Amelia Merrill

Jewish Americans have created some of the world’s most beloved movies and shows. So it might be surprising that, when it comes to onscreen representation, Jewish characters are often reduced to stereotypes. Jewish women especially tend to fall into a few well-trodden character types, one of which is the "Jewish American Princess." The phrase is traditionally a derogatory term applied to a certain kind of upper- or upper-middle class Jewish American young woman, but this stereotype has sometimes been acknowledged and claimed by female Jewish creators. Here’s our Take on the role this complicate

When Lincoln Center Theater shut down their in-person operations in March 2020, they joined a host of other nonprofit and commercial theatres in shifting production calendars. Plays and events moved to the fall, then to this coming fall, and whole seasons of digital works needed to be cultivated at record speed. LCT’s education department, meanwhile, was desperate to keep the Open Stages program alive, knowing that up to 15 public high schools were relying on them for arts education offerings. There are myriad studies about the benefits of arts education in schools, from providing creative out

In a 2015 scientific paper on the Anthropocene—the name for our current, human-impacted geological era—geologists Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin explored the various proposals for the epoch’s official beginning: the Agricultural Revolution of many thousands of years ago, for instance, or the Industrial Revolution of only a few hundred, or the Atomic Age. Rather than focusing on the scientific and technological achievements of Western society, though, Lewis and Maslin believe that the Anthropocene has been most marked by a huge atmospheric drop in carbon dioxide in the early 1600s, known as the Or

John Gianvito’s documentary Her Socialist Smile debuted at the virtual New York Film Festival this fall to a strictly online audience. The film follows the political life and lectures of Helen Keller, a woman best remembered in the American consciousness for learning to speak and write despite coming of age deaf and blind at the turn of the century. As Protean readers may know, Keller was also a prolific socialist writer. Her activism was unrepentant, even as she grew in popularity as an inspirational, politically neutral public figure.
Socialism was not a niche part of Keller’s life, but the

Mank has proven pretty polarizing in the short time it’s been available to the world: You love, you hate it, you haven’t seen it because 131 minutes feels like a really long time right now. Or you’ve never heard of it and have no idea what I’m talking about.
Recently released to Netflix, Mank is the latest venture from filmmaker David Fincher (The Social Network, Gone Girl), developed from a screenplay by his late father. Mank is about the writing of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, a film you hav...

In her parents’ kitchen, 15-year-old Teddie fills a stockpot with water. She places the detached head of an American Girl doll (whose neck strings allow for such blunt dismemberment) atop a towel in a bowl, pours a small amount of warm water in the neck opening, and steps back to wait. Once the vinyl is heated enough to melt slightly and become squishy, she takes a wooden spoon from a kitchen drawer and pops out the doll’s eyes, laying them aside carefully — if they get any water on them, the...

In 2020, it’s not easy to get a new job or a promotion. This lamentation isn’t just an impression; it’s a reality affecting multiple industries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But even before COVID-19, many fields had already redefined the parameters of the entry-level job, which once promised a foot in the door but now may ask for years of relevant experience for little more than minimum wage. Although the issue is widespread, this slope feels even more slippery in theatre, where ge...

Almost every horror movie ends with one person left to face the villain alone for one final showdown—andusually, this last one standing is a woman. This phenomenon is so common, it even has a name: The Final Girl. What is it about this character that makes her special? Is she a symbol of female empowerment, or a victim of regressive attitudes? Here’s our Take on the evolution of this trope, from the slasher movies of the '70s and '80s through modern variations in films like The Witch, Us, and It Follows. We'll look at what this archetype symbolizes, and how some recent subversions have caused

Like most Sofia Coppola films, there are a million little things that build the world of On the Rocks, rather than a neon sign pointing to the film’s thesis: There are endless takeout coffee cups. There’s too many books on the shelves for Laura (Rashida Jones) and Dean (Marlon Wayans) to have read them all. There’s the baseless communications jargon of Dean’s job that perfectly captures the vapidity and vagueness of so many business ventures. And there’s the creeping sense that while you might...

“Seeing cows makes me so sad,” Gam-hee declares as she pokes at a plate of beef in her friend Young-soon’s apartment. She can handle the chickens roaming the apartment complex’s backyard, regardless of their fates, but seeing the cartoon-like, large eyes of cows in the countryside makes her feel guilty. There’s a lot of talk about meat in Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran—how to cook it, how often to eat it, whether you should actually eat it at all, and who cooks it better, Young-soon (Seo Y...

Filmmaker Matías Piñeiro has added to his Shakespearean-inspired filmography with Isabella, which is as much a meditation on Measure for Measure as it as an adaptation of it. Complete with warm yet striking colors, a circular timeline of events, and the meandering sounds of life in both the city and the countryside, Isabella is an aesthetically pleasing film that offers more substance with what it omits than with what it includes.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s documentary Boys State begins by juxtaposing two ideologically opposite campers at the Texas outpost of the American Legion’s Boys State gathering. We first meet Steven Garza, a soft-spoken idealist with a far-reaching view of civility who’s not afraid to shake hands (remember that?) with campers across the aisle. Then there’s Robert, who cashed out his Bitcoin earnings for new cowboy boots and spouts Texas conservative talking points so absentmindedly—pro-gun,...

Anna Winger is accustomed to the German limelight. A Massachusetts native, she’s made her television career in Berlin with the Cold War spy series Deutschland 83 and its follow-ups. While the series has brought her critical acclaim across the titular nation, learning that Unorthodox, the Netflix series she co-created with Alexa Karolinski, was nominated for eight Emmy Awards last week still came as a surprise.
Unorthodox, which follows Esty Shapiro (Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie n...

Most of us have spent quarantine in various states of undress, watching our bank accounts dwindle and begging our motivation to return from the war. Shira Haas, in contrast, has spent quarantine becoming an international star, a burgeoning icon of dramatic acting praised for everything from the power of her facial expressions to the timbre of her emotion-laden singing voice.
Already known for indie flicks and the breakout Israeli series Shtisel, which has gained popularity since landing on U....

On June 24, Netflix released Athlete A, a documentary from Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk that joins the plethora of films, podcasts, and TV specials about Larry Nassar, USA Gymnastics (USAG), and the web of journalists who exposed their crimes. Athlete A offers an efficient summary for viewers unfamiliar with the story, beginning with the Indianapolis Star’s award-winning 2016 story about USAG’s policy of not turning complaints of child sexual abuse over to authorities. After three women called t...