Seems like there might be enough traction, so here we go!
Our first "book" shall be “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K LeGuin.
It is a short story that is readily available online. If you cannot purchase it, rent it, or find it online please let me know and I will provide more information on how to get it.
Trigger warnings: emotional abuse, grooming, and child abuse
I would like to include some discussion questions that are community specific, and not generic book club questions, so these will likely be questions I ask regarding every work, subject to change of course.
Some things to think about while reading:
- Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
- Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
- Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
- Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
I don't know if I'll start adding generic book club questions, but if you'd like more general discussion questions of the works going forward, please let me know and I can include some. There's just a lot of discussion available already for this specific piece and I don't want answers to common questions to overshadow more nuanced discussions that center women which is why we're all in this community. Also, this is not a homework assignment. You can choose to address any or none of the questions posed here, or talk about your general thoughts or whatever else. Please feel free to pose your own questions in the comments as well. These should serve as a handy springboard if needed, but not a mandatory outline.
Our first movie will be Kpop Demon Hunters. There were some other suggestions, but I wanted to keep it a little lighter considering this months book has some serious trigger warnings and I wanted people to be able to participate in at least one of the two, even if they would rather not engage in heavy topics. This is an animated movie available on Netflix. I know this is a little exclusionary, but there are some other ways to watch it as well.
Trigger warnings: animated violence/gore, discussion of demons and the afterlife
Same as above: I would like to include some discussion questions that are community specific, and not generic movie club questions, so these will likely be questions I ask regarding every work, subject to change of course.
Some things to think about while watching:
- Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
- Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
- Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
- Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
I don't know if I'll start adding generic questions, but if you'd like more general discussion questions of the works going forward, please let me know and I can include some. There's just a lot of discussion available already for this specific piece and I don't want answers to common questions to overshadow more nuanced discussions that center women which is why we're all in this community. Also, this is not a homework assignment. You can choose to address any or none of the questions posed here, or talk about your general thoughts or whatever else. Please feel free to pose your own questions in the comments as well. These should serve as a handy springboard if needed, but not a mandatory outline.
Comments are spoilers territory. If you want to use spoiler tags in the comments, please do, but it is not required. If you venture into the comments please keep in mind this is a discussion thread for media so there will likely be spoilers.
Going forward This is a community project. I would like to get input regarding written works and tv/movies that would be a good fit for this. I will leave a comment on this thread that you can respond to if you'd like to offer a suggestion. One suggestion per comment please. You can comment multiple times though. I'd like to make sure the selections are widely accessible, so please add that information if you know for sure something is in the public domain or available online, as that makes it easier to recommend. Please vote on the other comments you see there. I'd like to pair heavier topics in one media with lighter topics in the other, just in case you're wondering why a specific piece was not chosen. Things like language or availability may also affect the selection. I'm also open to changing or adding discussion questions.
Thank you all for your interest. Excited to hear your perspectives!
PS: Even if you have seen or read the media before, I would encourage a reread or rewatch to best participate in the discussion!
YES!! This really bothered me the whole time, too - there were fat people in the fans / audience characters (and maybe Bobby to a lesser extent, he just wasn't as skinny and was a bit soft), but wow the main characters were extremely thin and the body normativity in this film felt a bit extreme. Not that every film has to be a perfect representation or that we need to glorify fatness, etc. but for a film by women where they are trying to break stereotypes about women, body positivity would have been a really nice addition to the burping and eating.
It reminds me of Gilmore Girls where the main characters (Lorelai and Rory) are constantly talking about food, constantly eating food, and usually eating junk food (pizza, doughnuts, Chinese takeout, etc.) - yet on screen their bodies are almost dangerously skinny, and they never take more than one bite of their food - they talk about food, but we don't even get to see them actually enjoying it, even fictionally.
I also felt a bit uncomfortable with the dehumanization of the demons, and I expected more from the new Honmoon as being a revolution and a new way of handling demons so that eternal torture wasn't on the table - but instead all we get is the cute boy's soul being given to the protagonist ... :-/ I mean, it was cute - but it wasn't even as consistent with the "good triumphs over evil" narrative ... maybe in that way it's less Christian and Western, leaving an aspect of Eastern dualism in place.
But it also bothered me the way that dualism was so present in the film, and the strange ways the dualism was inverted from typical - in Taoism and Confuscianism for example the yang and yin representing light and dark, sky and earth - usually the dark earth elements are associated with women, while the light and sky elements are associated with men. In the movie, it was flipped - and the men and masculine were the dark demons, and the light demon hunters were women.
In that sense it was a bit like the Barbie movie, where the patriarchy is shown in a flipped fashion, but this feels particularly awful to me as a feminist since the goal isn't to have women on top, but to empower men and women by eliminating patriarchy and working towards gender egalitarianism ... this movie just didn't feel consistent with that, it felt anti-feminist in a way.
Anyway, sorry - lots of rambling.
As to why I'm hard on myself - I just want to be nice and pleasant and to not always be the grumpy, critical person who can't enjoy anything. Especially with mainstream media, it can sometimes feel like everyone but me can enjoy things, and that adds to that sense of defectiveness - why can't I enjoy it? Everyone else enjoys it, so why can't I? It must be something wrong with me.
I'm trying to find more ways to enjoy things, and to find ways to remain positive, nice, and supportive even when something is otherwise bothering me.
That's a great goal for yourself. I've been trying to do something similar. I keep reminding myself of the Ted Lasso philosophy: be curious, not judgemental. Dont forget to be positive and supportive toward yourself, too.
Thanks for the added perspective on eastern philosophy. I don't know much about those but it adds a lot of dimension to your critique.
It can be super frustrating to see nothing but praise for something you thought was flawed. Every time I finish a work I don't like, I immediately go to Storygraph or reviewers on YouTube, trying to find someone who has called out its problems, or already put into beautiful words what i didnt like about it. I don't think I've ever questioned whether something's wrong with me - only wondered what's wrong with everyone else.
I really enjoyed Ted Lasso, and I think it's great that you brought up that mentality here. It's a really lovely outlook. I wish I could find more grace within myself sometimes, and that is a great reminder.
I also run to the Internet as soon as I finish something I don't like. I like to have the reassurance that I'm not the only one that sees these huge issues. More often than not, at least someone has brought them up, which definitely gives me solace. Maybe this goes back to giving other people grace, but I similarly have never finished something I disliked and wondered what was wrong with me. I always just thought that everyone else was wrong. LMAO.  I made a post here a while back about the new Superman movie. Really, the only reason I posted it is because I was basically exclusively seeing glowing praise for it. I think it was the first thing that I had big problems with that no one else had explicitly addressed. Maybe people have sense, but at the time it was extremely frustrating.
I mentioned in a reply to the comment you're replying to, but I am personally giving it a little more leeway because it seems to be tapping into a specific culture where that body type is popular. I don't really know much about the idol culture, and I'm not saying that's good or positive, but it is possibly an accurate reflection of the current cultural moment. I am definitely speaking out of ignorance, so feel free to correct me if I am mistaken. Obviously, I support all kinds of diversity, including body diversity, but in this case I was willing to give it quite a big pass.
I also agree about the end result for the demons. Again, I really don't have enough cultural context to speak intelligently on that, but I appreciate you adding about the reversal of culturally thematic elements for feminine and masculine.  I didn't explicitly mind that there was no "happily ever after" for everyone. If a certain culture or even a certain work wants to suggest that people who do bad things have bad things happen to them and that's just how the world works, I'm not going to fault it for that. I might not agree, but I am willing to give it that space to explore.
Interesting that you bring up the Barbie movie. I have so much to say about that, but I won't derail this here. I will just add that I think your reading is correct. It did not start out as a "feminist utopia". That was one of Margot Robbie's characters issues. It was this hyper saccharine commodified ideal of feminism. It wasn't a perfect movie, but her going to the gynecologist at the end of the movie basically makes your point, and it's the movies point. Feminism isn't girly pop "girls run the world" bs. It's every day equality that acknowledges women as full human beings who sometimes need to go to the gynecologist.
Regarding the last bit where you talk about yourself. I find myself in a somewhat similar situation sometimes. I first posted on here about the Superman movie, which seemed to be almost universally loved. I was really surprised that people walked away enjoying it so much. I've had lots of conversations about it at this point, and I think so many people just think "it's not that deep, bro". I'm willing to acknowledge that part of enjoying media may necessitate just turning your brain off, but there are some issues that are so egregious it makes it impossible to ignore. I think that line is different for everyone, and to a certain extent I think that you finding it hard to do so speaks to an unwillingness to overlook injustices even in media. Though that might not lead to great personal outcomes, it probably indicates a level of investment in equality that we should all aspire to.