I am a big fan of Hannah McGregor's podcast Witch, Please and their newest podcast Material Girls, so I was excited to see that she and Marcelle Kosman were coming to Chicago for a book event for Hannah's latest book Clever Girl: Jurassic Park. Even better, the event was at the bookstore that is only a five-minute walk from my new apartment. So I went last Friday, and it was absolutely fantastic. Listening to Hannah and Marcelle chat about this book was just like listening to a live episode of Material Girls, and the even attendees were all so smart and cool. Afterwards, Hannah did a book signing, and they were lovely. I had asked a question about the fundamental differences between Jurassic Park and Jurassic World as texts since my nephew's favorite movie is Jurassic World, and so she inscribed my book, "The best thing about dinosaurs is how much your nephew loves them but the second best thing is how they eat the patriarchy."

I am no expert in Jurassic Park. As a hardcore girlie girl in the 2000s, I was never interested in dinosaurs. When I wasn't playing with dolls, my hyper-fixations were the Titanic and ancient Egypt. I didn't even see Jurassic Park until 2021 during the pandemic when my friends and I watched it at a drive-in theater. I remember thinking it was fine and then never thinking about it again. However, I have now found myself the aunt to a nephew who is obsessed with dinosaurs. He can name all the types; I helped him open about 50 dinosaur toys on his birthday. Now that I have a dinosaur kid in my life, I find myself wanting to understand the fascination with dinosaurs more. Thankfully, Clever Girl was here to help me with that.

McGregor makes a compelling case for the reframing of Jurassic Park as a queer, feminist film. They argue that Jurassic Park is radical in how it celebrates the dinosaurs, who easily classify as monstrous women, for their monstrosity and ability to take up space. She also argues that the film is feminist in how it frames childcare as something that men should undertake and allows for a worldview in which women may indeed rule the world. I would have never thought this hard about Jurassic Park, but McGregor blends their knowledge of the films, their personal narrative, and scholarly texts to absolutely recontextualize Jurassic Park for audiences outside of the intended white, straight, male audience.

I highly recommend Clever Girl. Now, I feel like I have to rewatch Jurassic Park with my nephew and see if I can make him like it more than Jurassic World, which lacks all of the elements that can be read from the original. I guess dinosaurs are indeed feminist and cool!