Film and TV
Joker: The Despair of Capitalism and the Hope of Riots
All the critics hate “Joker”: They denounce it as a film without a message, or one that will inspire right-wing terrorists. What movie were they watching? In reality, the message couldn't be clearer: Working people need to direct their anger against the rich.
Nathaniel Flakin
October 8, 2019Chernobyl: An Environmental Catastrophe Caused by Stalinism
In the early hours of April 26, 1986, Reactor No. 4 of the Pripyat nuclear power plant in Ukraine—then part of the USSR—blew up. The HBO miniseries “Chernobyl” shows what caused the disaster: Stalinism.
Óscar Fernández
June 10, 2019“We’re Americans”: Class and the State in Jordan Peele’s “Us”
"Us" sets us up for an analysis of class society. Where does it deliver and where does it fall short? Spoiler Alert!
Tatiana Cozzarelli
April 25, 2019The Fear of Trotsky Is a Fear of the Masses
The literary critic Warren Montag, a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, was among the hundreds of intellectuals who signed a letter of protest against the Netflix series “Trotsky.” In this essay, he explains how traditional anti-Semitic tropes were always used against Leon Trotsky and are being recycled now by the Putin regime.
Warren Montag
March 11, 2019As “Black Panther” Wins Awards, Fight to Free Black Panthers Continues
We must remember and fight to free the real Black Panthers who are still locked up.
Julia Wallace
February 27, 2019Nancy Fraser, Fredric Jameson and More Join Trotsky’s Grandson in Repudiating Netflix’s “Trotsky”
#TrotskyVersusNetflix: Academics, writers, journalists and political activists repudiate the mini-series “Trotsky”, available on Netflix.
Left Voice
February 20, 2019Black Radicalism on Screen: “The Hate U Give”
It is not every day that the music of Tupac Shakur and the politics of the Black Panthers are harmoniously woven into a tale about a modern black family. But in a society still marred by racial and class inequality, normalcy isn’t an option for black Americans like the Carters, the protagonists of “The Hate U Give.”
Thaddeus Greene
November 9, 2018On Spike Lee’s Silence
In his new film “BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee uses footage from last year’s deadly Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. But the film says nothing about how the police watched white supremacists to attack counter-protestors. Who is Lee protecting?
Zack Haber
September 8, 2018‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 2: The Rise of the Right and the Resistance
Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is the depiction of a far-off and dystopian future, but its depictions of misogyny, gender essentialism, and religious fundamentalism hit way too close to home. Season two continues to develop the structure and oppression of the fictional nation of Gilead, but it also starts to depict the beginnings of a growing—and necessary—political resistance.
Francesca Gomes
August 22, 2018Who are the Trotskyists of Babylon Berlin?
Someone must have been telling lies about Leon Trotsky, as the German TV series Babylon Berlin only features ahistorical pseudo-Trotskyists.
Nathaniel Flakin
April 9, 2018