Talking Shop

In this episode of Requires Improvement, Co-hosts Tom and Lauren interview Andy Byrne, one of the committee members of Hammers United, a football fan club for West Ham. Andy speaks about the similar challenges fans face to educators and trade unionists when confronted with market forces, structural change and the need for ordinary people to have control over their cultural lives as well as in the workplace. Connections are drawn between how organisers in different sectors can learn from each other about effective approaches to building inclusive supermajorities and having an impact on real life events. Check out Hammers United's website here: hammersunited.com/ You can also find them on twitter here: mobile.twitter.com/hammersunited2?lang=en

This episode includes references to violence, sexual violence, abuse and suicide. It also contains a lot of spoilers. This episode we talk about feminism in horror films, with discussion of some feminist horror films you could watch to survive this second, yet more horrifying, lockdown. We explore some different feminist perspectives in horror films, including films with more realistic psychological points about women’s oppression, like the Babadook, as well as some sillier films like Teeth, with its focus on sexuality, rape, revenge and liberation. We discuss Sophie Lewis on the horrors of the patriarchal family and the search for less oppressive forms of belonging in Midsommar. We talk about how feminist themes in horror have changed and developed and what it could all mean. Finally we discuss how the new physical and mental horrors created by the fusion of life and work in the world of AI, big tech monopolies and liberal feminism can be found in Possessor, a new film by Brandon Cronenbourg, continuing