The king of Nogara dies, leaving behind a will naming one of his nieces as his successor. Will it be blonde and virtuous Isabella or evil, dark-haired Malva? Each woman relies on a hero to locate the will. Malva hires the bare-chested strongman Samson while Isabella relies on the masked El Toro (a.k.a. Zorro) even though her heart belongs to the mild-mannered poet, Ramon. Malva's ruthless desire for the throne soon alienates Samson and he and El Toro then team up to bring about a proper resolution to the Nogara succession. Meanwhile, Isabella learns El Toto's true identity, an identity which both surprises and pleases her.
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.
This is not a slavery story, it is a freedom story. The viewers only see Harriet as a slave for the first few minutes of the film. To me, it felt like watching the origin story of a superhero…which is both good and bad.
White audiences saw Peola’s mixed-race passing as a Black woman’s struggle to be white. Black audiences saw it as the rebellion of a Black woman trying to gain privileges only given to white people.
A sweet slice-of-life anime that visualizes all the ways we creatively hide our vulnerabilities from the world.
The newest in a long line of Cinderella adaptations, Amazon’s Cinderella (2021) prizes girlbossification above the very story it tries to adapt.
Praising Black representation and condemning the power structures that suppress it, a mother delivers an impassioned speech to her distant son.
