Benny's Birthday (2024)

Star Wars is better if you believe that Luke Skywalker is gay. You can't change my mind.

Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.

As noted in the headline, I didn’t like this movie. Not to say it’s the worst thing ever, but it’s just…meh. Nothing much to it. Very generic. No surprises. At the very least, the cast is diverse so I’ll give it that.

That gut-wrenching feeling you have while watching it is okay but needed, and you, the viewer, will be okay.

Hanna Bergholm's 'Hatching' shows us that the modern version of the cardboard world trope is social media.

This short film was an overall creative success.