Status Updates From How to Read Now

'Autobiography in Asian Film.' Castillo squares off with the pop activism thing of "representation in film". She talks about the Filipino racism in The Life Aquatic, & contrasts them with several asian films produced in asian countries like Happy Together, Monsoon Wedding, and The Assassin. She celebrates these asian movies for their depth, which highlights the narrowmindedness of the 'representation matters' calls

'"Reality is All We Have'". Castillo grapples with her relationship to a personally important quote from John Berger quote, "Reality is All We Have". She parses through how the literary establishment's ambivalence and hostility to vulnerable people is deeply embedded, which is antithetical to how literature was for her growing up, and her encounters with such treatment over the years have worn her down.

'Main Character Syndrome'. Castillo turns our eye to Didion, and Didion does not survive. Castillo interrogates the violence that underlies Didion's prose, who is a colonial settler in the most literal sense, who wrote prose other white settlers enjoyed. As in: eager to erase the history of the other people they've genocided and plundered from in order to amass the wealth they use to fund luxurious writing careers