Horror Movie Themes: Women Directors And Monster Women

Women who direct horror movies are few and far between. They are simply not telling stories in significant numbers in the genre for critics to say there’s an overwhelming theme being tackled, but there are enough of them that a pattern is beginning to emerge.

 

Ostensibly, the stories women tell cover the same subjects as male directors,  but there are sometimes subtle differences, and most of that has to do with women’s perspective on the same topics. There is plenty of vengeance, serial killers, and  ultra violence, but where movies with male directors often focus on the spectacle of violence  against women, without questioning it, female directors often make women the total focus of the plot, as both victims and perpetrators. There are also  fewer otherworldly monsters in female directed movies. Often, in such films, the monsters are very  human, and sometimes those monsters are, in fact, the women.

There are exceptionally few horror movies directed by women of color, and the bare handful of movies that were, like Beloved, fall into the category of personal hauntings, that tackle issues that resonate with other women of color. The majority of women horror filmmakers, are White women, and they tend to focus on issues that are of importance to them, and one starts to notice a pattern in the themes of the movies they make.

If White men work out their personal anxieties through the types of horror they create, then so do White women. It is not that women of color cannot relate to these themes, it’s just that for them, such themes may not be a priority, and tend to carry less resonance for them.

In movies like Carrie by Kimberly Pierce, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, by Ana Lily Amirpour,  and Jennifer’s Body by Karyn Kusama, the theme is not just the Monstrous Feminine, but femaleness itself as monster. There is no coding of femininity as  horrific in these movies. It is a  woman who is a horrible monster, who feeds on men, or  destroys the human body, with a thought, and she is like this, because she is female, as that is an integral part of the horror in the film.

Carrie and Jennifer’s Body  also tackle issues that are of specific relevance to women, like puberty, menstruation,  friendship, and sexual trauma. In female directed films, there is less emphasis on the disruption and restoration of order, or the status quo. Often, their films don’t actually have any resolution, or the emphasis is on the disruption, and restoration, of relationships, or cathartic punishments, instead.

Themes about monstrosity, in such movies, often revolve around body horror, and consumption, as dieting, and the non/consumption of food, and women’s relationships to food, make up the bulk of the personal anxieties in the privileged classes of women who sometimes make these films. In Julia Decournau’s Raw (2016),  a vegetarian girl develops a craving for meat after she undergoes a hazing ritual involving the eating of raw animals. In the 1999 Ravenous,  by the late Antonia Bird, Guy Pierce develops a taste for raw meat after he is nearly killed during the Mexican – American War, and in Jennifer’s Body, a young woman has to save her high school friend, after she realizes her friend has become a flesh eating demon. (There is a lot to unpack, in the movie Jennifer’s Body, which we will discuss later.) Many middle-class, White, Western women have a love/hate , and a fear/disgust, relationship with food, dieting, and  consumption, and we see that play out in these films, as eating, (usually blood and meat), becomes the primary focus of the horror.

Female directed movies often tend to be more intimate, focusing on the horror of relationships, or the topic of motherhood. What mothers are willing to do for, or sometimes to, their families is the subject of the 2014 movie, The Babadook, where a mother fears she may kill her son, when she is haunted,  and then possessed, after reading about the titular character.

In the anthology XX, many of the stories revolve around the horrific circumstances that can occur when a mother loves her family. Motherhood, already a source of real world anxiety, is a frequent topic in films made by women. In The Box, the themes are also loss, helplessness, and non/consumption, as a woman loses her entire family, when they starve themselves, after her son views the contents of a mysterious box. It is a secret that kills them, and which they refuse to share with her, so that when they are gone, she spends the rest of her life riding the subway, hoping to encounter the man with the box again. The story, Her only Living Son, directly tackles sacrificial motherhood, as a woman sacrifices her life to save her son from his Satanic destiny.

Sex is a huge component of female directed horror movies, but unlike films directed by men, that mostly just feature the spectacle of  women having sex,  or being raped, the focus from women directors is on the danger, and vulnerability of intimacy, and often based on a young woman’s fear of sexual activity, and fear of the loss of innocence, that may be the result. In the film, A Girl Walks Home Alone, a nameless female, Iraqi  vampire hunts men. This movie is groundbreaking, not just because of its setting, and plot, but character. The sexual forwardness of Iraqi women isn’t often featured in film, let alone as a night-stalking blood drinker. The director, Amirpour, is not White, but the themes of consumption, and blood as a euphemism for sex, still find a way into the story.

Blood plays a huge part in a lot of the stories told by women, from Carrie, to Raw, to Jennifer’s Body, with the theme being  linked to  femininity, fertility, and/or sex. The movie, Carrie, begins and ends with blood. Based on the novel by Stephen King, it chronicles a young woman’s perilous navigation through high school. At the beginning of the story, the onset of her menses signals her introduction to adulthood, and heightens her telekinetic abilities. The story ends with the killing of her entire graduating class, after a bucket of pig’s blood is dumped over her during the school prom, an act which was informed by the opening events of the story, when she has her first period in front of her bullying classmates.

Blood and flesh are especially popular topics of these films, in that many of them contain cannibalism and/or vampirism. In the movie Raw, relationships, and adulthood rites take center stage, as a young woman, who has a contentious relationship with her sister, gets turned into a cannibal after an initial hazing at her sister’s college, that turns out to be an initiation, not just into a sorority, but also adulthood. In Blood and Donuts (1995), a vampire who has just awakened from a long sleep, is introduced to the modern world, via the night shift worker at a local bakery. Over the course of the evening, the young lady figures out who and what he is, and the two of them engage in a push and pull attraction, as he decides whether or not he should prey on her.

In the 1987 movie, Near dark, a young man is inducted into a nightmare lifestyle, where he has to kill to live, when he meets a pretty blonde girl, at a bar one night. Vampires, since they, like blood, are often a euphemism for sex and adulthood, are the focus of women’s stories, such as Fran Rubel Kazui’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Buffy went on to answer deeper questions about girlhood and monsters, in the TV series, which lasted from 1997 to 2003. In fact, these themes are so prevalent, that they often seem to be having a dialogue with each other, or with movies of the same genre, made by men.

There is a lot of narrative overlap, for example, between Near Dark, Ravenous, and the movie, Afflicted, which cover not just the same themes, but sometimes the same talking points, of the male protagonist’s empathy making them unfit to live the kind of lifestyle that requires killing others. There is also a great deal of narrative overlap in the movies Carrie, Raw, and Ginger Snaps, more films in which menstruation, and flesh eating, are the signals that a young woman has reached full adulthood.

Now let’s talk about Jennifer’s Body.

Jennifer’s body is a great encapsulation of some of the themes and topics that women address through horror. The themes of friendship, female ally-ship and support, revenge, sexuality,  and patriarchy are part of this narrative.

Jennifer’s Body was released in 2009, written by Diablo Cody, and directed by Karen Kusama. Jennifer Check, as played by Megan Fox, is the high school hot girl. She is the sassy, beautiful, popular, cheerleader, that all the  high school boys lust after. Amanda Seyfried plays Amanda “Needy” Lesnicki,  her quiet, bookish,  best friend, since elementary school. Jennifer gets possessed by a demon, after she is sacrificed to Satan by a local rock band, in exchange for fame.

Already there are themes of the sexuality of women being exploited for male gain. The band, called Low Shoulder, thinks she is a virgin, and their sacrifice was successful, but since she was not actually a virgin, she became possessed instead. After she has killed two young men, Amanda figures out that she is a succubus that is impervious to harm after feeding on her victims. Jennifer attacks Amanda’s boyfriend, who then attacks and eventually kills her. However, bitten by Jennifer, Amanda has now developed some of the Demon Jennifer’s abilities. At the end of the movie, she hunts down  the band Low Shoulder, and kills them.

Throughout the movie, we are  privy to some of the more interesting conversations that women have when men are not present, and this is something that will only happen in a movie that is written and controlled by women. Not only will there often be more than one woman in a movie, but their relationships and conversations often have more depth. The film is informed by two women in front of the camera as well as the two women behind it. It is the relationship between Amanda and Jennifer that is integral to the plot of the film. If we don’t buy their friendship, we cannot become emotionally invested in their plight, most especially in Amanda’s dilemma at having to kill her best friend.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/08/206237/jennifers-body-review-defense-female-revenge-movie

Amanda isn’t just killing Jennifer to save the lives of the young men she might feed on, but to save Jennifer. too. I talked in an earlier post about how Horror is basically the disruption of the status quo by the unknown, often the paranormal, and yes, Jennifer as a demon is a disruption of the status quo,  but the status quo, does not necessarily mean “good”. The status quo is Jennifer’s humanity being disregarded  by  men who were willing to  sacrifice her life for their own gain. That Jennifer, and then Amanda, become demons is a necessary disruption, especially as part of the revenge narratives that are also prominent in women’s horror. Not only are revenge narratives common for women directors, they are often very cathartic for the creators and audiences.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/03/carrie-stephen-king-brian-de-palma-horror-films-feminism

Kimberly Pierce’s Carrie, from 2011, is another movie that appears to be having a dialogue with Jennifer’s Body, as it covers many of the same themes, of women’s relationships, both supportive and toxic, and the revenge narrative. Although the story was originally written by Stephen King, and the original movie was directed Brian De Palma, I talked at length about how the mood and emphasis of the film is changed, as Pierce  focuses more on the women’s tangled relationships with each other, rather than on spectacle.

So for female horror directors, there seems to be less emphasis on spectacle (although that’s definitively present becasue these are horror movies), and more focus on symbolism, and the relationships between the characters. For me, this supports my supposition that the type of moves that get made are a reflection of the types of people who make them. If this is true of the Japanese, or British, then its equally true for the White men who run Hollywood, and are the primary creators in the horror genre. So, yes, I think that the types of films being made by White women (as these directors are primarily White) are a reflection of the things that are important to them.

There have not been enough Black and Asian-American filmmakers, in the horror genre, for certain patterns to emerge, but I’m going to give it a try in a follow-up post.

Mad Max: Women and Civilization

In Part One of my critique of the Mad Max franchise I talked about the use of the Triple Goddess Myth from Pagan folklore in the movie’s narratives. In this post, I’m going  to tie the Triple Goddess mythology to the idea of women as literally the  keepers/ carriers  of human civilization, throughout the entire franchise.

For some reason, people see the social messages of Mad Max Fury Road as either a fluke, or some sort of SJW plot. This is not the case. George Miller has always referenced women in his movies in ways that made statements not just about their humanity, but their role in the creation of a civilized world. Miller’s feminist sensibilities are  not new, and his movies have always been about people losing their humanity at the end of the world, and then  regaining their humanity (and civilization) through cooperation. These ideas are usually represented through women. Except for the first movie, all of Miller’s films end with a new beginning for civilization to reassert itself.

In most of the Mad Max films, it is women who hold the keys to restarting civilization. Even  in the first Mad Max movie, women are depicted as the last bastion of stability, before mankind’s descent into the  barbarism, rape, and pillaging, represented by men. This premise is made more explicit in  The Road Warrior, and Thunderdome, and clearly stated in Fury Road, as if the other movies had been leading up to the message of Fury Road.

In Mad Max, civilization has not yet been destroyed, and Max’s boss tries to talk him into staying on the police force, after his partner is brutally murdered by  members of a biker gang. Max’s excuse for quitting is that he wants to hold on to the last shreds of his sanity, and can only do so by leaving the force to spend time with his wife and child. This implies that it is parenthood and marriage that are the holders of Max’s sanity, (not the  law and order he represents), and after their loss at the hands of the same biker gang that killed his partner, Max does indeed go mad. The message here is that his wife Jessie, and their child Sprog, were Max’s emotional anchors, after which, just like society itself, he  descends into insanity and violence, as he kills the gang in a murderous spree. The loss of his wife and child  represents of the total loss of civilization, so it isn’t just Max who descends into barbarity, but all of society.

By the release of The Road Warrior,  all men have gone mad, and it is their madness that has made the world a funhouse mirror, where the Triple Goddess myth has been twisted and corrupted. because the women of this world have had to adopt to new roles to survive it in it.  In each of Miller’s films, the lack of civilization is represented by men behaving badly, as it  is primarily men who are rampaging through towns, raping random strangers, and killing and stealing at will. The men of this universe are a force of destruction and entropy. This is an idea explicitly stated in Fury Road, when Immortan’s wives ask the question,”Who killed the world?!” The answer, of course, is…

The first movie is setup for the next three films, where we see the world attempting to recover from the madness inflicted on it by men. Society is held and remembered by the women of these films, who are attempting to rebuild it,  in fits and starts, while being harried by the men.

In The Road Warrior, there are three women of note. I discussed this in my post about the use of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone archetypes of the Wiccan belief system, in Miller’s movies. The women are not  the genesis of civilization, at this time, because they are still in the process of survival, but they are tied to that concept by their roles in the film. One of the nameless women is a warrior, a corrupted Mother, who in this world is not wise and nurturing, but traffics in violence, and she dies by violence, just like the Vuvulini from Fury Road. There is the equally nameless Maiden, who is  a symbol of new beginnings, who finds love, and  rides off into the sunset with the new leader of the compound, and there is the nameless Crone, rendered irrelevant, as her counsel is not heeded as it is sure to get them all killed.

The Road Warrior is also a story told in flashback, from a future world of safety and stability by the “Feral Child”, the wild, orphaned, boy that Max encounters in the wastes. It is a future that can only occur because of Max’s actions and the presence of the two women.

Thunderdome is, next to Fury Road, Miller’s most explicit message that women are the holders of civilization. Aunty Entity, (this is the Crone motif again), played by Tina Turner, is the leader and chieftain of Bartertown. In her backstory, she says she was a nobody without power, but after the world ended, she somehow managed to scratch a town out of the desert. She is a maker of civilization, or at the very least, the foundation of it, as this is not unlike how actual civilization began. She  hopes to rebuild society as it once was. But it is not to be, as her attitude isn’t any different from the old one that caused the world’s destruction. Bartertown is ultimately destroyed by her greed, her ego, and her inability to share leadership with her male counterpart, Master Blaster, and also perhaps because that is not the direction in which a future society should go. She cannot begin a new society because she is too beholden to the old one.

It is interesting to note that none of the people in Thuunderdome are  outright villains,  as was depicted in Road Warrior (and even in that movie the bad guys were capable of love and reason, ulike the villains of the first movie, or the ones in Fury Road). The bad guys and women are  deeply flawed individuals, who survive to the end of the movie. Aunty Entity is not a bad woman, but a regular woman who does bad things, due to the flaws in her character.. This is also true of Master Blaster, as it is his urge to put Aunty in her place as subordinate to him is what prompts their feud. Master Blaster seeks to assert his authority against a woman that he thinks disdains him, while Aunty refuses to be cowled by him. It is their inability to find common ground, to treat each other as equals, or  share leadership, that destroys Bartertown. These are the same attitudes that destroyed civilization.

Once again, in Thunderdome, we have the Triple Goddess figures at odds with each other. It is Savannah’s belief that civilization still exists, called Tomorrow-Morrow Land, that motivates the secondary plot of the film, and sets her on a collision course with the other female leader, Aunty Entity. All of the primary roles in this movie, the characters who set the plot in motion, are either marginalized men, like Master Blaster, (a team up between a mentally disabled young man, and an older man with a physical disability), or women and girls. At the end of the movie, we see that Savannah has become the the leader of a new society being built amid the ruins of the old. Civilization no longer exists, so Savannah, like Aunty will have to make it herself. However, unlike Aunty, she is successful, as once again, the movie is told in flashback, from a more prosperous future.

 

The Triple Goddess motif plays out again in Fury Road. Immortan’s wives are the holders of civilization, as they are the only members of Immortan Joe’s society that are educated, so they are the ones who know the real history of the world,  unlike the Warboys  who only know the world by  what has been passed down to them by word of mouth. The wives espouse the philosophies they learned from  the books they’ve read, that is distinctly anti-consumerist: that people are not things to be used. They hold within them the memories of civilization, while  the Vuvulini carry the seeds of it, which are later passed to the wives, as the Vuvulini, murderous crones all,  are too corrupt, (too much a part of the old world), to play a role in any new beginning. The wives have remained pure in their compassion, and have knowledge of the mistakes of the past. Unlike the Vuvulini, they  have grown up in the aftermath of the old world, and were not a part of its fall. Like the maidens in the other two movies, they get to be the ones to rebuild.

After the release of Fury Road, I saw plenty of complaints about what a shame it was that Max was sidelined in his own movie. This isn’t new either. Except for the first film, which is meant to establish  his character, Max has always played a peripheral role in his own movies. By the time of the making of Fury Road, we are to understand that Max himself is  but an archetype. A myth. He is  a legendary figure told in the stories of the civilization that came after, as  all of these movies are flashbacks from that time,  and he may or may not be a real person. Of the three movies that hold this theme Fury road is the only one told in present time.

In Fury Road  the wives ask Nux, “Who killed the world?” the answer of course is men. Men killed civilization, and most of the men in these movies are the embodiment of all that is destroying civilization,  greed, and consumption, and hoarding. But these movies are not just a rebuke of male authoritarianism, although in neither Mad Max nor The Road Warrior, are women part of any of the anarchic pillagers traveling the wastelands, each film contains  the possibility for redemption for any man who rejects the rampantly and consumerist lifestyle being led by the other men in the film.

The overall message of all the Mad Max films is that when men and women work together, society flourishes, and when they don’t, when women are not accepted as equals, or treated as consumables, society devolves. In The Road Warrior, the women of the compound, the counselor, and the warrior woman in particular, are treated as equals. They are allowed to speak, be heard, and make their own decisions regarding how to survive in the wastes.

In Thunderdome, Master Blaster is so intent on getting Aunty to submit to his authority, (because he believes she disdains him because of his disability), that it forces her hand. They are both people from marginalized groups, who should come together to create a new society but they do not. Instead, a disabled man, and a Black woman, fight over who gets to be in charge. Their inability to treat each other as equals,  results in Bartertown’s destruction.

And in Fury Road, Max and Furiosa  learn to accept each other as equals, and trust in each other’s strengths,  to survive Immortan Joe’s army. Once again you have two marginalized individuals, the mentally unstable Max, and the disabled Furiosa, but unlike in Thunderdome, the two of them manage to reach an accord where they work together, and respect one another, resulting in the survival of the group.

Along for the ride, and equally important, is the Warboy, Nux, who has one of the strongest redemption arcs in the movie. In each movie we get to see at least one other male character’s atonement. The overall message is not that men are so flawed they can never find redemption, but that only by giving up toxic forms of masculinity, and working together with women as equals, can they achieve anything close to it.

In The Road Warrior, the gryocopter man gets a redemption arc, too. At the beginning of the film, he tried to rob Max, was captured by him, and ended up in the compound.  This only occurred because Max chose not to kill him in retaliation. Later, because Max chose not to kill him, the gyrocopter man is then in a position to save Max’s life.This is another one of several threads in common between all the films. Max’s compassion prompts him to spare the life of another, which results not just  in the redemption of that character, but sometimes Max’s salvation, at a later moment in the film.

In Thunderdome he spares the life of Master Blaster, having been manipulated into a deathmatch against them by Aunty Entity. When Max discovers that Blaster is just a  mentally disabled manchild, he spares his life, but  is exiled to the desert for his choice. Max saving the life of Master Blaster  eventually saves everyone’s lives, as it provides an opportunity for him, the children from Crack in the Earth, and Master  to escape Aunty’s wrath after  destroying Bartertown.

In Fury Road, this redemption character is Nux. Max had the opportunity to kill him twice, and each time chose to spare him. If  Max not done saved him, Nux wouldn’t have been in a position  to meet the wives, or sacrifice his life to save the them later. Through both Max, the wives, and Furiosa, Nux is given the opportunity to reject Immortan Joe’s philosophy of rampant consumerism,  and adopt a new one, that of respect cooperation, love, and friendship, something he had never known among the Warboys. At the beginning of the movie, his only goal is to die in service to Joe, but he eventually dies in service to something far greater than Joe, because of experiences he never dreamed he would have, like Capable’s love.

Immortan’s wives treat each other, and Furiosa, with care and respect, work together to achieve their goals, and the Vuvulini fight and die, to protect each other, and the group. This is the definition of civilization, disparate groups of human beings working towards the goals of social progress and enlightenment. Across the Mad Max franchise, George Miller has placed the burden of this endeavor squarely in the hands of women.

In the films of Mad Max, women may not rule the wasteland, but they are its ultimate destruction.

 

*In the third part of my critical look at the Mad Max movies, we’ll  talk about The Promised Land myth that is used throughout the franchise. 

Halloween Horrors Directed By Women

XX (2017) Anthology

I recently watched this anthology of horror shorts, directed by women, on Netflix and found it very effective. Not particularly frightening, but moving nonetheless. I not only enjoyed the stories themselves, but there were some interstitial moments between the episodes that I found pretty creepy, and which also tell a kind of story. Of the four stories, three of them deal with the idea of motherhood as a harrowing and anxious experience.

One of the middle stories, and the most frightening, is The Box,  about a woman whose family slowly starves themselves to death after the son peeks into the box of a stranger on a bus ride. I think I read this as a short story somewhere because it felt familiar. Its a very effective and emotional scare, as the mother is helpless to save her family, who are determined to destroy themselves. One of the other stories chronicles the adventures of a mother whose husband dies in a giant panda suit just before his daughter’s birthday party called, appropriately enough, The Birthday Party. It’s the funniest of the stories, but I was exasperated by it because it didn’t fit the gray mood of the rest of the anthology.

Dont’ Fall is the most straightforward horror story with no message to it. A group of people go camping and run afoul of an ancient cannibalistic evil. Her Only Living Son is a favorite of mine. Its like a sequel to Rosemary’s Baby, if she had run away from  all the people trying to manipulate her, and tried to  raise her son not to be the AntiChrist. It’s interesting that the two most effective stories are about mothers trying to save their children from the aftermath of bad choices.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, and was a little dubious about watching it, at first. Women directors in the Horror genre are very rare, but this turned out to be pretty good. The types of stories  were  female-centric in a way that men’s stories just aren’t, and that was refreshing.

This movie is available on Netflix.

Ravenous (1999) Antonia Bird

I reviewed this movie some time back, and advised people to listen to the DVD commentary, because it’s very informative. I’ve since learned that Antonia Bird died from cancer in 2013. Her films include a few others I’ve watched: Priest, Safe, and Mad Love.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/geeking-out-about-ravenous-1999/

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) Ana Lily Amirpour

This is a nice little nugget of a film available on Netflix, which I have not finished watching yet, because I was interrupted. (I was about thirty minutes away from the end, which is probably when all the best stuff happens.) This is a remarkable story about an unnamed and  beautiful Iranian vampire, who spends her nights trying to resist her hunger, in the presence of an innocent young man named Arash. The movie isn’t frightening, so much as it is melancholy, although The Woman, as I call her, does manage to cause plenty of death.

Jennifer’s Body (2009) Karyn Kusama

Despite people hating this movie, I actually enjoyed it , and thought it was pretty funny. This was my first introduction to Megan Fox ,and based on her performance here, I wish her career had continued. I wasn’t sure what to expect actually. I think I expected the director (who, at the time,  I did not know was a woman) to simply use the plot as an excuse to have Megan Fox be naked and/or sexy. I thought the trailer a little misleading. But the movie turned out to be a lot deeper, as it was about the friendship between these two very different characters, and how people change and grow apart as they get older. The movie was also written by a woman, Diablo Cody, which explains some of its humor.

Anita, played by Amanda Seyfried is friends with a bitchy cheerleader named Jennifer. Now I should have paid closer attention because I was unclear if Jennifer had been turned into a vampire, or if Jennifer actually died and was replaced by some creature. At any rate, its up to Anita to try to stop her, because, obviously, Jennifer is evil. It was hard not to like Jennifer though, because she’s actually funny, and some of the best dialogue in the movie is between her and Anita during their knockdown fight at the end.

Raw (2016) Julia Decournau

I have yet to watch this film, but I really  liked the trailer, and so its on my Halloween list. It heavily reminds me of a cross between the movies  Thelma and Jennifer’s Body.

Its interesting to me that so many horror films directed by women seem to involve the concept of eating and the  forbidden and blood.   The anthology XX had an episode about people denying food, A Girl Walks Home Alone is about a vampire, and this one is about a young vegetarian developing a taste for raw meat after a horrible campus initiation. Ravenous and Jennifer’s Body are about cannibalism. At some point someone is going to have to analyse why that is.

Pet Semetary (1989) Mary Lambert

This is the one movie on this list I’m not a big fan of, but a heckuva lot of people really really love it, so I’m recommending it for viewing. I thought the movie was kind of ridiculous, and some of the acting was simply terrible. On the other hand, Fred Gwynne, who played Herman Munster on the sitcom, was great, and I liked Denise Crosby, who was really likable here. I was creeped out by the family cat, but I  laughed at part of the ending, when this tiny munchkin went on a murder spree. I don’t hate this movie ,but I don’t have happy thoughts about it either, although I did enjoy the Stephen King book it was based on.

Near Dark (1987) Kathryn Bigelow

I gave a review of this movie earlier in my blogging career. This was directed by the great Kathryn Bigelow, who won an Oscar for her movie The  Hurt Locker, and gave us such great characters as the Aliens version of Ellen Ripley, and the Terminator 2 version of Sarah Connor.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/near-dark-1987/

Carrie (2013) Kimberly Peirce

I did a review of this one where I compared Kimberly’s version to the one directed by DePalma, charting the difference between when a man makes a female- centered film vs. when a woman does it. Basically, there seems lot more meaningful interaction between the women in a female directed movie. At some point I’m going to revise this review to add some new thoughts.

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2015/03/16/carrie-vs-carrie/

Honorable Mentions (Not Directed By Women)

These five movies were not directed by women, but the women characters are not just in the center of the plot, they are the plot. Any one of these movies would be great for a female themed marathon on Halloween night, along with longstanding favorites, like Alien, and Halloween.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

This is one of my favorite werewolf movies, right up there with the newer movie, Wer. Here, two teen Goth sisters, Bridgette, and Ginger, the local high school weirdos of a small suburban town,  discover that Ginger has developed lycanthropy, after being bitten by a wild animal, while on their way to play a prank on another girl. There is a parallel here between the disease and sexual maturity, as Ginger has just had her first period, which is why the animal attacked her. Ginger Snaps considerably deepened the discourse around the subject of feminine transformation, rage, and sisterly love,  and upped the werewolf game.

Thelma

This is a repost of a mini-review I did  in May of this year.

I’d been looking forward to seeing this for some time, and it did not disappoint. Now, when I first heard the description of it, I had not yet seen the trailer, and I was expecting something like Carrie, but quieter. Then I saw the trailer, and found that it’s something wholly different from Carrie. This movie isn’t about vengeance, it’s about desire, and what happens to a person when that desire is repressed.

For one thing, this is a much quieter, and more subtle movie than Carrie. It’s so low-key, that the supernatural aspects of the story kind of sneak up on you. They sneak up on you because they’re  loosely covered by several other issues that you will find compelling enough to be distracting.

The film is based in Norway, and the lead character, Thelma, starts to experience epileptic seizures, except it’s not seizures. Her doctor says they are psychosomatic, and stem from emotional suppression. At the same time, she meets a young woman who comes to her rescue, after she has a seizure in the college’s public reading room, while that room’s giant picture window is battered by a flock of birds. Every time she resists her feelings for Anja, or tries to suppress her powers, she has a seizure.

Thelma and the young woman, Anja, start to get closer, but Thelma comes from a quietly strict Christian background, and she becomes very conflicted about her relationship with Anja, which starts to take a romantic turn. It turns out that Thelma isn’t necessarily conflicted because of the Christianity, but because she has the power to make things happen to people, when she strongly wants it. The Christian beliefs her parents espouse are what was used to keep her powers in check.

When Thelma was a child, she became jealous of her baby brother, and wished him away several times. The last time she does it is emotionally devastating to her mother and father, but this isn’t something you find out until the middle of the film, and only in flashbacks, and explains why her parents treat her in the quietly aloof manner that they do.

As Thelma becomes overwhelmed about her relationship with Anja, (she keeps having sexual nightmares involving snakes, and dreams about drowning, which is classic symbolism of someone being overwhelmed by a subject), she wishes Anja away too, and it’s a testament to the low-key horror of the movie, that even at the end, you’re not entirely certain that what is happening is real. Did she bring Anja back? Is Anja even real? And then there’s the further question, brought up by her father, about whether or not Anja truly loves Thelma, or did she make Anja love her because she wants her to love her.

It’s not a straight horror movie, with jump scares, and frightening moments. The most frightening moment in the movie is when Anja disappears, and Thelma kills her father. But mostly it’s those nagging questions,that stay with you, as you start to realize Thelma is far more dangerous than you may at first have believed. Her mother and father were in a car accident a few years before she went to college, and though it’s not explicitly stated, you wonder if it was Thelma who caused it.

After Anja disappears, Thelma leaves college to go back home, where her family welcomes her, but her father decides that she can’t leave. She takes control of her abilities, takes a horrific revenge on her father, and walks out of the house. She goes back to school, where she is greeted by a newly returned Anja, who passionately kisses her.  Her mother is disabled, and uses a wheelchair after the accident, but by the end of the film, Thelma has given her the ability to walk again.

Like several other movies I’ve seen in the past few years (It Follows, Annihilation, A Quiet Place), the horror comes not so much from what happens in the movie, but from its mood. The wintry landscape of Norway, and the remote location of Thelma’s home, is very effective. On the other hand, I can’t say that the movie was enjoyable, either. It’s too haunting for that, and I am still disturbed by the questions that arose, and the answers I came up with.

For those of you on the LGBTQ spectrum this movie is safe enough to watch There is a brief moment when you think there’s a Kill Your Gays Trope, but by the end of the movie, that has passed. Its a movie about overcoming repression, and acceptance of the self.

Thelma is available on Hulu.

It Follows

I’ve done two reviews for this movie. One is an examination of the meaning of the monster, and the other focusing on the female -centric symbolism embedded in the film.

https://wordpress.com/posts/my/tvgeekingout.wordpress.com?s=it+follows

https://tvgeekingout.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/it-follows-2014-more-thought

Added Bonus:

28 BLACK WOMEN HORROR FILMMAKERS:

http://www.graveyardshiftsisters.com/2018/02/28-black-women-horror-filmmakers-meosha.html

Black; Male; INTJ

Several months ago I asked readers who classified on the MBTI scale as Introverts to write me and let me know what some of their experiences were, most especially their experiences in the Black community.  A week or so ago I got a response from DJ, who reached out ot let me know what it’s like for him as an Introverted Black man.

Earlier, I spoke about some of my experiences as an introvert who is Black and female. I know a lot about what it was like for me as a woman, about how White people behave when you act like an introvert vs. how Black people behave, and all of that while navigating  everyone’s racial expectations and stereotypes.

Most of what he says struck a chord for me, especially the idea of wearing various masks  in order to fit into whatever environment you’re navigating.

Hello,

I was curious about the number of black people who were INTJ . It was difficult to find anything on black men  and even more so on women .

As an INTJ  black man I always assumed I was different ever since I was young . So I developed a “mask” I learned and I watched and kept my true self away from everyone because of certain circumstances .  I learned what I needed to fit in , survive , and eventually move on to the next stage in life . I learned how to act and what not to do from the mistakes of others .  In a sense it allows me to make plans and move accordingly as you said when we have planned something we feel secure and content . Leaving things open to fate as you know can bring about unwanted results .  It even extends to my career choice . Critical thinking is involved in both my fields . INTJs I think can seem impatient because of how fast we think and the fact the general person is fairly annoying  . I myself have yet to meet any other black people who fit the same category . I also find it funny cause several of my friends have accused me of world domination.

My story is my much longer , but on of the biggest things I fine about us is out ability to see further than anyone else . Which is why so many of us end up in powerful positions  and have large ambitions . And generally we are more aware of our own flaws than anyone else and don’t get me started on relationships .  Especially in this current time its almost impossible for an INTJ to find someone to fit their image or doesn’t annoy them .

I also found with the proper guidance , an INTJ can be a will strong force of good in the world but if not it can be a disaster .

I hope to hear back from you ,

Dj Denton

And my response (unedited):

Thanks for contacting me.

Tbh, you’re the only person to write to me on the subject. I’m not an expert on this. I just have some knowledge based on my own experiences, and some reading, because there really is precious little out there about African American INTJs and how they experience the world.

The experiences you talked about have been mine too. I learned how to behave in whatever environments I was in by putting on various masks, and imitating others. For example, when I was in elementary school, I kept being told that I spoke differently from everyone else. Realizing I wasn’t speaking as naturally as others, I  learned how to add slang and idioms to my conversations, to make me sound more casual, and blend in better. This was a conscious plan, on my part, which I never mentioned to anyone, as I don’t think anyone would have understood it, but it worked.

I do tend to take what I like to call “the long view”, both into the past and the future, especially when it comes to exterior things like politics. This is another thing that’s hard to explain to people, especially when they’re confused about why you’re not upset or worried about certain world events, as much as they are.

The ability to plan, and maneuver, ahead of an event, and the comfort and self assurance from knowing that your plans are correct, can often look a lot like arrogance, or “being stuck-up” to a lot of people. Has that been your experience? I got called stuck-up a lot when I was young, but really, I was just confident in my planning. (To some people this planning can also  make it seem as if you’re just extremely lucky.)

I think this sort of thinking can work out great when you’re a guy, but I think people find this level of calculation, especially in a woman, to be disturbing, as I’ve gotten very hostile reactions (mostly from women) over the years, whereas most guys just  think it’s  a delightful personality quirk, (probably because I’m not using my superpower for evil).

As far as I know its  just something that’s extremely rare, and I’m pretty much settled on being a minority, within a minority, within a minority.

 

 

 

I also sent Dj a few links:

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/hesaid-black-male-and-introverted/

http://www.politeonsociety.com/2013/09/11/believe-it-or-not-introverted-black-males-exist/

https://blackintjwoman.wordpress.com/

https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-experience-being-black-and-an-introvert

http://www.shesquietconfident.com/quiet-black-person/

@@

And from Medium.com:

INTJ Women — You Are Not Alone by Evelyn Bertrand

Strong. Brilliant. Powerful. Intimidating. Masculine. Driven.

Cold. Bitchy. Uncaring. Standoffish. Disinterested. Detached.

These are two sets of words that describe INTJ women, also known as Alpha women. I say Alpha women because I really don’t see a difference between the personality traits that are attributed to both “types of women.”

https://medium.com/search?q=intj%20women

@@

From Reddit, about a year ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/intj/comments/6tf76a/any_african_american_intjs/

Black Panther Selected Readings 3

*Since this movie blew up the theaters there have been a metric ton of think-pieces and examinations about it. I’ve tried to collect as many of these as I thought were interesting, leaving out all the contrarian negative stuff. I know I promised to write a review, but there’s nothing I would say in it that isn’t already covered by the three lists of think pieces I’ve collected. (Maybe later, I’ll jot something down about my feelings for the various characters or something.)

*But first up, I thought this essay was related to the idea of Wakanda having never been colonized, versus how we are all taught by popular media to think of the continent of Africa. You can read this first ,and then play a drinking game of how many times the writers do these things in the following articles:

Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

—-   https://granta.com/how-to-write-about-africa/

 

Politics:

Black Panther has a lot to say about politics:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/27/17029730/black-panther-marvel-killmonger-ir

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/the-provocation-and-power-of-black-panther/553226/

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/black-panther-and-the-invention-of-africa?

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-review/553508/

https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/26/17029572/black-panther-marvel-politics

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-passionate-politics-of-black-panther

The Revolutionary Power of Black Panther

https://www.theroot.com/when-wakanda-was-real-1822745590

https://www.theroot.com/america-wakanda-for-white-people-1823224399

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a18241993/black-panther-review-politics-killmonger/

*I didn’t agree with this review but I’m including it here because some of you will find it interesting, and the author does make other salient points. I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback by the depiction of the lone African American in the movie. I was deeply saddened by Killmonger, while agreeing with much of his philosophy. I get why he was angry. I was also saddened by the fate of the only African American woman in the entire film, and I wish the director had put more thought into it. I get the point he’s trying to make, but it still felt pretty bad to watch that point being made.

http://bostonreview.net/race/christopher-lebron-black-panther

 

View at Medium.com

5 Lessons from Black Panther That Can Save Our Lives — and Transform Black Politics – Medium.com

–

Dear Fellow White People: Go See “Black Panther” – Medium.com

Here are six reasons. Do it this weekend. Seriously, just go.

 

*This article is about people who are trolling the movie. As the movie began to take off last weekend, there were a number of alt-right trolls who posted fake tweets demonising the movie’s fans, and claiming that white people had been beaten up at theaters. 

I put this here to point out the utter futility of their efforts in trying to disparage and destroy this movie. Their efforts will always meet with failure, not because they’re awful, (because yeah,  they are) but because, by the time they are resorting to  efforts to sabotage these movies, it’s already too late. These acts are purely defensive, and only illustrate how little control such people have over mainstream media.

All they have in their arsenal to combat progress is more of the same lies and vitriol against black people that they’ve always espoused. Their messages are not new, and not effective.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/black-panther-loved-by-the-world-hated-by-trolls/

 

Psychology:

*Not all of these essays were written by Black reviewers, but even so, I thought the reviewer, regardless of race, had interesting things to say about the philosophies of, and psychology behind, the film’s characters. Just becasue White reviewers can’t (or won’t) talk about race,  doesn’t mean they have nothing worthwhile to say on other topics.

https://www.theroot.com/on-the-duality-and-double-consciousness-of-black-panthe-1823260321

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-erik-killmonger/553805/

https://www.theroot.com/killmonger-was-wrong-and-ya-ll-know-it-1823134207

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/black-panther-pilgrimage-180218151402202.html

https://io9.gizmodo.com/director-ryan-coogler-explains-the-identity-issues-at-t-1822937410

https://melmagazine.com/what-black-panther-teaches-us-about-when-fathers-lie-to-their-sons-183113d95520

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/02/13/the-fleshing-out-of-black-masculine-archetypes-in-ryan-cooglers-films

One Tribe: Black Panther’s Altruism

 

The Women:

Let’s face it, women are the backbone of this movie, holding it down and keeping it 100. I was surprised to find that my favorite female character was Nakia. (I thought it would be Okoye.)

@@

hellkate @katerinastepura

I was watching #BlackPanther and after Okoye was called the general a boy next to me said : “I didn’t know girls can be generals!”
That’s why representation matters

3:52 PM – Feb 15, 2018

@@

https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Reactions-Okoye-Black-Panther-Movie-44593637

MC Baby Underbite | Bucky stans be gone@marvellite

One of the best things about #BlackPanther was definitely the women. Shuri, our princess is cheeky, charming and a fcking genius. Okoye could kill me and I’d gladly thank her. If I have even an ounce of Nakia’s compassion, I would be a better woman that I am now.

10:54 AM – Feb 16, 2018

@@

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/black-panther-who-plays-shuri-letitia-wright-profile

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/another-reason-why-shuri-is-the-greatest-disney-princes-1823136306

https://io9.gizmodo.com/black-women-are-black-panthers-mightiest-heroes-1823205912

http://blacknerdproblems.com/blackpanther-movie-review/

https://io9.gizmodo.com/wakandas-indomitable-culture-is-why-the-women-of-black-1822923859

 

From Tumblr:

http://mikeymagee.tumblr.com/post/171034006413/tchalla-erik-killmonger-and-luke-cage-the

 

The Making of:

*Everyone wants to know everything about the making of Wakanda, and Ruth Carter’s  major influences on her designs for the film.

Ruth Carter is a Hollywood costume designer who grew up in Springfield. Her career spans a long list of major motion pictures, and she is best known for her work on Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X” and Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad,” receiving Academy Award nominations for both films. Carter’s most recent work can be seen in “Selma,” a film about the trio of marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.

Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ is a broad mix of African cultures—here are some of them

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-black-panther-composer-ludwig-goransson-found-the-sound-of-wakanda-interview/

 

@@

 darkdamiaknight

“The PanAfrican flag is red, black and green, so when you see Okoye, T’Challa and Nakia in their covert looks, you’re seeing the PanAfrican flag.” – Ryan Coogler, director of Black Panther.

 

 

@@

Oh, yeah. The hair thing:

 

The Fans:

*This essay was originally written as a response to Beyonce’s Lemonade but many of the writer’s arguments can be equally applied to any media that is made by, and speaks to, a Black audience, including Black Panther.

Beyoncé’s Lemonade: A Lesson on Appreciating Art That Wasn’t Made for You

 

*This is what Tumblr fans are saying about representation:

*Took my african dad to see Black Panther

theghostwasblue

*no spoilers*

He does not like superhero movies and normally he falls asleep in the cinema. But not this time, he was on the edge of his seat and he said that he didn’t wanna miss a single moment. He absolutely loved the movie, the first thing he did when we got home was to call his african friend, yelling at him to go watch it as soon as possible. The second thing he did was ask me when the sequel will be out.

I asked my dad what he liked about the movie and he said everything. He loved that almost everyone was black and that they spoke Xhosa. He was so happy that they captured what life is actually like in many african cities in those scenes when they were walking around in wakanda. Seeing the people sit in cafes, buying food from food stands, kids running around with school bags, just people living their everyday life all the while being unapologetically african. He said he felt as if he was back home. And he was so happy that there finally was a movie where africans weren’t starving, or warlords, or dealing drugs. He told me that this is the kind of movie he has wanted to see for years, not alluding to the superhero stuff but the fact that they portray africans the same way that most if not all movies portray white people and not criminalize or dehumanize them but uplifting them. He loved every single character and especially M’Baku but his absolute favourite was the Queen mother Ramonda because she was so calm and collected while simultaneously being this strong queen. My dad, coming from a culture that really uplifts and value mothers and holds them above all, felt like the movie really captured that in Ramonda and that’s why he loved her.

He loved the soundtrack and how they mixed in djembe drums and traditional african singing with modern western music and he loved the costumes because a lot of the clothes look like the things people are wearing at all the african parties we go to.

The only complaint my dad had was that the sound was to high, which was his own fault for insisting that he sit at the end of the row right next to one of the speakers.

So yeah, representation do matter. I’ve never in my life seen him so happy about a movie. And he wanted to talk about it after it had ended which never happens normally. We joked around with the idea of him being a wakandan wardog stationed here and we did Shuris and T’Challas little handshake saying that is the only way we will now greet other africans. This movie gave my dad pure joy and happiness and it gave us a bonding opportunity because we finally have something that we both could geek out about.

Source: theghostwasblue

*Hollywood needs to start getting itself together:

*This needs to be said…

After Black Panther, and Coco, and all the other great films that have come out and boasted great representation (and great Box Office returns) I hope all movie studios are aware that nothing can every go back to the way it used to be.

Like, you know how when you’ve had something high quality, and you just can’t go back to the bargain brand again because you know what this product is supposed to be?

Well, Black Panther and Coco just introduced an entire generation of people (young and old alike) what positive representation is supposed to feel like.

People aren’t going to stand for “This character couldn’t be X because it’s a stereotype.”

People aren’t going to stand for “This character had a small role but it’s fine because X”

People ain’t gonna stand for “Finn can’t be written well because there’s no place for his story to go”

People aren’t going to stand for “Iron Fist couldn’t be Asian-American because it perpetuates a stereotype.

People aren’t going to stand for “We couldn’t find the right type of actor so we just went with a white person.”

People aren’t going to stand for “Let’s make the black woman a frog for the entire movie.”

People aren’t going to stand for “There weren’t any people of color in this era. It wouldn’t be historically accurate.”

People aren’t going to stand for “Well…it’s close enough, isn’t it? Why’re you complaining?”

Movie studios  thought it was bad before? Honey. Buckle up.

 

*The Alnur African Drum and Dance Troupe as The Dora Milaje

The Fans

 

In Africa:

I loved the African reaction to this movie:

 

*And the windup:

https://bidoun.org/articles/how-to-write-about-africa-ii

 

 

Why I’m Not Watching The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu Series)

For personal reasons, I won’t be watching this series, which airs on Hulu this month. I have developed  a thing about dystopias. I’m largely no longer interested in any of them. The only one I’m currently watching is The Walking Dead. I haven’t added  any more to my roster of shows.  (I’m not sure if Into the Badlands counts.)

The current argument from most PoC, even those who are fans of dystopian narratives, is that some of us have always lived in one. Certainly, the past is one huge dystopia for Black (Jim Crow), Latinx (Zoot Suit Riots), and Asian Internment camps), and Gay, and Transgender people, in this country. It’s been said that White people can  look forward and see  dystopian futures. Marginalized people have only to look at history.

Here in the US, it’s the 25th anniversary of the 1992 LA riots. The riots resulted in millions of dollars worth of damage, with over 50 people dead, and nearly 2,000 people injured. I remember I was in college at the time. I watched the beating of Rodney King when it occurred months earlier, listened to the announcement of the acquittal, and sat there watching the entire riot, appalled at what I was seeing. I remember feeling terrified (even though what was happening wasn’t anywhere near me). It felt like the end of the world, when it was happening. And I was angry, because I’m a person who knows  some history, and I understood why these people were mad as Hell. Unlike most White people, I had been paying attention to what came before the riots, and what had been happening in that environment, for years.

Last night, National Geographic aired a three  hour documentary of the LA riots, and I wanted to watch part of it. I was a bit nervous because I know that the documentary was made by White people, specifically White men, and not only  have they a long history of only telling news stories from their own perspective, I expected a certain amount of cluelessness and  bias in favor of the police. I expected the documentary to focus only on the actual rioting and violence, and mention none of what led up to that violence, (because White Americans have mastered the art of ignoring the things Black people say they are actually mad about, in favor of just making shit up.)

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the most of the doc was well done. Not exactly blalnced but not as bad as I thought it would be. There could have been a little more emphasis on the fact that it wasn’t just Black people involved, and why  the Korean shopkeepers got caught in the crossfire, but the parts I did see weren’t actually awful. I didn’t finish the show because I don’t actually need to watch a documentary about something I  witnessed, (and American Gods was on.)

Remember, the LA riots wasn’t like Ferguson, or any of the riots that have happened in the time of social media. We didn’t have social media back then. There were no reports from people, in the thick of things, tweeting about what was happening, in real time. The only way the rest of the world knew what was happening was through mainstream news reports by the talking heads who were witnesses. I have never trusted the mainstream media because it has historically aided and abetted the violent  stereotypes of PoC. Its the news media’s reliance on spectacle, that has  lead to the depiction of Black people as violent savages, that has given  impetus to racist beliefs that Black people are animals, and coverage during the riots, without any focus on the cause, just gave more fuel to those beliefs.

Note: I have lived in Black neighborhoods my entire life and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually witnessed a violent act. I have never committed an act of violence myself, or had one committed against me. This may be higher for  Black people in other parts of the country, or lower, but the bottom line is, unless you’ve lived in our neighborhoods and been part of our culture, you have no fucking idea what being Black in America is like, and the only information you could possibly have about us, are  biased news reports, from a media that benefits monetarily from telling White people horror stories about Black misery. I live in the Midwest. Its not a utopia, by any means, but its no more, or less, hellish than any other part of the US. and certainly nothing like the slice of hell the media would have everyone believe. (Nor is it the privileged party-fest that bigots would have you believe either.)

I’ll give you an example: I grew up in Cleveland Ohio, at the height of the Crips/ Bloods/Crack era that was happening on the East and West coasts, in the late eighties. We heard about it, but it was distant. It didn’t affect our everyday lives. We believed it was happening though, not because of what the mainstream news reported, but because we had an entire genre of rap songs chronicling the shit that was happening in those cities. Rap music was like news reports telling what happened to Black people in other parts of the country.

I watched the mainstream news with my Mom, and I noticed the news media was always trying to play up Cleveland’s gang problem. So desperate were White people in  Cleveland  to be seen as being as cosmopolitan as NY and LA, they were willing to invent problems Cleveland didn’t actually have.

Remember, I was a teenager during all of this, and I lived, worked, and played around the same neighborhoods they were pointing their fingers at, and  saw no evidence that there were gangs. Sure, there were young men who hung out together on street corners, and front stoops. I knew those guys, said hello to them all the time, got catcalled by them (as I was a PYT back then). They weren’t gang members. Were there guys who hung around and got into trouble together? Sure. I wouldn’t have classified them as a gang. (They didn’t have colors, insignia and personal graffiti, although sometimes they named themselves, and had parties.) Were there guys who wished they were a gang? Sure. Were there guys who got together to sell some drugs? Yep. Was there crack in our neighborhoods. Probably! Although I’ve never witnessed, nor encountered, a “crackhead”, and I’ve lived near the “projects” my whole life, and had friends who lived in them. None of these people were gangbangers. I met a gangbanger once. I worked with him during one of my Summer jobs. He seemed like a nice enough fellow. We talked about politics a lot. He didn’t seem inordinately angry about  the various issues of the day.

And yet, “violent”  is all some people think they know, or need to know, about our lives, trotting out that hoary old trope of “Black on Black crime”  at every opportunity, as some kind of gotcha, in conversations about racial politics.

Okay, I’m getting off point. My point was that I’m off  dystopian futures, for the most part, because  I like to maintain hope for the future. I’ve seen what happens when people lose that hope (and I’ve been there myself). I’ve seen those studies discussing the rise of drug use, and suicide among White men. Some people have theorized that part of the reason the death rate has risen, for that particular group of men, is because they have lost hope for a future in which being a White male is no longer the easiest player setting in the game of life.

Another reason I won’t be watching A Handmaids Tale is because Black people have actually experienced a dystopian past, but the  movies and books  lack PoC. White writers are willing to mine their sordid past, only to cast White people in the roles of the oppressed, when historically, its always been everyone else on the receiving end of that oppression. The Handmaid’s Tale is basically dystopian fiction which casts White women in the roles that Black women used to inhabit. So many of White people’s nightmares about the future seem to involve being treated the way they have  treated others.

In the original story by Margaret Atwood, America has been taken over by a religious sect of men. Due to environmental pollution, most women have become infertile. Instead of fixing the problem though, their solution is to enslave all the fertile White women, and force them to have  children. Women who are not considered fertile are killed or enslaved, they can no longer have jobs, read books, or go out in public without blinders. In the book, almost no mention is made of Black people, who are called the Children of Ham, except to mention their relocation elsewhere. Homosexuality is outlawed and punishable by death, women who refuse to adapt to their assigned roles are also executed. There’s even a kind of “underground railroad” to spirit women away into Canada.

I’ve seen people trying, unsuccessfully, to compare this to Sharia Law, when there’s no need for that, because we have examples right here. This is not a new story. America has already done these things to Black women. (See: 12 Years A Slave).  Atwood’s story entirely leaves out this angle of the narrative. (The streaming series is doing something different, but almost as traumatic, by including Black women, but  not mentioning race at all.)

I won’t be watching A Handmaid’s Tale because the trauma of what happens in that show is already real for Black people. We’ve already lived through it. It was only about fifty or so years ago that Mississippi had one of the highest rates of lynching in the US. My mother was born in Miss. in 1950. She had six brothers. Ours was one of the lucky families that managed to emigrate to the North, when she was about ten years old. My grandmother did that because she wanted all her children to grow up, and they had a far less chance of doing so in Mississippi, at that time. My family’s move to the North is a direct result of racist activities, during the Jim Crow era, in my mother’s lifetime.

My grandmother had spent much her life under Jim Crow, and would have spent the rest of her life in Miss., had she not been afraid for her children’s lives. I was too  young and scared to ask her for stories about the things she’d seen, and experienced. You see, my grandmother had already lived through the dystopian fictions that White people find so entertaining to cast themselves in now.

I’m no longer watching movies that are about Black misery, and consequently I refuse to watch any more movies, and shows, about Black misery that only feature White people.

Okay, that’s enough rambling from me.

Here! Have some links!

*These are specifically about the intersection of race and sexism in A Handmaid’s Tale

Now, the TV series makes a point of adding a woman of color to the story, in the character of Moira. In the book, Moira is a lesbian, who opts to become a Handmaiden, rather than be sent to The Colonies.

In the books, Moira is openly rebellious, and after several escape attempts, is sent to a life of enslaved prostitution. In the series, she is played by Samira Wiley, who is most famous for playing the character Poussey, a lesbian convict, in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. Her character was unceremoniously killed off that show, which raised some controversy, as it fell into the trope of  Kill All Your Gays. If the show follows the books, then no! I have no urge to see yet another Black woman be degraded to a life of sexual servitude.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2008/07/31/the-handmaids-tales-race-ethnicity-and-sexual-orientation-gilead-is-a-society-of-isms/

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/01/the-handmaids-tale-and-bad-slavery-comparisons/

http://www.fouronesixlit.com/2016/03/26/living-in-the-gaps-between-the-stories-race-at-the-margins-of-the-handmaids-tale/

https://nursingclio.org/2017/04/26/a-post-racial-gilead-race-and-reproduction-in-hulus-the-handmaids-tale/

<I>Handmaid's Tale</i> Series EP Explains Removal of White Supremacy Element

 

This particular essay, in the Atlantic, is an excellent summation of something I touched on in the post above. White people keep looking to the past for a utopia, and to the future for their more nightmarish scenarios. Dystopia seems to be a matter of perspective.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/why-sci-fi-keeps-imagining-the-enslavement-of-white-people/361173/

https://www.modernghana.com/news/756213/parable-of-the-sower-not-1984-is-the-dystopia-for-our-a.html

---

A series of articles on the Whiteness, and heteronormativity of  Dystopian futures

https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/the-100-and-the-privileged-dystopia/

http://powderroom.kinja.com/on-the-erasure-of-people-of-colour-from-dystopian-ficti-1565047386

http://blog.leeandlow.com/2014/05/07/where-are-the-people-of-color-in-dystopias/

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-topics-dystopian-films-wont-touch/382509/

https://beyoungandshutup.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/who-run-the-dystopian-world-white-girls-racial-diversity-in-dystopian-ya/

Introvert Linkage

Here’s a roundup of posts and articles about being an introvert. I foind most of these to be hilarious, and for the most part kind of true about how I think, most especially about people.

There’s  also a  the idea that the Myers Briggs personality tests are  a bunch of bunk’em but I’m okay with that. Even if these personality assessments aren’t any more real than horoscopes, its still a lot of fun, and I enjoyed reading these articles.

General Introversion: I found a lot more articles about genral introversion than articles specific to women. Keep in mind that most of these are probably written to the standard of White males,  because female introverts are so rare, and most people who study this sort of thing, use White men as the default.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/intj-learning-style

How Not To Be Hated By An INTJ

http://www.intjvision.com/

http://personalitygrowth.com/an-in-depth-look-behind-the-intj-stare/

 

On Women Introverts: It was a lot easier this time finding posts and articles about female introverts this time.

http://livingunabridged.com/31-realities-life-intj-woman/

http://www.quietrev.com/introverted-black-girl/

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/05/the-angry-black-introvert/

https://oddblackgirl.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-black-introvert.html

http://www.gradientlair.com/post/30536301997/the-black-introvert-struggle

https://getpocket.com/a/read/1096932327

https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/INTJ-women-A-rare-Myers-Briggs-Category

http://introvertdear.com/news/what-its-like-being-an-intj-woman/

http://www.intjvision.com/intj-female/

Oh, and here’s a link to a page full of links:

http://www.candiddiversions.com/2014/05/life-as-intj-woman.html

 

On Black Introverts: It was hard finding posts on this topic, that weren’t racially insulting, so I just left those out. I’m not surprised to find that most of them were on Yahoo Answers. I don’t fuck with Yahoo as a source for anything other than my email, as it’s quite possibly one of the most racist, and least informative, of all the search engines. It’s like Fox News for the internet.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/on-successfully-navigating-life-as-a-black-male-introvert/

http://black-introvert-confessions.tumblr.com/

 

 

 

Tumblr Talk II

I often find that Tumblr is a paradoxical combination of eloquent, intellectual arguments, sitting next to some deeply ignorant, batshit, fangirling, and that shit makes for some awesome drama, as you watch people walk into intellectual fights, completely unarmed, and get their asses handed to them.

Tumblr is also one of the best places on the internet for racial media fighting. The debaters are savagely eloquent in their defense of racial inclusion and intersectional feminism. If you go on Tumblr, looking to start something, you better have your shit ready, or you will get dragged.

From: note-a-bear

 

… the study of the European Middle Ages has denied blacks the right to a shared medieval past that would, in turn, authorize them to share the present that emerges from it. In other words, denying blacks medieval coevalness allows Euro-centric cultures to relegate modern blacks to a strictly modern status in which their history appears to be without the authorizing length and depth available to whites. The denial of medieval coevalness encourages students to ask, ‘Where were the black people in the Middle Ages?’ in a tone that suggests they are not entirely certain whether black people existed at all.

Cord J. Whitaker, “Race-ing the dragon: the Middle Ages, race and trippin’ into the future” (via medievalpoc)

From: the-wordy-witch-of-luck

General Curses for the Everyday Assholes Around You

– May all the chocolate chips in your cookies turn out to be raisins

– May your headphone cord catch on every door handle

– May your phone always die when you need it most

– May you always miss a belt loop

– May every great fitting pair of pants you have stretch out disroportionately throughout the day and no longer fit

– May you always feel your phone vibrating when it’s not

–  May every sock you wear be rotated just enough to be uncomfortable

– May all your social notifications be game invites

– May you ALWAYS step in a wet spot after putting on fresh, clean socks

– May your tea be too hot when you receive/make it and then ice cold when you go back to it

– May you always pick the slowest line up

– May your shoelaces be JUST long enough not to tie without stepping on them al day

stormbornwitch

– May you stub your toe on every doorframe you go through

– May you get papercuts on every book you open

– May you step on a leggo while trying to find your way in the dark

– May your tea and coffee always be bitter

sparkyinthesnow

– May a bird poop on that pretty car that you feel needs to block the crosswalk/my path.

– May your keys never be where you left them.

– May you always gain back those last 5 pounds (plus one).

– May your wifi connection be one bar or less for no reason.

– May the pockets you carry your change in all suddenly develop quarter-sized holes. (but may that change always make it’s way to someone who needs it).

whiteraven57

Oooh… these are all good…. 😉

seleneblackwell

Set a time limit on them and you’re good to go!

Source:the-wordy-witch-of-luck

 

From: nerdsagainstfandomracismrebloggeddiversehighfantasy

gretahs

marvel in color; (x)

↳ Doona Bae as The Wasp

↳ BD Wong as Doctor Strange

↳ Osric Chau as Iron Fist

↳ Michelle Rodriguez as Maria Hill 

↳ Alina Serban as Scarlet Witch

↳ Dichen Lachman as The Ancient One

gretahs

ok i don’t usually reply to things and i don’t really have the time right now but

firstly this is a fancast. secondly, the idea of marvel casting non-white actors for traditionally white parts is neither a disservice to the characters or necessarily pandering, while their casting of white actors as either non-white or ethnically ambiguous characters, such as the Ancient One, the Wasp, and Scarlet Witch, most definitely is racist. in the Ultimates verse, the Wasp is written as biracial, with an Asian mother, and considering that Janet Van Dyne has been axed off unnecessarily in the mcu anyway, there’s no reason why she couldn’t be played or have been played by an Asian actress. Regarding both the Iron Fist and Doctor Strange, there has been a great deal of conversation about their casting by people better informed by me, but the fact that remains that their origins rely heavily on orientalist stereotypes that could have been remedied by the casting of asian actors in these roles.

the issue isn’t just that marvel should be casting minorities in roles WRITTEN FOR MINORITIES, but that they seem to be deliberately choosing to tell white stories over those about people of colour.

also seriously, they cast benedict cumberbatch because they wanted him in the mcu, not because they thought he’d be the right person for the part.

… content always reflects the politics of the creator. the fact that we have two Avengers films where the Avengers team is 100% white up till the last fifteen seconds of Age of Ultron is a political statement. the idea that the mcu makes films about characters who are “”popular”” is incorrect because before the movies were announced, no mainstream audience had heard of iron man, ant man, or doctor strange. while it is commendable that marvel/disney has launched a franchise from marvel’s less popular characters, the reason they haven’t made a black panther or captain marvel film, in addition to postponing them further in order to release antman 2 and spiderman is because their political agenda dictates that they care more about their white male characters than those played by women or people of colour. in addition, the reason samuel l jackson was cast as nick fury is because nick fury was redesigned as his likeness without slj’s permission, and his agent threatened to sue. the fact that you’re justifying a billion dollar company having not made a film starring a minority as not wanting to “”pander”” to minorities is a gross mindset, but honestly it doesn’t even matter because marvel clearly doesn’t care about making minorities happy in the first place.

 

monte-varrick

Why is it that casting an overwhelmingly boring white cast is “Well, they’re just trying to make money.” or “They’re finding the right person.” or “That’s how it is in the comics.” But casting ANY actors of color is seen as “pandering” or “making something a political issue”? Please explain to me what about wanting to see Asian actors (or any other POC) portray characters that are based in Asian mythos and culture is political? Like, white people, why do y’all say that shit? Why can’t you just say “I’m racist and there at no niggers or spics or chinks or rag heads allowed in my all white safe spaces?” @diversehighfantasy@nerdsagainstfandomracism @jawnbaeyega

 

diversehighfantasy

OK. I’m still hung up on the first response talking about this and that character is “American” when they clearly mean white.

Maria Hill is racially ambiguous but that also means American is just as valid as Asian/Asian-American/etc.

Why the hell is American being used this way in 2016? And it’s even more infuriating because plenty of American characters – like quintessentially American characters – are played by people of other nationalities (British, Australian, Irish, etc), but they’re usually white. I’ve literally never seen anyone like “uh you can’t fancast that British actor because the character is American in canon.”

i.e. Don’t pretend this is about nationality when it’s about race, especially when the nationality in question includes every damn race.

Anyway. Yeah. The MCU is indefensible in its representation of Asians and its East Asian whitewashing. The MCU is pretty indefensibly racist in general, though I keep waiting for them to make me change my mind.

It’s funny that people even try to invoke the comics in defense of the MCU’s obsession with whiteness when Marvel comics are light years ahead of the MCU. Like, why is the MCU even considering Carol Danvers when we have Kamala Khan? Why is Peter Parker the MCU’s Spider-Man when Miles Morales is joining the Avengers in the new Marvel Universe? At least the comics are trying.

Source:gretahs

#fandom racism#racism in fandom#Media Racism#Marvel Comics#marvel cinematic universe#Meta#Media Representation#Representation in Media#Reblog#Long Post#Mod P.

thehbwproject

I am done choosing between my womanhood and my blackness.

Stop giving me fictional white female characters and telling me “these are the fictional women to admire, the ones that break the mold, the feminist icons, the representation you’ve been longing for.”

Stop asking me to squint to see myself represented on screen. Stop telling me to “wait my turn”, to support shows with white female leads as though this was a rare occurrence, as though there haven’t been thousands of them through the years. As though white women haven’t been held as the pinnacle of progress and feminism on TV since Lucille Ball.

Stop telling me that a white woman playing a spy, is innovative and feminist when you’ve had Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Scarecrow & Mrs. King and Alias before Agent Carter.

Stop telling me that seeing Jessica Jones, a white female character with PTSD, on screen is a long time coming, a revolutionary feminist act, when Joss Carter, Abbie Mills, Olivia Pope, Sasha Williams and Michonne aren’t afforded the same treatment regarding theirs from writers, media and fandom alike.

Stop telling me that “romance is not part of the show” when said show is built on the loss of the White Male Lead’s love interest. Stop labeling black female characters as one half of a “brotp”, as the supportive friend, a mammy that does everything but wipe the white man’s ass or tuck him into bed, only to prop up the Random White Woman In The Background as the obvious choice for a new, better suited love interest.

Stop giving me Trojan Horses, those black female characters I’ve longed for, the ones I finally can see myself in, the ones that you’re praised for creating and writing, the ones you make money off of only to kill them later, once they’ve served their purpose.

We are not your first step towards success, we aren’t a tool to be used to avoid criticism, or appease higher ups afraid of losing money because of the lack of diversity and representation in their shows.

We are not either women or black, we are both and we deserve to be spies, the fated love interest, the damsel in distress, the selfish one, the vulnerable one, the pinnacle of feminism and progress, the one who’s turn has come, the one who was a long time coming.

Stop giving me a drop of water and calling it the sea.

proletariat15

proletariat15

The exploitation of African-Americans through the use of media is obvious from the films above.

1. Little Rascals (1920’s) – The coon character is one of the most insulting of all anti-black characters. The name itself is an abbreviation of raccoon and  dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon.

2. King Kong (1930’s) – The brute character portrays black men as innately savage, animalistic, destructive, and criminal – deserving punishment, maybe death. This brute is a fiend, a sociopath, an anti-social menace. Black brutes are depicted as hideous, terrifying predators who target helpless victims, especially white women.  It’s been suggested that King Kong was a veiled allegory of the life of boxer Jack Johnson, who married two white women during his lifetime and was even arrested for taking one across state lines.

3. Shaft (1970’s) – Blaxploitation films are mainly set in poor neighborhoods. Ethnic stereotypes against white characters, such as “crackers” and “honky”, and other derogatory names are common plot and or character elements.

4. Lethal Weapon (1980’s) – African American males are typically cast in specific roles in American film. The usual suspects include the black sidekick of a white protagonist, the token black person, the comedic relief, the athlete, the ladies’ man, and most damaging, the violent black man.

5. Menace to Society (1990’s) – In the 1990s the typical cinema and television, the brute was nameless — sometimes faceless; he sprang from a hiding place, he robbed, raped, and murdered. He represented the cold brutality of urban life. Often he was a gangbanger.

6. Norbit (2000’s) – This was the mammy caricature, and, like all caricatures, it contained a little truth surrounded by a larger lie. The caricature portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white “family,” but often treated her own family with disdain.

Be careful while watching television (tell-our-vision) because it is a Lethal Weapon that can turn Little Rascals into a Menace to society!!!!

writer-rachelina

Representation: Not Just for Minorities’ Sake

So I grew up in this town I’m going to call White McWhitington City. See where I’m going with this? There were about twenty thousand people in this town, and in my high school years, about three black kids at the high school total, plus a few (adopted) Asian kids. I did not go to the high school, so I didn’t really meet these people.

I believed, as a child, that black people were scary because of their hair and outfits and ‘weird talking’. I was not familiar with the term ‘Ebonics’ nor with almost any black people.

Furthermore, I thought the two Asian (Korean and Filipino-white) friends I had would be friends with each other and exclude me because they ‘looked the same’ (they do not look alike at all).

I thought that all Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals were extinct. I didn’t know what Arabs or Muslims were. I thought all the Jews had lived in Jesus’ time and no longer existed as a people because the Christians had come and God didn’t need the Jews anymore.

Why am I telling you how racist I was as a child? Because that racism could have been averted, with representations of ordinary kids and adults who fit in those categories in the media I consumed. As main characters, not the side character who existed to make jokes or fill a quota.

In none of the shows I saw did a black person’s personal life get examined. In none of the books I read did Asian people get to be the main characters, despite my extensive reading of the whole children’s section in my library. A Native American or Australian Aboriginal character was unheard of, other than as sketches in history books. The only book I ever found as a child that examined a POC’s life was the Josefina series, by American Girl.

I really wish I had seen diverse characters in diverse roles growing up, because I had mixed-race cousins (Still do: Black-White and Thai-White) and I could have been a lot less of a dick.

We need to see others in our media to understand them. First and foremost, of course, the benefit is to POCs themselves, in getting to see themselves on screen and on the page, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t better us white folks too. It would be a great place to start, in childhood, to show us that there are other people, different from us, who are not a threat. Because, trust me, we are very malleable at that stage.

And maybe we won’t have little racist brats running around. Because, just because I was able to change, doesn’t mean every child-turned-adult will.

2. You reblogged mcufandomhatespeopleofcolor

   anonymous asked:

   those who defend the mcu problematic shit saying “is a DIFFERENT version, not the comics!!!!!1!!” yeah dude, but why it must be a version were mostly characters are white, cis males??

   

   mcufandomhatespeopleofcolor answered:

   Just in case people don’t believe you about it being a version that’s predominantly white cis men here’s a handy visual guide to the white parade up to 2013

   

   So you gotta think in the films the only supporting PoC in the films you can add to this are 2 supporting characters Sam Wilson and Helen Cho. (Before anyone asks none of the PoC actors in Guardians of the Galaxy count as representation because they had on body paint/CGI and were presented as aliens).  Meanwhile you can add literally a twice as many white men and women here’s an incomplete list:

   • Sharon Carter,
   • Wanda Maximoff (whitewashed)
   • Pietro Maximoff (whitewashed)
   • Peter Quill

   And that’s literally only the good guys.  At this rate white people in the MCU films are being added at twice the rate as PoC.  Plus Ant-Man is coming out and that looks extremely white too with only white leads and no significant PoC roles at all.

   This isn’t counting the fact that although AOS is diverse its only the PoC and queer white women who keep getting killed off.  Or the fact that Agent Carter is completely white and that all the main cast on Daredevil is white.  And of the PoC on Daredevil they’ve already killed off Ben and Claire is rumored to come back but she only had five appearances.

   And if anyone cares at all the US isn’t as white as these films, its only 62% white, with white men only comprlsing like 31% of the population so the super whiteness super maleness of the MCU is really freaking obvious.

   TL;DR The MCU is a much whiter much more male centered world than the comics or the current US demographics.

    

   

    

    queerhawkeye

   anonymous asked:

   After recent events and stuff fandom has been talking and debating about I’m wondering if anyone has ever made a list of PoC who gets killed in TV? Particularly one for this year.

   

   queerhawkeye answered:

   That would be a way longer list than [the 152 dead lesbians], and growing at a much faster rate, God.

   A quick google search didn’t show any specific list, though it did remind me that there is a much older and much more widespread counterpart for the Bury Your Gays trope: the Black Dude Dies First trope. The article has a handy list of some of the characters that fit the trope, and, though the list in movies is longer, there is a good handful of examples in live action TV.

   • The black and latinx characters killed off in five seasons of Breaking Bad alone are probably close to a hundred. (See: [All deaths in BrBa] and [BrBa’s race problem])
   • Literally every production about a white guy who knows martial arts kills off nameless Asian characters like they get paid by the corpse. (Daredevil, [maybe]?)
   • The whole “post-apocalyptic dystopia” genre is based off on one white dude inexplicably staying alive while all the brown people around him keep dying. ([TWD] and [FTWD]!)

   This discussion happens with… like… every show. [The 100]. [Supernatural]. [Agents of SHIELD]. [LOST]. I could probably just keep googling “[name of show] + racism” and get a more and more lists of characters of color killed to move the plot forward, for shock value, to cause a white character’s guilt, because [a racist writer didn’t get along with the actor], etc.

   The disproportionate amount of violence inflicted on characters of color on TV, I think, shouldn’t need to be proved with lists or stats –not that there aren’t lists, stats or even [academic writings] on the subject. There are characters of color in almost all shows, and they are getting killed off almost every episode in literally any show with an average level of violence. Cop shows, action shows, supernatural shows, horror shows, sci-fi shows, they all show brown dead bodies weekly.

   I don’t doubt that there are, somewhere, stats on how these numbers aren’t getting better with time, lists and percentages and essays on how all our favorite “””diverse””” shows use characters of color as canon fodder. Maybe seeing the numbers all laid out would do something against the normalization of brown deaths in TV.

   But making a list of, say, all the dead characters of color in television in the first three months of 2016 would… probably be a considerable feat, but doable. Making a database and building proper stats, like @autostraddle’s [Ultimate Stats of WLW in TV], of all the dead characters of color in the history of Anglo-speaking Western television would require an incredible amount of work, people and time. Not that it’s impossible, but the numbers are fucking abysmal.

   

   becketted

   this sentiment draws focus to an important topic of why we as a society feel the need to constantly turn male and female friendships into something more.

   People always say this shit when it’s a woman of color (specially a black woman) getting with a white dude. No one says this stuff of shows like Castle orBones back in their early seasons or Blindspot. But when we are talking aboutThe Walking Dead or Sleepy Hollow or Minority Report (even with The Flashand Westallen, which is beyond absurd, because Iris was introduced as a love interest right off the bat, yet people want to downgrade her as just a friend in the name of platonic friendship which are SO IMPORTANT but only when women of color are involved) suddenly everything is WHY CAN’T WE HAVE A MALE/FEMALE FRIENDSHIP and a lot of concern for a supposed lack of male/female platonic friendship on tv (there’s no lack of platonic male/female friendship in fiction, and even if they were it’s still shitty to use it as an argument ONLY when the object of affection of the male lead might be a woman of color), suddenly it’s so important and socially relevant to portray healthy male/female friendships when it’s never an issue when the female character is white – not even in fandom where canonically it’s healthy platonic male/female friendship, like Clint/Natasha. (Before someone accuses me of anything I’m not saying there’s anything wrong in shipping people who have canonically platonic relationship, and I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong in shipping Clint/Natasha of course; I’m saying that if you ship stuff like Clint/Natasha you shouldn’t level the “WE NEED MORE PLATONIC MALE/FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS!” argument exclusively when the woman if a person of color)

   Oh your great concern for having platonic male/female friendship onscreen because there’s such a lack. What about the lack of female characters of color (specially black women) seen as worthy of being loved, desired and protected by the male lead? Because there’s a lot less of those stories than of men and women being just friends, I promise you.

   You realize that Elementary has made the Holmes/Watson friendship moreinsistently platonic when she’s a woman of color than many of the adaptations where they are two men?

   No big number of fans in the Arrow fandom rushed to “it would be so important that Oliver and Felicity remain platonic friends, we need male/female friendships on tv” when she was introduced, no majority is arguing that making FitzSimmons a romance would “cheapen the relationship”.

   It’s tiresome, I’m tired. I can only imagine how tired black women must be of people always telling them that characters like them onscreen should never get the main dude, or that being loved by the protagonist would “cheapen” the show, that platonic friendships (where they mostly prop and support the main white dude) are all they’re good for.

   It’s hypocritical and it’s getting old soon.

 

This is what its like on Tumblr!