Throughout history, women have been told to sit down, be quiet and keep to yourself. Growing up, we are constantly told that sex is purely an act of procreation, that it’s something females should endure not enjoy. It is normalised to a point that we start looking at female pleasure as something wrong, especially self-pleasure. I mean women like sex – I sure do anyway!

Since Netflix’s breakthrough in 2013 with the debut of its original House of Cards series, many other streaming platforms such as Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video have made it possible for binge-watching to become mainstream.

Despite visibly displaying all the hallmarks of the stereotypical female duo so often found in films: the hot, popular ‘queen bee’ and her nerdy, needy best friend, these two characters refuse to conform and subvert this dynamic throughout the film.

Since the beginning of the film and tv industry women have been pushed aside in roles that were traditionally dominated by men, such as directors, producers and writers. If we look back to the golden age of Hollywood, very rarely will you see a female working the camera, taking control of film direction and writing a hit. Many were leading ladies like Judy Garland, Vivian Leigh and Audrey Hepburn.

There has been a slow emergence, and even slower recognition, of the South Asian presence in Western film and television media, which has met with a contemporary boom of South Asian faces and stories in the industries due to the crisis of (self-)representation. Somewhat missing from this ongoing public discourse around representation, however, is the reality of the ‘constructions’ underlying visual media representations.

Cassandra Thomas, played by Carey Mulligan, is on a dangerous mission to avenge the death of her best friend as she singlehandedly attempts to confront rape culture one Nice Guy at a time. Take her home and take your chances - that’s the challenge posed by the tagline of Emerald Fennel’s directorial debut Promising Young Woman.

Beginning a career in law, Turkish born Yasmine has many talents. Scouted for TV when she was five years into her law career, she was then scouted for TV and began work as a news reporter before transitioning to acting and now writing. We caught up with her to discuss her new film, Anxious, which is currently making waves on the awards circuit and why putting mental health at the forefront of the film was important to her.

It’s been almost a quarter of a century since that cataclysmic car accident in Paris took place. Why then, when so many years have elapsed since her death, was it not surprising to hear that yet another film focusing on the plight of the princess would be hitting our screens in the form of Spencer earlier this year? What is it about Diana that continues to inspire directors time and time again? I’d love to believe it was her daring sense of humour, her relentless approach to helping others or her killer wardrobe. However, it seems more likely that our society’s preoccupation with Princess Diana represents something much wider: a lingering obsession with women who have experienced tragedy.

I liked ‘The Snowman’ as a child, but not intensely. I remember the disappointment when my younger sister tore the reel out of our VHS tape to dance around the house wearing it as a cross-body handbag, but I don’t recall any great desire to watch it out of choice. However, in adulthood, ‘The Snowman’ has become a Christmas treasure to me.

No Time to Die was released in the UK this September and grossed almost 450 million US dollars worldwide. The film is the last in Daniel Craig’s run as Bond, and the actor said in an interview with GQ that he hoped, “[Bond] changed a lot while I’ve been a part of him.” This hope has definitely become a reality, with No Time to Die showing the most humanised and vulnerable version of Bond we’ve seen yet.

The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter need no introduction. Two of the most genre-defining works of literature turned into two of the most successful film franchises of all time with sequels, prequels, spin-offs, merchandise, set tours a-plenty, full-on courses in the languages and lore of the magical worlds, it’s hard to deny the impact of the two series.

In No Time To Die, when he’s trying to enjoy his 27th attempt at retirement, he may be drinking heavily - but he's drinking heavily in a multi-million pound, luxury mansion. I mean, his bathroom is literally the jungle with dewey water falling from leaves warmed by the sun. I’m not trying to insinuate that you can’t simultaneously be wealthy and have a dependency on alcohol; you can, and many many people do - however, his lifestyle sets a tone that, in my eyes, not only counters the point that they are trying to make but touches upon a harmful and insidious cultural belief that sobriety is boring. And my conclusion from that is this - way too often in film, self destruction has a certain sex appeal.

Themes such as abandonment and grief are the driving force in a story and are beautifully written and portrayed.

When I started writing this article, I would have never thought that I would have found myself spiraling for a couple of weeks. I tried to delve deeper in the rabbit hole of madness that is dogs (or pets) in movies and TV shows; what followed was more akin to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” than any of the movies that are presented in this article, but I managed to get on the other side relatively unscathed, physically.

Hollywood feature films are hardly meant to be history lessons or taken as the bible. Producer of acclaimed historical feature Pearl Harbour, Jerry Bruckheimer himself said, '[w]e tried to be accurate, but it's certainly not meant to be a history lesson’.

The mythologising of the Wild West as a home for white men roaming freely and taking the law into their own hands is indicative of a central tenet of American and, more broadly, Western masculinity. It is, quite simply, racist.