Crushin’ on… #2
My recent cultural love affairs. Ft. another hot pod recc, the new BBC thriller that has me gripped, and a watchlist to fill the void left by the Women’s World Cup.
And yet again, August slips away like a bottle of wine. Here’s some reccs to get lost in whilst Summer draws to a close.
Reading
Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz: Blending personal storytelling, sharp observation and bursts of truly laugh out loud humour, Gutowitz’s essay collection is a romp through a millennial coming out and coming of age, alongside the sapphic cultural beats that punctuated it all. In charting the ways her own experiences of identity, desire and becoming are intricately woven to the pop culture landscape of its time (we’re talking everything from Lindsay Lohan’s papp shots to Orange Is The New Black to Katy Perry to Game of Thrones memes), Gutowitz also traces the seismic cultural shifts that saw the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. If like me you’re obsessed with how pop culture is a refraction and reflection of us all, this is for you.
What does gaslighting actually look like? by Rebecca Humphries in The Trowel: Gaslighting is one of a wave of words that has leaked out of therapist’s offices and flooded into colloquial parlance. And whilst it is undoubtedly positive that it’s more widely understood, with mainstreaming also comes misuse. In The Trowel this week, Rebecca Humphries (best-selling author of Why Did You Stay? one of my fave books of last year) cuts through the misappropriation to offer the definitive guide gaslighting: what it actually is, how to spot it, and why it’s so harmful. She writes, ‘it’s the difference between “No, I didn’t” and “No I didn’t, you psychopath”’. Particularly powerful is her use of reality tv snippets as case studies to illustrate exactly how it can play out IRL. An essential read from one of the UK’s pre-eminent voices on emotional abuse & toxic relationships.
Watching
The Woman in The Wall, BBC1: There’s nothing like a BBC 6-part thriller to signal the dawn of Autumn, and this one has me gripped. Set in a rural Irish town, against the backdrop of the country’s reckoning with the Magdalene Laundries scandal, the opening episode spins a captivating tale of a murdered priest, buried trauma and small-town secrets. Ruth Wilson is phenomenal as Lorna, a troubled women who is visably haunted by her incarceration at a Mother & Baby home as a teenager. Aesthetically, the show is mesmerizing, with sweeping cinematic landscapes and beautiful gothic undertones, yet still finding room for dialogue that fizzes with dark Irish humour. Harrowing, tense, layered and moving, tonight’s 3rd episode can’t come quick enough. (you can find the first 2 episodes on iPlayer, if you’re looking to catch up).
Listening
Culture Vulture: From the hive minds of the ever-viral Shit You Should Care About, their podcast Culture Vulture is top of my list for zeitgeist-y hot takes. This week’s ep, “From Girlboss to Girl Goblin…”, is a musing on female re-invention in the age of social media. From the downfall of #Girlboss to the emergence of whichever rodent-styled era we’re meant to embrace next, the duo ruminates on how and why the internet tells us to re-brand ourselves, and who the phenomenon really serves (spoiler: it starts with P, ends in -atriarchy). Also: bonus points for the cute Kiwi accents. Obsessed.
Loving
Like the World and her Wife, I’m deep into my Women’s Football era. Honestly, I was so sad after *that Final* that I had to take a break for a while. It was all too gutting. And then it got overshadowed by something even sadder. As the cataclysmic fallout of Rubiales’ assault of Jenni Hermoso rumbles into Spanish Football’s #MeToo moment (managing yet again to make a story of female success all about the men), my personal mourning for the Lionesses has been assuaged by the bigger picture feeling that England’s loss was not in vain: It’s all part of the same fight. So, I’m ditching my disappointment and getting back on the hype! If you too have a void to fill ahead of the WSL kicking off again next month, here’s some reccs for your starting line-up:
Matildas: The World At Our Feet – A Disney+ doc that follows the Aussie Women’s team as they gear up for what we now know is a history-making, culture-changing World Cup campaign. It speaks to sexism in sport, motherhood in sport, identity in sport…it’s just iconic on so many levels!
Togetherness – Also a fly-on the wall doc, this time following Arsenal Women throughout their 22/23 WSL season. Not enough BTS juiciness imo, but still a good watch, especially as a pre-game to the opening of this year’s cycle.
Annie Mac’s Changes with guest Leah Williamson – If you felt Leah’s absence from the Lionesses this Summer (didn’t we all), then this podcast ep has your fix. In conversation with Annie, Leah talks about the changes she has personally weathered throughout her football career and the changes she wants to see in the women’s game at large.
Bend It Like Beckham – The OG. Need I say more. I recently rewatched for the first time in over a decade and it’s still a classic (albeit v retro & with some questionable moments). I actually got a tad emosh seeing those 90s girls with their childhood rooms decked out like a shrine to Beckham, knowing that today it would be Bronze on their walls and (thanks to Nike’s U-Turn) Earps on their shirts. What a time to be alive!
