I am Alex Mell-Taylor. I am a nonbinary culture writer who writes unseriously about important topics and very seriously about unimportant ones. If there's a hill out there, I have died on it. Please return my corpse to the nearest coat check.
Tearing apart the idea that voting doesn't matter
If you spend enough time online (and in real life, too), you will inevitability come across people who believe that elections are futile. I am not referring to anti-democratic fascists who want to dismantle democracy, but those who fundamentally believe that our current system cannot guarantee meaningful reform.
Magic, steampunk, stunning graphics, & revolution
The RiotGames produced TV series Arcane: League of Legends is like watching a brilliant painting coming to life for six hours. Its artistic rendition of the hit game League of Legends, or LoL for short, is stunning. …
The hit MCU movie has a problem with classism and power
The MCU movie Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings (2021) has a lot of good things going for it: the fight scenes are fantastic; the dialogue is funny, especially from comedic superstar Awkwafina (whomst we stan); the CGI is likewise truly impressive (I never thought I needed to…
Dave Chappelle, Big Mouth, The Honeymooners, & abuse in comedy
The subject of abuse has long existed in comedy. A quintessential example of this is the cult classic The Honeymooners (1955–1956), where the character Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) repeatedly threatens to hit his wife Alice Kramden (Pert Kelton/Audrey Meadows). "One of these days, Alice," he says, to a laugh track…
An in-depth analysis of religion, angelic vampires, & misogyny.
Midnight Mass (2021) is a well-paced, brilliantly acted mini-series that manages to capture life inside a decaying town that has seen better days. The citizens of Crockett Island are constantly grappling with death — the death of their fishing industry, the death of their town, and pretty soon, the death…
Misinformation about COVID is rampant on the social network
With the rise of vaccine hesitancy, there has been a lot of criticism levied against the social media giant Facebook for not taking content moderation seriously. …
The beloved Halloween classic replicates some harmful tropes about witches.
Disney's Hocus Pocus (1993) is a movie much beloved by American audiences. Even more than Casper (1995) and Beetlejuice (1988), it's perhaps best thought of as the quintessential Halloween movie. The film is played on repeat across America every Halloween season and dutifully watched online on streaming platforms like Disney+.
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Netflix, transphobia, & wealth inequality
I hesitated to watch Dave Chappelle's special The Closer because I am a trans person, and I thought it would be best to sidestep this moment altogether (something that should tell you how toxic this discourse has become for trans people). I have spent a lot of time documenting what…
We are all playing a deadly game to survive
The hit Netflix series Squid Game is a serialized drama about contestants participating in a deadly series of challenges. In the same vein as works like Battle Royale (2000) and Alice in Borderland (2020), the players participate in childlike games for the chance at fortune. …
Alex Mell-Taylor
I write about pop culture and politics. Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/opinionsalexhas Write for me: https://medium.com/after-the-storm
