment news this week includes Steam’s disappointingly sad statements about their policies, The Division 2 and the Captain Marvel “boycott”. We’re FREQing out about The Nod, “Take me to Merch”, Tim Apple, American Heiress: The The Wild Saga of t...

In this episode of FFR, Anita’s off giving talks in different cities so the podcast falls to Ebony and Carolyn this week, who do their best to fill the big Anita-shaped hole in all our hearts. The focus of this episode is Lorena, the new four-part documentary series on Amazon Prime which takes a fresh look at a case that set the tabloid world on fire in 1993: the case of Lorena Bobbitt. The new do...

This week we forgo our traditional entertainment news so Anita can talk far too long about this year’s Oscars while Ebony laughs just at her. Then we begrudgingly dive into Alita: Battle Angel the new Robert Rodriguez live action film based on the 1990’s manga series and hooboy do we have a lot to say. SEGMENT TIMESTAMPS: 1:02 - intro banter - Anita tries to solicit sponsorship from the makers of...

This week on FFR, we gear up for this weekend’s Oscars with a focus on the Academy Awards: why they matter, how they’ve worked to promote a notion of cinematic excellence that centers and glorifies whiteness, and how they’ve historically tended to celebrate films about people of color only when those films send comforting messages about race and racism. Also, the latest terrible thing Bill Maher h...

The triple[doll] threat is back in the Keanu Reeves Memorial Studio & Herbarium this week for a dive into the mindbending world of Netflix's new series, Russian Doll. The comedy-drama, created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler, and Leslye Headland, is hilarious, moving, surreal, brash, and unapologetic in its tough love for Natasha Lyonne's game developer main character, who is forced to relive h...

#63: Life Is Strange 2, Episode 2 This week, Ebony takes the host’s chair as she and Carolyn share their thoughts on the first few episodes of Life Is Strange 2. LIS2 follows the Diaz brothers, high schooler Sean and his younger brother Daniel, as they flee from their Seattle home after their father is murdered by a police officer. We talk about how the brothers’ race affects their experiences, th...

FFR #61: The Favourite This week, we’re traveling back to the court of Queen Anne for all the stately and scandalous manipulations of The Favourite, the Oscar-nominated film starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz. Throughout the movie, courtiers Sarah (Weisz) and Abigail (Stone) scheme and compete against each other politically and sexually to be the favorite of the queen (Colman). Ou...

FFR #60: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? This week on FFR, we take on a Hollywood classic in the 1962 psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a film whose title character was, at the time, one of the most shocking women ever seen onscreen. Played by cinematic legend Bette Davis, Baby Jane is an aging former child star who mentally and physically abuses her sister Blanche, played...

FFR #59: If Beale Street Could Talk This week on FFR, we’re discussing Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’ wonderful new film, If Beale Street Could Talk. We get into the striking beauty of the film’s visual composition, the way it creates a feeling of community and solidarity that stretches beyond just what we see on the screen, and how it somehow manages to overflow with warmth and love, even as i...

FFR #58: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse We’re kicking off 2019 with an FFR lovefest thanks to the exuberant and incredible Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse! Join us as we celebrate one of the best films of last year, with appreciation for its depiction of a diverse and lively Brooklyn, its wonderful hero, its touching Stan Lee cameo, and the way it fully embraces the medium of animation to do...

FFR #57: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power This week, we journey to the world of Etheria for showrunner Noelle Stevenson’s bold reimagining of She-Ra, and we very much like what we see! From the surprisingly complex explorations of friendship dynamics (for what’s ostensibly a children’s cartoon) to the terrific assortment of body types to the wonderful way that some characters don’t conform to st...

FFR #56: Doctor Who At long last, Anita and Ebony finally get around to talking about Doctor Who on the podcast! First, they both share their different relationships with the history of the show, and what they’re bringing with them to the new season, which stars Jodie Whittaker as the show’s first female Doctor. (Please note that this episode was recorded in early November, and only includes discu...

This week on FFR, Ebony and Carolyn take a road trip with Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali in Green Book. The film initially had a good deal of Oscar buzz, and in fact it was just chosen as the best film of 2018 by the National Board of Review. However, not everyone thinks the praise is deserved. In our conversation, we examine the film's reliance on stereotypes about what defines "real&quo...

This week, we’re off to Greendale to spend some time with the new Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina! The latest incarnation of the teenage witch who originated in comics in the early 1960s and who famously had her own TV show in the 1990s, The Chilling Adventures takes a creepier approach, with plenty of references to Satan and all manner of genuinely scary and sinister happenings...

On this week's Feminist Frequency Radio, we follow Viola Davis wherever she wants to lead us in director Steve McQueen's new film, Widows. On the surface, Widows looks like a heist flick, though notably one with women comprising the crew at its center. But while Widows certainly has many elements of a heist film, it's not exactly a traditional, straightforward example of the genre. It's a film dee...

This week’s episode is (maybe) our one year anniversary and Ebony eats cake in celebration. This week’s discussion surrounds the most recent remake of A Star is Born directed and starring Bradley Cooper with Lady Gaga. As usual we are a group divided on these tortured love stories but it might not be what you expect. Ebony loved the music, Carolyn loved the romance and Anita couldn’t get over Brad...

This week's episode comes to you from two new satellite studios in the Keanu Reeves Memorial Complex! Anita has moved to L.A. and reports in from Johnny Utah HQ; Caro has started phoning in from the Johnny Mnemonic Wing; and Ebony continues to keep it buck at the Johnny Wick Workshop. Our discussion this week centered on the Netflix series, Maniac, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Emma...

On this week's brand new FFR, we're live at GeekGirlCon '18 to talk about the ongoing trend of gender swaps in movies and television, whether it be specific characters who are reimagined as women (a la Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot) or a franchise that has historically centered men now centering female characters (as we see in Ocean's 8 or the 2016 Ghostbusters). Why is this sometime...

On this week's very special episode of Feminist Frequency Radio, Anita and Carolyn chat with the Anna Sale of WNYC's Death, Sex, and Money podcast about unethical labor practices in the video game industry, hot dads, and what makes a movie "a very Caro film." Segment timestamps: 0:00 Introductions 1:55 Pop Culture News: Daniel Craig toting his baby around causes Piers Morgan to combust;...

On this week’s FFR, Ebony and Carolyn chat with writer, bon vivant, and Shatner Chatner-purveyor, Daniel Ortberg. But before that conversation kicked off, Carolyn dumped a giant bucket of disappointing entertainment news in the studio, from the Johnny Depp's continued appearance as Grindelwald in the third Fantastic Beasts film; the "un-uglifying" of Hester in the upcoming Mortal Engines...

FFR #47: Top Gun On this week’s FFR, we fly into the danger zone with Maverick, Iceman, Goose and the rest of the best of the best with the cultural juggernaut that is Top Gun. Is it a film carefully calculated to represent masculinity in such a way as to maximize navy recruitment efforts? Is it a film dripping with queer subtext? Can it be both? Join us for a conversation about the acting, the im...

In this, the third and last of our special conversations recorded at XOXO in Portland, Anita talks to Jenn Sandercock, a games industry veteran who is also a pioneer in the field of edible games! Here, she and Anita talk about some of the delicious games Jenn has created, her background in artificial intelligence, and the particular issues around age that are prevalent in tech and gaming fields. L...

In this, the second of three special conversations recorded at XOXO 2018 in Portland, Anita talks to adventure cartoonist Lucy Bellwood about her wonderful recent project 100 Demon Dialogues , perceptions of success vs. the reality of it, the unique challenges of having a job that requires you to be on social media, dealing with impostor syndrome, being vulnerable in your work, and more. Follow Lu...

FFR #46: Monsters and Men On this week’s episode of FFR, we discuss the new film Monsters and Men, a drama loosely inspired by the 2014 murder of Eric Garner by officers of the NYPD. The film follows three men of color, one of them a cop himself, whose lives are impacted in different ways when police murder an unarmed black resident of Brooklyn. Our conversation touches on the ways women are often...