Decluttering, spearheaded by Marie Kondo and Japanese minimalist consumerism, has taken on quasi-spiritual connotations. What are we actually trying to get rid of when we throw out all our stuff?
Are women really each other’s worst enemies? Probably not.
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Depictions of women bullying women are a mainstay of reality television shows, just as reports of Twitter fights between female celebrities are regular tabloid fare. It’s a phenomenon with a long history.
However hard we pursue happiness, when the party’s over we must still confront the grimmer aspects of life.
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We can pursue our own happiness to the exclusion of the real world, but how meaningful can that be? Far better to engage with life and both the happiness and sadness it brings along the way.
Why do people complain so much about ‘low-brow’ shows – yet still watch them?
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By featuring girls who buck the conventions of their world – and ours – films like Insurgent inspire fans to enact real change.
Star Trek fans were especially drawn to Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock – who showed many that it “was okay to be a nerd, that even in the future not everyone fit in, or needed to.”
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Lynn Zubernis, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Star Trek fans were especially drawn to Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock – who showed many that it “was okay to be a nerd, that even in the future not everyone fit in, or needed to.”
Musicians such as Amy Winehouse die young at much higher rates than the rest of the population.
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Art is a cry of distress from those who live out within themselves the destiny of humanity … Inside them turns the movement of the world; only an echo of it leaks out – the work of art Arnold Schoenberg…
Swift is privileged, as only apex predators are, with the ability to pick and choose from any (cultural) food source.
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In the same week American rapper Nicki Minaj released Anaconda, a music video dedicated to celebrating “the butt”, US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released a video, Shake It Off, accidentally dedicated…
For Buffy fans, Sarah Michelle Gellar will always be the Slayer.
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Give them enough blood and vampires keep on feeding – but give academics Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and the same phenomenon occurs. Much Ado About Whedon: The 6th Biennial Slayage Conference…
Jessica Mauboy (left) and SBS Eurovision hosts Sam Pang and Julia Zemiro.
AAP Image/SBS
And so we wait, anxiously, to see Australia at an event that celebrates the rich cultural tapestry that is the panoply of European states. Nah, who am I kidding? We’ve got a guernsey at the Eurovision…
Let’s pause to consider the rich mythology of this 75-year-old icon.
James
This year the world’s most popular superhero, Batman, celebrates his 75th birthday. From inauspicious beginnings in a six-page comic to the transmedia anchor of one of the world’s largest media conglomerates…
Arctic Monkeys are certain to feature in this year’s most voted songs.
AAP Image/MG Promotions
Australia’s national youth station, Triple J, has come in for some criticism lately, with a spate of articles accusing it of homogenising Australian music tastes or excluding too many local acts from the…
So meme, such Doge. This guy ruled the internet in 2013.
In the world of internet memes, 2013 was without doubt the Year of the Doge. Participants on Twitter, Tumblr and reddit created and circulated their own narrations of this Shiba’s fragmented internal monologue…
In David Foster Wallace’s epic Infinite Jest, a major conceit is a film so good it reduces any and all who see it into a quivering pulp, physically unable to stop watching, wasting away into utter uselessness…
Garry Shead’s portrait of Martin Sharp shows the artist as he lived, orchestrating a magic theatre of people and objects.
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The tributes have been flowing in from friends and art critics for Martin Sharp, who died this week aged 71. The common thread linking all the tributes, all the memories, is that the artist was never alone…
Jessica Mauboy performs on stage at the 27th ARIA Awards in Sydney, Sunday. Do we expect too much of what is, essentially, an industry love-in?
AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts
After weeks of hyped-up national pride, the halting speeches are over and the awkward presentations made. The 27th Australia Recording Industry Association Awards (the ARIAs) have passed away, marooned…
Gotye, with New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra, suggests our culture is alive and well.
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The death of Lou Reed today, aged 71, is unquestionably a sad day for popular music. Already Rolling Stone has compiled a genre-defined obit focusing on how Reed worked as a Transformer (pun intended…
If there’s a formula to pop success, artists such as Jessica Mauboy aren’t bound by it.
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When I was a kid way back in the dim, dark 1960s, I collected radio Top 40 charts obsessively. What struck me then – and still strikes me now (yes, I kept the charts) – was the sheer diversity of songs…
Like much of what we see on TV, this one’s a myth.
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Beep….beep……….beep……….beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. “We’re losing him. Out of my way, nurse!” The quick-thinking young doctor charges the defibrillator paddles and places them on the chest of the lifeless…
Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations at the United States Studies Centre and in the Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne