Random Tumblr Events

*I’m a huge A Wrinkle in Time fan. I used to read these books at least once a year when I was a teenager and had a lot free time to fill up. I’m ecstatic about this movie, too. It being directed by Ava D’uvernay, and stars Oprah, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, and now someone my 11 yr. old niece can relate to, Storm Reid as Meg Murray.

When I was a little girl, I identified pretty closely with Meg, and always cast myself in the role, so this will also be an opportunity to revisit my childhood.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-wrinkle-in-time-cast-meg-murry-storm-reid-20160914-snap-story.html

entertainingtheidea:

12 Years a Slave’s Storm Reid has landed the lead role in Ava DuVernay and Disney’s adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time.

The story centers on Meg Murry, a young girl traumatized by the disappearance of her scientist father years before, who finds herself on an interplanetary journey with a schoolmate and her younger brother to find him. They are aided on their quest by a trio of supernatural beings, Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey).

As THR first reported, Disney has made the race of L’Engle’s main characters black or mixed race, making the Murry family now a mixed-race one. The studio is currently looking for a non-white actor to play the schoolmate, Calvin O’Keefe.

Source: entertainingtheidea SFF a wrinkle in time Ava DuVernay Storm Reid

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*Okay here’s some photos from the new Iron Fist show coming to Netflix next year. I’m still not a Finn Jones fan. I don’t even know who he is, and I’m unimpressed by his looks (in the photos I saw of him he looked like an underdone potato), but he’s cast in the role now, and since I actually do like the comic books, I’m going to watch the show.

For my readers, who are not comic book fans, Power man (Luke Cage) and Iron Fist (Danny Rand) are two of the iconic pairings in Marvel, like DC’s Batman and Robin. They are both fully fledged, partners though. There’s not one in charge, and the other a sidekick, type of thing. For a while, there was just Luke and Danny, then they teamed up in the comics with Misty Knight, and Colleen Wing, to form Heroes for Hire, or with Daredevil to form The Defenders. (There have been several groups called The Defenders, with different members each time.) Colleen Wing is cast as Asian in this show. Lets see if any of the whining fanboys notice and say anything.

I think Iron Fist is suffering from the same problem of Dr. Strange. The whole white guy going into a mystical land, based on Asian Culture, and coming out of the other side with superpowers. There still would’ve been a much deeper story to be told if they had cast an Asian American in the role. I still do not understand this utter reluctance (and truculence) that Hollywood has against hiring Asian actors to star in action movies. What the Hell is that about? (Can you tell I still haven’t forgiven Hollywood for casting a White teenager in a movie starring both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, as if they needed the help?)

http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/finn-jones?excludenudity=false&family=editorial&page=1&phrase=finn%20jones&sort=newest

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*Ooh! Here’s the new Misty Knight poster. She is shown with Luke Cage a lot, and is being introduced in his show but, canonically, she and Danny end up together, while in the comic books Luke and Jessica Jones are together w/child. I don’t know if the creators will keep that dynamic for the series though, because Luke and Jessica ended on a bad note (and I also hate the television version of  Jessica with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. )

Misty Knight  //  Marvel’s Luke Cage  (2016)

Portrayed by Simone Missick, “Mercedes “Misty” Knight was born and raised in New York City. She graduated the Police Academy with honors and joined the N.Y.P.D. and rose through the ranks; quickly becoming a Lieutenant…

Misty Knight is a skilled detective, capable of observation, forensic investigation, and inductive and deductive reasoning of the highest caliber. Given any mystery, she can arrive at the correct conclusions with a fraction of the data. ” X

Get the comics here

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Yet another installment in the King Kong movie franchise. This time it has a more modern update, and looks like a Vietnam War movie, so maybe there’s some parallels there, or something. I’m not really into Kong all that much because of all the nasty racial undertones, and I’m also reluctant to watch Samuel L. Jackson in, yet another, historical jungle movie. Seriously, tho’! He needs to quit. He is the hardest working man in Hollywood, I swear.

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*Just boosting all this Black Woman Excellence!

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sueetlyDeactivated

The 12 Common Archetypes (insp.)

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reverseracism kardashiansfuckyeah

If it comes in her size how the fuck is she too big for it.?

If it comes in her size how the fuck is she too big for it.?

If it comes in her size how the fuck is she too big for it.?

If it comes in her size how the fuck is she too big for it.?

black-charm:

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*I laughed waaay too hard  at the above post and this next one about Original Star Trek!

vi0lentquiche tea-and-liminality

fozmeadows:

carrionlaughing:

rainbowbarnacle:

darksnowfalling:

macpye:

slightly-oblivvyous:

Yea! Rejoice! For it was on this blessed day in the year 1967 that our foremothers watched two men roll around on the hot desert sand and decreed, “Let there be gay.”

Originally posted by captaincrusher

[For those who don’t understand the reference: this is about the 49th anniversary of the Star Trek TOS episode Amok Time.

This is the episode where Spock goes in pon farr, where he is literally biologically compelled to mate, kill, or, die. Spock does none of these things except to roll around on the sands of Vulcan and grind on Kirk.

This was the episode that sparked the entire idea of slash in our foremothers’ minds.]

Know thy roots.

history is so important

and on the day the first spock/kirk fic was written, verily did the first reader gaze upon it in wonder and speak:

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*I have strange humor sometimes. I’m cool with it tho’. I get all of these, especially that last one (Yeah,  Destiel shippers, I’m lookin’ atchu!) 

stitchmediamix shirosredknight

arbryna:

acedamian:

there are different levels of notps, y’see.

1. i don’t really care about this ship but i’m sick of seeing it everywhere
2. this ship makes me slightly uncomfortable for no reason
3. this ship makes me slightly uncomfortable for personal reasons
4. this ship makes me heavily uncomfortable for many reasons
5. this ship disgusts me to my very core because of all it is
6. this ship disgusts me to my very core and beyond because it’s entirely based around something that is despicable and morally wrong

7. i didn’t used to mind this ship but the shippers are assholes and now the mere thought of it makes me want to set people on fire

Source: lookslikewe-moved

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*A couple of random discussion posts, that I thought held significance:

sleepynegress elektralyte

do-as-youre-told:

stimmyabby:

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

 

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finnnorgana lunaaltare

hacksign:

those posts that are like “do any of you actually enjoy anything” are like high key annoying. like we live in a society where inherently oppressive actions are so ingrained into every bit of media we consume so being critical and pointing that stuff out is important. like i want to be able to watch or read something and not have my identity or just who i am as a person be attacked/mocked. because these bigoted ideals lead to violence and death. and on top of that people are capable of doing more than one thing at a time i know it’s shocking. i like overwatch and play the shit out of it but i can point out some of the racist undertones in the game itself. like you can enjoy somethin, know that it’s not perfect and talk about its faults all at the same time. let that sink in lol.

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reverseracism fuckboi-logic

periegesisvoid:

Your social justice should be founded on love for others, not on a desire to be the most visibly enlightened.

Source: periegesisvoid

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Oh Gawd! Whyyy?!!!

Yeah, this is my aesthetic right now.

I’m not even religious but I will join in a prayer circle to send love and calming vibes to Jennifer. Sending her positive energy, so that she don’t end up choking the fuck outta Adam Sandler, within the first fifteen minutes of meeting him. There are no words to express how much I despise that man. She gon’ need some strungth. (Yeah, that is the correct word.)

bonitaapplebelle:

Honestly give her another Oscar for even entertaining the idea of having to pretend to be attracted to Adam Sandler

yuck

She don’t love herself 😯

bby girl………………..

Jen… You’re my name twin so I’m gonna break out some ancient black cinema advice: Make the money. Don’t let the money make you.

like Adam could ever

ITS. A. PAY. CHECK. Let her earn her money, ain’t like black women are being doled out roles. We all know this. Look how long it took Rutina Wesley and her Juiliard graduating self to get a good leading role.

nobody’s slamming Jen tho, not really the problem is Adam

Let’s start a prayer circle for her to have the strength to do with Sandler

Can you blame her? The biggest black female crossover stars have all had to play love interest to lesser white dudes. see: Halle Berry and Zoe Saldana

Source: bonitaapplebelle

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*This poster is correct in saying that a lot of the current fandom has thoroughly whitewashed the participation of Black fans from television Scifi and Star Wars history. When I was little, everybody was about Star Wars, Lost in Space, and The Incredible Hulk.  Even my Mom had a favorite character, (Lando Calrissian ) and my personal favorite was Boba Fett. All the kids I knew had the toys, and talked about it in school. (I had a Space 1999 ship that my Mom bought me for Xmas when I was about ten or so.)

So yeah, Black people were definitely there, as part of Scifi fandom, and we have a lot of nostalgia around Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica, but when you hear fans today, they make it sound like we had nothing at all to do with any of it, like it was exclusively a white thing to like Star Wars. Well, anyway, I like that The Get Down is showing people what it was really like for us. (Scifi and Kung Fu movies in the 70s, and Scifi and Ninja movies in the 80s.)

diversehighfantasy meredithgene

I can’t believe the Get Down is the best live action superhero series to air this year wow

meredithgene:

anarcho-cyndiquilism:

they did that

Can we please talk about the relationship between hip hop and geek culture?!

Can we please have that discussion of remix, Easter eggs, superhero mythology and why The Get Down is needed rn?

I’m in. I think one thing that is worth stressing is that the geeky things in TGD, from the love of Star Wars to Ra-Ra’s comic book and superhero analogies to Dizzee’s afro-alien art (and, of course, everything Shaolin Fantastic) are not a retcon of history. I say that because a while ago I posted about how Lando Calrissian isn’t merely a “token black guy” – aside from being extremely important to the plots of Empire and Jedi, he was cast as Black because Black people were into Star Wars from the very beginning, even though the first movie was all white on screen. Billy Dee was cast as Lando as an acknowledgement that Star Wars was part of Black experience in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  And when I said that, some people reacted with surprise, because the revisionist white fan narrative is that Black people don’t care about Star Wars, fantasy, or scifi.

That can’t be further from the truth. Sci-fi and fantasy are a huge part of Afro-American Culture. In the ‘60s, while Black people in the US were fighting for basic rights, the space race was in full force. If white people were planning to conquer space, it should be no surprise that Black people identified with outer space aliens. It should be no surprise that Black people dreamt of far off worlds.

Afrika Bambaataa (who Shao refers to as the King) and Soulsonic Force were full-on sci-fi (now called Afrofuturism) from the South Bronx. “Planet Rock” was one of hip-hop’s first widely recognized masterpieces. And it wasn’t just hip hop. Funk icon George Clinton drew inspiration from Flash Gordon. The Jacksons made a sci-fi music video/film (The Triumph), and Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” references The Force, as in Star Wars. There’s Sun Ra, Newcleus – and this is not at all a comprehensive list from the ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Most depictions of Black kids in the ‘70s (ie mainstream TV and movies made in the ‘70s) ignored these interests and Black culture’s longtime love of fantasy and sci-fi. The Get Down shows a more honest picture of ‘70s Black kids in that respect, and in doing so should drive it home that we’re not new here.

Source: anarcho-cyndiquilism the get down star wars afrika bambaataa and soul sonic forcenewcleus michael jackson afrofuturism

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*There’s a big discussion going on about casting Ryan Potter as Batman’s Tim Drake. I’m all for it because DCEU really does need more Asian representation. So far, they and Marvel been kind of slacking in this regard, and the depictions of Asians in the MCU leaves a lot to be desired. Also, he just looks like Tim Drake from the comics. As usual there’s   white boy’s tears about it. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even care about white boys being mad about stuff anymore. My attitude towards them now is just “So, What?”

Check out Ryan’s audtion tape below.

http://www.cinemablend.com/news/1555480/the-other-reason-ryan-potter-posted-that-robin-audition-video-for-ben-afflecks-batman-movie.

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*Yeah, this is a basic summation of the whole topic of white writers being too scared to write Characters of Color. In my opinion, though, if you are too scared to write, you’re a shitty writer. You can’t be scared and write well. This is basically my entire response to the bullshit that Lionel Shriver spouted in her speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival, entitled Fiction and Identity Politics. 

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becketted

I can’t believe the TFA fandom is trying to blame the lack of Finn fic (or the general racism in fandom) on fans of color. I know I have the privilege of being naive but goddamnt, can we just listen to ourselves for a moment here?

lastcenturykindagirl

Or like fans of color would feel safe in a fandom where the top ships are all with a white dude who is the villain?

becketted

The argument apparently is that people would write Finn, but they are too scared of those fans of color who are bullies and will criticize them for writing the super racist fics they want to write. So basically racism is to blame on people who call out racism. They are taking away white fandom’s god-given right to write awful racist stuff, so they won’t write characters of color altogether. Logic.

It’s a conversation I’m seeing a lot in professional fiction right now, specially sf/f and young adult. That white authors don’t want to write diversity because they don’t want to risk being criticized by minorities. And I’m like “no, what you are saying is you don’t want to do your job, you don’t want to put in the time and effort to write minorities well, what you mean is that you can’t do the half-assed racist job of it you’ve been doing all your writing life, because people are finally calling you out on your bullshit, and rightly so”.

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Next up on, People Who Are Pissing Me Off:

So this happened, during Fashion Week, with Marc Jacobs appropriating a type of hairstyle, for his White models, that Black people get vilified and demonized for: dreadlocks. So, I was never on  Marc Jacobs, but it was his response to  criticism, (as a Black woman who permed her hair for decades before deciding to go natural), that got my blood pressure up. 

I’ve been seeing this asinine question all over Tumblr asking why Black women straighten their hair. Its not unlike the usual wtf*ery, where various dumbasses attempt to “gotcha” black people into shutting up, by saying “But you do it too!” As if the idea that other people are racist makes it okay for them to be assholes, too.

Guys! That’s not how that works, okay. You don’t get a get out of jail free card simply because other people might be acting a fool. (Although, I know  now that sort of response is an attempt to alleviate their feelings of guilt, for engaging in assholery. I know that’s where it comes from because the answers to their questions are easily Google-able.) The snag they keep running into is that  the Black people, they are accusing, know our history exceptionally well. People that dumb  are walking into a conversation armed with a paperclip, thinking they have a gun.

But then I’ve noticed that people that do things like that, have a tendency to be deeply, deeply, stupid.

rafi-dangelo

LMAO MARC, SIS…. 

(Facebook: Elijah Andreval Jones IV )

I don’t even get into the “are dreads cultural appropriation” discussion anymore because the topic has been discussed ad nauseam.  If – after all of the thinkpieces and resources and historical research – you’re still just fine with white people wearing dreadlocks, I have moved on from that topic with you.  I’m not interested in talking about it anymore.  As such, I wouldn’t even be talking about Marc Jacobs if not for this comment right here:

“funny how you don’t criticize women of color for straightening their hair”

That “women of color” is just code for Black because – newsflash – most of the women of color on the planet have straight hair BECAUSE THEY’RE ASIAN.  And most of the white people on the planet do not have straight hair because there’s usually a wave or a curl or most certainly some frizz.  Obviously all Asians don’t have straight hair (particularly those from South Asia) but the vast majority of women from China to Japan to Korea have straighter hair than most white people, so Marc Jacobs is talking directly to Black women and doesn’t have the balls to just say it, probably because Naomi Campbell is one of his bffs.

You know what?  Naomi, come get your boy.  How do you fix your mouth to say “I don’t see race” when one of your homegirls has spent the better part of her career promoting visibility for women of color in fashion?  If one of my white friends said “I don’t see race” then I don’t see his name in my contacts list any longer.  That is seriously one of the most offensive things you can say to me as a white friend.

I don’t care what white strangers say, I don’t care when your racist uncle drops the n-word, but when you are on my team and you say you don’t see race, then you don’t see my struggle when I get stopped by the cops or my frustration when we go to the movies and all of the leads are white or my anger when another one of us is gunned down for existing.  Sometimes it’s small and sometimes it’s serious, but you still need to see it and me and recognize that we’re not the same.  That doesn’t mean one is better, but part of respecting someone and their culture and the path they walk is to recognize the differences and realize how they may move through the world differently than you.

If Marc Jacobs doesn’t see race then he can’t possibly see how offensive it is to have white women walking around mimicking natural hairstyles for Black women when we have little Black girls in this country protesting at school for the right to wear their hair in their natural state.  We have little Black girls being sent home from class and Black women being denied jobs and promotions because their hair is called unruly or unkempt when it doesn’t adhere to European standards of beauty – and then Marc Jacobs wants to try and throw “cultural appropriation” at Black women for straightening their hair?  It’s called survival in a white supremacist society and maybe if he could see race (or pick up a history book) he’d know that.

Edit:  Just got a message on FB from this white guy who worked on the show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepy Hollow Analysis

This brilliant and beautiful analysis of Sleepy Hollow showed up in my feed again and I decided, if I didn’t want to lose it on my “Likes” page, I’d better save it here. It outlines why we cared so much about the future of this show, why we were so damn angry at what the showrunners chose to do with it, what went wrong, and  includes links to other reviews and critiques of the show. 

steelrigged-blog

Post Mortem on Sleepy Hollow

Everyone is saying that the show had great potential, and that they screwed it up. But I haven’t seen anyone articulate what that potential was. Why was so resonant in season one? At this particular time, and in this particular climate?

I read the phrase “the chemistry between the two leads” and frankly that’s not enough for me. It’s not enough to explain what I saw in the show and why I am so mad. I deeply believe that the value of the fantasy/horror genre is how it lets us symbolically consider big issues of morality in ways that are fun.

American, this beautiful mess of a country, has a ton of moral thinking to do about race and history. Sleepy Hollow more than any show in decades, was perfectly set up to play with, and around, and through that tension. That was it’s potential. That is what we lost.

I’ve read some great things on Sleepy Hollow, the finale, and the death of Abbie Mills. These articles have all been explicit that the choice to kill and sideline Abbie was typical, uncreative, racist (consciously or not), and BAD FOR THE SHOW. Here are my favs:

http://blackgirlnerds.com/how-sleepy-hollow-single-handedly-destroyed-their-own-show/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.thevisibilityproject.com/2015/05/05/i-want-great-things-for-nicole-beharie-sleepy-hollow-isnt-one-of-them/

http://bibliodaze.com/2016/04/abbiemillsdeservesbetter-how-fox-ruined-sleepy-hollow/

Now let’s talk about the big issues.

America has always been two things. A place for enlightened ideals about the equality of man, and the bloody driving heart of chattel slavery. Those are both huge. They are also utterly irreconcilable. Even as this country led the Age of Revolution that brought down kings throughout Europe, we built the North Atlantic Slave Trade. That deadly triangle put millions of people into bloodline based suffering that was harsher than any caste system in Europe at the time.

If you study American history at all, slavery is three quarters of it. The struggle for racial inclusion and equity is the rest. More than class, more than ideas, more than geography, race is the single focal point that encompasses all of American history. There is no part of this country that wasn’t molded, or counter-molded, without the presence of it. From the very beginning we argued about it. We didn’t stop arguing. We went to war over it. Then we had a second proxy cold war about it during the civil rights movement. We are still arguing about it today with Black Lives Matter.

This is the biggest question of Good vs. Evil in our country. It’s so big, and so devastating, that millions of Americans still have trouble fully admitting that slavery was evil. That it did not have any upside for the salves. There are also millions of people who see the sacrifice that ending racism demands, and flip the fuck out. They do not want to deal with that.

Doesn’t that sound like a kind of unending apocalypse? A biblical level moral threat? And historically a few people have always fought and given witness in order to redeem the rest of us from that evil we would rather ignore, or let fester, or maybe join/sell-out-too in order to maintain our privilege. The metaphor works for me.

I should probably take a moment to give my personal P.O.V. I’m white. I’m a lawyer. I am into the American mythology. I really, deeply, believe that a nation of laws is better than a nation of men. I have in actively carried around a pocket constitution, and a pocket declaration of independance. I have read the federalist papers. I have read more than one biography of John Adams. I am a patriot. I know enough about the history of patriots to understand that the best ones were all critics of their societies.

There was a moment in season one that was painfully familiar. Ichabod is singing the praises of Thomas Jefferson, and sneering at the political foe that accused him of sleeping with his slaves. That was me, in my younger and more innocent days. Irving and Abby give each other a good long side-eye and then enlighten him. That was also me. And Crane, bless him, learned better. I remember watching that scene and thinking “I can’t believe Fox, Fox!, is letting them get away with that.” See, I also live in the South. Where you still aren’t often allowed to talk about that stuff. Where discussing actually, provable, documented history, like it’s actual documented provable history, will get you hissed at. Then they’ll call you ungodly. (Look it just popped up again!  http://www.vox.com/2016/4/8/11389556/thomas-jefferson-sally-hemings-book )

Is it any wonder that Sleepy Hollow was such a tempest in a teapot?

I haven’t talked about Abbie yet. Sorry. I needed to set the stage. I needed to be able to say that the chemistry that existed between Abbie and Ichabod existed because she was black and accomplished and he was white and ignorant. The desire to smoosh them together, to make them work as partners, was more than a desire to see an attractive man with an attractive woman, it was a desire to reconcile the entire American experiment.

Think back to the images in their first meeting. Ichabod, an 18th century man, locked in a cage because he cannot understand the modern world. He’s idealistic, he’s educated, he’s utterly incompetent at modern reality, he cannot understand why he’s not in charge, why all the cretins around him treat him like he’s crazy and refuse to follow his orders. I’m pretty sure I just restated the analysis of trump voters.

Maybe just this one: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/i-was-pastor-trump-supporters-heres-why-thousands-are-flocking-his-rallies.

Or this one:http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/03/how_donald_trump_happened_racism_against_barack_obama.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

Or this one:http://www.salon.com/2016/03/14/the_payback_candidate_trumps_campaign_is_for_conservatives_seeking_revenge_on_everyone_they_think_disrespects_them/

So there is Ichabod waiting in his cage, and then Abbie shows up. A black woman. Not in a cage. Her freedom specifically addressed when Ichabod said the word “emancipated.”  She was someone he still saw in terms of slavery, but she was the one that literally held the keys to the modern world in her hand. (Of course, to screw with that, they shot it from his POV, so she looks like the one behind bars.)

Ichabod has to listen to her, he has to defer, before things start getting better for him. What is more real than that? Ichabod might have been the every-man (for a certain type of every-man) but Abbie was the arbiter, the judge, the leader. She was the character that decides what part of all that 18th century knowledge still matters, and what parts need to be chucked, like yesterday. And in season one at least, she judged from a place that was informed by her own personal morality and experiences. She was not all good and self-sacrificing. The unfairness she had experienced as a child, affected her. The central question was if she was going to reject Ichabod, and through him, symbolically at least, this whole American experiment.

Does any of that description make you uncomfortable? I hope so. Because that discomfort is what made the show so tense and riveting. Good horror works on our unconscious taboos. It materializes them, makes them literal, and once they are literal we are confronted with their grotesquerie. America, as a society, has rejected and oppressed black people from the beginning. The three fifths compromise is still in all those pocket constitutions.  But America, as a society, is also slowly, painfully, waking up to the fact that rejecting black people is unsustainable. It locks us out of the future. It ties us to evil. A not so secret demon that demands constant blood sacrifices. (Literally. Tamir Rice, Eric Harris,Walter Scott, Jonathan Ferrell, Sandra Bland, Samuel DuBose and Freddie Gray.) And whose hunger for destruction spills over and threatens everyone.

That’s what Sleepy Hollow had to work with. That’s what they stumbled into, and frankly I don’t think they could handle it. As a writer, I know that you can land in something topical accidentally. And I think that first round of folks just wrote what they thought was scary, a white man who is forced into depending on black people because he doesn’t understand the modern world. I don’t think they examined, in themselves, why those particular dynamics were so scary.

If you are white, like most of the Sleepy Hollow production team, and unconscious about that shit, you will inevitable try and move yourself to a more comfortable place. The process even has a name. It’s called white fragility.

So, when Sleepy Hollow did well, and production got crunched and probably even more unconscious, the production team moved themselves into stories that were more comfortable. Abbie’s power as arbiter and judge was sidelined. She was relied upon as a character who rejected nothing, who only sacrificed.  What little discussion of the founding fathers flaws there had been was dropped. After that first episode, nothing was said about the civil war. Nothing was said about the bulk of American history. Almost nothing was said about slavery even when Abbie went back in time.

And things could have been said. During the run of Sleepy Hollow we’ve had 12 Years a Slave, and Hamilton, and the new Birth of a Nation, and Underground. This isn’t just social justice plotting, it’s a thriving market. It’s also rich in all the tropes of horror. It’s everything you could need for a million different horror movies. Imagine how differently Season 2 could have played if Abraham or Henry approached Abbie at any point with this kind of offer:

Moloch is here, in America, in the 21st century because slavery brought him here. Ichabod’s great friends couldn’t fight him, because their sins were his fuel. So you could keep trying to help your partner’s romantic life, or you could let the whole thing burn. Let this America end. It’s cardinal sin is irredeemable. Let something new take its place. Join us, and you can even build it to your tastes.

Isn’t that tempting? If your white, isn’t that terrifying? Isn’t it real, despite all the layers of monsters and demons?  And isn’t it fun? And kampy, and hopeful too? Because nobody wants to listen to a lecture about this stuff head on. We want to all get together and slay the demon that lives on racism, and then make the improbable couple kiss. We want to love all of it. We want it to work out, history and the present to reconcile and make each other better.

Instead, we got monsters from Sumeria and ancient Greece.

Now with Abbie Mills dead, the chance for reconciliation is gone. That’s the potential that we lost.  Even when the show was at it’s worst, the mere presence of her dark skin was an indictment, a tension, a placeholder for the failings of the founding fathers. They got it wrong about her, about black people, so maybe none of their magical advice would work. At the very least it would all have to be updated. Abbie Mills as a black witness wasn’t just important because there aren’t enough women of color on TV. She was important because with this particular plot scenario information from the past must be both always necessary and always dubious. Abbie Mills, merely by existing in the frame with Ichabod crane, telegraphed that the founding fathers could have some major, and important, blind-spots.

It seems even that was intolerable.

So, History won. It didn’t compromise, it didn’t change. It didn’t admit it’s faults. It didn’t fall in love with Now. Ichabod did not offer up a part of his immortal soul to satisfy Pandora’s Box. He didn’t share the burden with Abbie. Then, to add insult, that cowardice was explained away as destiny. That’s not fun. That’s not challenging or exciting. It’s just bleak. It reduces rather than expands the story. The only thing I want to see now is Jenny Mills engaged in the long form assassination of Ichabod Crane.

And while this is just about character’s in a story, we all know, that it’s also something real. White people preferring to see black people lose everything then give up anything of themselves. That it’s something real that happens all the time. That it happened behind the scenes to Orlando Jones and then Nicole Baheri, when they were stripped of air-time and meaningful on screen stories and work.

Some of us might still be able to learn from the mistakes of history, but not Sleepy Hollow. It’s doomed.

Source:steelrigged-blog

#sleepy hollow#abbie mills#ichabbie#sh meta

678 notes

Race in Hollywood/ Tumblr Talk V

Once again, the discussions on Tumblr break it down, regarding the rules and regulations of intersectional femininity, and race.

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My thoughts on being a person of color in Hollywood: nicolebyer:

The New York Times asked me to write about being a person of color in Hollywood. I wrote it but they didn’t like what they read I guess??? I say that because they decided not to run it. But I think I actually wrote something good. Thank you to my dear friend Madeline Walter for proofreading and editing it. Have a read will ya?

Hmmmmm… oh boy. Imagine my surprise when I opened an email and saw that the New York Times wanted to know my opinion on being a person of color working in Hollywood. To me, that sentence is a crazy sentence. Like my life is crazy and the fact that I am working in Hollywood is crazy. Also my friends barely want my opinion on anything, and the New York Times is, like, a news source that intellectuals in coffee shops read.

But, down to the actual question that has been posed to me… what is it like being a person of color working in Hollywood? Well I’ll tell you, it’s a real roller coaster, because not only am I a person of color, but I am a woman and an overweight one at that. I’m like the least traditionally fuckable of all the women you could gather and put on TV/film. Now you’re probably thinking, “OH NICOLE! DON’T SAY THAT ABOUT YOURSELF! EVERY BODY IS A BEAUTIFUL BODY!” That’s a very nice thing for you to shout at me, but I already know that. I love who I am right now, and I’m not the one who’s telling myself I’m unfuckable. It gets beaten into my brain from audition notices that say, “looks like a linebacker”…“woman who is fat and disgusting but still somehow has sex”… “fat black waitress”… “hooker”… “black bus driver.” A lot of under-five characters I would audition for don’t even have names. Instead, they’re named by their race, body type and/or profession. They’re not given real names, which to me, means they’re not viewed as real people. Which is super helpful, ‘cause, you know, in case I forget what I look like, some cool writer or casting director will remind me.

Also, I’ve done a handful of voiceover and on-camera jobs where I’ve been asked to “be blacker.” Which is code for be sassier, more ghetto, more neck rolls and snaps. I even wrote and shot a video about it with some dear friends (please take a break from this and YouTube it). A lot of the time I wouldn’t know where my next paycheck was coming from, so I would just sass it the fuck up when someone asked me to. That’s not to say that being sassy isn’t fun. It is… just not when it’s asked of you everywhere you go. Because you start to feel that nobody cares what else you have to offer. Now before you think, “Nicole, nobody escapes typecasting,” I say, “Oh fuck you, take a nap, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Typecasting is a thing, but when it involves race, it narrows the roles available down to an almost comically small amount.

On the flip side (told you it was a roller coaster), now I do get to audition for things that are not defined by race. I’m very lucky that in most of my jobs now, I’m able to just be a “funny person” as opposed to a “funny black person.” I perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where my race and gender are rarely pointed out. I just worked on a new sketch show for Fox called “Party Over Here,” where sketches were written for me because of my funny and not my race. MTV’s “Girl Code” was one hundred percent me… that show allowed me to really fine tune my comedic voice. Now, I’m currently writing and about to star in my own scripted show for MTV, where race and gender play a role but are not the star. Maybe you’ll see me take off a wig or get my brown makeup on the cheek of a white person and then discreetly try to rub it off without them noticing… I mean, you guys, there are so many funny (and some not funny) stories that people of color can tell without race having to be mentioned overtly.

You know, I think Viola Davis really hit a home run with “And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
I constantly see shows that seemingly have diversity but fail to realize that you don’t have to hide people of color in the background and in under-five roles. You can give them fully three-dimensional characters who return in multiple (dare I say all?) the episodes in a season.

So, when I think about being a mildly successful person of color in Hollywood, I think that change IS happening. If you look at me on paper, I shouldn’t have the things I have. I should thank Queen Latifah, Gabourey Sidibe, and Monique for being trailblazers by not adjusting their bodies to industry standards. Their careers have made it easier for me to exist in this world. Also changing what the standard is; is hard. Maybe now you’re thinking, “Nicole shouldn’t the best person get the job, regardless of race or gender?” Yeah, they should, but in this business, “best” is subjective, and people tend to like what they know. And more times than not, it’s a bunch of old white men making the decisions. If you’re white, you know white… which isn’t on purpose, it’s just embedded in our heads. Systemic racism/preferential treatment is real, and it’s something I could go on forever about but, my friends, I have a word limit.
Listen, I don’t wish we existed in a colorblind society, because what a boring fucking world that would be. Also, saying you’re colorblind is essentially taking the color away from people, just lumping everyone together into one big beige ball. I don’t ever want to be just a basic bitch lumped together with a bunch of other basic bitches in one big basic bitch beige ball. I want to wave my color proudly. I want to bring my color and background to the table, because it makes life/entertainment more interesting. And, I want people to embrace differences and maybe step outside of their comfort zones. I know I think we just as people in entertainment and in life need to be inclusive… I don’t know. I hope that wasn’t too ramble-y.

Okay bye bye!

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(Editor’s Note:

I agree. Both the casting directors and writers need to be taken to task for their shameless inability to use their imaginations in creating roles for people outside the straight, white cis-gender male gaze.)

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An this is another excellent article about Sleepy Hollow and the importance of representation for WoC, From The Mary Sue:

Spoilers for all of Sleepy Hollow to follow.

“Ichabod, everything we’re striving for here, fighting with our dying breath to create for this country a free land of opportunity for all Miss Abigail Mills represents. She is the American dream.”—Benjamin Franklin 2×18: Tempus Fugit

If someone had told me that in 2016 Bonnie Bennett would be practically leading The Vampire Diaries and Abbie Mills would be dead on Sleepy Hollow, I would have called them a liar. Abbie was safe—she was the main character on a FOX show with a huge cult following!—and despite the writing failures, there was no denying that Abbie was important to the show. Then she was killed off, and I was forced to realize that there was no safety.

Throughout science fiction and fantasy there have been female characters of color, but many have been either hated (Doctor Who’s Martha Jones), sidelined (BBC Merlin’s Gwen), or just never allowed to real their full potential (Teen Wolf’s Kira Yukimura). There are others that exist, but on smaller shows on cable television: Z Nation,Hunters, Dark Matter, and Killjoys, to name a few.Sleepy Hollow held the hopes of a huge population of black fans who were looking for a place on a major network in genre television.

The announcement of Nicole Beharie as the lead actress of Sleepy Hollow was exciting, but I remember that year was also the year Elementarycame out and there was a lot of joy about seeing more women of color leading a show that wasn’t written by Shonda Rhimes (she can’t do everything y’all). In season one, despite a few pitfalls, the show really balanced out its core cast and the intense chemistry between Ichabod and Abbie (Ichabbie) is probably one of the best I’ve ever seen. Not only was there Abbie, but she had a sister, Jenny; and Frank Irving was a black male character in power who was kind, wise and had a family of his own. We had multiple layered POC and it was excellent.

Then in season two, they began to bring the foolishness.

Abbie, Jenny, and Frank took a back seat to the Crane Family Viewing Hour and we were treated to the angst of Ichabod’s relationships with his wife Katrina and evil son-demon, Jeremy aka Henry aka Horseman of War. Slowly but surely Abbie’s narrative dwindled into a single episode that was totally centered around her, “Mama,” and while we were shown a tiny sliver of what the show could be, it returned to assuming that the only way it would prosper is by Crane leading the path. Even though people kept talking about how important Abbie was to the show.

People were screaming for more Abbie at the end of season two and not just screen time, we wanted Abbie to have a life. Despite living in Sleepy Hollow her whole life Abbie had not one friend to go to. With the exception of her sister, Jenny, Abbie was denied having real outside relationships with anybody throughout her run. That was despite the immense thirst coming from: Hawley aka Worst, Andy aka Cho-tastic, Random Angel Guy who never came back, Hot Camera Guy who never came back, and Ichabod Crane himself. Meanwhile not only did Ichabod have his relationships at the very forefront of the show, he was allowed to have friendships and his random knowledge almost always led to the resolution of the story’s main mystery.

But, like a thirsty man in the desert, fans hoped beyond hope that season three would be different. With Katrina dead and Hawley gone it was time for Abbie (and Jenny) to get their screen time back. Then everything changed when Betsy Ross appeared.

Betsy Ross will go down, in my humble opinion, as one of the stupidest things this show did. For a show that was celebrated in season one for its diversity, it continued to peel back its characters of color and add the most irrelevant white characters they could dust up. Betsy Ross was the cream of the crop, second only to Hawley, in being a huge waste of time. Plus, guess who got a relationship story again? Oh that’s right: Ichabod. One in the past with Betsy, and one in present day with a colonial history-buff Zoe.

What was Abbie’s storyline? Well, she got sucked into a tree once. After being brought back into reality with help from Ichabod, Abbie did have a fairly good storyline dealing with her PTSD from being in a world devoid of time, but even that in the larger picture was too little too late. Even her eventual relationship with Daniel, her boss and former flame, got very little development and the timeline itself is wonky at best.

Then after all that, she died since she “served her purpose” by helping Ichabod. Excuse me while I go scream into my pillow.

Abbie’s death isn’t upsetting just because she died, but because the show really thinks it can survive without her. The actress wanted to leave, and rightly so, considering the material she was getting, but that is the problem—the story made her want to leave. Sleepy Hollow, whether it wants to admit it or not, got its fanbase because of diversity and because of viewers who enjoyed seeing Abbie Mills as the lead characters. There are people who, despite the poor second season, still stuck with the show because they wanted to see Nicole as Abbie Mills.

Let us not forget that during the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. asked actress Nichelle Nichols to stay on Star Trek because of what her image meant to black female viewers. The sad reality is that hunger, that need to see ourselves, still exists in media and with every step forward, there are several steps back that only reinforce the need to see the few that do it well survive.

As a black woman I don’t just want Empire andBlack-ish. We don’t want television that people assume is just “for us,” we want to be a part of stories that people have assumed we have no place in.

Abbie Mills was supposed to be our Buffy, our Scully. Not because black women or other women of color don’t enjoy those characters, but it means something to see a woman who is brown and beautiful and smart be on screen, being called “The American Dream” in a world that constantly questions your humanity. Abbie Mills held in her the hopes and possibilities of what a dark skinned black woman could be on a network sci-fi show. And it failed.

Sleepy Hollow reinforced the expendability that black bodies are in genre television, and proved that protagonist protection does not extend to us. As I watch shows like Elementary, Wynonna Earp,Killjoys, and Z Nation that have non-white characters as “leads,” I fear for their safety constantly.

We are not safe. Not in this world or others. I mourn Abbie Mills and as I look at my old television flame, The Vampire Diaries, I just keep hoping that Bonnie Bennett will make it out alive because I need someone to.

Princess Weekes is a full-time writer, part-time Barista originally from Brooklyn, but camping out in Queens, NY. When she isn’t catching up on Netflix or stressing about student loans, she reads about dead white royality. She runs a small YouTube Channel under the username Melina Pendulum and hopes to someday finish that novel. Find her on Twitter orYoutube.

—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr,Pinterest, & Google+.

As a black woman I don’t just want Empire and Black-ish. We don’t want television that people assume is just “for us,” we want to be a part of stories that people have assumed we have no place in.

Abbie Mills was supposed to be our Buffy, our Scully. Not because black women or other women of color don’t enjoy those characters, but it means something to see a woman who is brown and beautiful and smart be on screen, being called “The American Dream” in a world that constantly questions your humanity. Abbie Mills held in her the hopes and possibilities of what a dark skinned black woman could be on a network sci-fi show. And it failed.

nerdygrlwonder

@abbiemillsamericandream is this the one you were just talking about? *runs to read*

 

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*(Editor’s Note: Yes, I’m still grieving over the loss of Abbie Mills. I will never forgive Fox for this. And I should have known better after the cancelation of Now and Again, and Firefly. I’ve been burned by Fox too many times to ever trust them again.  Abbie was one of the primary reasons I started this blog, and one of my first posts was about her existence in the genre. My statement still stands, as important as ever:

WoC like to have adventures, too.

Its so sad that the PTB, can’t see beyond the white male narratives they like, to the idea that ALL the other people who exist in this world, want to see reflections of themselves that don’t tear them down and break them up .

This is why representation behind the scenes is so incredibly important. Its extremely obvious that the white, middle class, straight men, who run these systems, cannot/will not see beyond their own whiteness. If whiteness is universal, then how hard is it to apply the universality of their emotions to other people? To understand that PoC, LGBT, Latinx, and others fantasize about many of the same things they do, (being beautiful, being powerful, loved, and special,) and make us part of the narrative as something more than ” expendable help”. But what’s really sad is, not only are our lived experiences not safe, we aren’t even allowed to have fantasies where we are safe from harm.

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Not Your Asian Ninja: How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Keeps Failing Asian-Americans

Daredevil’s second season was great—except for the endless Asian stereotyping. When will the Marvel Cinematic Universe wake up?

I liked Daredevil Season 2 a lot. I didn’t like it quite as much as Season 1, but it was always going to be impossible to find someone to live up to Vincent D’Onofrio’s take on Wilson Fisk (who still effortlessly steals the few scenes he gets this season). But the writing and the acting for Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, is compelling as hell, enough to spark a lively debate about the appeal of vigilante justice and gun violence in American culture.

The tangled, messy web of corruption behind the death of the Punisher’s family, the complicity of the state and the media in creating him, his turnaround in becoming a criminal defendant in the Trial of the Century, and the moral ambiguity of Castle’s past as a soldier who exposes the American public’s hypocrisy by bringing the brutal logic of the overseas War on Terror stateside—that’s all great stuff.

The problem is all that great stuff is only half of Daredevil Season 2. There’s a whole other half that’s almost totally disconnected from the Frank Castle plot, the Nelson and Murdock law firm, and New York City politics. There’s a full 50 percent of DaredevilSeason 2 that’s total crap, and that half is the part with the ninjas. (x)

 

Why Doesn’t Hollywood Cast Asian Actors for Anime Adaptations?

It’s been recently announced that Adam Wingard’s American adaptation of the popular anime/manga Death Note will be coming out on Netflix.

The news ripped the Band-Aid over the still-sore wound that the movie, produced by Dan Lin, Roy Lee, and Heroes’s Masi Oka, will star Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley. In case you couldn’t tell by the names, both actors are white. Like, very white.

Among the chorus of voices decrying the latest case of Hollywood whitewashing was Asian-American actor and Death Note fan, Edward Zo, who brought both a personal and insider perspective on the situation.

His video, Racist Hollywood?, has been seen almost 57,000 times and in it, he speaks in detail about how his excitement over news of the adaptation quickly turned to ash when he found out he wouldn’t be “the right fit.”

 

“Through the grapevine, I was told to my face that they were not looking to see Asian actors for the role of Light Yagami,” he said.

While I’m sure Wolff and Qualley are talented performers who love their families and pay their taxes, their casting further illustrates the gulf of opportunity that exists between white actors and those of other ethnicities that was called out so well by Viola Davis at last year’s Emmys. (x)

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http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/hollywood-black-actors.html_

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*(Editor’s Note : On Latinx Representation:

I feel about this issue, the same way I feel about Asian Representation in Hollywood. It is not Black People’s job to fight for other people’s representation. It is other culture’s  job to speak up and let Hollywood know they are dissatisfied with their treatment, and only they know how they would like to be depicted onscreen.

My mom has a saying, “A closed mouth does not get fed.” If Latinx people are upset about their treatment in media, they need to let the PTB know it, and why. Don’t yell at black people about it. We’re not the ones who make such decisions. Tell those who can do something about it.

Black people have enough to do fighting our own battles, we cant fight everyone else’s too. But what we can do is support Latinx/Hispanic actors and signal boost any messages Latinx want to send out into the world. If you put yourselves out there, we got your back. We can do that.)

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To that point:

jawnbaeyega

anonymous asked:

I think y’all should be grateful that you get to see black actors in MCU because I’m latina and there’s literally no Latino/a characters in MCU. Like none.

Don’t do this. Things like this are why solidarity is largely a myth.

1. Who is “y’all?”

2. We *are* grateful and excited, that’s why my Black ass was in a theater watching a Captain America movie I couldn’t give less of a fuck about precisely because T’Challa was in it.

3. Black people don’t have to settle for mere existence. When we *are* represented, it needs to be positive and respectful. I don’t have to sit back and let folks potentially shit on the legacy and importance of Wakanda AND Black women bc “oh well at least Massa let us have a movie, I’s best ta behave.” Nah, miss me with the bs.

4. It is definitely fucking wrong and egregious that the MCU doesn’t have any Latinx characters, but if you wanna send anonymous messages about it, you should send them to someone who can do something about it, like, idk, the white folks writing the scripts and comics who are responsible for the overwhelming whiteness of superheroes. Messaging Black folks who are demanding that Black characters are treated with respect to tell them to “be happy with the scraps you got” is not productive and is antiblack. Latinx characters not existing is in no way shape or form the fault of Black people or existing Black characters.

5. That you are implying that I need to stop complaining and just be happy Black characters exist instead of fighting alongside me to make sure Black characters get the respect they deserve is proof positive that you aren’t here for solidarity.

6. I’m here for all people of color getting representation. Message me when you start campaigning for the inclusion of Latinx characters and I’ll be right there with you. But as long as you are on this antiblack nonsense, stay out of my inbox.

Ask jawnbaeyega a question#nonnies#antiblackness#solidarity and other myths#seriously the entire fuck is this nonsense#all of y’all are completely outta control today#Anonymous

(Please visit JohnBaeyega’s Tumblr and follow. Its a great place to discuss Black representation in media.)

 

FOLLOW

regtvcritic

I’m not in support of “Keep white people out of the black panther movie”  because I do not want Black Panther to be written off as just a black character IE since he’s for black people only I don’t have to empathize with him. He’s off to the side away from my favs.

No. I want black kids to feel proud and I also want white kids to grow up in an a film environment where their heroes don’t have to look like them to be heroes basically how all minorities have to watch films anyway.

I am in support of “Don’t let white people overrun the film” but a small cameo like Sam Wilson in Ant-man would be alright with me.

allerasphinx

There are hundreds of all white movies without a single solitary character of colour. Hollywood is still erasing us from our own films; Asian people aren’t even allowed to play Asian characters. Hollywood is still portraying us as stereotypes.

We have no problems empathising with white people without seeing ourselves represented. If they’re going to write t’challa off as “just a black character” because there aren’t any prominent white people in the movie, they’re racist period point blank. There’s absolutely no reason we should keep having to accommodate whiteness when white people already have everything. Stop giving white people the impression that they absolutely need to be represented in marginalised spaces in order to empathise with people of colour. This is the type of thinking that leads to all white dystopian films where white people are the ones being oppressed.

phoenix-ace

I’m not adverse to relevant non black characters being in it (i.e. I wouldn’t mind seeing Steve or Bucky in a cameo, I’d have a blast if they showed up) but I don’t subscribe to the idea that we owe white people representation under the assumption that they won’t know how to relate to us without a white body on screen. They’re more than capable of relating to us without having to use a white body as a proxy, they just choose not to because that’s how racism works. They can deal with it just like we do in pretty much every other film.

Source:regtvcritic

The Bait and Switch Debate:

Remember that whole brouhaha over queer baiting, with shows constantly teasing Queer representation, without ever promising to follow through, just to keep certain shippers  watching a show (although now, they seem to have exchanged that bait and switch tactic with bait and kill). Well, this is the same thing only its called “race baiting”. It’s a common  tactic where shows claim, and sometimes even promise diversity, start those first couple of seasons with a very diverse cast, and over the years, slowly whittle out all the PoC , replacing them with white males. Heroes did it, (they were a lot more subtle about it), The Walking Dead still can’t keep any black men in its cast, and  Sleepy Hollow clumsily, stupidly, engaged in this practice.

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/02/television-networks-love-our-ratings.html#axzz48Ixk82v9

 

http://www.theblackgirltv.com/the-bait-and-switch-sleepy-hollow/

 

http://www.btchflcks.com/2015/08/the-veil-of-diversity-in-sleepy-hollow.html#.VzKCotT3arV

More on Sleepy Hollow/Tumblr

 

No matter how much I think about it, I just can’t get over this isht. Here’s someone else on Tumblr, deftly echoing my thoughts on what happened to this show.

Although the show came close several times, I never did manage to recapture that initial giddyness I had during the first season. That season was awesome in its style, diversity, humor and tension. It had a stellar cast and the craziest plot on TV, which it seemed to fully embrace, and then everything slowly went downhill from there.

Season two was acceptable, but all over the place, as if the creators were trying to find their balance and had no fecking clue what to do to make things better. Did that imbalance have anything to do with the loss of one of the showrunners? Idk.

Season three is a noticeable drop off from season one, and featured one of the worse episodes ever. Plots points that were introduced and went no where, villains I had a great deal of fun just mocking, and worst of all, the egregious teasing of a romantic relationship between Crane and Abbie, just to keep us watching a mediocre show, only to pull the wool out from under us in the finale.

Even the actors themselves seems to not care as much, especially when compared to Tom Mison’s usual enthusiasm, which had the unintended side-effect of making his character look ridiculous. Several times the show came close to season one levels, most often only in those moments between Crane and Abbie. They were the reason we sat through every bad, convoluted, and non-scary plot this season, even though the show had begun to reach its previous levels of diversity.

In the immortal words of Wayne Brady (as host of The Chappelle Show):  “Does Wayne Brady/lkeke have to choke a bitch?”

Yep! Sometimes you just do.

Fandom makes itself very clear about why they watch any show. If you’re a showrunner who follows and interacts with your fandom, don’t do what these showrunners did. Your ass will get dragged.

http://darlinginmyway.tumblr.com/post/142807417682/i-wish-people-cared-about-abbie-mills-the-way-they

http://kaytiburt.tumblr.com/post/142758483897

Reactions to Sleepy Hollow

It may make some of you feel better to know that you arent the only ones reeling from the loss of Abbie Mills on Sleepy Hollow:

1.)

http://www.people.com/article/sleepy-hollow-season-finale-abbie-mills-shocking-death

2.)

Sleepy Hollow fans are furious about this major character death

 

3.)ctron164:

baronessvondengler:

marsofbrooklyn:

iknowwhythesongbirdsings:

raptured-night:

dgcatanisiri:

Like, Abbie Mills wasn’t even the hero I needed – I’m a cis white guy, the importance of Abbie Mills, of a black woman in the lead of a TV show, wasn’t the representation that I personally needed – but I am still so pissed off about this. Because I fully get the importance that comes from seeing a person like you appear on your screen, not as the sidekick, not as a supporting character, but as the lead.

Because I watch the pilot, even most of the first season of Sleepy Hollow, and it’s clear that Abbie’s the one who is the central focus. She is meant to be the hero. She’s got all the makings of being the one who has the hero’s journey. Her mentor is killed, she is swept up in a bigger and greater destiny, she is chosen for something. And yet all that ended up happening with her was that Abbie was continually sidelined for the sake of her sidekick. They cast the absolutely gorgeous Nicole Beharie, but bizarrely try to make us the audience see her as not being deserving of romance, of having men falling over themselves trying to ask her out.

And I’m not even getting to the list of Nicole’s pedigree as an actress, which includes the only unanimous decision of Julliard’s drama board on giving her a scholarship. This woman deserved a series that would give her everything, and for a hot second, it seemed like that would be Sleepy Hollow.

And then they utterly waste the talents of this phenomenal actress. And I keep coming back to the fact that if Nicole Beharie’s skin had been white as snow, they would have banked on every last drop of her talent, that this show would have delivered on the promise of being Abbie’s hero’s journey.

And it pisses me off.

I wish Nicole Beharie the best, that she gets the recognition and accolades that are absolutely due to her. I wish for the producers and writers who decided to waste her talent, throw away Abbie’s heroic journey, in order to shove heaving bosoms in corsets at a white man, to never work in this business again.

Sadly, I’m sure the second wish won’t come true, but I desperately want to hope that the first will.

Originally posted by gifsee

@lynnandstuff @sale-aholic

I’m glad OP said that it was Abbie’s journey that was highjacked for an audience that never watched in the first place.

To the Sleepy Hollow writers & producers:

Originally posted by giphy

Sleepy Hollow:Abbie Mills

I’m opting out of reviewing the finale for Sleepy Hollow becasue I hate it when a show makes me cry, (especially for such a shitty reason as this), but I will post this discussion about it.

I’m not certain if there will a fourth season. I will be happy if there isn’t, but if there is I will check out, the way I do most season premieres, as always. I truly can’t see myself loving any iteration of this show in the future, though. For that, the creators would have to do something extraordinary, but considering their generally shitty behavior towards their actors and the story, I hold no expectation they can do that.

R.I.P. Abbie Mills.

 

The formulation of this post started at some point between this tweet: Me an hour and a half after #SleepyHollow #SleepyHolla pic.twitter.com/mVkwy7TAXw — Monique Jones (@moniqueblognet) April 9, 2016 And this tweet: What’s amazing is that everyone, fans and critics, feel disappointed & angered beyond belief. We’re all grieving. #SleepyHollow #SleepyHolla — Monique Jones (@moniqueblognet)…

via “Sleepy Hollow” Post-Mortem: The Death of Abbie and the Painful Erasure of Black Women — JUST ADD COLOR

Sleepy Hollow: Dawn’s Early Light

Okay! Great!

This week was a bit more like old times.  Things happened on the show, plots were advanced, people made decisions, got chased by fire , had proper discussions about stuff.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I have to admit I’m still not completely sure about the details of the plot this week. Something about Betsy Ross’ flag being guarded by something unkillable called The Eternal Soldier, (because everyone must have a title), because it contains a roadmap to the Catacombs, the only place where The Witnesses can regenerate Pandora’s box.

While this is going on, Abbie’s and Jenny’s father decides he wants to have a closer relationship with his daughters, although Jenny keeps giving him the side-eye, as she probably should, because I’m suspicious of his motives, too. We did not get any Jenny and Joe action this time, although there was some Abbie/Daniel kissage, which is about time, I say.

On the Hidden One/Pandora front, Pandora has finally had enough of the Hidden’s  shit and decided to leave him. Yep! Called it! I knew that sooner or later that selfish git was gonna push his luck with her. At the first opportunity, after he finished torturing her for making a very human mistake, (which she then tried to rectify and make amends for), she ran away. Discovering some backbone, she then sent her astral form to him to let him know what’s what.

Good on her! I knew he wasn’t as devoted to her as he claimed.And of course, torturing your girlfriend for making a dumb mistake several thousand years ago (or a few weeks ago) is a deal-breaker in my book.

Abbie decided Daniel needed to know what shenanigans she and Crane were getting up to, but  didn’t get the chance when The Eternal Soldier chased her and Crane into his orbit, and he discovers all this crazy, Witnessy stuff, the hard way.

Pandora goes to Crane to get him to get help restoring her power, warning him that The Hidden One will be reaching peak annoyance soon. This will require that Abbie go back to the Catacombs and she’s still in recovery from having been in such profound isolation for so long. Naturally, she’s reluctant to return there, but she’ll do it to save the world.

SLEEPY HOLLOW: L-R: Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie in the “Dawn’s Early Light”

Crane figures out how to get back to the Catacombs using Betsy Ross’ flag, the song The Star Spangled Banner, (which I now can’t get out of my brain. Thanx show!), all while being chased by The Eternal Soldier, a huge, skeletal, slimy looking creature, that throws fireballs, although later, Jenny and Joe, nip that stuff with a fire extinguisher. So, it’s nice to see the band back together again.

Okay, there’s some extra stuff with Crane and Abbie having to chase down Ross’ real flag, when they find out that the one in Paul Revere’s house is a fake, which doesn’t seem to matter much to the Soldier. Chasing people down is his job and he’s gonna do it. He’s like The Terminator. With fire.

Daniel encounters The Eternal Soldier and  is more than a bit discombobulated by the whole idea that supernatural forces exist, and that Abbie, and even Foster, is involved with them.

In the last episodes of the season, the show has gotten a little more back to its roots, mixing, the occult and history, with some  mystery and humor, and that’s a good thing. Most of the latter half of the season has been pretty boring (aka. awful).

Crane is his usual cranky self, dishing on respected historical figures, while Abbie doesn’t even try and to make excuse for his statements like she used to do. She’s just given up trying to explain his weirdnesses to regular folk.

This review wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t gush about Crane’s prettiness. That said, I do not like his new, shorter hairstyle, but maybe his ponytail was a bit too metrosexual, or hipster, or something.

Oh, did I forget about to mention that Abbie/Daniel kiss? Yeah, that happened. Black love on TV is a thang, people!

Sleepy Hollow: Incommunicado

I know it seems like it’s been a while since I did a Sleepy Hollow review, but its only been one, (okay, maybe two), episodes. See…what happened was, I was sort of waiting for something to happen on the show. Don’t get me wrong. The show is enjoyable as far as character relations but plot-wise, its been kind of, well…boring. Its hard to write about a show when nothing in particular happened on it other than, Hey!… the characters were friendly with each other, things are moving apace.

There! I said it. The plot has  been boooorring!

This week something happened on the show. (By something, I mean somebody made some decisions, and there was some physical movement that didn’t involve Jenny and Joe kissing.)

 

The  Hidden One comes out of hiding to take care of his Witness problem once and for all and  invades Crane’s sanctuary, trapping  them both  inside. In trying to kill Ichabod, He Who Needs to Remain Hidden activated that little sigil that Abbie had been worshiping, and Crane had been investigating.

Not being the brightest penny inside the Archive, The Slightly Less Hidden One, keeps pouring his powers into it, thereby setting up an imminent explosive event. It’s up to Abbie and Pandora to set aside their differences and rescue their beloved (and only semi-beloved-getting on my damn nerves-Hidden One, on the part of Pandora).

In the meantime, a banshee has been attracted to Sleepy Hollow by Pandora’s invitational spell, and started screaming at people. Pandora claims she needs the creature alive, in order to rescue the menfolk, but Abbie doesn’t like it. Jenny doesn’t like it either because she and Joe are the ones to have to capture it.

So, once again the group gets split up as they have different tasks. Joe, Jenny, and Foster have to capture the banshee and have a good plan, but Joe  kills it, “accidentally on purpose”, when it goes after Jenny.

Pandora still needs a monster to work her spell, though. Joe, who has had his monstership, as a Wendigo, re-instated last episode, is drafted to participate in the spell. It looks painful for Joe but Jenny seems to hurt the most just watching it. I’m still not sure how I feel about their relationship. I kinda wanna be happy for them because they are cute together and have good chemistry, but aren’t they like brother and sister? Didn’t they grow up together? If someone wants to chime in and tell me what to think about the two of them, I will happily adopt your stance, cuz I got nothing.

Anyway, using Joe isn’t enough. Pandora, conveniently, needs a piece of the box that used to be a repository for her power but got destroyed in one of the last episodes. Needless to say, Abbie is not buying this bushwa, but gives the pieces to her anyway and the day is saved. The Now Yet Again Hidden One goes back into hiding.

Along the way, the Semi-Hidden One and Pandora give up some secrets, so its not like Abbie and Crane got nothing out of this event. The Post-Hidden One reveals that being a Witness involves blood-lines and that Crane had no choice about whether or not he’d be one. I thought we already knew this? Anyway, this is a major event for Crane, who evinces surprise that he is ,in fact, a special snowflake, after all.

Crane and The Contemptuous  One have arguments about the nature of god and man. Mr. Hidden is thoroughly dismissive of all human achievement. I wanted to know what he, The  One Formerly In  Hiding, had ever contributed to the world in his overlong existence, in comparison to say… The Artist Formerly known as Prince,   but the writers and directors didn’t ask me, and chickened out on asking the question themselves. And oh, yeah, the sigil is from Thura or something. Was that important?

Pandora confesses to Abbie that she was the one who got the Her Hidden Man  imprisoned in the first place, which HO conveniently overhears, because Ichabod’s sigil is capable of spying on Abbie.

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Nicole Beharie in the ÒDark MirrorÓ episode of SLEEPY HOLLOW airing Friday, March 4 (8:00-9:01 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Tina Rowden/FOX

At the end of the episode things look bleak for Pandora as HO decides he’s going to give her what for, for getting him locked up. Hopefully, this will put the final nail in the coffin of their relationship, and Pandora will team up with Abbie and Crane, to kick The Once Again Hidden One’s ass back to the Catacombs.

I kind of liked this episode. It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t spectacular either. I liked the banter between Crane and Abbie, which is always charming, and Crane got to eat some pastries and give good speech. (I just enjoy looking at him. I know I’m shallow.)

Hopefully, this Friday, something important will happen on the show, so we can have something to talk about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepy Hollow : Sins of the Father

 

I didn’t really like tonight’s episode. It felt a little sad.A little downbeat. Abbie is not herself. She seems dejected. This could be a result of her ordeal  or a result of later plot points in this episode. At any rate, I cant say I liked this episode, although there was a bit of plot advancement and a couple of interesting revelations.

The story opens with Pandora and The Hidden One sitting around, moping about their powers. You can tell that Pandora is not having any more of this shit as, once again, we witness some heavy eyeballing at her boyfriend, when he declines to give her back any of her powers. Se shouldn’t have offered. She should’ve known she wasn’t getting any of that back. Rather than give some of her power back , he would rather gloat that she now knows what he feels. Boyfriend is being an ass.

Ichabod has been spoiling Abbie for the past several days/weeks, cooking dinners for her and otherwise catering to her and trying, I think, to just cheer her up. Everyone can tell she’s not herself. She’s very quiet and doesn’t smile as much as she used to and seems tired, like she’s not sleeping enough. I think this is breaking Ichabod’s heart a little to see her like this.

Jenny goes to see their dad. It sort of ends in emotional detente. He wanted to meet her to explain his side of the issue and that his leaving his family was not their fault but his. The Mills’ backstory is pretty tragic. Their mother, a Witness, starts to go insane and their father, unable to handle it, leaves. The mother dies, sending the girls into foster care, and  one of them is locked in a mental institution. The Sisters Mills have had a lot to overcome and I like that this narrative is slightly different from the stereotypical narrative of the poor, unwed mother, living in the ‘hood, “throw in some gangs”, type of backstory.

Daniel is still trying to get close to Abbie but she explains shes still dealing with what happened to her. She makes it clear to him, that when she’s ready to talk to him about their relationship, she’ll let him know

Atticus Nevins returns and contacts Abbie. He’s set some kind of creature loose in Sleepy Hollow and wants her to stop it. This is all really just a ploy by Nevins to get close to her so he can grab August Corbin’s occult files. He wants to negotiate safe passage to Canada in exchange for finding tonight’s monster. The Scooby Gang take him prisoner and Nevins gives them  background on how the creature got to America in exchange for some of Icabod’s home cooking but even this bit of humor wasnt enough to make me like this episode very much. Nevins says the creature is called a ghallu  and it can only be stopped by a golden scarab, which will allow the holder to control it.

The creature is hunting Nevins crew.  He came to them for help because one of his cronies, seeking  to take over Nevins operations, has procured the scarab and will send the creature after him, or so he claims The crew end up leading  the creature right to Randall and the monster kills him.

Jenny tells Abbie about her meeting with their father. Abbie’s attitude towards this information is somewhat lackluster.Abbie is having visions of her time in the catacombs and a golden symbol.

Nevins is the person controlling the creature, after implanting the scarab in his chest. He found the scarab in a cave in Afghanistan and his first act was to order the creature to kill his team mates.  He summons the creature to free him and kill Abbie and Crane. Crane and Abbie fight the monster and win but Nevins takes Jenny hostage,

Nevins  releases Jenny when Joe confronts him with some hard truths, which I think is weird and kind of arbitrary but the show had sort of written itself into a corner and its not ready to kill off Jenny yet ,so he kind of had to let her go no mattter what Joe said to him. Joe could have  started singing “That’s Not My Baby” or speaking in tongues and Nevins  still would’ve had to let her go, for the purposes of the plot.

Abbie meets with her father. She’s afraid she’ll die the way her mother did but he reassures her that won’t happen.

Wallers, Daniels boss, contacts Daniel and asks questions about Abbie’s emotional state. He orders Daniel to downgrade the search for Nevins, which puzzles him. In exchange Nevins gives  Wallers Corbin’s case  files, which contain special information on nine sacred sites. Wallers kills Nevins afterwards,who should really have seen that coming. The betrayer is oft himself betrayed, as Ichabod would have said.

Later, Abbie sneaks  into the tool shed in the backyard and we can see she has become obsessed with a symbol, drawing it over and over again in her journal, like Jack from The Shining,  and worshiping a version of it, painted on the wall of the shed.

Creepy.

 

 

 

Sleepy Hollow : Kindred Spirits

This episode was very campy and not exactly bad but not enjoyable as it should have been. I had a hard time taking it seriously. I thought it was silly and kind of unnecessary for this season. What was the point in bringing back The Kindred, a villain we barely remember, from season 2?

I was much more interested in the character and relationship storylines, than the plot, which was just serviceable. Abbie is still having trouble dealing with her year of isolation in the Catacombs. Ichabod let all her plants die, along with his relationship with Ms. Corinth, who we also barely remember, from the beginning of the season. Jenny is still trying to hate on her deadbeat dad, despite Joe’s admonishments.

The Kindred, a villain who was brought to life by being given the head of the Horseman, is back in town, ruining people’s love lives because he can’t get any. This is toxic masculinity in its highest form, so congratulations MRA guys. First Jessica Jones and now this. You are all now famous film and television villains, like Vader, only less logical.

The plot is pretty basic until we get to the part where the Kindred wants a bride and kidnaps Ms. Corinth, after which I totally lost it, because that is so Mars Needs Women. It turns out, just like that Ray Charles song: He Gotta Woman, wayover town… Ben Frankiln was kind enough to take into account that his masculine construct would be interested in women and built him a Bride of Frankenstein, and the two of them walk off into the sunset to together.

This really pisses off The Hidden One, who doesn’t think his henchman deserves happiness, I guess. You can tell that because of the things he says about The Kindred’s relationship, and love in general, that Pandora is starting to rethink the nature of their personal arrangements. It’s not explicit, but everytime he opens his mouth, she keeps giving him “the hairy eyeball.” At one point, she asks for her powers back, but they get distracted by what’s going on in The Hidden One’s crystal ball, and he never answers her request.

Ms. Corinth shows up just long enough to break it off with Ichabod and get kidnapped, leaving Ichabod free to pursue Abbie, if that’s what he wants. Sophie doesn’t do much at all this episode, other than get beat up and advise Daniel to hook up with Abbie. Abbie lets him down easy after she has some kind of panic attack at the first crime scene. But she gets her mojo back later, and jumps into the investigation with the others more wholeheartedly.

I don’t like to see my favorite characters suffering emotional issues, but it’s important to show that even the strongest people can be vulnerable, and that it’s okay (For WoC, especially) not to be the “Strong Black Woman” stereotype, all the time.

The most ridiculous part of the show was discovering that The Kindred has a girlfriend (I guess a boyfriend would’ve been just too much, huh?) and she apparently has no free will in accepting this guy. It would’ve been a much more interesting show if she’d rejected him, but I guess that’s not the focus of the story.

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Tom Mison (L) and Nicole Beharie (R) 

Their facial expressions are utterly priceless.

 

I liked Joe calling Jenny about her treatment of her father. It was a nice callback to his relationship with his dad. I’m glad the show doesn’t pretend like the past didn’t happen even though we, the viewers, would like to do that.

I’m also glad to see that Abbie is  keeping her natural hair.

This week’s episode gets a C+ . The plot was totally pedestrian but then gets points off for that hokey-ass, dead people in love, wrap up. On the other hand I’m glad we won’t be seeing anymore of Ms. Corinth, and I’m especially looking forward to Pandora turning tail on her boyfriend, as it seems that’s what the writers are setting us up for.

I also liked Ichabod deciding that cacti was definitely the route they needed to take as far as house plants. (I’m a person famous for killing greenery too, so  I love cacti.) And it was nice seeing Abbie snarking  back at Ichabod again. That never gets old.

 

 

 

Sleepy Hollow: Incident at Stone Manor

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There are a lot of aspects of this episode I thoroughly enjoyed and a few I had no patience with. I love how Ichabod and the others refuse to give up on the idea that Abbie is alive and must be saved. In fact, Ichabod is  desperate to save her and will do almost anything to get it done.

I’m not averse to a relationship between Ichabod and Abbie. I’m a lot more comfortable now with the two of them expressing their devotion to each other, now that Katrina is gone. I just think it’s a bit soon after her loss. On the other hand, it is a long time coming. I think Ichabod was dealing with his feelings for Abbie long before Katrina died.

We’re back with Abbie, picking up where the last episode left off. It’s been awhile because we can see that her hair has gone back to its natural state. I hope she keeps it that way. I like it. It seems like  her isolation is making her  stir crazy but actually it’s pretty common for people who spend a lot of time alone to amuse themselves by talking out loud. The problem comes when they can’t stop doing it.

The show highlights Abbie’s resourcefulness, which I enjoyed. She’s smart enough to make fire, and create a chess game, but there’s no Wilson, no night time, no other life forms, and she doesn’t seem to need food or drink, so life is very, very boring.

Jenny, Joe, and Ichabod hit on the idea of sending Ichabod’s astral form to look for her. I like the way this team is working. I’ve got some drawbacks with the addition of Sophie, just like Jenny seems to. I hope she’s on the up and up and not just a bad guy in disguise.

Ichabod is successful in finding Abbie, who has  been missing him terribly. Since he’s non-corporeal, he can’t effect the environment, but he can keep her company and talk through ideas with her, to help her find an escape.

Pandora and her boyfriend, The Hidden One, wish to come out of hiding and take over the world. My eyeballs were rolling fast and deep at their level of reasoning for that. They really don’t have any lofty goals. Be evil and try to take over the world seems to be it. The only way they could accomplish such a thing would be to plunge the world into a new Dark Ages of some kind, because on their own, they’re like those Trailer Park couples who plan to be rich some day. The Hidden One can lift castles out of the ground so maybe he could try a job in construction.

Pandora sends her astral form to see Abbie in the Catacombs. She can’t do anything to Abbie, so mostly succeeds in pissing Abbie off enough, to destroy the little stone she came to get. Angry about that, she severs Ichabod’s astral cord. But it’s cool. Abbie is smart enough to figure things out.

Earlier, during one of her walking tours, she discovered Betsy Ross’ sword stuck in a pile of rocks and figures out how Betsy managed to escape. She ends up saving herself and Ichabod, and that’s some beautiful shit, if you ask me.

Back with our ‘Vaders of the story, the Hidden One is pining for his lost position,  and upset that his power-stone is broken, thanks to his girlfriend. He seems more than happy to take Pandora’s life energy for himself, and leave her laying on the ground in a weakened state, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you follow power hungry, narcissistic, wanna-be despots. They’re happy to use you for their own ends because that’s  what you’re there for.

Maybe Pandora will get a clue, change her mind, and turn on him. I actually want to like her, but she’s fallen in with a bad crowd, so  I despair for her future. She’ll probably suffer whatever fate he’s going to suffer when he’s defeated.

Simultaneously, we get to watch Joe, Jenny and Sophie use their big brains to defeat one of the monsters, who has shown up early to Pandoras summoning, a gargoyle from a French church, restored to Sleepy Hollow, brick by brick, whose history I remember from Art School. This time I was totally squicked out by the monster. I hate inanimate objects with a mind of their own and was hoping, when I first saw the gargoyles, that they wouldn’t be doing any extracurricular activities.

Jenny and Joe want to do things the long way around, using spells and books and stuff. They do a pretty good spoof of Ichabod and Abbie’s methods of crime solving and that got a good laugh out of me. Sophie comes up with the more pragmatic approach of using construction equipment, and who doesn’t want to kill a gargoyle, by covering it in concrete, which is all kinds of awesome.

One monster down, about bajillion more to go, maybe.

The Scooby Gang return to The Archives, just in time for Jenny’s happy reunion with Abbie, and to wake up Ichabod.

This ain’t one of my favorite episodes but it’s alright. I liked seeing Abbie’s return because what kind of show is it without her snarking on Ichabod. I have to give a letter grade slightly below last week’s episode because there were a few moments that felt “by the numbers” and Jenny had a couple of “Afterschool Special” speeches, that I had no patience for. Also, the villains need better reasons to be villainous, other than liking being evil.

Otherwise, it’s not a bad episode. I’ve resigned myself to the idea that the show will never be as good as that first season, but we what have now is close enough, and I can live with close enough.

 

Sleepy Hollow : One Life

In the last episode of Sleepy Hollow, Pandora unleashed her evil boyfriend from Hell or  limbo or whatever, and Abbie sacrificed herself, saving Jenny’s life by going through  the a portal to close it and  taking a much needed artifact with her. Good news: Abbie is still alive. Bad news: No one knows where she is, except maybe the bad guys..

I really enjoyed the return of Sleepy Hollow. I almost missed it because I hadn’t programmed my DVR to record all my shows. I did enjoy this episode but the enjoyment was bittersweet. There was no Abbie and all the characters are hurting and missing her.

Ichabod is having motorcycle escape adventures without Abbie and that’s just all kinds of wrong, (but still kinda sexy). He, Jenny and the Joe are gathering the artifacts they think they need to communicate or save Abbie, wherever she may be.

Danny is fretting over her disappearance, too. He blames Ichabod. He’s been having Ichabod spied on by Sophie Foster. I’ve decided I really like her, not least because she got broken in on  the  supernatural/occult  front and held her own. Foster has to talk Danny down from his witchhunt on Crane and deal with a mirror wraith that’s trying to kill her and Ichabod, which he inadvertently summoned in a desperate  attempt to reach Abbie.

Jenny and Joe finally kiss. I’m for this particular pairing and the show has had some fun teasing us about it. I just kept wanting the two of them to just KISS ALREADY! Sheesh! The two of them have been running around gathering up artifacts, too. Joe gets beat up again, but he also gets to come to Jenny’s rescue. Jenny gets to show her love for her sister and her vulnerable side. She doesn’t have to be a “strong, black woman”, 24/7.

There are some flashbacks to Crane’s adventures n the past, with Betsy Ross, witnessing the capture and hanging of Nathan Hale, but I didn’t pay closer attention to this part, so I got nothing.

 

Crane’s life is a little sadder, a little duller, without Abbie there to tease him about being him. He misses her. (We all do.) Plus he needs someone to be there to teach him how to use a microwave. I don’t know why its funny to see him walking around Abbie’s  house in his stockinged feet. Did they do that in Colonial times? Walk around the house barefoot?

Foster and Danny have history. I like the way she talks to Danny. She doesn’t actually treat him like he’s her boss or supervisor and I generally like her attitude. She had a little trouble mentally dealing with supernatural but she caught on quickly and came through in the clutch, helping to defeat the monster.

According to Jenny’s psychic map reading,  there’s going to be a Hell of a lot more monsters in the future as there seems to be some kind of grand convergence in the monster-world, thanks to Pandora’s summoning. Okay, that’s some suitably evil stuff to do. Bad Girl! Pandora’s boyfirend is being a pissy, little snot though, and he’s unlikable, but I guess that’s a feature, not a bug.

At the end of the episode, we find Abbie waking up on the ground in some sunlit cave in the middle of gob-knows-where. I hadn’t really thought she was dead. No one else acts as if she is. They all seem pretty hopeful that Abbie is okay.

This wasn’t actually a great episode. It was just okay. I think I just missed these characters and I’m glad to see them all again.

Now I’ve got one show to watch every night of the week. I can’t possibly do recaps for all of them but I can do these shorter reviews, highlighting my thoughts about the episodes. The show Second Chance comes on right after Sleepy Hollow but I don’t think Sleepy Hollow is going to save it. You know how I know this. I turned the channel, anyway. I will continue to do this until whatever follows Sleepy hollow is a much better show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleepy Hollow : The Sisters Mills

Okay, okay, I know. I’ve been lax in my duties towards the show. I did not review last week’s episode as I should have and now I’m late. But I’m going to make up for this horrible lapse in my duties by…just reviewing this week’s show with some backstory from last week.

Last week Pandora unleashed a weapon that recreated Jack the Ripper in a disgruntled young man who was angry because he was a creeper that conventionally pretty women wouldn’t sleep with. Boy, does that sound familiar. I bet those MRA ears were burning all evening. Naturally, Crane and Abbie prevailed but almost at the cost of Crane’s life. We got to see a little sword action from Crane, which was a rare treat. Joe and Jenny had an adventure, chasing after that same little black shard of rock that got stolen from her, in the first episode. One day we’ll find out why that little rock is so important that all these thieves are knocking each other over to get it. Pandora is growing a black tree, with flowers. I think she’s using these monsters to create fear to power the tree’s enchantment, but I still don’t know what her endgame is, and neither do the Witnesses.

Pandora continues her trend of monster releasing when she summons a creature, an Abyzou, that draws out the life forces of children and puts them into comas. This is all tied to the tooth fairy, Paul Revere, silver, and well, Pandora. I didn’t pay that close attention to the lore because I’m easily distracted by disgusting monsters (and sweets in my house.)

Crane’s bid for citizenship is underway but he’s not studying because he “lived it”. He’d rather play video games and eat junk food. It’s hilarious to see him, essentially, nesting in Abbie’s house. Joe calls with a heads about a little girl who has gone into a coma and the sister who saw the monster that did it.

Crane, Abbie,and Jenny figure out what the creature is called, how to stop it from attacking and that only children can see it. So now they need to find and kill or capture it. During their detection phase Abbie brings up the subject of their father, to gauge how Jenny feels and if she should tell her that she found their dad.

Crane’s idea is to go to a classroom nearby, because the creature is territorial, and suss out which children have loose teeth, so they can stake out the child’s home, after giving the child a silver coin to ward it off. Actually, Crane gets a lot of kid time during this episode when he interviews the first little girl who saw the monster and makes her laugh, despite herself.

Actually, this is Crane’s night as he  is wonderfully charming and funny for the entire episode. He has, however, picked up a lot of bad habits in his time in the twentieth century, like lying, eating too much sugar, and using monkey emojis with the young lady tutoring him in American history. Jenny finds all of this hilarious and is usually filming his antics.

Abbie finally tells Jenny that she found their dad but Jenny has known for five years, and didn’t tell Abbie because she thought Abbie hated him, which is what Abbie taught her. They hear a scream, encounter the monster and try to fight it, but Abbie gets injured in the fight against it.

While Jenny sits with Abbie in the hospital, Crane goes back to the Archive to do some research. Jenny feels guilty about fighting about their dad and that she didn’t tell Abbie. She’s visited by the first little girl and Jenny gives her words of encouragement about their sisters, but it’s all undone when Pandora shows up later, and gives the little girl a strange pouch, to give to her sister.

Jenny goes to Crane at the Archive and discovers that Paul Revere’s dentist tools were used to stop the Abyzou, the last time it attacked. They determine that silver makes it possible to see the creature in order to hit its weak point.

Pandora, roaming free in the hospital, wakes Abbie from her coma and tries to suss out her greatest weakness. She calls her a Napalutu and threatens Abbie’s father. She doesn’t act like your stereotypical laughing villain who explains all their plans. She acts as if she’s sorry about she’s doing which is very…different. And a little weird because you want to like her, even though she is unremittingly evil. After all, she is killing children.

The little girl gives her sister the tooth in the pouch Pandora gave her, which attracts the monster. Crane and Jenny, show up and attack it but almost lose it in the woods surrounding the house, before killing it. (As far as I’m concerned, “monsters” are yet another reason, not to visit the woods.) The little girl wakes up from her coma.

Crane visits the dentist and we get to watch him be high as a kite and dreaming about kissing Betsy Ross and making bitmojis to his tutor. Abbie is having far too much fun quietly laughing at her partner.Jenny apologizes for not telling Abbie about their dad, and confesses that she was wrong to blame Abbie, for her issues with him. Crane discovers the Napalutu means Destroyers, and according to the prophetic tablets that Crane tried to smuggle into the country, the two of them will destroy the world.

Another flower blooms on Pandoras tree as we briefly glimpse her real monster face.

This particular episode has come the closest this season to the dynamic of the first season. It was fun, and funny,with some touching moments between The Sisters Mills, and Crane and I really enjoyed this one. Once again, it wasn’t great, but it had a lot of great moments and is my favorite of the season, so far.

Sleepy Hollow: Whispers in the Dark

I did watch last weeks episode. In fact, I watched it a couple of times. I thought it was very enjoyable, although, once again, the case the Witnesses were working on was less than compelling.

So it’s official, Ichabod has moved in with Abbie and he seems content to be close to her, cooking, cleaning house, and doing laundry (oh, he’s adorable! And what the Hell is Clanger?), but I still sense that all is not well in paradise. Abbie talks about her future and Ichabod keeps giving her significant glances. I have no idea what those glances mean, but he keeps making them, and she keeps ignoring them.

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) in the “Whispers In The Dark” episode of SLEEPY HOLLOW airing Thursday, Oct. 8 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: Tina Rowden/FOX

I sense that Ichabod would love nothing but to return to the dynamic they had before but he’s a bit discomfited by how well Abbie has moved on and how happy and confident she seems. There’s also the introduction of a fine Black brotha, named Danny, who Is now Abbie’s boss. Does Ichabod have some competition for her attention? I don’t even care as long as Abbie is happy. Choose somebody, choose nobody, as long as the writers show her being happy with her whatever choice she makes.

Pandora, whose presence in Sleepy Hollow is still a mystery, unleashes a Shadow Whisper creature on the town. I’m thinking the monster’s jobs are to go out and collect fear and the fear gives her extra powers or grows a tree or..who knows! What is the purpose of this tree she’s grown underground? Is it actually a tree, at all? The  monster she summoned, this time, attacks people who have fearful secrets. It attacks Abbie and Ichabod, too. Ichabod’s secret is that he once almost betrayed some colleagues during the American Revolution and he’s been tearing himself up with guilt about it since.

Abbie’s secret is finding her and Jenny’s father. She’s deeply afraid, mostly because she doesn’t know what to do. So, for now, she’s just been stalking him and taking pictures, which can’t end well, because what is this man to think if he finds out that Federal agents are stalking him? I know I’d be in a total panic. She probably should think this through some more.

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Abbie (Nicole Beharie) in the ÒWhispers In The DarkÓ episode of SLEEPY HOLLOW airing Thursday, Oct. 8 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. ©2015 Fox Broadcasting Co. CR: Tina Rowden/FOX

She also has not told Jenny, who she knows WOULD do something rash. Yeah, she needs to stop and think some more.

Jenny has been hanging out with Corbens son, Joe, who I’m glad to see again. The episode, where he turned into a demon lizard creature, was one of the better episodes of last season. Well, I enjoyed it and  I’m glad to see him again. He looks good and I like him. Most especially he looks and works well with Jenny and she needs friends. He gets kidnapped by an ex-colleague of Jenny’s who wants the fragment of black rock, we saw her playing with,  last episode. Jenny does give it to the guy, but why would I think this is going to come back and kick her in the ass later? I’m just  being cynical, yeah?

Joe wants to join the team and get involved with Jenny and Abbie’s monster fighting. Jenny keeps trying to warn him away, but he convinces her to let him in, in memory of his dad. I think it’s nice to have this reminder of Corben, (the man who helped raise the girls to be so badass), on their team.

Once again, not a great episode but it was pretty good. Very solid. With some interesting revelations and promise of future storylines, like Ichabod trying to save the Archives by getting Natrualized, the issue of Abbie’s dad and the introduction of Danny, who had some kind of “thing” with Abbie, when they were students. What’s going to happen between the two of them, if he should get involved in the monster killing business, too?

The show looks really good. Lots of natural lighting makes everyone look warm and beautiful,

especially the opening and closing scenes, which take place on Abbie’s front porch. She has a lovely house and you can see how proud she is. You can tell she’s making more money and she’s dressing better than last season and just looks more relaxed somehow. (And yeah, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Vega from Minority Report, too.) I’m uncertain if this is the same house from last season, as we were never given a very clear picture of her home then, but I like this. And there are a lot of outdoor shots of Jenny and Joe together. Jenny even gets to do a little buttkickin’. I love it when the writers show off her skills and we get some backstory about her. She’s not just Abbie’s angry sister. Like her sister, she has a whole other life.

I’m still kind of holding back from getting too close to the show, because…what if it turns bad? What if I don’t like it? What if it gets canceled? I’m still going to watch it, but with such a glut of genre shows on TV, Sleepy Hollow has too be better than okay or good.

It has to be great.

Oh, and this is for those people who are fans of the Isley Brothers and can’t help but sing this song, when they see the title of this episode.

Sleepy Hollow: I, Witness

Well, I know this is a very exciting night. Last season’s direction is mostly closed, with the deaths of Parrish and Katrina, so this leaves Ichabod free and clear of those primary anchors to his past. Abbie has moved on to a new job, there will be new villains and new challenges.

Awww hell! I’m just excited to see Abbie and Ichabod again and now that Katrina is out of the way, this opens the door to a possible romance for Crane and Abbie.

Maybe.

I really did  enjoy the episode, though. I didn’t fall in  love with it, but I laughed a few times, rolled my eyes a couple of times. It was nice to see Ichabod getting some love from strange women, flashing gang signs with Jesus, and once again, talking smack about Ben Franklin.

Abbie is now an FBI Agent. She’s got a lot more superpowers now,  including the ability to invite Ichabod along on her cases and into her office, (she has an office!) without having to justify it to anyone. The young lab tech, that was so entranced by  Crane, was kind of cute. I know some people will object to that scene but, what the hell! some people object to everything and it was a cute scene. I do recall encouraging the young woman to “focus” but yeah, that’s difficult when facing Crane’s  level of prettiness, I know!

When we first see Abbie, she’s chasing down an informant. Her partner reminds her that she has to stop thinking like she’s still in the Sheriff’s dept. He sounds harsh but I think he’s right. She’s in the big leagues now and has to stop thinking small-time.

She gets a call from Ichabod to come bail him out of jail, because he tried to bring some semi-unauthorized items into the country. I say semi because he was able to get them back with Abbie’s help later. Ichabod wants to jump right into fighting some evil that’s in town, with lots of portentous speechifying, but Abbie is her usual acerbic self, and takes him to task for not talking to her for nine months, as she should.  Ichabod, to his credit, at least, looks chagrined.

We meet Pandora, who uses her little Box O’ Sin to eat The Horseman, I think. Ichabod is aware of his disappearance because he was wearing Katrina’s pendant, at the time. Abbie is reluctant to believe that “evil is afoot in Sleepy Hollow”, but she gets called on the case of two men, killed by a large animal that terrorized them first. Ichabod works out that it was a demon. Later he rails against the demolition of The Archives, where he spent so much of his time.

Jenny arrives and we find out from her that Irving has left the building. Actually, he just left Sleepy Hollow, saying that it was to keep his family safe. The Three Musketeers do some sleuthing that involves Ichabod giving them the lowdown on Betsy “Bad Ass” Ross. I like her. (So did Ichabod!) I don’t know if she’ll play a bigger part on the show, though. The creators seem to have a thing for dark haired women, with certain facial features. Katrina, Betsy, Pandora. If they don’t add a blonde to this show, people are going to start getting confused. I was already giving Betsy the side-eye because she looks like Pandora.

The demon, called a Yao-Guai, paralyzes its victims with fear and is attracted to gunpowder. It decides to tag along on one of Abbie’s cases. When the shooting begins, the demon ( which looks awesome, btw!) attacks and kills Abbie’s partner, just before she manages to damage it, while it was exercising its powers. The trio decide to set a trap to get it to use its powers on one of them, while Jenny shoots it, but of course things do not go as planned, even as they still go as planned, and the demon is killed.

Afterwards, they manage to get Crane’s artifacts from Homeland Security, one of which is a tablet with etchings of the two of them hunting/protecting something. This reassures them that they are still Witnesses, that they still have purpose. They have drinks in the  bar where Jenny works, and Abbie and Crane reaffirm their friendship/family status.

Most of the discussions, on the show,  involve everyone trying to determine their purpose. Ichabod left for nine months, to figure out where he fits in the modern world and came back with a case. Abbie declares her re-commission to her purpose during a hostage situation. Jenny informs Ichabod that she was looking for legitimate employment during his absence. I suppose all this information acts as a heads-up for people who are new to the show or checked out after the first season.

The episode doesn’t completely capture the magic of season one, and probably never will, but it’s close enough and hopefully won’t be as rocky as season two. If the writers can keep the momentum and not stint on the plot and pacing and monsters, this season might turn out alright.

As for Abbie and Ichabod, I did notice some significantly heavy eyeballing. A lot of fans are all over the map when it comes to the idea of her and Crane having a romance. Some object to her having any kind  romance, with anyone. Some object to her having a romance with a White man, saying that a  Man of Color should be her love interest because it’s not a pairing that’s often presented on TV. I am leaning towards the Abbie/Crane camp, mostly because it reminds me of the dynamic from The X-Files, and I liked that show, a lot.

The coming weeks look like fun as Crane moves in with Abbie and ogles her underwear. I didn’t  know this was a thing, but this will be the second show I’ve watched (We’re looking at you Minority Report!) where the primary (White) male protagonist, gets to sexily eyeball his (WoC) partner, or just her undies. I hope that doesn’t become a trend, cuz that’s just ewww!