The Full Petrana Portfolio Experience
Critical Analysis
This is the opinion stuff! A mix of bigger cultural analysis backed by research and some more personal driven anecdotes.
With every Hunger Games book, Suzanne Collins gets blunter about the messages readers keep missing
This year’s race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar changes the whole game
Disney abandoned Princess Tiana — until it suddenly needed her help
Avatar: The Last Airbender confirms it — we need the filler episode
Dear Disney: If you want to last another century, lay off the legacy
Disney never realized the biggest key to Frozen’s success: two female leads
Stranger Things finally makes room for girlhood nostalgia — kinda
The MCU keeps doing its women dirty
Our pandas, ourselves
Netflix has a troubling problem with its biracial characters
The controversial cut that made Mulan an Asian-American film
Reported Features
Reporting! We got some explainers, some interviews, and a whole lotta of Beloved Animated Failures.
Disney princess faces have been controversial for 70 years
‘Martin Scorsese’s lost film’ Goncharov (1973), explained
Cats Don’t Dance imploded just before it could take on Disney
The abandoned X-Men movie of the 1980s isn’t missed by anyone involved
AO3’s Hugo Award win is a long time coming for the fanfiction community
Twilight’s resurgence as a meme sparks another fight for fan legitimacy
“Like Cloud and Sephiroth had a child”: The secret backstory of Inside Out 2’s Lance Slashblade
Baldur’s Gate 3 is changing the way people play D&D for the better
Into the Spider-Verse’s legacy in American animation
How Lilo & Stitch succeeded by staying off Disney’s radar
Atlantis was meant to change the course of Disney animation
The curious case of dust in The Lion King
Reviews
A selection of my personal favorite movie and TV reviews.
Disney’s Lion King prequel Mufasa would’ve been a banger DTV prequel
Blue Eye Samurai is the best thing Netflix has done in years
Everything wrong with the live-action Snow White can be summed up in one jacket
Arcane never loses sight of the show’s beating heart
Did you hear what Bridgerton season 3 is up to? Scandalous!
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End goes where few fantasy stories dare to go
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is actually the best Bridgerton
Oh no, they Fleabag-ified Persuasion
Packages
In my time at Polygon, I spearheaded numerous content packages! This was a team effort, requiring a lot of collaboration and organization. Here's my favorite four.
Interviews
I've interviewed a ton of cool people over the years! Here are some of my favorites.
Vox Machina’s biggest season 3 change hits hard, even for the Critical Role cast
Gravity Falls creator on returning to his ‘little bastard’ of a character
Robot Dreams’ director founded a whole animation studio just to adapt a graphic novel he loved
Cinderella’s 4K restoration team says her colors have been all wrong for decades
With The Wild Robot, Chris Sanders finally set computer animation free
Past Lives director needed star Greta Lee to be a little bad at speaking Korean
Michelle Yeoh’s guide to Everything Everywhere’s vast multiverse
Disney’s renaissance was just a stepping stone for Glen Keane
Giggles and Blogs
Everything that was too silly to put in a previous section, even though they technically qualify.
In the wake of Nosferatu, let us not forget the horniness of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The sadder and wetter Viktor gets in Arcane, the hotter he becomes
My Dragon Age: Inquisition replay is perfect now that I found this flower crown
People only love Epcot for the booze
Pretending to be your D&D character makes working out a lot more engaging
Every Wonka candy seen in a Wonka movie, ranked
Richard Siken has always been a fanfic enthusiast
There are more than 40 Barbie movies, and we ranked them all
The best advice we’re taking from movies this summer
I think Shrek is dead in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Discord is my most important household management tool
Every Disney direct-to-video sequel, prequel, and mid-quel, ranked