DESIREE AKHAVAN

HACKS has been the talk of the town, so I wanted to give a special shoutout to Desiree Akhavan, a PS fave who directed a few episodes of the show. She’s the creator of The Bisexual, an inspiring take on female sexuality that’s also a total riot, defying all narrative expectations of what a queer female story looks like in 2018. Imagine that a lesbian, in a loving relationship, decides to break up with her girlfriend so that she can date men. This wasn’t Desiree’s coming out story, but it was inspired by the uncomfortable feeling of in-betweeness that she experienced when she came out bisexual. I also loved her witty coming-of-age film, THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST where Chloë Grace Moretz plays a gay teen forced to attend gay conversion-therapy camp. In a world where teenagers are so tightly defined by the boxes adults create for them, the teens in this film are equal parts hilarious and gut-wrenchingly vulnerable. 

--Shuyu Cao, Executive Assistant