Call Me If You Get Lost, Identifying Features, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Jun 26, 2021

Welcome to the fifty-fourth installation of The Q : your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations.

The Q is taking a little ~hiatus~ from Two Virgins for the time being to rest and recharge…but we’ll be back soon enough! Meanwhile, make sure to check out our past episodes and interviews here!

Album

Call Me If You Get Lost by Tyler the Creator

CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST feels like Tyler’s revenge album. He’s angry and ready to move past his feelings, he wants revenge that he can’t quite reach. While the heartbreak is still there, he’s ready to talk explicitly about it rather than hide it behind double entendres. The song “WILSHIRE” is particularly powerful in this respect as Tyler absolutely rips into a failed relationship. Tyler takes us into specific moments with such clarity that it feels like we’re sitting there with him.

Identifying Features directed by Fernanda Valadez

Fernanda Valadez’s Identifying Features opens with an image clouded by fog, seen through the point of the view of Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández), a woman from central Mexico and the film’s protagonist. Her teenage son informs her that he plans to cross the border into the United States to pursue a job opportunity with his friend. The scene closes, and we are told this is one of Magdalena’s last memories of her son. He has been missing ever since.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

As the book continues, it becomes clear that all her life, Evelyn has been put into boxes. She had to fit the golden standard of a straight, white American actress in order to be accepted, despite being a bisexual Cuban woman. Her interview with Monique, readers realize, is a way for her to finally confront the restraints society and the media placed upon her. She is able to come out, talk about her wife, and detail the abuse she faced within the industry and from many of the men around her. Though Evelyn’s rich, lavish celebrity lifestyle is far from relatable, her struggles as a queer woman very much are, and it gives the entire book a much more poignant feel.