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stillness is a lie, my dear

Tag: stereotypes

11 February, 201726 December, 2016

On Donald Trump and the pop politics of suffering

A cosplayer walks down a set of stairs.
Posted in pop culture by s.e. smith

The myth that suffering induces creativity endures, and it’s back with a vengeance for 2017.

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2 August, 201620 May, 2016

The myth of Trump support among the working classes

Donald Trump speaking at an event.
Posted in politics by s.e. smith

The popular myth that Trump is supported by working class voters perpetuates stereotypes about the working class as conservative, short-sighted, and uneducated.

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21 May, 201615 March, 2016

Child actors of colour deserve better

A Chinese girl in a bright red jacket grinning broadly.
Posted in pop culture, race by s.e. smith

I didn’t watch the 2016 Oscars, for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I feel increasingly disconnected from what the mainstream Hollywood establishment wants to celebrate and what I enjoy viewing. The event has been criticised heavily from a number of angles, but I’m especially fed up with seeing limited diversity […]

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15 August, 20152 June, 2015

I’m over the ‘bumbling single dad’ stereotype

A man and his son at sunset.
Posted in pop culture by s.e. smith

I was raised by a single father in a household with a shoestring budget — and sometimes the shoestring was perilously close to snapping altogether. He was a bartender and later an English professor, picking up an adjunct position at the junior college that paid not much better than his job at the bar, though […]

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23 December, 201429 September, 2014

Depression Doesn’t Make You Sad All the Time

A woman in a red dress jumping in the air on a beach.
Posted in disability by s.e. smith

One of the most popular, enduring, and irritating myths about depression is that it means depressed people are sad all the time — and that by extension, people who are happy can’t be experiencing depression, even if they say they are. It’s a skewed and horrible version of depression, and it’s one that further stigmatises […]

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23 September, 20134 July, 2013

‘I’ll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be!’

Posted in gender by s.e. smith

My copy of Legally Blonde is so heavily viewed that I keep expecting the DVD to develop a scratch, something which would send me into paroxysms of grief, because, let me tell you, I love this movie. It’s funny, it’s sharp, and it’s also a fantastic commentary on gender, presentation, social attitudes, and society in […]

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21 March, 20135 January, 2013

Disability Tragedy Porn, Defined

Posted in disability by s.e. smith

It occurred to me the other day that I frequently reference the concept of disability tragedy porn (which I often shorten to just tragedy porn or disability porn), but I haven’t actually taken the time to sit down and define it, to discuss what, precisely, it is, and why it’s a problem. I sort of […]

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21 September, 201213 July, 2012

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’

Posted in disability, pop culture by s.e. smith

Pop culture has a number of fascinating and enduring stereotypes about pain and the experience of pain. A lot of those stereotypes perpetuate dangerous attitudes which have real-life implications for people out in the world, and these often go unexamined, including by people who struggle with both acute and chronic pain. What we accept, culturally, […]

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28 April, 201114 March, 2011

Notes From the Urban/Rural Divide: The Hayseed

Posted in commentary by s.e. smith

I often encounter the attitude that people living in rural areas have nothing to contribute to the rest of the world. They are hayseeds, rednecks, country bumpkins. This thinking comes from the idea that the only work ‘of worth’ in this society is creative work, that a novelist is more important than a farmer, a […]

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11 April, 201124 February, 2011

Mental Illness Rhetoric in Skepticism, and the Problems Thereof

Posted in disability by s.e. smith

Most days, I consider myself a skeptic. I view a lot of the beliefs held by some people around me as holding dubious merit. I do not think, for example, that the United States personally brought down the Twin Towers as an excuse to start the war on terror. I don’t think that PGE is […]

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