Intersecciones

In my November blog post, I made mentioned of a personal tradition:

Every October, I celebrate Horrorfest—31 horror movies from the first of October through Halloween night. Each year I encounter more and more people who commit to similar traditions, and we commiserate, swap recommendations, debate which film deserve to be included, and most importantly, spread the joy of horror and Horrorfest to those who have yet to adopt the tradition.

A byproduct of studying race, gender, and popular culture is that my interaction with pop culture can rarely reach true levels of escapism or mindless consumption. I often find myself mentally tallying the number of women and people of color in films and television episodes, or noticing whitewashed advertisements while scrolling my news feed, or side-eying problematic images of women of color on product packaging as I run errands. Analyzing these images has become a hobby as much as the pop cultural consumption itself.