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An Ugly, Monstrous 2024 Best-Of
Like the last several years, 2024 sucked. But at least we wrote a lot of stuff about Dune.
The Ugly Monster vs Dune
The Tragedy of Dune’s Paul Atreides
“Dune is a deep, psychological tragedy about the disastrous consequences of placing power into the hands of a ‘chosen one’, and how that can rip the entire universe apart.”
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The Bizarre Lore of Dune
“…from an old fan to some of our newer ones, let me get into some of the weird deep-lore of Dune. And it is SUPER weird. We’re talking ‘A giant phallic-shaped psychic worm god king commanding legions of lesbian space warriors’ levels of weird.”
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Women as Colonizers in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’
“…we don’t know much about the ordinary women of the Imperium. We do, however, know about the gender that noble women have to inhabit.”
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Joker, Barbie, and the Plague
Dune wasn’t the only media in the cultural discourse, but it’s weird how much of our most read work this year was about or related to Warner Bros. projects. The notable exception was…
‘The Decameron’ — A Story about the Plague and Stupidly Selfish People
“The Black Death — where people fell sick and then gradually died — parallels with Covid-19 in the show. Just like all of us back in the peak of Covid, people in the show are social distancing and sitting in isolation in their own homes.”
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Joker 2 Bids Fans Adieu
“Like Arthur Fleck, the main character, this sequel to a billion-dollar movie wants to be bigger than its namesake. It wants to mean something and justify its existence — despite its comic book roots that the director, Todd Phillips, is so ashamed of.”
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‘Barbie’ Analyzed through a Leftist Lens
“‘Barbie’ isn’t a feminist masterpiece. ‘Barbie’ is a multi-million dollar production produced by a labor-exploiting multi-national billion dollar corporation.”
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That’s all, folks.