Breaking the Glass Slipper: Women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror

Well, it’s that time again: 80s family film funtime! Today we are looking at 1988’s Willow, starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer, directed by Ron Howard with a story by George Lucas. But first, let’s set the scene. It is a time of dread. Seers have foretold the birth of a child who will bring […]

Monster. Freak. Beast. These words are often thrown around, but what do we really mean when we use them? What is a monster? Why are they so central to our narratives? Like many of the issues we discuss on this podcast, the idea of monstrosity features built-in sexism. Male and female-coded monsters are often given […]

When we pick up a book, we know we’re going to be told a story. We trust the author or, in the case of first-person POV the narrator, to tell us the truth. We might be reading about vengeful ghosts or glorious dragons that take our imagination to the very limits of creativity, but we […]

Speculative fiction has always been a genre that challenges traditional views and established ways of seeing. We regularly discuss how the worlds that genre authors create are arenas in which it’s possible to tackle social narratives away from conventional models. But no genre can really be said to straddle fantasy and reality like magical realism. […]

It has long been obvious that our world’s power structures are set up to benefit men, so how does women’s power play out in our narratives? What happens when women are suddenly given a power they are usually deprived of? Menna Van Praag joins us to discuss power in its gendered form. Is there enough […]

Cosmic horror is an unhelpful term by itself. HP Lovecraft himself is quoted as saying that: The fundamental premise [of cosmic horror is] that common human laws and interest and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.’ But Wikipedia seems to bring this down to a more personal level when it states: […]

The three of us are children of the 80s and like many of our generation, we love to revel in nostalgia. For us, this has meant revisiting some of our favourite fantasy films of that decade: Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Princess Bride… and now Ladyhawke.  Ladyhawke was released in 1985 to fairly average reviews. The […]

Here on BtGS, we regularly discuss how female characters in SFF are depicted on-screen. From the infamous bikini armour to simply being absent from male-centric narratives – women have had their fair share of problematic portrayals. But is the tide turning? Joining us to help answer this question is award-winning director Kate Madison. Texts mentioned […]

There needs to be a serious fucking cultural conversation about the storytelling desire to turn everyone into an edgy badass that thinks all problems are best solved with violence and what the overwhelming prevalence of that narrative is doing to our brains. Alex Acks We want to start that cultural conversation right here on Breaking […]

Beauty and the Beast is amongst our best-known fairytales, enduring and enchanting in equal measure. But beneath its romantic exterior lurks a darker story, one that various writers have explored over the years. For the first episode of 2020, we are joined by bestselling author, Brigid Kemmerer, whose newest book, A Heart So Fierce and […]