Soraya Roberts
The Walrus
Toronto, ON, Canada
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Past articles by Soraya:
The Superficial Diversity of Canadian TV
In 1998, Jennifer Podemski made a wish. Already fairly famous in Canada, she found herself in New York in the middle of winter, casting around for work. Back home, the Indigenous and Jewish actor had starred in Dance Me Outside, an adaptation of a W. P. Kinsella story about a northern Ontario reserve looking for justice after a white man kills a local girl. She had been nominated for a Gemini… → Read More
Wait, What?
It's surprising when stodgy institutions award progressive artists, and surprises, even good ones, are alarming -- so we immediately burden the winners with the weight of symbolism, and look for all of the institution's continued failings. → Read More
Regarding the Pain of Oprah
She gets a mansion and she gets a boat and she gets a jet! And you get to suffer and then maybe pull yourself up by your bootstraps, if you're lucky enough and bare enough of your private pain. → Read More
Happily Never After
By protecting ourselves and no one else, we destroy ourselves along with everyone else. → Read More
How the Internet Killed Feminism
You would think the most important blogger of the early feminist internet would be famous. Or that she would at least have a recognizable name. Or even face. But all I had to go on after talking to 14 women who were part of the same blogosphere as her at the same time as her, was a pseudonym: brownfemipower (bfp for short). “She was the queen of everything,” Feministe creator Lauren Bruce told… → Read More
How the Internet Killed Feminism
You would think the most important blogger of the early feminist internet would be famous. Or that she would at least have a recognizable name. Or even face. But all I had to go on after talking to 14 women who were part of the same blogosphere as her at the same time as her, was a pseudonym: brownfemipower (bfp for short). “She was the queen of everything,” Feministe creator Lauren Bruce told… → Read More
Grow Up
Being an adult at the end of the world means listening to children tell the truths grown-ups refuse to actually hear. → Read More
The Myth of Making It
If the most financially and critically successful artists don't feel successful, maybe there's something wrong with how we think about success. → Read More
Rock Me Gently
The classic rock star wanted to stick it to The Man, and did so bender by selfish bender. The new rock star knows you can’t do it alone. → Read More
White Looks
Should white critics cover black culture? Only if they’re able to own their whiteness. → Read More
Death-Proof
With 'Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,' Quentin Tarantino slakes his thirst for nostalgia while he plays god with another piece of history. → Read More
This (Wo)Man’s Work
When men devalue the labor of women like Andrea Arnold and overvalue the work of even problematic men, it's a triple whammy that diminishes the individual woman, women in general, and the overall quality of culture. → Read More
The Big Sick
Vomit culture keeps repeating on us because who doesn’t enjoy a good puke. → Read More
If I Made $4 a Word, This Article Would Be Worth $10,000
Journalism’s one percent would rather make up a fake feud than address the reality of the industry’s pay disparity, which benefits them and no one else. → Read More
The Artificial Intelligence of the Public Intellectual
Today’s public intellectuals have their own version of the American Dream, where one person, on their own, can achieve anything — including being the smartest person in the room. → Read More
The Erotic Thriller’s Little Death
What/If references the celebrated steamy genre of the 80s and 90s, but lacks its guts. Why can’t any of the new neo-noirs go all the way? → Read More
Falling Stars: On Taking Down Our Celebrity Icons
Celebrities act as a symbol of capitalism. When we question it, we question them too. → Read More
After a Fashion
Trying so hard to set trends for the future, fashion's institutions can't stop stumbling over the past (and the present). → Read More
Critics: Endgame
If there’s no earth, there’s no art. How do you engage in cultural criticism at the end of the world? → Read More
None of the President’s Men
Contemporary journalism is a lot more fear and insecurity and a lot less corduroy and Robert Redford, but you'd never know it from Hollywood. → Read More