Also.Also.Also: Kristen Stewart Feels Sad About Kim Davis’s Hateful Heart and Other Stories for Your Brain

feature image via Wonderland via itsoktobeyou

Welcome to your Monday! Take a look outside your window and claim this day as yours. It’s easy, you just say, “This is my day! My Monday! It’s mine!” When Slade was about two years old he used to do it all the time, and it seemed to put him in the greatest mood. Could’ve also been the sippy cup full of chocolate milk, though. Either way!


Queer as in F*ck You

+ Kristen Stewart on LGBT Rights, Generation Rx, and Overcoming Heartbreak. That’s kind of a link-baity headline, but the interview is pretty fucking interesting so click on, my pals!

kristen stewart, wonderland

Kristen Stewart via Wonderland

+ Are you going to the Appalachian Queer Film Festival this year? You should email me at [email protected]!


Doll Parts

+ Kimberly Peirce‘s Remake of Carrie Struggled With Vagina-Phobic Execs That Couldn’t Say “Vagina” by Charlie Jane Anders. Because of course.

+ Ava DuVernay on Moving Beyond the Black-Film ‘Trend’ and Becoming the Norm by Danielle C. Belton.

This week the black-film-distribution collective she started in 2010, AFFRM (the African-American Festival Releasing Movement), relaunched as Array—a new distribution platform for filmmakers of diverse backgrounds, including blacks, Latinos, women and more.

+ Two Pre-Teens Send Homemade Ship to the Edge of Space.

+ Landon Patterson was crowned homecoming queen Saturday night, which is a really big deal because she’s Oak Park’s first transgender homecoming queen! Also that video will make you cry.

+ April Goss Boots Extra Point to Become Second Woman to Score in College Game.

+ Pippi Longstocking’s Pancakes: Cara Nicoletti Recreates Dishes From Her Favorite Novels. THIS IS ALL I’VE EVER WANTED IN MY LIFE. Her book Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books is out now and seems like just the best thing!


Saw This, Thought of You

+ I’ve Refused Work Because Of My Religion. Here’s What Kim Davis Doesn’t Understand About Faith. by Tara Culp-Ressler.

+ They Pretend to Be Us While Pretending We Don’t Exist by Jenny Zhang.

+ Writing Through Protest: 12 Influential Writers Share Whey Their Work Is So Crucial.

+ Decades After Fire, This Boston Home Might Get Its Other Half Back.

image by Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

image by Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

+ Scholar To Spend a Year as David Bowie. We should all be so damn lucky.

+ This Historian Just Found the Oldest Use of the Word ‘Fuck’.

+ 13 Pictures of Recess From Around the World.


And Finally

Which Animals Have the Longest Claws? AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

(Article employs the line “America’s Got Talons” so you know we’re not fucking around here.)

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

lnj

lnj has written 310 articles for us.

61 Comments

  1. While I did enjoy KStew’s interview for the most part, she said some kinda hurtful stuff about anti-depressants. For me, taking anti-depressants has really improved my quality of life. She said she thinks taking meds for mental health is “bizarre.” That really doesn’t sit right with me :/

  2. from the kristen stewart interview:

    Q: I’m not saying this applies to everyone of course, but the friends I have who’ve gone off their meds for things like depression and anxiety seem so much better. They’re rawer emotionally, but more real.

    Kristen Stewart: Yeah. As far as we know, you have one shot at this and it can be so fucking beautiful, so why lessen the feeling of anything? Why numb yourself? I’m not on antidepressants. I think it’s bizarre.

    um
    nope

    nope
    nope
    nope
    nope
    nope

    nope!
    nope!

    nope nope nope

    • Riese, seriously, thank you. I’m tired of people deeming medication (which is, uh, for very valid medical reasons!!!) as unecessary, unhealthy, and “bizarre”. Antidepressants aren’t easily accessible to everyone (I have too many friends who know this), so perpetuating the illusion that it’s worthless truly disregards some people’s NEED for them. Ugh.

    • Yeah, and when they get all flustered over the horrifying thought of ~looking up directions~ or ~using a selfie stick~ like just chill, would you?

      (Not to mention how shitty it is to be ace and read the line “They’re not fucking. That’s crazy.”)

    • Kristen Stewart and other anti-medication types drive me up the wall. For some people being properly medicated really is a matter of life and death. Meds aren’t necessarily the end all be all of mental health but for some of us they are a pretty big part of the equation.

      Also really tired of this idea that medication lessens a persons experiences or somehow makes them less themselves. Finding the right meds have had pretty much the opposite effect on me. It’s so much easier now to be myself and go after the things I want in life.

    • To be fair, I too think it would be bizarre for Kristen Stewart to take medications for a condition she does not have. Good point K Stew. Let’s all not take medications for other people’s illnesses.
      Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go tell my friend to stop taking my anticonvulsants.

    • THANK YOU.
      Every medication has a different effect on different people. Some people may be unaffected by antidepressants. Others may experience unpleasant side effects. I have a friend who started hallucinating on one anti-depressant, but then she tried a different one that saved her life. Some people may find they become emotionally blunted (though, depression of course also makes you numb…). But other people are are effected in a profoundly positive way, able to emerge from a fog of immense despair or imprisoning anxiety. And many may find that the effect is more subtle, a small boost, a rosier outlook on the world, thoughts more at peace. The point is, EVERYONE is different and I hate it when I encounter this sort of attitude towards anti-depressants. /rant

      To give her credit, she does refer to people who don’t have legitimate mental health problems in the previous paragraph. But still… it’s the perpetuation of the idea that antidepressants are bizarre or unhealthy or make people numb, less “real.”

    • “the friends I have who’ve gone off their meds for things like depression and anxiety seem so much better.”
      I think anyone within a 1 mile radius of me the last time I went off my medication because I thought it was keeping me from feeling would disagree with this sentiment… it was not pleasant or fun.

  3. same interview:

    “You go, “Oh god, I have a little stomachache,” and they say, “Here, we can help you with that.” Well, why do you have that stomachache? Maybe it’s because your head’s in your stomach, so maybe there’s something you’re ignoring that you can work out.”

    firstly: nope

    secondly: you probably have a stomachache because you ate gross food and should take a tums and i think that’s okay

    thirdly: if your head is actually in your stomach then you need to see a doctor immediately. heads go on the top of bodies between your shoulders, not in your stomach! this issue is not to be taken lightly.

  4. hi i’m back, i wrote a song for all of kristen stewart and the interviewer’s feelings about medication and psychiatric situations:

    nope nope nope nope
    nope nope nope nope
    nope nope nope nope
    nope nope nope nope
    NOPE!!!!

    stay tuned for the opera i am writing on a similar theme.

    #blessed,
    riese

  5. I’m so relieved to come to this comments section and see so many people nope-ing about the mental health stuff. I have bipolar disorder and would be dead without my meds but fave constant judgement for taking them so seeing other people be supportive of my necessary decision even indirectly really really really helps combat the feelings of crappy loneliness reading stuff like this brings. Thank you guys ❤️

  6. Hi hello! It is me again. I just did an interview with myself that I thought everybody here might be interested in.

    Q: Kristen Stewart says she isn’t on anti-depressants. Why do you think that is?

    A: I think it’s because she doesn’t have depression.

    Q: But don’t anti-depressants make you numb?

    A: I think people have different reactions to different medications, but by and large I think what often makes depressives feel numb is DEPRESSION.

    Q: Are you saying medication is the only solution? Because Kristen Stewart believes otherwise.

    A: Well, there are some lifestyle changes that help some (but not all) depressives: getting enough sleep, steady employment, strong relationships, healthy food, a consistent exercise routine, health insurance, a fulfilling job, financial comfort and, of course, vacation. A lot of vacation.

    Q: But who really has all that, huh?

    A: Kristen Stewart.

  7. “Decades After Fire, This Boston Home Might Get Its Other Half Back.”

    …When you’ve just been through a breakup and you identify with inanimate objects

  8. I love that recipe article. I remember making recipes from all the American Girl cookbooks as a kid, and I actually still make Kirsten Larson’s Swedish rice porridge!

    • patricia!! my best friend and i had so many samantha-based tea parties! i’m weeping on the inside right now.

      • YES!! So much American Girl themed stuff. I liked the craft books and play books too. My friends and I did the plays about Kirsten and Addy and Felicity I think.

        • Oh and then there was that 90’s computer game “American Girls Premier” where you would create your own movies with the characters. Mine always felt a bit disappointing, but it was less frustrating than dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail! …But I digress.

  9. You know what I hate? When healthy people act like they are healthy because they have strength of character rather than because they’re fucking lucky. When healthy people are like “I don’t medication on principle” or whatever. No jackass, you don’t take medication because you don’t fucking need medication. If you needed medication, you’d realize that it’s not an issue of personal preference, its an issue of necessity
    “Yeah. As far as we know, you have one shot at this and it can be so fucking beautiful, so why lessen the feeling of anything? Why numb yourself? I’m not on antidepressants. I think it’s bizarre.”
    Fuck that ableist bullshit. Count your fucking blessings and shut up.

  10. Having not yet read any of the links I just saved to Pocket, I came in here to say Ava DuVernay is awesome & on a vapid fluff note she made my day today by being adorable on Twitter about sitting next to Jeremy Irons on a plane.

  11. Thank you Riese and everyone else here who’s spoken up about the shitty anti-medication views of Kristen Stewart. The stigma of mental illness is bad enough without it being reinforced by such a harmful and uninformed take. Hundreds of thousands (I assume? If not more?) will read her words and, best case scenario, feel ashamed about taking the medicine they need to stay well. The worst case scenario: impressionable young fans take advice from Dr Kristen Stewart on what’s best for their health, with potentially life-threatening repercussions. Fucking hell.

  12. Oh I completely agree about the medication shaming, it’s ridiculous to knock something that helps so many people. Plus, if your anti-depressants make you feel weird and numb, maybe you should switch to better medication! There’s a reason I think my psychiatrist is worth her weight in gold.

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