Noah Berlatsky

Writing can be hard and uncomfortable and precarious—but it's hard and uncomfortable and precarious in the way that any job can be.

As a parent, you tend to assume that you have some say in forming your child's mental landscape. Then Santa comes along.

Conservative fetishization of the past is myopic, simplistic, and mean-spirited—but progressives can be too quick to cede tradition.

Country music is an overwhelmingly heterosexual endeavor. The LGBTQ community certainly listen to, and perform, country, but in terms of lyrical content and themes, country has been focused on male-female romantic love.

The surface text of the film is that you can't trust some guys. The (barely) subtext is that you can't trust any guys.

Is the gender of the philosopher a marginal curiosity—or is it more central?

Irritation is the way of all flesh. The question is, if you're going to be annoyed for all of eternity, who do you want to be doing the annoying?

The first graphic novel to win a Caldeott gives children the chance to be adults, and adults the chance to be kids.

Can a popular author also be celebrated for literary quality? Not if that author is a woman like Austen.

As a white woman, Swift can afford to celebrate carelessness. Beyoncé, though, knows that even her casualness has to be perfect.