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Kate Cantrell

Kate Cantrell

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Wealthy, whiny and wildly tone deaf: Elizabeth Gilbert’s new memoir exemplifies ‘priv-lit ’

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s shocking new confessional memoir, she falls in love with her dying best friend, enables her addiction – and once again...

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Kate Cantrell

Death Cap Murders portrays Erin Patterson as a woman who craved community – and would ‘stop at nothing’

Death Cap Murders portrays Erin Patterson as a woman who craved community – and would ‘stop at nothing’

The first Erin Patterson documentary, Stan’s three-part documentary Revealed: Death Cap Murders, depicts Patterson as a loner who craved community.

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The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

Congratulations, Get Rich! is a glittering ghost story where emotion is lost to theatrics

Congratulations, Get Rich! is a glittering ghost story where emotion is lost to theatrics

Merlynn Tong’s new play feels like it’s not sure if it’s a meditation on loss, or a musical comedy about reinvention.

09.09.2025 9

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Kate Cantrell

Don’t blame toxic masculinity for online misogyny – the manosphere is hurting men too

The Male Complaint argues it’s unhelpful to blame toxic masculinity for digital misogyny. We should try to understand the manosophere – even if we...

15.07.2025 10

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

Justice on demand? The true crime podcasts serving up Erin Patterson’s mushroom murder trial

Unlike cold case investigations, real-time true crime pods unpack the complex issues of a case while it’s still under judgement.

14.05.2025 8

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

Trumpism echoes Timothy McVeigh’s right-wing extremism, 30 years after the Oklahoma bombing

This week, it will be 30 years since the Oklahoma bombing. Now, it’s back on the cultural agenda, as the right-wing extremism that drove McVeigh is...

16.04.2025 10

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

Adolescence is a technical masterpiece that exposes the darkest corners of incel culture and male rage

At the centre of the new Netflix show is a devastating truth: the most dangerous place in the world for a teenager is alone in their bedroom.

19.03.2025 60

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

She was 15. He was 26. Sonia Orchard’s Groomed proves her abuser was wrong: age isn’t ‘just a number’

In Groomed, Sonia Orchard reappraises the social and cultural factors that allow sexual exploitation to persist.

05.02.2025 8

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Kate Cantrell

We now know ‘troubled teen’ memoirs like Go Ask Alice were a Mormon wife’s fiction – so why are we still treating them as truth?

In 1971, an extraordinary book appeared. Published by an “anonymous” author, Go Ask Alice documented the story of an ordinary American girl and her...

16.12.2024 4

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell

Woman of the Hour: Anna Kendrick’s unflinching directorial debut reframes true crime for a post-#MeToo era

At first glance, Netflix’s Woman of the Hour is yet another true crime fictionalisation that plays to our preoccupation with American serial...

04.11.2024 3

The Conversation

Kate Cantrell