Welcome to our new column and newsletter previewing the week ahead in women-centered pop culture — now with a title and a few tweaks! (Stay with us while we get the hang of things.) Below, take a look at the new movies, TV shows, books, and music created by or starring women that we’re most excited about. We haven’t seen all of these ourselves, but when we have, we’ll link to our review. Movies Ingrid Goes West Aubrey Plaza stars as a woman who stalks a social media...

After watching This Beautiful Fantastic through twice, I’m still not one hundred percent sure if I liked it or not. It’s an odd little independent film, calling to mind a sort of de-saturated, languid Pushing Daisies in its storybook-like narrative and set pieces. Starring Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Andrew Scott (Sherlock), Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton), and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse), This Beautiful Fantastic tells the story of Bella Brown, a meek, antisocial orphan with obsessive-compulsive tendencies who longs to be a children’s author, and...

  My first memory of Meredith Lyman is of a striking young woman sporting Hello Kitty knee socks and a flared mini skirt, her jet-black hair tied up in two Princess Leia inspired styled buns. It’s Gay Pride parade in Ottawa, Canada in 1999, and Meredith is leading the pack of us through the side streets of downtown, skipping and smiling her way through the colourful crowd. The memory may be a bit blurry, but Meredith’s amiable appeal has not dimmed in the two decades I’ve known her....

If you’re a comedy fan, you probably already love the late Phyllis Diller. Her standup career not only influenced many of the funny women working today, but also launched future entertainment giants like Lorne Michaels and Barbra Streisand. Diller was a true original, and now, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is archiving her jokes – over 50,000 of them. Housed in a steel filing cabinet, her hand-typed index cards were scanned and placed online on March 1, and now a veritable army of...

Moana is an absolute revelation to me, and I weep whenever I watch it. This is, I think, because above all else, Moana is a story about women. Though a male demigod features prominently in the movie, at its heart, Moana is about the coming of age of a young woman, about her relationships with the matriarchs who came before her, and about the feminine forms of heroism that she is uniquely capable of performing. The first heroic act we see Moana perform (the first act...

Photographer and film director Cindy Sherman pulled a fast one on us last week when, out of nowhere, she unlocked her previously-private Instagram account and changed the handle to her real name @_cindysherman_ from the incognito @misterfriedas_mom (Mister Frieda is her pet macaw seen in her posts). And that’s when the world got ahold of her wacked-out selfies. You can’t miss their uniquely-Cindy-Sherman vibe - she’s known for her self-portraits that explore a wide range of common female social roles or personas influenced by the...

  Any feminist has probably been asked some variation of the question, “What book should I read to get into feminism?” It’s a hard question to answer, simply because there are so many books about feminism out there! But after talking to BUST staff and BUST readers, I’ve come up with a list of feminist books to get you started. Feminism simply means gender equality — but many feminists have different ideas on how to achieve gender equality, or what, exactly, true gender equality would look like....

Even though Kesha’s nearly-three-year legal battle to free herself from producer Dr. Luke continues, our wildgirl is finally back in the game, and as someone who has loved basically every single song Kesha has ever put out, I’m ready for shit to get lit. I flung my limbs around mosh-pit-style to “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” after my high school boyfriend dumped me. I cried to the “The Harold Song” on repeat when my 9-month fuckboy dumped me. I drove around blaring “Last Goodbye” as...

We stopped by the Bowery Ballroom to check out the all-star female super group Guns N' Hoses as they celebrated the 30th anniversary of Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction (July 21, 1987). The group comprised of Erin Marsz (Axl Hose), Charlene Kaye (Gash), Julia Adamy (Muff McKagan), Emmy Wildwood (Lizzy Stradlin), and Gina Ilasi (Stephanie Adler) absoltuely rocked the term "Girl Power."    What is it that made you guys decided you wanted to cover Guns N' Roses in the first place? When did this obsession begin?  Erin Marsz (Axl): I wanted...

BUST sat down with the beautiful Liliana Saumet of Bomba Estéreo and discussed all things music and Colombia. The interview was conducted in Spanish, and has been translated to English — scroll down to the bottom for the Spanish version! Check out their new album, Ayo, dropping August 11th, 2017.    There are a lot of tropical influences in your music — it reminds me of [Colombian city] Cartagena! Would you say you pull a lot of your influences from a particular part of Colombia? Yes, we mix...