Month: March 2018

The Fine Line Between Proselytizing and Parody: On “Roseanne”

Two decades after its season “finale” in 1997, Roseanne made its triumphant return to prime-time television this past Tuesday night.  More than 18 million people tuned in (including President Trump) and, if the hot takes are to believed, most people loved it (including President Trump). Critics have attributed the largely positive reception of Roseanne to its sympathetic…

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Datapocalypse Now?

Facebook and its enigmatic custodian Mark Zuckerberg suffered their biggest hit to date this week when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica— which self-describes as a political and commercial service that “uses data to change audience behavior”– pulled the personal data from 50 million Facebook users, without their permission, and used it to advance Donald Trump’s…

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It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s Man’s World: On Black Mirror’s “USS Callister”

[NOTE: This is the next installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know!] I really liked S4E1 “USS Callister,” which is the only episode from Season 4 to make it in in the top ten of my Black Mirror rankings. This came as a…

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