Film
The Commodification of American Motherhood
How to Have an American Baby exposes a Chinese business that cares only for the bottom line, and a private US hospital system more than happy to serve patients paying cash.
Eileen G’Sell
Eileen G’Sell is a poet and culture critic whose work focuses on gender, sexuality, and economic class. She is a 2023 winner of the Rabkin Foundation Prize in arts journalism and teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.
Film
New Doc Updates Virginia Woolf’s Gender-Bending Orlando
Paul B. Preciado’s film prizes creative passion over pathology, and trades individual trauma for collective and individual transcendence.
Art
Crowning the Queens of Hip-Hop Culture
Women artists’ contributions shine in The Culture, an exhibition about hip hop at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Film
The Trailblazing Black Model Who Changed the Fashion Industry
To say that Bethann Hardison has contributed to racial progress in one of the world’s most whitewashed realms is an understatement. But a new documentary about her life might have gone a step too far.
Film
Kokomo City’s Bawdy, Unflinching Feminist Message
D. Scott’s documentary on Black trans sex workers is as sunny as it is sobering, a film that refuses to moralize.
Film
Maybe Some Artists Don't Make It For a Reason
Make Me Famous, a new documentary about East Village artist Edward Brezinski, does little to prove that its subject should have risen to the top.
Film
If Only Lynch/Oz Had More of a Brain
Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary would seem a must-see for fans of the yellow brick road or the Great Northern Hotel of Twin Peaks. If only.
Film
Netflix Documentary Exposes the Criminalization of Sexual Assault Victims
Victim/Suspect reveals the extent to which women are vulnerable to pressures to take the blame, and even serve time, for their own violent rapes.
Film
The A-Lot-Ness of Little Richard
Little Richard: I Am Everything honors the a-lot-ness that made him a 20th-century pioneer, while acknowledging the bumps along the trail he blazed.
Art
Depravity and Delights in Nicole Eisenman's Prints
If God (and the Devil) are in the details, the craft of printmaking proves a powerful outlet for exploring Eisenman’s most enduring themes.
Film
The Anarchic Spirit of Nam June Paik
Amanda Kim’s documentary shows how Paik anticipated the dizzying ways in which electronic and digital culture would transform human discourse.
Film
Cauleen Smith’s Drylongso Depicts a Bygone Oakland
Smith’s 1998 film exudes the DIY charm of a low-budget, first-time feature while keenly depicting the complexities of both race- and gender-related inequalities.