The Uncanny Valley

Elizabeth Bridges - Writer, Professor, Reviewer

Tag: reviews

The Perils of Childhood – Stranger Things, Season 1

July 22, 2016 / / 2 Comments

Note: This review is spoiler-free.

netflix stranger things posterStranger Things (2016) is an 8-part Netflix series by Matt and Ross Duffer, aka the Duffer Brothers, whose previous credits include some episodes of Wayward Pines and assorted films and shorts featuring tales of the macabre and the uncanny. It’s hard to name the genre that Stranger Things falls into. I see it as an onscreen carryover from the speculative fiction subcategory known as “weird fiction,” which blends elements of plot-twisty sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the supernatural – the genre of Lovecraft, Poe, Serling, and contemporary author Jeff Vandermeer. Continue reading

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Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen – WLW YA Book Review

May 23, 2016 / / 4 Comments

Since this is the first in a series of posts, I’ll give a little background. Most of my recent pieces have been about TV’s The 100, specifically with regard to the unfortunate turn it took in Season 3 with the death of favorite lesbian character Lexa, and the conversation that has started about the problematic depiction of WLWs (women who love women) on TV in general.

Having been trained in a near-Pavlovian manner to expect heartbreak any time I see a woman show any romantic interest in another woman onscreen, I decided to seek elsewhere for better representation. One of my first stops was Amazon’s kindle store. I mean, if you can find dinosaur-themed erotica and “uniporn*” for kindle, why can’t you also find a quaint little lesbian teen love story or two? Well, it turns out you can. I had to look around for a bit and weed through the smut – because the kindle store delivers that in spades to be sure – but indeed there are several good stories out there for young women who find themselves in love with the girl next door.
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