On Tumblr This Week

 

*On Tumblr this week, we have an example of my rather juvenile sense of humor. I laughed at this til I cried (No, seriously, there were tears running down my face! I had to stop reading!), and its not even because I don’t like Benedict Cumberbatch, although yeah, he’s not  conventionally pretty, and a lot of English actors have too much personality in the facial area. I actually like the guy but I’m not averse to making fun of his name.

But it was that last line  that broke something, though.

mettatontrash:

mettatontrash:

“some people dont think [unattractive british actor] is hot???

well

[image of unattractive british actor]

does

[image of unattractive british actor]

this

[image of unattractive british actor]

change

[image of unattractive british actor]

your

[image of unattractive british actor]

mind?”

[3 more images of unattractive british actor]

no it actually doesnt he still looks like a shoe

im glad we’re all on the same page

Source: mercytrash he looks like a bleached lizard

Yeah, from now on, this is what I’m going to think every time I hear someone ask this question.

@
@
reverseracism poonany
When people ask your ethnicity/race it’s because they want to know which stereotypes to apply to you

Source: sailormixt

@
@

For some reason, this hadn’t occurred to me (and if it didn’t occur to me I know it didn’t occur to a lot of other Black people), the reason we’re seeing so many White people acting a fool in the Klandom, is because there are more and more PoC actually participating (I mean really participating, not just cheering from the sidelines) in mainstream media, and its gotten harder and harder to ignore our presence in Geek Culture, as writers and cos-players and such.

If they’re used to only ever seeing White people, as the lead characters, in the media they consume, then all these Blacks and gays and  women, in TV shows and movies,  all over “their” media is probably going to be alarming, especially if they’ve only ever paid lip service to the ideas of equality, or never paid any attention to the inequality.

I’m willing to bet the vast majority of White men doing the most complaining now, are guys who loved the idea of equality and fair treatment as long as they didn’t have to see it, practice it themselves, or hear about it. As long as if didn’t affect them getting boners from their favorite female characters, or pretending they were the latest onscreen hero, it was not ever a problem.These are people who have NEVER confronted even the concept that they might be racist. After all, how could they be racist? They played vidoegames with that black guy, that one time! And now everything is changing! Things are all higgledy-piggledy! There’s women and black people all over the place(not really) and people keep changing the races and colors and dogs and cats are living together and  OMG… IT’S THE END OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION!!!!

(That is, of course, if the given way to handle the apocalypse, is by screaming death threats at strangers, on Twitter, and ignoring the irony, that by doing so, they are contributing directly to the collapse of human civilization!)

rant alert

onlyblackgirl:

diversehighfantasy:

stitchmediamix:

allerasphinx:

jillian-fucking-holtzmann:

I really don’t understand why everyone is so angry about Zendaya playing Mary Jane in the next Spider-Man movie. Yeah, in the comics she was a redhead. So what?

Everyone was fine with having a black man as a stormtrooper and a black man as the human torch but as soon as a black woman gets an important role in a movie it’s “ruining their childhood” apparently.

The same happened with Leslie Jones in the new Ghostbusters movie. Nobody had an issue with a black man in the original but, as soon as a black woman has an important role in the franchise, she’s bombarded with hate and compared to a gorilla.

It’s completely ridiculous how much hate female poc in the media are getting at the moment.
Personally, I 100% support Zendaya as Mary Jane and I think the movie will probably be awesome (fingers crossed).

People really need to stop complaining about things like this “ruining their childhood” because it’s really just pathetic.

Yeah no, there was a movement to boycott TFA because JJ cast John Boyega.

People also had issues with MBJ as Human Torch.

The same thing happens every single time a person of colour wins a role previously played by a white person.

It’s been about eight years and there are still people mad about Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury.

People at one point were threatening to boycott Thor when Idris Elba was first cast as Heimdall.

When Candice Patton was cast as Iris West people came put with the same things they’re saying about Kiersey Clemons as movie!Iris and Zendaya as MJ.

Please don’t frame it as a new thing. This is how comic fans (and nerddom) as a whole behaves and been behaving for over a decade. They want to keep us in what they perceive to be “our place” and they do so by framing themselves as comic snobs put to protect their canon.

This is how these fans have always felt and what they’ve always done when racebending came into play.

Yeah, it seems “new” because there have been so few black leads in genre films. Will Smith got it too with iRobot and I Am Legend (though a lot of white nerds now use those roles as examples of times when it was OK).

If you look at James Gunn’s Facebook after he gave MCU fans a talking to over their racism regarding the rumor that Zendaya is the new Mary Jane, a LOT of commenters take exception to Jordan’s Johnny Storm even if they’re OK with Zendaya’s MJ. It’s not purely sexism by a long shot. Just look at the TFA fandom, MCU, Blade, etc.

No one has ever been fine with black leads lmao.

From James Gunn: 

To put it lightly, all hell broke loose the other day when Zendaya was announced as the new Mary Jane for Spider-Man: Homecoming. James Gunn (Director of Guardians of the Galaxy) got on his Facebook and offered up his comprehensive take on the matter:

People get upset when something they consider intrinsic to a comic book character changes when adapted for a film. I get this. There are movies I dislike because I think there’s a basic misunderstanding of the story or the character when the comic is transferred to film (I still hate how in the first Batman movie the Joker was revealed as the murderer of Bruce Wayne’s parents, for instance.)That said, I do not believe a character is the color of his or her skin. When Michael B Jordan was cast as Johnny Storm I didn’t understand the uproar. The primary characteristic of Johnny was not, to me, that he was white, or that he had blonde hair, but that he was a fiery, funny, big-mouthed braggart of a hero. I was happy that he was going to be played by one of the finest and most charming young actors out there.Yesterday, a rumor broke out that the character of Mary Jane was being played by a young black woman, Zendaya, and all hell broke out on the Internet (again). I tweeted that if people find themselves complaining about Mary Jane’s ethnicity they have lives that are too good. (For those of you who think this means I’m confirming that Zendaya IS playing MJ, realize that although I’ve read the Spidey script, and I’ve met the actress in question, I have no idea what her role is. There’s a good chance someone told me at one time or another, but, if so, I can’t remember. I’m going to find out when I go into Marvel this afternoon, but I feel free to speak until that time because it’s about the concept about a black woman playing Mary Jane, not the actuality or hypothesis of it.)I got a thousand or so responses to my tweet. Most of them were positive. Some folks disagreed – they thought the character should look like what she looks like in the comics – but were thoughtful. And a handful were flat out racist.I can’t respond to the racists – I’m not ever going to change their minds. But for the thoughtful majority of you out there:For me, if a character’s primary attribute – the thing that makes them iconic – is the color of their skin, or their hair color, frankly, that character is shallow and sucks. For me, what makes MJ MJ is her alpha female playfulness, and if the actress captures that, then she’ll work. And, for the record, I think Zendaya even matches what I think of as MJ’s primary physical characteristics – she’s a tall, thin model – much more so than actresses have in the past.Whatever the case, if we’re going to continue to make movies based on the almost all white heroes and supporting characters from the comics of the last century, we’re going to have to get used to them being more reflective of our diverse present world. Perhaps we can be open to the idea that, although someone may not initially match how we personally conceive a character, we can be – and often are – happily surprised.

 

@
@

finnnorgana errrbodylovesfinn

so-smoke-em-if-you-got-em:

I’ve realized that the more diverse a cast is, the easier it is to spot the racist fans. They won’t ship a white main character with the black girl who’s his love interest because it’s “heteronormative” (it isn’t) and they want more “gay representation”. But then when his best friend is also a person of color they don’t ship them together because they just “don’t see them that way”. But then they’ll headcanon a Tragic Whiteboy Backstory for the kid that said literally 8 words to the main character. That kid will be their favorite character, their sweet little “cinnamon roll”and there’ll be 40,230 m/m fics of him and the main character. “Representation”. My ass.

Source: so-smoke-em-if-you-got-em looks star wars fandom dead in the face

@
@

*I’m here for a Black Riddler, though. There was a Black Catwoman once and I’m not sure how White people reacted back then (the 60s) but when I first saw Eartha Kitt, I didn’t bat an eye. Surely, we can have another one.

Incidentally, this was the reason I enjoyed Leverage so much. The one Black guy they had on the show was an IT Specialist, and one of the smartest members of the group.

halbarry batmanrogues

Anonymous asked:

Why do you think Riddler should be black ? Like isn’t he a white ginger in the comics

batmanrogues answered:

the main reason is to be a slap in the face to the angry/unintelligent black man stereotype. constantly in movies, the roles of black men are assigned to being the tough guy or the muscle. there isn’t anything wrong with that in and of itself as when it’s handled by black creators (see: luke cage) it can work tremendously well because black people are allowed to tell their own stories about themselves. however, this is often not the case in hollywood and it becomes a game of choosing black men for these same roles over and over. the riddler is someone who is intelligent, knows he is intelligent and flaunts it (sometimes to the point of overestimating himself.) how many black men in hollywood have had roles like that? off the top of my head i can’t think of a single one, and while i’m sure roles and characters like that are out there somewhere, i’m sure many people will be strapped to find examples. it would be a great role for a black man, a total flip from the hired goon to the mastermind. there are plenty of scrawny/nerdy black guys out there (and yes ginger and red-haired black people exist too) many of whom are undiscovered because big roles like these keep being handed to the same five white people. plus, i think edward’s origin story would resonate a lot more with black and poc audiences (particularly poor black audiences) than white audiences nowadays.

i support this edward nigma dc

@
@

Since The Get Down doesn’t take place in the MCU, I don’t think we can hope that White fans will ignore Luke Cage and Black Panther in the same way they’re ignoring this show.  There have been plenty of, now critically lauded, comedies  that centered around Black people, but I have no idea how White people reacted to those things. There was no Twitter when comedies like Sanford and Son, Good Times, In Living Color, and The Fresh Prince were in their heyday. I do remember some of the controversy surrounding The Cosby Show because White  people  didn’t believe there were middle class Black people, and this was the subject of several articles in magazines at that time.

There were a few dramatic shows that didn’t revolve around White characters. I’m trying hard to think what the reaction was from White people back then, but like I said, this was mostly pre-internet, so its possible that either most White people didn’t know about these shows, knew about them but just ignored these shows, or simply had no outlet through which to express their outrage at Black people talking to each. There have always been media aimed at Black audiences, like all of Diana Ross movies. (She was like the Black version of Barbra Streisand.)

And how much of this has to do with the Internet and the ability of racists to be as angry and bigoted as they want to be, in any online space, with little or no consequences? There’s a certain class of bigot,  who act like grade school  bullies. Like those bullies, once they’ve found something they think might hurt your feelings, they keep doing that same thing, over, and over, and over again, because you’ve shown you don’t like it. Like that whole nooses in public places trend that was happening for a while in the early 2000s. It  was a really popular thing for bigots to do for a while, because they’d heard Black people complaining that they didn’t like it, and bigots are essentially lazy, and  unimaginative people, who love to find shortcuts to cause other people misery.

I predict that the harassment of Black women online is going to increase to an even worse degree, not because Black people are doing anything different but because bigots have seen that it works on some of us.

I’m just saying: Pre- internet, I have no idea how White people felt about any of these movies and shows, though.Were they mad? Outraged at no White people in these narratives? Idk! 

finnnorgana irisvwest

himteckerjam:

afatblackfairy:

kchante:

It’s funny how on my post about The Get Down and Stranger Things, people are acting like the two shows have to be of the exact same genre, to be compared.

Y’all know damn well that if The Get Down was lead by a white boy who was learning what hip-hop was, and coming into his sexuality, it would be all over the place. Y’all binge every white show there is, no matter the genre, but all of a sudden now you need an 10k word essay on why The Get Down should be watched. On why I put it in the same hype category as a show about white kids finding aliens, when let’s be honest, that happens about twice a year in every summer blockbuster.

Stop deflecting, and just own up to the fact that people aren’t checking for The Get Down, simply because it’s lead by Black and Latinx kids. Because it’s not the music that’s the issue. Y’all listen to that. It’s not the location, because y’all live there. And it’s not the Afros, because y’all love those on Halloween. The issue is the fear of enjoying something that is extremely Black/Brown, and doesn’t cater to white people. The kids aren’t ghetto, criminals, or teen mothers. They have goals, feelings, and confidence, and apparently that’s more complicated to imagine and consume, than a white girl with super powers.

YOOOOOO

This mess is exactly why Larry Wilmore just got canceled. If there’s more than two Black people it becomes a Black Thing ™ and white people can’t handle it.

Same ballpark as why fandoms set themselves on fire when the Black girl is the love interest.

This is a relatively newish form of geek/pop racism too. This wasn’t so much of a thing in the 90s/early Oughties and thats how movies and shows with Black people in them were so successful.

@
@

*A nice takedown of that silly-assed Dora Milaje criticism, that she was a big ol’ meanypants to Natasha in Civil War. I thought the DM was being kinda respectful. She could’ve just tackled Natasha right there, and no one would’ve said anything. I  really like Natasha and all, but like Black Panther, I’m not above watching her get her ass kicked by the DM.  Canon has it that there have been other Black Widows, that when sent to spy in Wakanda,(where the Dora originate), never came back out again.

finnnorgana sunwukxng

paullwalkers:

what are these people talking about bashing the dora milaje for being “rude” to nat? since when are secret service polite? i’m sorry but if someone was standing there blocking president obama’s way with no intention of moving his secret service would tackle on sight idk what fantasy (or should i just come out and say racist) world yall are living in in which you believe that secret service whose career rests on protecting some of the most important people in their respective worlds would be polite to someone who is a potential threat to the president/king of their country

Source: paullwalkers