Feminist Frequency Radio

Mysterious and ominous, Devs, Hulu’s new limited series from Alex Garland, seems right in line with the filmmakers other contributions to the sci-fi genre, Ex Machina and Annihilation . After two episodes, Anita, Carolyn and Ebony agree that the series is “interesting” but their definition of what makes is so may differ depending on which one you ask. Tune in to hear our thoughts on class, race, c...

Carolyn and Anita are joined on the podcast by special guest Nicole He, game developer and creative technologist, to take a look at Hulu’s High Fidelity , originally a novel by Nick Hornby, but probably known by most from the 2000 film starring John Cusack as Rob Gordon, a record store owner and obsessive music fan who takes us through his all-time top-five most painful breakups while trying to re...

This week, FFR takes a journey into the genre-defying cinematic poesy of Mati Diop’s Atlantics. The highly acclaimed, supernaturally-tinged drama, screened in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival -- and surprisingly/horrifyingly, it was the first film directed by a Black woman to do so. Join us for a discussion of Diop’s remarkable film, and the necessity and joy of exploring art from a no...

Well, hi there, puddin’! Grab a breakfast sandwich and your Fun Guns, because in this week’s podcast Feminist Frequency Radio is  taking on Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). We’ve been anticipating this movie for quite some time, at best with ambivalence and at worst with skepticism. Media headlines and frothing fanboys have blasted the film, but could it actual...

As The Good Place finishes its 4th and final season, we reflect on the cultural impact of a refreshingly sincere and optimistic show which came at a particularly dark time. Join us as we revisit some of our favorite moments, and ask what The Good Place taught us about how to be a good person in a morally complex world. Time Stamps: 0:40 - Anita and Ebony flesh out their Star Trek , space-vape fanf...

The 92nd Academy Awards will air this Sunday, which means we at FFR must once again extract what meaning we can from an awards show which consistently seems to celebrate the same stories from the same people. Why are the Oscars still such a big deal, and why do we still need to talk about them? We take a look at what the nominations say about the kind of narratives which are held up as the best, i...

Laura Hudson, writer and friend of the podcast, joins Anita and Carolyn this week for our discussion of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women , the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel. The film has earned several Oscar nominations, but conspicuously missing is a Best Director nomination for Gerwig herself. Join us as we discuss how this retelling of March sisters’ story brings up question...

This week we journey through the brutal landscape of The Witcher . Probably best known through CD Projekt Red’s video game series, the Netflix adaptation has met with mixed reviews. Join us as we take a look at ways in which fantasy and Patriarchal tropes are presented, reinforced, acknowledged and questioned in a self-aware story that may not be sure on which side it lands. Should you toss a coin...

We’re back in the Star Wars Universe! In episode 105 of FFR, we wondered after three episodes where all the women were in The Mandalorian . Now that season one is finished, we’re revisiting the spaghetti space western with special guest Jonathan Mann, to jam out to his viral song “Baby Yoda Baby Baby Yoda,” talk about Star Wars deep-lore and our own fan theories for next season, and to weigh in on...

Happy New Year and welcome back to FFR! We’re kicking off the decade with a deep look at Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . A cultural phenomenon spanning 40 years, here’s our look at what the final chapter of this space opera delivered, where it delighted, where it disappointed, and who it didn’t represent. Time Stamps: 4:23 - Main Discussion on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 39:12 - What’s You...

It’s the end of the decade! And though it was a tough task, we’ve narrowed down all the media from the last 10 years to our fave five in literature, film, music, television and gaming. Stroll with us down memory lane as we revisit the titles that made us reflect, made us feel, and maybe even moved the needle on what media has to say about the world around us. Time Stamps: 1:07 - Ebony’s Fave Five...

Ho Ho Ho, and Happy Holidays! This week we present the Feminist Frequency x Bechdel Cast Christmas Crossover episode. Jamie Loftus and Caitlin Durante join Anita to discuss the Disney+ movie Noelle , starring Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader. Is this film an empowering #girlboss take on the holiday film genre? Well, maybe from the perspective of a “woke dad”. Listen in to hear our real thoughts on rul...

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! So join us as we take a stroll down amnesia lane with the 1996 Christmas-set action flick The Long Kiss Goodnight starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. The film is experiencing something of a critical renaissance of late. Find out what we think of it as we discuss how Samantha Caine fits into the pantheon of female action heroes, the movie’s overa...

It’s official: Baby Yoda is our cuteness overlord. This week, Star Wars fan and friend of the podcast Jessica Zollman joins us again as we talk about The Mandalorian. We discuss the show’s wildly skewed gender representation, the fun we had on Twitter for bringing up the show’s wildly skewed gender representation, the power of Baby Yoda, and what we’re liking and not liking about the show after th...

FemFreq Radio is bringing you a live one this week! That's right, podcast fans: this week's episode was recorded live at our home away from home in Seattle at Geek Girl Con! After some of our standard "we've forgotten how to podcast" intro fumbling, things get interesting when Anita, Carolyn, and Ebony offer their choices for standout media properties from the past decade. Anita has some choice wo...

Terminator: Dark Fate is the 6th entry in the wibbly-wobbley timey-wimey cinematic universe originally brought to life by James Cameron in 1984. The franchise has taken a lot of detours over the past 35 years — some more successful than others — but the supporting infrastructure of the story has never really changed: sometime in “the future,” “the machines” turn on us and wage an all-out war that...

With another Hallowe’en behind us we wanted to dive into horror movies. It seems movie-goers have very strong options about horror — love or hate. Horror can also be a contentious genre when viewed through a feminist lens so we decided to bring on our good friend and amazing photographer Jessica Zollman to chat with us about the topic. Jessica is a huge horror fan and spends every october watching...

This week, Anita, Caro, and Ebony don some cool DIY vigilante masks and go dispense some of that sweet feminist street justice. We run these mean media streets!  Episode 101 of FFR is all about HBO's new series, Watchmen. Tune in to hear us discuss the intricate world-building; the incomparable Regina King; the seductive allure of vigilantism; and the racial mapping of this alternate universe.   T...

On this week’s episode, Ebony and Carolyn revisit the sci-fi horror classic Alien, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Our conversation attempts to examine some of the film’s many layers—its focus on working-class characters and their concerns, the ways in which H.R. Giger’s design for the alien taps into some of our most primal fears—while also acknowledging the filmmaking elemen...

This week on FFR, we’re joined by science YouTuber Trace Dominguez to talk about the new sci-fi film Ad Astra! Our conversation covers whether or not the movie is any good (and whether or not Brad Pitt is any good in it), what it's really all about, frustration with the fact that the stand-in for humanity in stories striving to be about universal experiences is so often a white man, the film’s dep...

We live in an era of oppression, in which powerful tyrants are silencing the voices and crushing the careers of brave men who dare to engage in true creative freedom. Or maybe, people long accustomed to operating with impunity are now sometimes finding that there are consequences for their actions, and they don’t like it. This week, we're talking about the much-decried "cancel culture" we're appar...

Based on true events, the new Netflix series Unbelievable begins with a teenager named Marie Adler in Washington state reporting a rape to the police. The police launch their investigation, but soon, because of Marie’s erratic behavior and an almost complete absence of forensic evidence, they begin to suspect that she made up the attack in a desperate bid for attention. They pressure her to retrac...

In December of 2015, an article was published in New York Magazine that told an amazing story. In the wake of the 2008 Wall Street collapse, a group of women who worked at the New York strip club Scores saw the men and the money stop coming in, so they devised a risky, unconventional, and illegal way to make the money come in. Now the true story of these women and their criminal endeavor is the su...

This week, we shift away from our usual format for a special bonus episode. Join Anita and Carolyn for a conversation about recent events in the gaming industry that have lead to what many are calling gaming’s #MeToo moment. Our conversation explores the social systems and biases that allow men to routinely commit acts of abuse and then protect them from the repercussions, the far-reaching pain an...

On this week’s FFR, Ebony and Carolyn continue our conversation about Life Is Strange 2 by diving into the recently released fourth episode, Faith. We talk about a particularly challenging scene in which Sean encounters a pair of racists, the different ways in which we approach the game as players, and the way the game continues to give its characters a surprising level of emotional complexity, an...