Political Pandora

Long-running horror franchises are either defined by their reinvention or lack thereof. To watch the series in order is to witness a distinct evolution. From Bride of Chucky onwards, the series moves away from the familiar trappings of 80s slasher cinema into a much more distinctly queer text.

Are you a ‘trad wife’, ‘sapphic’, or ‘enby’? As in gameplay, social media has the liberatory effect of being an open realm of possibilities.

One needs to explore how the discourse around “saving” Muslim women, in particular, often comes from a colonial, culturally superior gaze that strips them of their agency. Instead, by using the distinct lens of radical films like Joyland and Seed of the Sacred Fig, we see how gender, sexuality, artistic expression and resistance take shape in very specific cultural and political realities.

The cultural consensus couldn’t be defeated: Sinners was the movie of the moment. It shouldn’t have been nearly as much of a surprise.

Third spaces can very organically turn into civic spaces, as civic spaces are the environments that “enable civil society to play a role in the political, economic, and social well-being of our societies, particularly by contributing to policy-making that affects their lives”, according to the OHCHR. The nature of third spaces encourages free-flowing discussion, including that of politics, making them de facto civic spaces. 

Trump’s tariff-based approach will be counterproductive: it will fail to block Chinese products and will undermine domestic solar panel production through higher input costs.

In the shadows of sacred rivers and holy rituals, it is the caste-marked bodies who carry the weight of cleanliness; public filth in India is less about civic failure and more about caste-designed neglect.

An inflection point exists with India's suspension of the IWT that echoes beyond the immediate Indo-Pakistani dyad. It brings an urgent inquiry into whether international law allows suspension of treaty obligations based on persistent non-state violence.

Pandora's Vinyl: Sufjan Stevens’ Javelin is an elegy, a confession, and a fragile bridge between despair and redemption.

Javier Milei’s tenure as the 59th president of Argentina has brought a paradigm shift to this piece of history. Adamant in their belief that the violence carried about by prominent left-wing guerrilla groups included the Montoneros and the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) equate to state terrorism, Vice President Victoria Villarruel has chosen to take her stand as she includes the dead victims of the guerrilla organisation attacks on the same footing as the victims of state

With standardisation comes homogeneity, and homogeneity creates anomalies who do not fit into the mould and therefore need to be discarded on the margins. These beings on the margins, who do not fit sanitised and legally-enforced definitions created by states and adopted by nations, are at the centre of the discussion. Dalit-Queer folx (people who are both Dalit and Queer) inhabit the "death worlds" that Achille Mbembe discusses in his theorisation of Necropolitics.

While Viviani is often forgotten by many, his work serves as a lens into an Italy of the time. An Italy that was built on a violent mythologized past, one that led the way to fascism.

“Deceptive” is sort of the operative word when it comes to Theroux — the question of how much of his bemused, questioning affect is legitimate, and how much of it is him playing up for the camera. This is what makes Theroux the perfect documentarian for a topic like this — his straightforwardness in approaching a subject cuts through the mire and arrives at a crystal clear center.

In the Western migration discourse, state logic, power, and domination take precedence over migrants as the subject of inquiry, committing epistemic violence.

Starring Rajit Kapur as Debu, Munisha Koirala as Juhi, and Sanjay Naval as Kaku, Deepti Naval's directorial debut was an attempt at alternate cinema enchanted with unconventional themes and unsettling portrayals of queerness, desire, and family. 

Pandora's Vinyl: Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal is an album that bites hard and refuses to let go. A sprawling, genre-bending testament to survival and self-affirmation, the project is both a love letter to her Florida roots and a raw chronicle of her battles with fame, sobriety, and the relentless churn of the music industry.