AvidBards
Movies

Guest Post: The New Teen Rom-Com is Queer

Hello, readers! S & I have an important announcement: as of today, we will be putting up guest posts on AvidBards in addition to our own! Katherine H. writes today’s wonderful post, on the queer diversification of teen romantic comedies and what that means for mainstream media. Katherine is a graduate from the University of Edinburgh and American University. She currently lives in New Hampshire and cannot wait to start her PhD in History at Durham University. If you are interested in writing a guest post, contact us on IG or Facebook @avidbards! (Warning: this post contains minimal potential spoilers…

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Movies

Dark Humour in “Kingsman: Secret Service”

Happy Sunday, everyone! A little bit of academic writing never hurt anyone, so today I’m posting yet another one of my old essays I wrote for a film class back in university. The essay focuses on Kingsman: Secret Service (2014), offering an academic view on the use of dark humour, satire, and self reflexivity in the film, and how it created a successful movie. Enjoy! The British-American movie Kingsman: Secret Service, directed by Matthew Vaughn, is characterized as an “action-comedy spy film”, starring Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mark Strong. The film both embraces the classical Hollywood…

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Books

Why Re-Reading is a Good Thing

Finding yourself in a funk? Six months into the year and forgetting all your New Year’s Resolutions? You and me both! We are officially half way through the year, and as it tends to be, most of us have fallen off our resolutions. Typical. Whether it be going to the gym, reading, eating, or creativity related, by this point in the year life just catches up to us and keeping up with those pesky resolutions seems impossible. Worse than that, trying to find the motivation for them can sometimes be even more difficult. And that’s where I am finding myself…

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Music

Canada Day Playlist

Happy Canada Day to all our fellow Canadians! Today we decided to celebrate by curating a Spotify playlist made up of Canadian musicians. Some classics, some newer, some more obscure, some popular. Made up of 60 songs by various artists, it’s definitely a mishmash of genres, but I think that well represents the diverse “mosaic” nature of Canadians and our culture! Have a happy, safe, festive Canada Day! ~ Z ~ photo by Ali Tawfiq on Unsplash

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5 Best Series

5 Best Series: Understanding Other Cultures

As a child, I never really noticed the lack of cultural diversity in the shows or films I watched. Since I was growing up in a fairly diverse city, race wasn’t something I was very conscious of – until I started to get older. That’s the thing about systemic racism; you don’t necessarily notice it until you actively start analyzing and questioning the societal “norms” we were taught. People may not have been calling me names or making fun of my culture in obvious ways, but racist ideologies and cultural ignorance were (and are) embedded into institutions and every day…

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Movies

“The Greatest Showman” Unveiled

The Real History Behind P. T. Barnum and The Circus The Greatest Showman has quickly become a favourite amongst new releases in the last six months and I am in no way and exception to that. I absolutely adored the movie! How could you not? Everything from the characters, the music, the society defying love story were utterly lovable. However, despite all the feel-good feelings I got out watching it and listening to “This is Me” on repeat, I could not shake the discomfort I felt at the blatant re-writing of history going on in this movie. For any of…

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