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Pitch & Sleepy Hollow

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Lois

I have baseball on the brain. Really badly. That doesn’t mean anything though, until you consider that I know nothing about baseball and have never had any sort of interest in the sport. Until Fox’s Pitch, that is.

Kylie Bunbury as Ginny Baker

When Fox first started promoting Pitch, a baseball drama where Ginny Baker (played by the very talented Kylie Bunbury) becomes the first woman to play in the Major Leagues, I reblogged and retweeted to support a Black actress for landing a lead role on a show on a major network. Admittedly, when I tuned in to watch the pilot, I didn’t expect that months later, I’d have rewatched the show four more times, as well as get caught in the throes of reading all the fanfiction ever and find myself familiarizing myself with baseball terms, superstitions, and gameplay.

It wasn’t until my second rewatch that I recalled the last time I had so wholeheartedly enjoyed a fandom, and that was another Fox show I loved until I was third degree burned by it. The parallels between Pitch and Sleepy Hollow’s first seasons are promising, but if SH is any indicator, the challenges and possible pitfalls that await Pitch are a great cause for alarm, considering that they’re on the same network. Fox’s attitude about SH circa Season 2 was less than stellar and is a great predictor of what can happen to Pitch.

Nicole Beharie as Lt. Abbie Mills and Kylie Bunbury as Ginny Baker

At first glance, the two shows couldn’t appear more different: one is a supernatural “monster of the week” battle against the impending apocalypse; the other is a sports drama about breaking barriers (and hearts!) in baseball. That said, the two are astoundingly similar. Continue reading →

Posted in television | Tagged abbie mills, fox, ginny baker, kylie bunbury, nicole beharie, pitch, Sleepy Hollow | Leave a comment

What Shipping Richonne Taught Me About Racism

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Guest Contributor

This blog post originally appeared on Black Girl Nerds, and it is being cross-posted here with permission. (And some slight edits when referring to the show, since it ran a week ago and we don’t want to make things confusing.)

So if you haven’t watched the February 21 episode of The Walking Dead and don’t want to be spoiled, consider this your warning. SPOILERS. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Can we talk about what happened in that episode?

No, the last five minutes weren’t a shared hallucination – it really did happen. Rick and Michonne finally got together, and I can barely believe it myself. Is this real life? Where did that choir of angels come from and why are they singing?

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I’m happy as hell, and have been living in shipper paradise ever since the Richonne spoilers first leaked. That being said, I thought I’d take a break from celebrating and “in your face-ing” to finally finish organizing my thoughts on all the nasty, complicated ways I’ve had to grapple with racism as a Richonne shipper.

I, like many others, started shipping Richonne back in season 3, when Michonne and Rick first started eye-f***ing each other and the chemistry between the two became, in my opinion, pretty apparent. Still, I didn’t hold out much hope that it would actually happen anywhere outside of fanfiction. A hugely popular show on a major network, making the dark-skinned black character the love interest of the (white) protagonist? Honestly, I didn’t think AMC had the balls to do anything as out-of-the-box as that – and how sad it is that making the dark-skinned black woman a love interest can be considered out-of-the-box thinking? Continue reading →

Posted in cross posts, race, television | Tagged Black Girl Nerds, Richonne, The Walking Dead | 1 Comment

Books We Read and Loved in 2015

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Tanya

2016 is steadily under way but we are still occasionally writing 2015 on our checks (do most people still write checks these days, even?), and looking back at some of our favorite media moments from last year. 2015 was a year that kept all of us at GQ especially busy with schoolwork, professional challenges, and all sorts of other Real Life Stuff™. When we weren’t burned out on adulting, we found escape in some good books, which we’d like to revisit now. After you check out some of our faves, won’t you tell us what you read and loved last year? And while you’re at it, what books are you looking forward to in 2016?

Saga Saga (Volumes 1-5) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
After outright devouring all five Saga volumes, the only question I had was “WHY.” WHY didn’t I read this sooner, WHY am I giggling so hard, and WHY is my heart breaking? Saga embodies the best of a great story: a swashbuckling pair of star-crossed lovers and their growing family hurtle throughout space, on the run from various baddies. In addition to the revolutionary act of loving “the enemy,” Saga touches on the little things along the way – marriage, parenthood, getting off on the wrong foot with your in-laws, and fleeing your murderous ex-girlfriend. Fiona Staples’ beautiful artwork is a most welcome and delicious icing on this sci-fi cake, as it’s refreshing to see women draw women, no matter how fantastical and mythical. Marko + Alanna 5ever. – Lois Continue reading →

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Oh, the Horror! Movies to Look Forward To

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Lois

It can be easy to fall into a rut with horror, because… horror. Lately, all the mainstream flicks that have been hitting theaters have all been kind of “meh” for me. Not all is lost though, as my appetite for all things spooky-scary has been whetted by the trailers for these recent and upcoming releases. Full reviews for some of these coming soon!

The Visit – September 11
This is a M. Night Shyamalan film, so admittedly if this turns out to be a flop – which it very well could do – I suppose I have only myself to blame. That said, The Visit promises elements I enjoy in horror: a huge house in the middle of nowhere, and “found footage”. Since Shyamalan’s movies always hinge on a grandiose twist, the fun of The Visit lies in trying to figure out exactly what’s wrong with Nana and Pop Pop.

Continue reading →

Posted in film, horror, lists | Tagged emma roberts, final girls, goodnight mommy, horror, horror movies, natalie dormer, the conjuring, the forest, the visit | Leave a comment

Race, Vigilantism, & Zombies In Wes Craven’s The People Under The Stairs

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Guest Contributor

This post first appeared on Graveyard Shift Sisters and is cross-posted here with permission. The site’s motto is “Purging The Black Female Horror Fan From The Margins” and you can also follow along on Twitter @GraveyardSister.

Horror’s true effectiveness is executed when it’s busy making us uncomfortable in our comforts. The everyday and mundane that lures us into a false sense of security can become the very sight of anxiety. Wes Craven’s mission as a storyteller early on was to do exactly this. And I appreciate that. He does so with a certain complexity and I think his sleepers don’t get the attention they deserve. And I admit that some of them have taken me awhile to get to and that, like any filmmaker, his body of work suffers in some areas. 1991’s The People Under The Stairs is not a film I grew up watching strangely. How this one slipped into the cracks of my mum’s VHS collection is some kind of freak accident, so I went into a viewing with no nostalgic childhood memories.

This is a 90s home invasion genre film that could easily be described as “Home Alone in hell”. The story rollercoasters around a budding young man named Poindexter Williams, better known as Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) who throughout the film watches his deteriorating, drug infested apartment complex, and older sister Ruby (Kelly Jo Minter) working to support not only her own children but the declining health of their mother. Ving Rhames’ Leroy makes attempts at being the solution to life’s circumstances by showing Fool the “substantial” trade of the pillager arts as they, along with fellow robber Spenser, concoct a plan to rob the domicile of their landlord who’s evicting them for being behind on the rent, but really just wants to tear down and re-build something that’ll bring wealthy renters in and widen his pocket liners. Continue reading →

Posted in cross posts, film | Tagged Graveyard Shift Sisters, horror movie, The People Under the Stairs, Wes Craven | Leave a comment