Popular Culture and Sexuality
While pop culture will continue to exist in the mainstream, it also provides us the scope to create alternative narratives and/ or counter-narratives that question, challenge and unpack the existing stereotypes and norms.
And so, in the mid-month issue we have Shweta Krishnan examining the place of political incorrectness in stand-up comedy, Rohini Banerjee talking about how fanfiction allowed her to delve into alternative worlds, and…
Even in a country obsessed with anime, Kondo’s wedding shocked many. But he wants to be recognised as a “sexual minority” who can’t imagine dating a flesh-and-blood woman.
Comicbooks sell us the fantasy of larger-than-life superheroes, the victory of good over evil, the promise of fighting for a better, inclusive world. But alas, when it comes to the characters themselves, this very inclusivity is often nowhere to be found.
While we’ve grown used to hearing porn blamed for society’s ills, it’s now the medium’s comparatively matronly cousin – romance novels – that have come under scrutiny.
Any narrative that we construct, any single word that we use to describe a person, a relationship, an individual is bound to be incomplete.