The Boys in the Band was originally written by Mart Crowley and premiered as an off-Broadway production in 1968, one year before the Gay Liberation Movement emerged. The play is set in one evening in an apartment in New York City where Michael hosts a birthday party for his friends, all of them being gay. […]
This intriguing whodunit follows a group of five students in their investigation concerning the murder of Simon, Bayview High’s resident gossiper. He dies just 24 hours before posting the students’ deepest secrets on his gossip app ‘About That’. But who is the culprit and what were they trying to hide? From resident jock to star […]
This award-winning graphic novel tells, or rather shows, the autobiographical coming-of-age story of Craig Thompson. Raised in rural isolation, Craig and his younger brother Phil are both depicted as devout Christians with a knack for art. Through his teen years, however, Craig finds it hard to fit in with his peers and suffers a lot […]
When Donovan tells his mom about the adventure novel they’re reading at school, her reaction comes as a surprise. So what if the two boys in the story talk about loving each other? However, this kickstarts an attempt to ban the assigned book The Adventurers due to “mature” and “inappropriate” content. This storyline is intertwined […]
17-year-old Lily Hu wasn’t planning on falling in love. 1954’s San Francisco isn’t a safe place for two young women in love, and the Red Scare makes society’s prejudice against Chinese Americans more prevalent than ever. As the daughter of a Chinese-American immigrant, Lily worries for her father, the threat of deportation constantly looming over […]
When Ari and Dante meet at the local pool, they appear to have virtually nothing in common. Dante is a mystery to Ari with his love for poetry and eloquent expressions. As the pair spends the summer together, they grow closer and closer. But sometimes, defining an emotional bond is more difficult than it would […]
This Black Mirror episode is about (digital) memory records, privacy rights, surveillance, holding grudges, and the importance to let the past go. A world in which an implant allows people to replay their memories for themselves but also on screens for others. During the episode, Liam becomes more and more obsessed with his wife’s relationship […]
This Black Mirror episode is dealing with helicopter parents, surveillance, the issues with surveillance technology, and the importance of stressful experiences. When little Sara gets lost for a while because she was following a cat, her mother Marie takes her to get an “Arkangel”-implant letting Marie not only access Sarah’s location but also see and […]
A crime story dealing with powerlessness, alienation, and insanity. A young woman returns to her hometown to look for her father, who has disappeared. She, her lover, and her best friend go to her father’s island, where she follows some clues and concludes that her father has gone mad but must still be alive. Over […]
Cadence Sinclair lives a life of luxury. Every summer is spent on a private island, called Beechwood Island, with her family and best friends. Her family comes from old money, Cadence being the eldest grandchild. Everything in their life is cushy and perfect, or so they pretend. The reality is that Cadence has had debilitating […]
This film is a classic in the dystopian science fiction genre. Gattaca presents a world driven by eugenics, in which children are genetically selected and modified during pregnancy. This leads to a society full of genetic discrimination where individuals are hired or disqualified for certain jobs solely due to their genetic makeup. The main character […]
A dystopian novel on the difference between freedom and security, surveillance, brain-altering surgery, and the power of mind and imagination. In the near future, the rust belt states are reigned by anarchy. Most people have lost their jobs and homes, the streets are not safe and there is a constant threat of being mugged, raped, […]
This modern short story focuses on Benjamin Button, who is born looking like a 70-year-old and aging backward. His condition is not immediately diagnosed and it takes 5 years until he engages in adult activities. When he is 20 years of age, he marries Hildegarde and has a son with her. However, while she ages […]
This movie explores poverty in regard to social class differences, as well as identity construction, gender stereotypes, and homosexuality. Billy Elliot is an 11-year-old boy of poor family background. His father and brother are miners who stick to clear gender roles. When Billy is sent to take boxing lessons, he witnesses a ballet class and […]
“It will happen. … maybe you’re just not listening to the poetry right.” In this spoken word poem, the speaker conveys experiences of her sexuality being dismissed; wrapped up in the metaphor of “don’t worry the poem will get good“. The performance can act as an introduction to discussions surrounding LGBTQ+ rights, identity, sexuality, stereotypes, […]
American Pictures is a collection of approximately 22,000 photos revealing racism, segregation, social hierarchies and white supremacy. The powerful pictures of Danish photographer Jacob Holdt were not taken with an artistic intention but rather to capture the hardship and brutal reality of America in the 1970s. Holdt’s work portraits life in ghettos ranging from poverty, homelessness […]
This Gothic short story contrasts inner and outer monstrosity, and, going along with that, also focuses on moral values and the view on what is different. The young student Giovanni moves into an apartment in Padua, with windows that are opening to a beautiful garden. Said garden seems to consist of poisonous flowers and is […]
Though written in the Romantic period, this novel is considered the first supernatural English novel. It combines Shakespearean elements like the class-dependent distribution of comedy and tragedy and ghostly apparitions with medievalism and 18th-century realism. Manfred is the lord of the castle of Otranto, and his son Conrad is about to marry Isabella. When Conrad […]