Nomotopowell (2025)

Where is Lilo's face? Disney marketing sends a chilling signal: that even in 2025, an alien is more palatable and marketable than a brown girl.

Severance is about breaking down facades and confronting old models that were once frameworks of our lives. The somewhat subtle message to me is it’s never too late to fall in love, no matter your insecurities. 

Like all modern societal phenomenons, it started with a meme. This one highlighted that when there’s a mom in a Pixar film, she is almost without fail given striking curves that highlight the bottom half of her body following a minuscule waist. From Elastigirl to the skeletal Mama Imelda, the animation giant’s artists seem to have a fixation on making exaggeratedly curvy maternal characters.

Shadow & Bone excels in natural story representation with powerful centering of culture. Jessie Mei Li stars as Alina Starkov, the feisty cartographer with kindness, innocence, and integrity, who comes to be revealed as the legendary summoner of light.

Praising Black representation and condemning the power structures that suppress it, a mother delivers an impassioned speech to her distant son.

Dashing in December follows the tried and true outline of a traditional holiday romance, with a less traditional middle-aged gay couple as the film's romantic focus.