Category Archives: family

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Testing Goodness and the American Family

Posted on 31/10/2018 by fesmontemaggi

The Netflix series comes from the 1990s programme Sabrina The Teenage Witch. It is slightly tainted by Hollywood obsessive market segmentation which dictates specific styles and motifs to appeal to specific demographics; yet this Sabrina is really not for young … Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, family, fantasy/supernatural, gender, good & evil, Halloween, horror, magic, morality, myth, religion, ritual, Sabrina, Satanism, TV, witchcraft | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cinderella – Maskenfreiheit & play

Posted on 07/01/2016 by fesmontemaggi

Kenneth Branagh chooses to begin the story with Cinderella’s childhood and has the heroine suffer her parents’ death and the humiliation of going from owner of the house to unpaid servant. Screenwriter Chris Weitz clearly couldn’t conceive, let alone write, Cinderella’s  moral strength and … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinderella (1950), Cinderella (2015), entertainment, fairytales, family, fantasy/supernatural, femininity, freedom, gender, imagination, Into the Woods, magic, play, Precious | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Inside Out – No emotions, only feelings

Posted on 10/09/2015 by fesmontemaggi

Inside Out seeks to hide its lack of originality behind clever ingenuity. It tells the story of a young girl through her ‘emotions’, except these are nothing more than instinctual reactions. Instead of depicting the different sides of one person, … Continue reading →

Posted in America, consciousness, emotions, family, good & evil, individualism, Inside Out, love, morality, personhood, reason/rationality | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Good Women, Bad Women, and Witches – Hocus Pocus, The Craft, Practical Magic

Posted on 27/04/2015 by fesmontemaggi

Hocus Pocus is fun. It is for children so the evil witches are more fun than scary. Yet, they follow the traditional cinematic construct of the evil witch as a bad woman, a woman who does not adhere to the … Continue reading →

Posted in 'othering', body, family, fantasy/supernatural, femininity, gender, good & evil, Hocus Pocus, love, magic, morality, nature, patriarchy, Practical Magic, sexuality, The Craft, witchcraft | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Breaking Bad – The Puritan American Dream & the Family

Posted on 25/04/2015 by fesmontemaggi

Breaking Bad is one of those rare series that understands character development. The series is about Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher, who discovers he has cancer and starts making top-notch meth. This is initially to cover his health … Continue reading →

Posted in America, American dream, authenticity, Breaking Bad, capitalism, Christianity, entertainment, family, good & evil, individualism, morality, Protestantism, Uncategorized, western | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chef – Food, Class, and Salvation in America

Posted on 13/04/2015 by fesmontemaggi

Chef is an insipid comedy stuffed with movie stars but no bite. Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is the head chef at a posh restaurant in California. He’s frustrated by the restaurant owner’s imposition of classical dishes, which stifles his creativity. … Continue reading →

Posted in America, authenticity, autonomy, capitalism, Chef, class, consumerism, family, food, freedom, individualism, morality, nation, personhood, Protestantism, religion, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Babadook – the ‘horror’ of parenting and social conventions

Posted on 11/12/2014 by fesmontemaggi

(This was first published on Wales Art Review, available here) More than a horror, Babadook is a tale of a woman’s sense of inadequacy before society’s conventions and expectations. Australian director, Jennifer Kent, reinterprets F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) to give … Continue reading →

Posted in Babadook, class, fairytales, family, fantasy/supernatural, good & evil, horror, reality, social conventions | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

House of Cards – Power & American Values

Posted on 28/06/2014 by fesmontemaggi

The first series of the American House of Cards translates rather well the homonymous British mini-series with the splendid Ian Richardson. Spacey’s House of Cards is more polished and more ironic. Kevin Spacey pontificating to camera while having sex is priceless. The second … Continue reading →

Posted in abortion, crime, family, gender, good & evil, House of Cards (US), politics, power | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gomorra – of Power & Loyalty

Posted on 20/06/2014 by fesmontemaggi

The TV series Gomorra is simply perfect. It is well written, well shot and well acted. With its pithy style and occasional irony it plunges the viewer into the criminal microcosm of a city where different ethnicities, nationalities and languages … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, family, gender, Gomorra, good & evil, loyalty, power, race/diversity | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Walking Dead – Anarchy (S 3-4)

Posted on 10/06/2014 by fesmontemaggi

It didn’t get better, it got laughable. The gun festival continued unabated. The zombie doomsday scenario might mean being short of food but not of artillery. The action scenes still lack tension. They are interspersed with “let’s pretend we’re deep” … Continue reading →

Posted in democracy, family, gender, good & evil, horror, politics, romanticism, The Walking Dead, TV | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment