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Table of Contents

• ↓ Introducing Episodic Medium
• ↓ Making the Yuletide Movie Gay: Evaluating 2020’s Queer Christmas Narratives
• ↓ Starstuck: Streaming, Celebrity, and the state of the “Netflix Star”
• ↓ Morphology of her folklore: Song, Story, and the Contradictions of Taylor Swift
• ↓ Look What She Made Me Do: Notes on my scholarly journal article about Taylor Swift
• ↓ Game Of Thrones – “The Last Of The Starks”
• ↓ Top Alternatives to cultural-learnings.com

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"It’s been over a year and a half since I last posted here at Cultural Learnings, and so I doubt anyone is following this so closely and yet not aware of what’s happening via my social media channels. But just in case you land here looking for my review of House of the Dragon or anything else, I’ve moved all my criticism to a Substack newsletter, Episodic Medium, where I’ve been joined by fellow A.V. Club alum like Donna Bowman, Zack Handlen, and Noel Murray."

"When The Happiest Season debuted on Hulu in November, having been shuffled to the streaming service after the COVID-19 pandemic closed cinemas around the world, the significance of its release was somewhat muted. It was originally touted as the first major studio lesbian romantic comedy, following in the footsteps of 2017’s Love, Simon in breaking new ground for queer representation within genres exclusively imagined as heterosexual in a theatrical context. And while that fact essentially remains true, the set at Christmas film’s move to Hulu obscured that distinction, meaning The Happiest Season launched at a time when Netflix and an increasingly large number of cable channels are releasing a slew of holiday rom-coms. This places the movie it into a different conversation about how the snowy cottage industry of “Cable Christmas Movies” is navigating similar questions of inclusion, with three channels (Hallmark, Lifetime, and Paramount Network) also using queerness as a point of articulation this holiday season."

"Directed by Clea DuVall, The Happiest Season has structural advantages compared to your average Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie: it has a veritable movie star in Kristen Stewart, supporting players like Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie, and the budget to hire a stacked supporting cast and ensure it doesn’t aesthetically look like it was produced at the rapid pace of a daytime soap opera. It’s not really a fair fight in terms of filmmaking or the depth of the ensemble, but The Happiest Season was nonetheless faced with the same narrative question as the year’s other attempts to “Queer the Christmas Movie” on cable: how do you reconcile the continued struggle LGBTQ individuals face in finding love (and living life) with the genre’s sweeping, romantic happy endings?"

"Tagged as Cable, Christmas, Dashing in December, Hallmark, LGBTQ, Lifetime, Paramount Network, Queer, Television, The Christmas House, The Christmas Setup, The Happiest Season"

Key Topics & Focus Areas for cultural-learnings.com:

Introducing Episodic Medium

Making the Yuletide Movie Gay: Evaluating 2020’s Queer Christmas Narratives

Starstuck: Streaming, Celebrity, and the state of the “Netflix Star”

Morphology of her folklore: Song, Story, and the Contradictions of Taylor Swift

Look What She Made Me Do: Notes on my scholarly journal article about Taylor Swift

Game Of Thrones – “The Last Of The Starks”