Alison Bechdel

about a college woman that was majoring in fashion until her boyfriend breaks up with her and then she decides she is going to Harvard Law and become a lawyer. Legally Blonde is a great feminist film because it has strong female leads, passes the Bechdel test, and features a woman performing exceptionally well in a career field that was once dominated by men. In Legally Blonde there are multiple strong female characters such as Elle Woods and Professor Stormwell. When people think of strong…

is still quite a bit of fighting left to do. Through looking at various pieces of lesbian literature from the past one will be able to understand the struggles that arose in the past when creating a lesbian character. Following, an exploration of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home will then illustrate the troubles faced today in regards to lesbian literature. Throughout history, authors have always had a hard time of publishing books with lesbians. Authors have usually…

Essays, Not Rants! 233: To Tell The Truth How do you tell the truth? Saying “Alice and Bob broke up” may be what happened, but is it the truth of it all? Breakups are messy business; did Alice break up with Bob or Bob break up with Alice? Did Bob break up with Alice for Charlie? Suddenly there’s a narrative attached to the happening, which in turn colors our perception of what happened. It may be less accurate, but it could be closer to the truth. Maybe the truth is Bob feels like his heart’s…

Sara Boxer, author of “Why are all the Cartoon Mothers Dead?” illuminates readers on the horrors of the beloved cartoon films so many people love to watch. Boxer was previously an editor and writer for the well-known Newspaper Company New York Times. The author attempts to persuade readers of her ideas that influence her to write this essay. Her first claim is that Mother characters are often killed before the film or in the early beginnings. She also finds herself pointing towards father…

Female Characters in Film Have More to Talk About Besides Men: Automating the Bechdel Test by Apoorv Agarwal et al. talks in depth about something called the “Bechdel Test”. While, usually used for films, it is something that can be applied to literature, and is extremely useful in this context. For better understanding, the Bechdel test, as explained in the journal, is a “series of three questions, which originated from Alison Bechdel’s comic ‘Dykes to Watch Out for’” (Agarwal et al., 1). The…

Let’s play house. A little girl is in a floral dress with her little apron as she pretends to cook dinner for her family. She has a little baby doll that she cradles in her arms as she finishes up the dinner and gets ready to start the laundry. A little boy comes in acting as if he had a long day of work asking her if dinner was ready and if his cloths were ready. When you were younger the girls were told to play with dolls and Barbie’s. Our parents brought us little kitchen and told us the…

studying; the way in which a teacher introduces an assignment begins to play a larger role in whether or not the student emerges himself or herself into the work. In a previous assignment, Alison Bechdel’s “Compulsory Reading” proved an interesting point in terms of forceful tasks and motivation levels. Bechdel makes a valid point when stating that an individual who is forced to read will take away “little good” from their readings (731). When passions become chores, the motivation to do the…

Calm Down, Dear. Name the odd one out: A boat, a fridge, a stapler, a woman, a colander, a spoon. The objectification of women is everywhere. Not just in the ubiquitous images that inundate the media of photo shopped woman, dolled up to meet the laborious requirements of today’s beauty standards. Or the bizarre advertisements for such things as yogurts where the women are dressed in very little clothing for no apparent reason but the male gaze (I don’t need the camera to linger on a woman’s…

When I was a little girl, I used to love to read stories. Whether it was long or short, it didn 't matter much to me as long as there were words on the page, if I could physically hold the book and if it had the occasional illustrated picture in it. I even loved to do the summer reading program that we had at our local library because it gave out prizes to kids for their achieved specific reading goals. But now I believed that I read stories solely for the purpose of not having anything else to…

“Imagine Wanting Only This” by Kristen Radtke. “Imagine Wanting Only This” by Kristen Radtke is among nonfiction graphic novel which is a memoir. It is a tale which is filled with beautiful and the troubling graphic memoir which has extensive prose and one of the breathtaking illustrations. The book talks about the desertions and life which is termed as being ephemeral and fleeting, lacking ambitions. It is among one of the modern graphic novel which has been involved in incorporating actual…