• Ruminations

    Karen

    I hate that “Karen” has crept into the vernacular as an insult. Growing up as a teen in the 1980s, I used to endure a barrage of “lesbian” and “lezzo” as a play on my name. During one Year 8 English class, the teacher (who was often the victim of innuendo because he might’ve been gay) stopped the class to go through the room, person by person, and ask them if they’d ever been made fun of and how they’d been made fun of. Then he’d ask the class if they’d ever made fun of that person in that way. When it got to me, the bulk of the class…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    Bond, James … Bond?

    If the Bond franchise were released today, the first one would be great, the next would be okay, and by the third it’d probably be puttering. That’s the route of a lot of modern-day franchises: e.g. Transformers, the Bourne series, Lethal Weapon. By the third movie, most franchises are starting to look worn, and whenever there’s a fourth instalment, it’s usually positively comatose. That Bond survives is because it’s an institution. It’s fifty-years-old. We just accept that instalments will be released. What’s more, the Bonds have an existent fan-base who’ll sustain them. New fans are made (or at least new fans might trial the franchise) because it’s iconic and they…