ARTICLES
I didn’t write this essay because I don’t like Barbie. I wrote this essay because it’s clear many people felt Barbie with almost reverent fanaticism. They didn’t just like Barbie because it was fun to dress up and get drunk with the girls at. They didn’t like Barbie for its design or cinematography or direction. They attached to Barbie as a feminist symbol instead.
Read MoreAs the tide goes out on New Zealand election season after the traditional post-election conference debrief and Hipkins having presented himself for a round of what-me-worry interviews, there’s been a little circuit of right wing discussion in local media about Labour’s loss, praising the Taxpayer’s Union and New Zealand Initiative for consistently putting out press releases, white papers and manipulating media narratives. It’s all out in the open now.
Read MoreIn 2024, the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” argument has extended far beyond the fact that not all of us can easily buy organic carrots. These days it’s trotted out to justify things like buying the Hogwarts Legacy game, despite knowing that J.K. Rowling will use a portion of those funds to torment trans people.
Read MoreConsensus is great. And citizens' assemblies are great. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are pretty hot on both.
But I think citizens' assemblies work for very different reasons, and those reasons matter, and shutting down this wilfully apolitical, "we can all get along if we just stop shouting" narrative is important.
Read MoreIn this series, Jimmy Lanyard explores the relationship between 2023 film releases and what happened in real life that year. Part 3 looks at the way cinema in 2023 reflected the epistemological crisis that everyone seems to have recently started paying attention to.
Read MoreIn this series, Jimmy Lanyard explores the relationship between 2023 film releases¹ and what happened in real life that year. Part 2 looks at films about racism released in 2023 while Hollywood solidarity proved to be a finite resource that ran out before it could reach Palestine.
Read MoreIn this series, Jimmy Lanyard explores the relationship between 2023 film releases¹ and what happened in real life that year. Part 1 looks at the way that filmmakers confronted technology on and offscreen.
Read MoreTrans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary people are valid. The last slogan is probably because “non-binary people are non-binary” sounds more like a lolcats meme than a statement about human life, but speaking as a non-bino, our designated validity feels condescending. Sometimes it comes across a bit like “your kooky gender is ok by me!” with a thumbs-up. The more enthusiastic the thumbs-up, the more comfortable the cis ally will feel.
Read MoreA few years ago, my American high school held a die-in to protest police murders of Black people. A die-in is a public protest where people lie down like they’re dead to disrupt activity and call attention to political violence. Conservative critics predictably called the protest “performative” but one of my favorite teachers, Mercy Carbonell, defended the students in a way that stuck with me. She said something to the effect of: “Even if these protests don’t immediately change material circumstances, you change yourself by doing them.”
Read MoreGerwig has been an indie-darling long before the critically acclaimed Lady Bird and Little Women. Given its considerable budget, A-list actors and merchandise tie-ins, Barbie couldn’t afford to simply be a cult-classic. Hollywood is famously unforgiving of women directors so for Gerwig to continue her track record, she needed to make a film that was impossible to misunderstand.
Read MoreAotearoa’s economic system is broken. Wealth inequality is soaring, with the 311 wealthiest families in this country owning more wealth than nearly half of all New Zealanders. This inequality crisis got worse during the pandemic.
Read MoreSeeing liberal reporters’ indifference to their colleagues’ facilitation of racism made me wonder: what does New Zealand media think racism actually is?
Read MoreCuts to local services hurt communities, particularly the most disadvantaged communities — those who City Vision and the Labour Party claim to represent. Selling off assets may grant a one-off dividend to Council, but in the end it amounts to selling off the family silver — it makes everyone poorer except for the wealthy few who will greedily seize on the chance to buy up an even bigger share of this vital public asset
Read MoreThe role of the artist in our society is being devalued at an alarming rate, with the winds of conservatism, neoliberalism, isolation, anti-intellectualism and, yes, artificial intelligence accelerating this shift.
Read MoreAn undercurrent of New Zealanders hate Taika Waititi's work, a hatred worsened by these expectations to love it
Read MoreThis week, the ACT party indicated that it would like to spend $500 million to build youth detention centres. This, it says, is necessary to “hold young offenders accountable” and to stop the “tag and release” of young offenders who face no real punishment for criminal offending.
In response to this proposal, justice and penal reform advocate Sir Kim Workman said to Mike Hosking that, “it's a nice idea, but it won’t work. Just look at our history.”
Read MoreNew Zealand is caught in the gyre of many crises, all of which reflect the inability of “free” markets to provide for the needs of either individuals or society as a whole. This malaise hangs over not just New Zealand, but the wider Western world.
Read More1 May 1889 was the first ever International Workers’ Day. For 134 years since, the labour movement across the globe has marked May Day through marches, parades and festivals, celebrating the power and solidarity of the working class of the world.
Read MoreANZAC day is frequently presented as a day of solemn reflection and contemplation of the horrors of war. But in 2022, one service was hijacked by so-called “Sovereign Citizens”, far right conspiracy theorists who believe that the only laws that apply to them are the ones that they consent to personally.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, 19 April 2023, the sister of Tangaraju s/o Suppia, a 46-year-old Tamil Singaporean, received a letter from the Singapore Prison Service: “Please be informed that the death sentence passed on your brother…will be carried out on 26 April 2023 (Wednesday)”.
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