Pocahontas may seem like a strange vehicle for discussing our gay villains. But Disney gets inventive when they need to circumvent white people’s historical responsibility for genocidal atrocities — and queerness is a useful scapegoat.
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How to Pitch Personal Essays to Longreads: An Updated Guide
New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
Longreads Best of 2020: Sports and Games
With leagues across the world undergoing cancellations for much of the year, 2020 has been an interesting one in the world of sports. Here are some stories that resonated with us.
Out There I Have to Smile
Heather Lanier explores the pressure to perform happiness.
How Refugees Die
Wars and heightened border security have created a humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.
The Indignities of Poverty, Compounded by the Requirement to Prove It
In an excerpt from her debut memoir, Stephanie Land recalls being poor, and moving with her young daughter from a homeless shelter to transitional housing.
Deconstructing Disney: Motherhood and the Taming of Maleficent
Last week, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, was released on Disney+. Jeanna Kadlec takes this opportunity to explore how Disney has dealt with their most powerful of witches.
In a World Full of Cruelty and Injustice, Becoming a Mother Anyway
A visit to Auschwitz makes Eliza Margarita Bates only more determined to have a baby, despite her painful chronic illness.
No Time Like the Present
You don’t know what day it is, do you? Robert Burke Warren digs into ‘the Oddball Effect’ and fascinating brain data that may help explain why.
All that Was Innocent and Violent: Girlhood in Post-Revolution Iran
Naz Riahi recalls her vibrant childhood in a suburb of Tehran, and considers how the harsh realities imposed by the still new Islamic Republic seeped into her family’s life.
