We Stan a Witchy Woman

Shakira, Velma, and a Yassified American Girl Doll

January 20, 2023

The Curse of Shakira 

Shakira recently broke up with her long-time partner and Spanish football player Gerard Piqué. It’s not one of those we agreed to move in different directions break ups, it’s messy. He was allegedly cheating, and Shakira is channeling all of her anger into her latest single. 

Piqué’s mother also lives next door to Shakira’s home in Barcelona. 

Shakira’s house has been blasting her new diss track, and a mysterious witch mannequin has appeared on her balcony facing directly at her ex-mother-in-law’s home. 

I personally would not want to tempt fate or the wrath of Shakira’s magik. 

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  • Quote Tweeting: Over 30 Studies Dispel Some Myths (putting this under Mastodon because Mastodon users and instance admins have been thoughtfully debating the merits of QRTs, and lol like Musk’s Twitter would care about the outcome of a study like this)  

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M3GAN! 

I ventured out into the atmospheric river this past weekend on a pilgrimage to my local AMC’s screening of M3GAN. After a chill brunch near the theater, my friends and I walked into the lobby to encounter more of our extended friend group. “I knew it. I knew they were coming to see M3GAN too when we saw them walking over,” one declared. The overlap between M3GAN audience members that afternoon and boys I’ve danced with at Pride parties was high. After Nicole Kidman’s pre-movie AMC commercial, there was applause. This was the gay social event of that rainy afternoon in San Francisco, one whole week after the film's opening, and totally by accident. 

Anyone cursed with knowledge of Gay Twitter™️ probably knew this robot girlie would be a smash hit with the homosexual cinephile crowd. She’s been a meme queen since the trailer dropped last year. M3GAN screenwriter Akela Cooper was recently asked why this yassified American Girl Doll resonates with queer audiences. 

I actually asked one of my friends who is a gay man about that and he was saying this set-up is actually found family, where this little girl has lost her family, and she has to go live with her aunt. Then this doll is also brought into the situation. That resonates for a lot of people in the gay community, the idea of found family.

That’s very sweet, but as many on Twitter were quick to point out, is probably overthinking it. M3GAN is camp, and as the 2019 Meta Gala showed us, American culture is woefully under-educated on the subject. This film stares down the uncanny valley that’s plagued tech for decades and dances gleefully into it. Is it in good taste to take our swirling anxieties about artificial intelligence, modern parenting, screen time, and the role of tech in our children's lives, personify them, then have that personification sing Sia’s “Titanium” to a traumatized child? Of course not! That’s what makes it great. 

There’s already talk about a M3GAN sequel–which, so help me Robot Devil, better be called MEG4N. The sequel talk is already spawning its own memes. But I have a more radical proposal for where M3GAN should go next: Broadway!

several adult humans dressed as the robot M3GAN posing at a movie premier

Let Lea Michele play Allison Williams’s role or M3GAN. Hell, let Lea Michele do it as a one-robot-woman show. Turn “Titanium” into an Act 1 finale ballad. Have Sia write the rest of the songs. Bring the army of dancing M3GANs to NYC and let them give the Rockettes a run for their money. M3GAN is high camp in a PG-13 horror comedy package. M3GAN! The Musical would be a timeless camp classic that endures for ages. 

The best way to help get M3GAN to Broadway probably isn’t sharing my newsletter, but it won’t not help. So… 🤷‍♀️

Everybody Hates Velma

As a Hex Girls stan, I feel strangely compelled to have an opinion here despite my better instincts telling me to stay out of this Discourse®. Basically, several different adult-with-strong-opinions-about-cartoon-shows communities are all mad at this thing for different reasons. Too woke. Trying too hard. Not funny. Ruining my childhood. Stealing food right out of my starving baby’s mouth. All the normal reactions we typically see, just all at once, and from every side of the 4chan to Tumblr internet political spectrum. 

Before I share my radically unique perspective that will forever change how you think about not just Velma, but animation, nay all entertainment, I want to highlight a few smarter pieces on the subject. 

This piece by Izzy Ampil on Buzzfeed does a good job of actually digging into these critiques and the larger conversation about representation across Mindy Kaling’s career. 

On Garbage Day, Ryan Broderick gets into how this show and the conversations around it fit into the pattern of “sacrificial trash” content. 

While the show’s IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes ratings are tanking–likely due to review bombing from various adults with nothing better to do, the premier is actually HBO Max's most-watched animated original show. 

So now that you have all of the context needed to really appreciate my take allow me to share it with you now. It’s fine. Not great, not bad. Fine. 

PS

If you are looking for a hilarious adult animation adaptation of a classic franchise with an amazing cast and a wonderfully queer love story, I recommend Harley Quinn.