Tag Archive tropes

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Damseled Princes

I’m a sucker for gender-flipped stories and the way they shed light on common tropes. A manic pixie dream boy doesn’t teach an uptight female protagonist to enjoy life – he’s just an unemployed drummer boyfriend. It’s a trope that doesn’t hold up. But give a handsome prince the damsel treatment and suddenly a tale as old as time becomes sparkly and new with strong female protagonists and emotionally intelligent love interests. I will always show up for handsome heroes made helpless and the strong smart heroines who save them – like the ones in these K-dramas.

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K-Drama Tropes

As the mother of a teenager, it is perhaps inevitable that Korean pop culture would become a critical component of my media consumption. The year 2019 began with my introduction to Webtoon and my headfirst dive into manwha. The year ended with a nearly OCD buy-in of K-Drama.

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You may be a cartoon villain if…

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The other day my kids made me watch Descendants. I’m a fan of the fractured fairy tale, so I liked the premise: a generation after all the fairy tale villains have been banished, the new king invites their children to return to the kingdom, where they must decide for themselves whether to integrate into society or play to type. Unfortunately, the execution was everything one could have hoped from a made-for-TV Disney movie, complete with a live action “hip hop” cover of “Be Our Guest.” Despite my best efforts to follow the family rule of “no complaining when it’s not your turn to pick the movie,” I couldn’t resist giving it a bit of the MST3K treatment. Apparently, I cackle when I crack myself up, which resulted in my being compared to the Evil Queen. Which got me thinking… Read More

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The Dadaists and Big Hero 6

LipstickTracesSo I’m reading Lipstick Traces and it’s slow going because these beautiful sentences go on and on until your realize that they might not mean anything at all and you have to go back and read it all again very very carefully to see if there is anything there. And I’m reading about dada and I’m not sure why, but the picture of Alben Barkley (it’s disturbing, and I’ve included it below the fold) at the concentration camp makes me think about Big Hero 6. Read More