By Alexiana Fry. I had the pleasure of recently presenting alongside several others at a conference called “Barbie and the Bible: Conversations in Pop Culture, Gender, and Theology,” put on by Fuller Seminary and the University of Dayton. In preparing for the event, I packed all of the pink I had—which admittedly was not challenging […]
By Tamisha Tyler, EFSR Co-Editor In the Summer of 2023, American audiences were delighted with the new Barbie movie. The film not only sparked nostalgia in its audiences, but it also served as a take on women’s empowerment and discovery. Its commercial success led many to consider how Barbie changed our lives and culture. These […]
By Jaeda Calaway. She stands with hands raised to each side, crayon marks on her face, an ill-fitting dress with paint stains, and hair haphazardly cut short. She is “Weird Barbie.” She offers “Stereotypical Barbie” a choice represented by the shoes she holds. A pink high heel represents the past Stereotypical Barbie seeks to restore […]
The FSR Blog is issuing an Open Call for a new @theTable series on Black Women & Religion in Speculative Fiction. We are looking for blogs that explore themes of Black womanhood, religion/spirituality, and feminism in fantasy, science fiction, magical realism, time travel, etc. Blogs on Black women authors and characters are welcome. Some guiding […]
By Shoshana Olidort. As a young Lubavitch girl growing up in Crown Heights, my earliest encounters with people from the community who were questioning our way of life, and beginning to explore alternate paths, were all with men. This was right around the time of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s death, which turned our little world on […]
We want to hear your responses to FSR Blog’s @theTable: “Unorthodox Media.” We invite you, our readers, to reflect on any of blogs in this series or contribute your own analysis of “My Unorthodox Life” or other forms of what this series names “unorthodox media.” Introduction to the series: “This collection includes a number of responses […]
By Dory Fox. Last summer, I was debating whether or not I should unpack my library. I had defended my dissertation, thus marking the end of the line for me in academia. Accordingly, I vowed that it would be a summer free of interpretation, free of intellectual inquiry, free of the books I had once […]
By Sam Shuman. In the summer of 2009, Julia Haart was in a decidedly different social milieu than the one in which we find her in 2021 in the Netflix reality TV show, My Unorthodox Life. Before she lived in a 10,000 square foot penthouse apartment in TriBeCa and served as the CEO for Elite […]
By Shira Schwartz. A central theme of My Unorthodox Life, the latest release in the genre of Unorthodox Media, is the presumption, acquisition and staging of “choice,” often paired with its close cousins, “freedom” and “self.” The liberal language of choice is a critical feature not only of OTD media, but of OTD life. (See […]
By Shira Schwartz. This collection includes a number of responses by Jewish studies scholars to Netflix’s reality show My Unorthodox Life, released in June 2021. When I first conceived of this collection, I wanted to highlight the significance of this latest release in ex/post Orthodox Jewish media, which, as a hyperbolic reality television series, may […]