If you’re able to admit that your favorite show has a serious problem with gratuitous and poorly executed rape scenes, you’ll be better able to admit that hey, maybe you need to do more than wear a safety pin to help those who are endangered by the incoming Trump administration.

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While it's no secret that the Bechdel Test has its roots in several places, its being featured in Alison Bechdel's 1985 comics classic, Dykes to Watch Out For, cemented it as being associated with Bechdel. Well now, she'd like to change that.

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I love Damon Lindelof. I loved Lost (yes, even the ending), I will always love his giving Wolverine a panda spirit guide, and while I stopped watching The Leftovers after the third episode because WTF, I'm going to give it another whirl. That said, Lindelof recently said something about people who stop watching shows that doesn't sit well with me as a writer, a critic, or as a person who reserves the right to like or not like whatever the hell I want.

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Doctor Who showrunner, Steven Moffat gets a lot of criticism. Some of it even from me. In this month's Doctor Who Magazine (with Osgood on the cover!), Moffat talks about the showrunner hate he's received as well as some kind advice he received from Neil Gaiman.

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I don’t recall exactly when “is this feminist?” became the question equivalent to a paper cut to me. I would get questions like, “Can you give examples of feminist characters?” or “Is this a feminist film?” and they always made my eyes cross because I didn’t even begin to know how to answer them -- which version of feminist theory are you even referring to, O hypothetical question-asker? You do realize that they are many, and they are varied, right?

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Saying 'Joss Whedon' and 'feminist' in the same sentence will get you a variety of responses. There are those who think him one of the best examples of the term while others think he shouldn't be associated with it at all. However, I'm going to write about it today as recent events have made me realize there may be no harder thing one can choose to be than a feminist. Allow me to explain.

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Steven Moffat enrages a lot of people. It’s simple fact. When you take over one of the most popular sci-fi franchises of all time and replace a beloved showrunner, the change is bound to stir up some feelings no matter what you do. This is made double true when among the changes to the show are issues that lend themselves easily to Internet ranting (read: most things, but most particularly those involving female companions and the like). This is made triple true when you are the type of showrunner who likes to interact—some would say tease, some would say torture—your fans on said Internets, metaphorically poking them with a long stick and frequently reminding them how often you are going to make them cry. Steven Moffat stirs up a lot of emotions in people, it’s true. Some people probably prickled at the first mention of his name in this article. It’s just his general presence. But Steven Moffat also deleted his Twitter account recently. And that has a lot more behind it than the man himself, a lot more that I'd like to explore.

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Roger Ebert has mentioned his opinion on video games before, but, as he says "I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it." That has changed, now that the movie critic has published his response to Kellee Santiago's "Games Are Art" TED talk here, on the Chicago Sun-Times website. I found that Ebert spent most of his time refuting her arguments point by point, and did not build a compelling argument of his own. While I could go through his essay point by point refuting arguments, I was hoping to keep my blood pressure to a manageable level now that the Great Kick-Ass Hype Tsunami of 2010 has finally come to a close, and besides that, I've always found that refuting someone in great detail without presenting a better founded argument of your own to be a little bankrupt of purpose. My major objections after the jump.

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