Film

‘Obsession’ and the Rise of Incel Horror: When Men’s Entitlement Becomes the Monster

PUBLISHED 6/4/2026 by

When I first watched Curry Barker’s Obsession, I assumed the horror was obvious. Not the supernatural curse at the center of the film but the decision that sets it in motion: a man deciding he is entitled to a woman’s love, to a woman’s body, regardless of her consent. 

Online, women have begun calling this kind of story “incel horror.” Particularly on TikTok, women for the first time are naming a terrifying and longstanding element in horror films often left unsaid. The real nightmare being the expectation that men depicted as the hero or the victim believe they are owed the bodies of the women in the story. As one TikToker shares, women’s reinterpretation of past films and casting a new light on modern films like Obsession (2026) through a feminist lens is going to change the future of cinema. 

In Barker’s film, it wasn’t the occult magic in the “One Wish Willow” toy that caused Bear to “control” Nikki—it was Bear’s belief that it was okay for him to make this wish in the first place. Barker places the central threat within Nikki who becomes obsessed with Bear and kills several of their friends. Conversely, feminists recognize that it’s Bear’s expectation that he is owed her affection and that he is right to use a supernatural entity to gain it, as the true horror.

Where to Watch ‘Ask E. Jean,’ a New Documentary on the Wit, Fury and Fearlessness of E. Jean Carroll

PUBLISHED 5/23/2026 by | UPDATED 5/29/2026 at 7:39 A.M. PT

E. Jean Carroll—the colorful author and advice columnist who beat Donald Trump in court twice—is finally getting the documentary treatment in Ask E. Jean, a film that is as poignant as it is entertaining.

Director Ivy Meeropol first reached out to Carroll after reading the devastating yet vibrant New York Magazine piece in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room decades earlier.

Carroll’s initial response: “I’d rather eat my shoe.”

But Meeropol persisted, eventually convincing Carroll she wanted to tell the fuller story of her life—not just the trials, but her remarkable rise during the heyday of glossy magazines and New York media culture.

The resulting film traces Carroll’s evolution from Indiana cheerleader to professionally fabulous Manhattan raconteur, weaving together archival footage, legal depositions and deeply personal interviews.

Some of the documentary’s most powerful moments come from previously unseen deposition footage, where Carroll recounts the 1996 assault while enduring invasive questioning from Trump attorney Alina Habba. Even in those moments, Carroll remains irrepressibly funny.

Meeropol says the footage reveals “what really happens when someone who’s brought a charge of rape or sexual abuse is deposed,” while also exposing the broader misogyny women confront “from the minute we’re born.”

Meeropol also describes struggling against “The Trump Effect”—fear within the entertainment industry about supporting projects that could provoke retaliation from Trump or his allies. Distributors hesitated, some producers reportedly asked not to be credited, and the film was repeatedly stalled despite strong festival reviews.

But Ask E. Jean is now expanding into theaters nationwide, bringing Carroll’s story to audiences at a moment when the politics of gender, power and public accountability remain impossible to ignore.

Black Women, Beauty Politics and the Power of Rage in ‘Is God Is’

PUBLISHED 5/23/2026 by

In one of the film’s most surreal scenes, the twins at the center of Is God Is—Racine, “the Rough One,” and Anaia, “the Quiet One”—pretend to be strippers for a room full of men. But while Racine is welcomed, Anaia is rejected because her scarred face disrupts the men’s fantasies.

That moment crystallizes one of the film’s central questions: What happens when Black women refuse to shrink themselves for the comfort of others?

In Aleshea Harris’ Gothic revenge thriller, ugliness becomes both a burden and a source of power, as the film transforms into a stereotype-busting meditation on misogynoir, beauty politics and righteous rage.

As the twins travel cross-country seeking vengeance against the father who burned their mother alive, Harris layers the conventions of the revenge genre with distinctly Black feminist aesthetics. The film moves between absurd comedy, trap music, intimate sisterhood and brutal violence while interrogating the ways Black women are expected to manage their pain, suppress their anger and perform acceptability. Anaia’s scarred face and Racine’s consuming rage become mirrors of the same misogynoir that shapes Black women’s lives—whether through beauty standards, domestic violence or the demand to remain silent.

What makes Is God Is so striking is its refusal to look away from the “ugly.” Harris insists that Black women marked by violence, scars and fury still deserve visibility, complexity and even divinity.

The film embraces the “angry Black woman” and the “ugly” Black woman as figures worthy of space, power and humanity. In doing so, it expands the tradition of Black feminist filmmaking by asking viewers to confront the realities dominant culture would rather ignore—and to recognize the beauty, dignity and selfhood that exist beyond respectability.

Beyond American Exceptionalism: What the Success of the Green Wave Can Teach U.S. Abortion Activists

PUBLISHED 5/21/2026 by and

While the idea of the U.S. as a bastion of moral superiority has always been a myth—evident, for example, in efforts to shield Jim Crow laws from scrutiny in the founding of the United Nations—the overturning of Roe v. Wade is one of the latest reminders of this fallacy, particularly as it pertains to global health and women’s rights. It is also a cautionary tale for the rest of the world about the fragility of reproductive rights.

As states across the U.S. have banned abortion post-Dobbs, advocates and experts here have been forced to look outside of our borders for assistance, recognizing that other nations have recently mobilized to legalize abortion and have much to teach us, particularly those that have done so by enshrining abortion as a human right.

‘Pink Belt’ Documentary Follows Aparna Rajawat’s Mission to Train Women and Girls in Self-Defense Across India

PUBLISHED 4/17/2026 by

Even as a child, Aparna Rajawat could see how boys in India were more respected, safer and freer than girls.

Wanting a way to defend herself, Rajawat cut her hair short and disguised herself as a boy, attending karate lessons behind her father’s back with the help of her mother and sister. By the time he discovered her secret, she was so good her coach was able to convince her father to let her continue. She went on to become a national champion and compete internationally, all while she was a teenager.

But that’s only the beginning of Rajawat’s story—a story in which her own achievements are only a backdrop to a life-long quest to inspire other Indian women and girls to achieve their dreams and protect themselves in a country where, despite its many advancements, incidents of sexual assault are still rampant and survivors struggle to get justice.

Enter Pink Belt Mission, Rajawat’s nonprofit, through which she works as a motivational speaker as well as training thousands of girls and women in self-defense.

It’s also the subject of a new documentary directed by John McCrite. A remarkable film, Pink Belt starts with Aparna Rajawat’s story, but goes much further, illuminating a path for anyone who cares about human rights to take that first step towards making a difference in their own communities and beyond.

‘The Other Roe’ Film Shines a Light on Forgotten Abortion-Rights Case Doe v. Bolton

PUBLISHED 4/15/2026 by

On June 24, 2026, we’ll reach the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This year, which would have been Roe’s 53rd anniversary, also coincides with the United States’ 250th, reminding us that while the U.S. has been independent since 1776, American women are still far from having full rights and power over our own bodies.

Roe v. Wade, which passed in 1973 and stood for 49 years, gets most of the credit for establishing the national right to abortion. Many people think of Roe as the first big bookend ushering in the right to abortion in the U.S., with Dobbs as the other bookend taking that right away again.

However, Roe wasn’t the only groundbreaking case that paved the way for abortion rights in the U.S. 

Doe v. Bolton, Roe v. Wade’s lesser-known companion case, was argued before the Supreme Court in 1973 the same day as Roe and was equally crucial to abortion rights in the United States.

‘First They Came for My College’: The Takeover of a Florida College and the Students Who Refused to Disappear

PUBLISHED 4/9/2026 by

When I told coworkers and friends I was going to see a documentary about the right-wing takeover of a small public Florida college, the reaction was immediate and unanimous: Why would you do that to yourself? Too depressing. I’d be too angry.

They weren’t wrong. Premiering at SXSW last month and directed by Patrick Bresnan, First They Came for My College is, at times, almost unbearable to watch—a slow, procedural dismantling of a public institution, carried out in meeting rooms and press conferences and budget lines.

But what stayed with me wasn’t only the anger—it was the stubborn, surprising insistence on community, joy and showing up anyway.

Netflix Documentary ‘Inside the Manosphere’ Exposes a Digital Pipeline to Misogyny

PUBLISHED 3/22/2026 by

On March 11, Netflix released Inside the Manosphere, a new documentary by Louis Theroux that hit the No. 1 spot on Netflix. It is an uncomfortable but necessary examination of how the manoverse—a loose conglomeration of men’s rights and red pill influencers, podcasters and politicians—exploits and harms young boys and teenagers.

At the heart of the documentary is a profound inequity in the influencer space between the experiences and expectations of men and women. While the male content creators are eager to proclaim traditional values, they exalt “one-sided monogamy,” where they expect women to remain loyal to them (“my wife doesn’t talk to any men”) while they have multiple partners. While they shame women who do sex work on OnlyFans, one of the influencers, Harrison Sullivan, funds an OnlyFans creator house. His excuses—that it’s just business, that he would never allow his own daughter to do OnlyFans—attempts to create distance and deniability between him and his commercial choices and consequences. 

A majority of the influencers Theroux speaks to seem to be aware of the harm they cause. Sullivan even warns Theroux that young teenage boys should not be watching their content, and blames the parents that would allow their children to consume this content. Several seconds later, we see the influencer taking photos with young fans.

What’s worse is witnessing how damaging the manosphere rhetoric is to men.

When content creator Justin Waller meets up with two of his fans on the street, one of them shares, “He’s one of my greatest role models,” and when asked what he has learned from Waller and others’ content says, “Life as a man, you’re born without value. We have to build that value.” Waller jumps in and says that women are born with value because of their beauty but “nobody’s gonna invite him on a trip to Miami. … He has to be valuable to other men.”

How devastating that these men are raised not just to accept, but to thank, influencers and content creators that tell them they are born without inherent value. 

‘The Bride!’ Speaks Back: Rage and Autonomy in Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein

PUBLISHED 3/12/2026 by

Women are often stereotyped as overly talkative—gossiping, ‘blabbing’ or labeled ‘chatty Cathys.’ Archie Bunker in the television series All in the Family often tells his wife Edith to “stifle yourself” to stop her talking. Recently, one critic argued that “the bride” (played by Jessie Buckley) in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new movie of the same name, talks too much.

What makes Gyllenhaal’s reinvention of James Whale’s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein story so compelling is precisely because this fabricated lady has her own voice and uses it loudly and in a rage. We’re glad she speaks.