We dive into our love for films this week. 

With COVID19 this year, Taiwan Film Festival is online this year, Helen and Jessie talk about some movies from the Festival, particularly focusing on two stand-out documentaries "The Good Daughter" and "Run for Dream". 

We also look back at one of our favourite childhood action movie DEMOLITION MAN and how differently we perceive the movie now as adults. 

Taiwan Film Festival (Australia) 澳洲台灣影展 

Demolition Man 

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No, we’re not talking about emotional labour. We’re talking about something more subtle. Something invisible. Shrouded. So innocuous, and perpetual. Sometimes you get an idea, and you can’t take time out to write it down. Why’s that?

What does it look like for mothers? What does it look like for young women? This week, we chat about gendered roles, unpaid decision making jobs in the home, and hot male nurses.


Also discussed:

Books
Sad Mum Lady (Ashe Davenport, 2020)
Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi, 2019)

Films
Brittany Runs a Marathon (dir. Paul Downs Colaizzo, 2019)

Music
Julia Jacklin
“Good Guy”
“Someday” (The Strokes cover)

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Is it biological? Social? Why are some men only attracted to very young women? Is it true girls mature faster? Is it true men take longer to mature? Or is this all patriarchal bullshit? This week, we talk about age and love between the sexes.

Also discussed:

Articles:

Unconventional Wisdom: Are men really hard-wired to desire younger women? (Rebecca Stoner The Outline, 2018)
Is this the real reason older men date younger women?(Sydney Morning Herald, 2018)
Temping for the 1 percent (Sophie Madeline Dess, The New Republic, 2020)

Films:
Athlete A (dir. Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Netflix, 2020)

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Dyson Heydon has spent more than half his life with the banner of “brilliant legal mind.” What are the perks of being labeled a “brilliant legal mind”? In Australia, it apparently means you can harass and violate young women without any accountability.

This week, we chat about male judges like Heydon and Brett Kavanaugh and Alex
Kozinski, and their criminal behaviour.

In this country’s most powerful legal institutions, the perpetual unmitigated acclaim that powerful men give each other ensures the systemic harassment and assault of the industry’s most vulnerable members – young women – continues. It effectively ensures women are kept out.

Powerful men target a woman’s most vulnerable (and, according to society, her most valuable) asset: her sexuality. They know by doing this, women are reduced to pieces of meat. It’s a strategy – to exert power, keep us out, to destroy every other part of us. And, often, they succeed.

Also discussed: being a follower is boring, capitalist advocacy, Fleabag.

Articles
Johnson & Johnson Will Stop Selling Skin-Whitening Lotions (NYTimes, June 2020)
Dyson Heydon Says addressing Liberal Party Fundraiser Does Not Mean He Supports The Liberal Party (Sydney Morning Herald, 2015)
Two High Court judges 'knew of complaints against Dyson Heydon' ( Sydney Morning Herald, 2020)

TV Shows
Fleabag (Seasons 1 & 2) Amazon Prime

Books
Eggshell Skull (Bri Lee, 2018)
She Said (Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey, 2019)
The Education of Brett Kavanaugh | An Investigation ( Robin Pogrebin Kate Kelly, 2019)

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Did you know in Taiwan, you can be locked up for up to a year if you're caught cheating on your spouse? Last month, the country's adultery laws were abolished. We talk this week about these laws, extramarital affairs, and touch on our feelings about polyamory. 

Articles

Taiwan grand justices rule adultery no longer a crime (Taiwan Times, May 2020) 

Taiwan Court Strikes Down Law Criminalizing Adultery (NYTimes, May 2020) 

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The Neighbor's Window won an Academy Award. That means someone (those people, probably men, in power) thought that the film was good, and that it espoused a good message. What do we think? We think it's racist, conventional, and deeply, jarringly moralistic. 

Watch it now here. 

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In 2014, at 25, Jessie travelled to Yemen as a budding photojournalist. This week, she chats to Helen about her conflicting feelings about the dominance of white men in photojournalism. 

Topics discussed include: commencement speeches, World Press Contest, Tim Hetherington and Phillip Montgomery 

Videos

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech at Stanford (Youtube, 2005) 

Dear Class of 2020 (Youtube, 2020) 

Tim Hetherington - Sleeping Soldiers ( Youtube, 2007) 

Images

World Press Contest (World Press Foundation) 

Philip Montgomery (Instagram) 

How Solders Sleep in the Field, Images by Tim Hetherington (National Geography, 2007) 

Books

Here I am ( Alan Huffman, 2013)

Articles

Gender Inequality in Photojournalism Is Real (TIME, 2015)

Women battling sexism in photography – a picture essay (The Guardian, 2019)

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This week, we chat about the viral Op Ed from Matthew Fray who counsels men in ways to save their marriages. Is it good for a white man to step up and raises these issues that have been historically dominated by women? What should the role of a husband be in 2020? Why are gender roles in heterosexual marriages still so segregated? 

We share our thoughts on Australia’s response to the protests in the US, and the performance of virtue and a desire for social justice. Attention and care is not a performance. Why has performing virtue become the norm? 

Discussed this week:

The Good Men Project 

Articles

Deaths Inside: Every Indigenous Death in Custody since 2019 (The Guardian, April 2019) 

The Man Who Coaches Husbands on How to Avoid Divorce (NYTtimes, 2020)

She divorced me because I left dishes by the sink (HuffPost, 2016)

Michelle Obama & Roxane Gay’s Responses (Women’s Agenda, 2020)

8 minutes and 46 seconds: How George Floyd was killed in Police Custody (NYTimes, 2020)

Books

Becoming (Michelle Obama, 2018) 

Seven Fallen Feathers (Tanya Talaga, 2017) 

Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn and Consent (Peggy Orenstein, 2020)

Songs

Across the Universe, Fiona Apple (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1998)

Films/Series

This is where I Leave You (dir. Shawn Levy, 2014)

Jeffery Epstein: Filthy Rich (Netflix, 2020) 

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See

Is it wrong that Jack Black voices a Panda? Is The Half of It any good? And why are the Asian mother’s always dead in these stories? 

This week, we chat about Hollywood’s problem with whitewashing.

Discussed this week:

Kate & Leopold (2001) 

The Half of It (2020) 

To all the boys I’ve ever loved (2018) 

To all the boys I’ve ever loved Part 2 (2020) 

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

The Evolution of Chinese and Asian Faces in Hollywood ( VOA News, 2019)

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: 9 Actors in Hollywood on the Books and Films That Inspired Them (Variety, 2019)

Crazy Rich Asians Kicked Down the Door. Now Asian Americans Are Fighting To Stay in the Room ( Time, 2018)

How Margot Robbie Changed Her Hollywood Destiny (Buzzfeed News, February 2020)

Hollywood Doesn't Fully Represent Asian Americans Yet (Vice, 2019)

'We're part of a greater movement': Hollywood finally gives Asian stories a spotlight (The Guardian, 2019)

Asian Representation In Hollywood: We’re Not There Yet (QG, 2019)

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What is the phenomena of white worshipping and why does it exist? 

This week, we explore the prevalence of this condition in Asian countries and talk about how white people seem to get away with more. 

Helen speaks of her experiences in Taiwan as an English teacher, and Jessie confronts her own shame about exhibiting this trait. 

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