Katie Lou Writes

By this point, I’m sure you’ve experienced a disappointing end to a television series… or a few. Maybe the big reveal was a letdown? Or the final climax of the story was more of a whimper than a bang. In this renaissance in television, this phenomenon is seeming more and more common, but why? Why do series finales never seem to stick the landing? Well, let’s look into a few reasons.  Narrative The first reason is narrative-based. Now, I’m going to take you back to year 3 literacy, and remind you of the traditional structure of a story: Every story needs a beginning, middle and end. This may seem obvious and easily done when telling a simple contained story, but when it comes to a series, this structure can become incredibly complicated. During a long-form series, you might find that this three-act structure isn’t just contained to each episode, but may simultaneously run alongside an overarching narrative to connect the episodes together and move the story along. Furthermore, the f...

Pick any period drama off of the shelf and I can almost guarantee there will be one of the following scenes: A woman is being tightly laced into a corset and/or a woman has removed her corset and is scarred or marked by the boning. These are staples in films that include period costumes and are often a response to what is now considered oppressive fashion. However, the reality of this historical fashion could not be further from what we see on screens now.  The classic tight lacing scene from Gone With the Wind (1939) What was the Reason for Corsets? I’m sorry to destroy any illusions you might have, but corsets, stays and crinolines were actually just structural undergarments. In modern terms, they weren’t too far off shaping underwear like Spanx and bras. Emerging in the late 16th Century, fully boned stays were worn under clothes to support the bust. Despite heavy boning, stays were considered informal wear, informal situations garments were constructed with the boning built-in...

The discourse surrounding health and the body is not a new phenomenon, since the Medieval ages, vices such as “gluttony” and “sloth” have been associated with “the downfall of man”. To an extent, this can still be seen in the analysis of contemporary discourse and the mediation of health and the body. It can be considered that the health and body of an individual is no longer just a personal concern, instead, this has become a concept that is very much the property of society. The body is now judged based on its perceived usefulness to society in terms of physical contributions for society. Often, those who deviate from the societal ideal weight- either under or over- are dehumanised by media representations. Frequently, discussions about health and the body feature a significant focus on the statistical correlations between dietary issues and the risk of extreme and life-threatening illness, rather than any consideration of mental health or personal circumstances of the individual. Th...

The latest movie adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 book The Witches caused major controversy within the disabled community due to its negative representation of limb differences. In Dahl’s original book and a 1990 movie adaptation, one of the ways to identify a witch is that they have claws instead of fingernails. However, in this latest adaptation, the ‘claws’ that the witches can be seen with look all too similar to ectrodactyly limbs, with their two fingers and thumb on each hand. Backlash towards Warner Bros quickly followed for the change, and those in the limb difference community started responding with #NotAWitch, including ex-Paralympian Amy Marren on both her Twitter and  Instagram , asking “was there much thought given as to how this representation of limb differences would affect the limb difference community?!” Despite Warner Bros apologizing and “regretting any offence caused”, this type of negative representation of disabled people in movies is all too prevalent in t...