The deranged hydra of American politics is whining and gnashing its teeth this week, as scary as any analogue you might find in fiction.
On our site, Andrea Penman-Lomeli considers how the mostly female writers of the second “Latin American boom” respond to the pessimism of the moment not through magical realism but through horror—though the monsters aren’t always obvious in their appearance. And John Semley looks back on recent blockbusters and wonders: Where have all the villains gone? And what does it say about cinema and the American psyche that the ones that remain are often tech guys? Speaking of baddies, Gregory Jones-Katz writes on Empire of the Petal Throne, a lost cult-favorite contemporary to D&D, taken off the map not by goblins and bugbears but by the real-world villainy of its creator.
Meanwhile, in our archives, Chase Madar writes on the Second Amendment fundamentalists who see themselves as patriotic heroes and protectors of the common good. And in our new issue, Jasper Craven describes the crass misogyny of another jack-booted jingoist: Pete Hegseth.
“It may be that Hollywood cinema’s gaze no longer extends across the vistas of real-world geopolitics, or there may be no external foe to cast in these roles. America is the imperial, authoritarian ‘Other.’”
“Barker’s legacy is contaminated and his case illustrates how fantasy, escapism, or games can be as much reactionary as progressive. Can they be both?”
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