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pastelpressmachine · 3 years ago

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“The Sex Lives of College Girls” misses the representation mark with Bela Malhotra

It took me awhile to get to HBO’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls” for a number of reasons. For one, I’m a full time high school teacher and grad school student, which should tell you plenty about how much I want to spend my few moments of free time in front of a screen on top of how much I already do. Much less to watch yet another show centering around people my age playing minors, or at the oldest, 18-year-old college freshmen.

And honestly, if you’ve read any of my previous reviews regarding work executive produced, created, or co-written by Mindy Kaling, you would know that I do not typically allow myself to have high hopes for it.

Reading on is important, as is reading those reviews (about films/tv shows centering whiteness/men even if and especially when the main character is a woman of color and oftentimes the embodiment of one-dimensional or deprecating tropes). And also, before anyone immediately decides this is a bout of internalized racism or misogyny, I have noted previously that Mindy Kaling has made it a point of how she is unfairly expected to be a spokesperson for the South Asian experience when white men are not held to the same responsibility or criticized in the same way because they get to tell their singular stories (which are naturally defaulted as the story most worth producing/telling/renewing). I do agree that that is unfair.

With that said, it cannot be ignored that part of her success and recognition for major accomplishments is celebrating that she is a noteworthy first in many respects directly related to her identity as a South Asian female actor, writer, director, and producer, and for the fact that she is putting on South Asian female leads in spaces where we have not previously seen them: in the leads of mainstream tv series and films. I love this, in theory, and I think it’s important to critique it in practice.

Did I recently submit my final capstone paper for my graduate degree? Have I suddenly found the time to write an unsolicited thinkpiece on a piece of media that maybe a dozen people will read? Is that what I majored in during undergrad and do I want to revive my love of writing, which felt attacked by the demands of homework assignments and working in academia? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. And I am especially critical of narratives that shape public opinion about my identity as a South Asian woman. I have also created my own work in the hopes of diversifying depictions of desi characters, and the more I see disheartening, repetitive caricatures, the more I feel compelled to explain why this is not okay as well as keeping making my own art in the form of fiction writing, screenplays, or digital art that centers and celebrates my identity in an empowering manner. Because you can be funny and find love and explore your interests and challenge tradition and break down intergenerational trauma without making jabs at yourself, seeking proximity to whiteness, or making your content palatable to an audience that at a baseline, knows very little about your culture and wouldn’t be interested in learning more unless you have Dwight from The Office explain what Diwali is.

“The Sex of College Girls” sticks to Mindy Kaling’s brand of comedy (self deprecation, the “playful” and somehow not harmful ignorance of white people, lots and lots sexual innuendos), only with more explicit nudity/language afforded by being an HBO production. In this 10-episode series, four college freshmen roommates navigate identity, sexuality, and the other social, financial, and academic demands of being at a prestigious university in Vermont, which is fictionalized in the show as Essex College.

Amrit Kaur plays Bela Malhotra, a sex-positive, crass-humoured Indian-American girl who is very interested in exploring and unleashing her sexually repressed self, now that she is no longer living with her traditional Indian parents, who think she is studying in neuroscience. She is very passionate about being a comedy writer and writing for the school’s renowned comedy magazine, known as the Catullan. I want to say she is a refreshing new character compared to what we have seen Mindy Kaling create, but she is really just Mindy’s character, Molly Patel, in Late Night (2019) and Devi Vishwakumar from her Netflix series, Never Have I Ever, in a different font. In addition, she cracks the same regurgitated jokes about body hair and is written alongside or hinted at having exclusively white male love interests. Again.

Not even two minutes into the pilot episode, when the girls are being dropped off to their dorms by their parents, Bela delivers a painful monologue comparing her transformation into a liberated college woman to Ben Affleck’s back tattoo of a phoenix rising up from the ashes. (Like Mindy Lahiri’s character in The Mindy Project, Bela communicates through celebrity references to make her point.) She tells her parents, “Four months ago, I was an Indian loser with cystic acne, sweaty armpits, and glasses. But with one Lasik procedure, an Accutane prescription, and medical-grade Botox injected into my armpits, I’m normal.”

HBO Max’s TikTok account even recently highlighted that particular scene, as if it’s some hilarious self-aware joke that attacks what society expects women to go through to be considered normal. But this did not do what the writers think it did. Why is Bela’s Indian-ness something she has to overcome in order to achieve “normal-ness”, whatever that is? Her experiences of being a teenager who sweats a lot, has acne, and wears glasses is not unique to Indian girls, so why is it being portrayed as such? Why did she specifically say she was an “Indian loser”?

Throughout the rest of the episode and series as a whole, the show touches on heavier topics such as classism, internalized homophobia, and sexual assault, which depressingly, majority of women in college experience. And this very much happens to women in their occupations, particularly in the entertainment industry. Instead of being used as filler plot devices, the challenges that the four women experience do inform their relationships with each other and themselves, so I was almost relieved that this was handled with a little bit more nuance. Bela has to consider what it means to be authentic to herself and hold people in positions of power accountable, whether it’s her parents for imposing expectations that are not fulfilling to her or the head writers of the Catullan for facilitating a dangerous bro culture that makes it difficult for her or other victims to come forward about the sexual assault(s) or advance in her writing pursuits.

I know that they say to write what you know, and Mindy Kaling knows about the world of working with white men in comedy who may abuse their power or make women like Bela work extra hard to prove that they are worthy of a seat at the table. She knows what it’s like to go to an Ivy League school on the east coast. She knows how tricky it is to juggle the expectations and American dream of immigrant parents while growing up in America and trying to figure out who you are. However, I think it would’ve been more interesting and something truly new of Kaling to create Bela through the lens of any one of her other roommates’ story arcs, like being a wealthy, closeted femme lesbian whose family assumes she will marry/date a man within their approved social circle. Or getting caught in an infidelity scandal that impacts her membership on the collegiate soccer team and draws additional controversy because she is a senator’s daughter. Or coming from a low income, conservative family and experiencing a lot of painful or complicated firsts that impact her scholarship/financial standing to be able to continue to attend Essex College. All of these narratives are ones that the modern desi girl can relate to as well, no matter who plays the character. If we were to see something new however, Bela Malhotra would not be a horny science nerd who is subconsciously insecure of being Indian and very interested in sleeping with white men.

In a New York Times interview, Amrit Kaur said one of the cringiest, poorly articulated things she could have when asked about the significance of a character like Bela and why American culture is so obsessed with the sex lives of young women.

In an edited excerpt of their conversation, the actors of the show answered in a way that reflected the experience of their character. Pauline Chalamet who plays small town work-study student Kimberly named that fetishization of young women contributes to the obsession around girls having “crazy, amazing sex all the time”, but the show focuses more on the parts that are honest in that certain situations can be “awkward”, “weird”, and “funky”, which is exactly how Kimberly’s sexual debut and the ensuing events for her character unfold. Alyah Chanelle Scott, who plays Whitney, the soccer player and daughter of a U.S. senator, spoke to the hypersexualization of Black women as scandalous, with white women hailed as the standard of sexy, all seen through the male gaze. I agree with the importance of the show showing Black women getting to have “awkward, normal, messy sexual moments”. Maybe this will be explored in season 2 when news of the cheating scandal makes its way to the wife and eventually Whitney’s mother, who has already demonstrated a familiarity with facing a white public’s judgment in the show.

For some reason, Kaur felt the need to double down on the statement that Black women get oversexualized, and then add that “brown women have the exact opposite experience. We’re not sexualized at all – we’re virginal. So to now have a character that has sex and has all these ideas about sex, that’s all really important. She gets into a lot of dangerous situations as a result, but also learns a lot.” Framing it the way she did, as in unnecessarily comparing two minorities without any nuance, implies that Black women benefit from having the opposite experience of brown women, which simply isn’t true. In the cases where we see Black women reclaiming and celebrating their sexuality, they are subjected to additional scrutiny and consequences for their career/public image (see: Janet Jackson, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, to name a few). She could’ve skipped the part about Black women and said brown women, more specifically Indian women, are not seen as sexual beings, and the point she was maybe trying to make would have come across better. When Black women are perceived as inherently sexual, they are not cast in empowering roles and the leads of HBO tv shows; they are ridiculed and victimized and harmed at a rate higher than any other demographic in the United States historically. This has been happening from as far back as the era of slavery after kidnapping and trafficking people from Africa, and today, in regards to crimes such as the kidnapping, rape, or murder of Black people. And the numbers are even higher for Black trans women.

Kaur’s statement was made in poor taste and was far too binary. Scott said what she needed to, without speaking for Indian women or their experiences, so why did Kaur feel like she could say what she did? It brings up other questions about voices that are being included and represented in this show both in front of and behind the camera.

What other writers besides Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble (you guessed it, a white man) participated in crafting this story? Were the only two options for this women of color in this narrative to be virginal/not sexual at all or to be very sexual (albeit in different ways from how they are usually portrayed)?I guess so, considering the very on-the-nose title of the show. But why was that how Kaur seemed to perceive the entire Black and brown experience to be as well? The power of media and representation – it really does impact and reinforce thinking.

In summation, I was left disappointed with Bela as a character and Kaur as one of the few examples of desi representation I have in mainstream media, and the closest to my background (as a Punjabi woman raised Sikh) since Lilly Singh came on the scene (and she’s a whole other story).

To my Punjabi women coming up and getting cast, to lowkey problematic Geminis, and to writer’s rooms everywhere (and maybe even some PR teams), do better.

#the sex lives of college girls #mindy kaling #desi #asian representation #south asian #hbo max #bela malhotra #amrit kaur

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ciaran-archive · 4 years ago

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What do you think of the opinion that writers should read 'real' books? I know it's something that's been argued to death but I recently had a falling out with a friend who was formerly very gifted in lit classes when we were in school but she had to change courses but even now she's still a casual writer and we had a chat and she says that it's silly to only read fanfics and that 'real' works NEEDS to be read too for development and I find her hypocritical and snobby since she reads fics too?

i think it’s stupid to think you’re going to learn everything there is to know about writing from a single place. fanfiction is diverse as hell in form and function, and i don’t want to denigrate it on specious grounds, but like - at least for me - fanfic is a place where i’m picky as fuck about what i read. i have zero patience with the characters i know making decisions i disagree with. i’m liable to stop reading over minor quibbles with the writing. when i look for fanfic, i sort as narrowly as possible, and then i dismiss 90% of the fics i come across anyway. i have no interest in diversifying my palate via fanfic, even though when i have taken tries on fanfic, i’ve discovered some of the most mesmerizing and intense and fresh writing i’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

published fiction, by contrast (and again, this is personal and dependent on the way i read) makes me more patient and willing to go where the author is leading. it forces me to think about the story overall in a certain pattern, knowing that it’s following a structure i can discern with some effort, and makes me think about predicting plotlines. fanfic, a lot of the time, doesn’t do structure (and i think that’s great, because i can’t do structure and i despise having to force my fics into a formula that buries the vibe i’m trying to create) and plays fast and loose with genre conventions. reading published stuff makes me realize what those conventions are and how they can be done well or badly. can i learn that from fanfic too? probably! but i wouldn’t be aware of the genre in the same way i am when reading something published.

insofar as it’s silly to read fanfic, it’s silly to only consume any single medium of content and nothing else. i would also roll my eyes at someone who only reads academic articles or only watches children’s cartoons. i think you need diversity in what you consume. one of my major problems w myself is that i can’t get myself to engage with as much media as i’d like because of my adhd. basically, it’s not silly to read fic, but if fic is the only thing you’re reading then you may at one point wanna figure out how to expand your range a little. it’s not going to hurt you to be limited, and it’s fine if that’s what works for you, but it’s also going to inform your expectations in a certain direction and make it harder to engage with things that don’t follow that pattern.

it also depends on whether ‘development’ is a priority for you - it is for me, which is why it was really important for me to get back into reading published work. i like reading published stuff! it’s got the kind of hard sff i really like, and i find original romances are pretty fun and give me perspective on the stuff i’m used to reading from fanfic. however, now that i’ve read enough published work this year to say (over two dozen books) i’m pretty sure that reading published work didn’t do a lot for my development as a writer - not nearly as much as writing consistently and talking to other writers did. in fact, i’m pretty sure watching tv serials is better for my writing than published books. there’s no way to tell for sure what’ll work and what won’t, but i think you will get something out of reading published work, and it’s worth trying in order to figure out whether you want that something.

in any case, i don’t see the point in arguing whether published work or fanfic is better. people make shitty things and sometimes the shit’s on ao3 and sometimes it’s on the barnes and noble bookshelf and there’s no way to decide once and for all which one’s better. they both have their moments.

#i think i contradicted myself somewhere here #but im too tired to proofread #anon #asks #the only thing i will say for SURE is. read poetry.#go on ours poetica or find poetry blogs on here #and read poetry

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bleepbloo · 5 years ago

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SC: The Strong Arm of Justice, Part 2, Thoughts and Reactions

Um, so usually, I don’t do this, but, uh, considering the @rillaofexile‘s post regarding the episode itself? I’m going to be cautious and list the trigger warnings before hand so people will know what to expect (to some degree), when reading so people can decide if they want to read it.

These are also listed on the transcript itself at the end, and at the episode description as well.

WARNINGS: violence and threats of violence, threats of violence against children, ref to death and dying, xenophobia, misgendering that can be constructed as transphobic, ableism, hostages/captives, and sudden loud noises

Edit: Additional warning that I’m adding- Transphobia

Alright so, right off the bat, Angelo is adorable by saying that Al’e is his true love. Cute AF. Less cute is when Angelo insists that Al’e is his bride. Not his groom. Which. Hm.

OH! Wow, Ok, really glad I put the warnings up, because, YIKES. Moment is at 3:43 if you want to avoid it.

Thankfully enough they move pass it very quickly, but man, definitely jarring if you’re not expecting it.

also- angelo still having a crush on Damien, confirmed. Also, also, not to knock Angelo’s intelligence, but he’s not the type to have an...expansive vocabulary like that? Redundant is not a word he would use. Damien, sure, but angelo? Not so much. Meaning he had to tell someone of this crush and someone had to....discourage him from bringing it up with Damien. Not sure who, (I have my theories), but at the very least, it’s something to pay attention to.

Also, I’m really glad they include a knight who pretends to be a man so she can protect her sister, that’s a really cute story.

Holy shit, Olala broke a fucking window with her kick.

What the fuck. What kind of- Man, she’s really powerful.

Angelo, I don’t think that’s going to work - she broke a window. She can easily break out.

In other news, the Kite fucking sucks!

Angelo, please, Al’e wouldn’t be impressed in the slightest, because he strictly told you NOT TO RETURN. And you have read WAY TOO MANY STORIES, Sir Angelo.

Actually that would make some amount of sense now that I’m thinking about it.

A person who doesn’t diversify their story palate, and only reads the kinds of stories that uphold their worldview, wouldn’t know about anything else. Explains what ended up happening with Sir Caroline to a better degree, at any rate. And now Al’e is the unfortunate recipient of that particular brand of delusion.

Ah. They’re laying a trap for the Vigilant He....or, perhaps, for Al’e?

Nope, definitely Angelo. *sigh* The poor Dumbass.

Poor Angelo. I fear the lesson he's going to learn is not everything is like the story books.

Oh jesus, she has a knife!

Yeah, Al'e is never going to fall for Angelo after this.

I mean....I can't blame either of them for their actions.

And here comes the kite.

OH GOD, SHE'S DEAD.

In more news- THE KITE SUCKS EVEN WORSE!

I- jesus, poor Angelo, he’s so scared.

I love Ale so much.

Angelo, you tried your best but you didn’t succeed.

This is just more evidence that he’s not human.

Saint Aaron’s hammar, huh?

this just shows that Kite was a former knight, and semi-recently.

I love Angelo, and even this was a rough episode regarding his growing pains, Angelo is good.

He’s so strong, but he can’t win against the Kite, even with his limited magic.

And the white one is the most powerful. Yikes.

God, if Olala hadn’t shown up, Angelo would’ve died, period.

And Al’e....I can’t blame him for his choices. Doesn’t mean I like them, but jesus; also, compared to Angelo and Al’e, she’s the only one to hurt the Kite.

Poor Olala- she’s about to get a harsher reality check than Angelo did.

This is a shitty episode to have a cliff-hanger on for at least a month.

Listen, listen, the universe won’t kill Olala yet, it just can’t. But I don’t like where it left off at.

This is a fun episode in terms of intel, but jesus, this is literally the worst cliff-hanger considering 1) the state of the world, 2) it’s going to be two months for us to return to the 2nd Citadel (after the Steel storyline), 3) how tense everyone’s going to be for Olala and the situation in general.

I honestly think they should’ve delayed the episode until they have more of a backlog so we could have other things to look forward to. Like, I just read the transcript because I had stuff to do today with my dad, and even reading the transcript was Rough and a Lot.

Also, this is going to be #personalOpinion, so take it as you will, barring in mind I’m not trans:

This episode had transphobia in it, full stop. I think it was handled ok- dealing with anything that has a phobia in the Queer community is hard - but it definitely could’ve been handled better, or maybe differently?

Vespa’s reveal - for what it was - was handled better than this.

but just the moment where Angelo says ‘[Ale] must be a woman because I’m attracted to her’ is just- that’s transphobia, that’s not ONLY misgendering, that is full-on transphobia mixed in with internalized homophobia. This is disregarding the rest of the episode.

Edit2: Admittedly, the rest of the episode is not quite as bad as the beginning bit because Ale is there to mitigate it, but it can definitely be upsetting to those that are sensitive to that stuff.

Bear in mind, I still trust Kevin as a writer- I know he’s going to do better from here - but this is definitely one of those learning moments. I’m honestly still reeling just from how dark this episode got, which like- yeah, one of the hallmark’s of the penumbra is to be dark and go to those places, but jesus.

Even the Juno Steel episode ‘Monster in the mirror’ was lighter than this, and that was a dark episode (in a different way, mind, but still dark shit!).

I’m kind of dreading actually listening to the episode now.

Stay safe out there.

#bleepbloo thoughts #second citadel spoilers #second citadel #if you're sensitive to any trans issues or misgendering #don't listen to the episode

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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The inequality is too damn high. In the United States today, the richest 0.1 percent of the population owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. And the chasm between our aristocracy’s fortunes — and those of the average Joe and Joanna — is only growing. Since 1980, the real annual earnings of the top 0.1 percent have grown by 343 percent; the poorest nine-tenths of the country, meanwhile, have seen their earnings grow by a mere 22 percent in that time span. Absent drastic reforms of our political economy, there’s every reason to think that this income polarization will continue apace in the decades to come.

And drastic reforms ain’t easy. In fact, even modestly reducing inequality (and/or ameliorating its most troubling effects) through tax and transfer programs poses major political challenges. For example, while raising taxes on the rich is very popular, transferring income away from the upper reaches of the middle class is less so. Even when broad-based tax hikes are pegged to overwhelmingly popular forms of redistribution, such as universal health care, voters often have trouble swallowing them. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 56 percent of Americans favored Medicare for All — until they were told the policy would “require most Americans to pay more in taxes,” at which point support plummeted to 37 percent. The credibility of this finding is buttressed by the failure of movements for single-payer health care in Vermont and Colorado, where aversion to tax increases fueled opposition. And the unpopularity of tax hikes on the non-rich can also be seen in the reluctance of even the leftmost Democrats to present detailed plans for how they intend to finance their most ambitious redistributive programs.

Bernie Sanders appears to understand all this. Which is why the 2020 candidate is preparing to shift the focus of his economic message away from divisive “tax and spend” liberalism and toward more broadly popular approaches to reducing inequality — like, say, worker ownership of the means of production. As the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reports:

We can move to an economy where workers feel that they’re not just a cog in the machine — one where they have power over their jobs and can make decisions,” Sanders said in an interview. “Democracy isn’t just the opportunity to vote. What democracy really means is having control over your life.”

Sanders said his campaign is working on a plan to require large businesses to regularly contribute a portion of their stocks to a fund controlled by employees, which would pay out a regular dividend to the workers. Some models of this fund increase employees’ ownership stake in the company, making the workers a powerful voting shareholder. The idea is in its formative stages and a spokesman did not share further details.

Sanders also said he will introduce a plan to force corporations to give workers a share of the seats on their boards of directors. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another 2020 presidential candidate, proposed a similar idea last year.

Sanders’s plan for giving workers at major corporations an ownership stake in their firms is by far the most “socialist” policy he has ever endorsed as a national politician. The idea is, in essence, a scaled-down version of the late Swedish economist Rudolf Meidner’s plan for gradually socializing ownership of industry by requiring employers to funnel a fixed percentage of their annual profits into collectively owned, trade-union-managed “wage-earner funds.” Meidner’s plan, and all other blueprints for “funds socialism,” is derived from a simple observation, deftly summarized by Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project:

[C]apital ownership no longer takes the form of an individual business owner presiding over an empire, but instead takes the form of affluent families owning diversified portfolios of real estate and financial assets like stocks and bonds. The socialization of those assets into funds owned and controlled by workers or society would thus provide a relatively simple glide path into a kind of market socialism.

(For a rundown on the Meidner plan, and other approaches to “funds socialism,” check out Bruenig’s fascinating proposal for an American Solidarity Fund).

Sanders’s wealth-fund plan would do far more than any of his other policies to reduce the vast disparities of wealth and income that he’s made his name decrying. The fundamental challenge in combating inequality is that wealth begets more wealth. Those who can afford to invest in bonds get to collect annual interest payments; those who invest in stocks or real estate typically see their capital assets annually appreciate. Thus, most years, our nation’s collective capital stock directs loads of passive income to America’s wealthiest citizens. Which means that, even if wage growth hadn’t been tepid for the past four decades, the rich still would have pulled ahead of everyone else, buoyed by the rising tide of compound interest. To put a serious dent in inequality, then, you need to equalize the distribution of capital income (or, ya know, launch a world war).

And yet if Sanders’s plan for worker wealth funds is his most radical and socialistic, moderate voters may actually find it more palatable than his conventional redistributive policies. As mentioned above, raising taxes on the non-rich isn’t superpopular in the contemporary United States. Over the past half-century, conservative Republicans (and, to a lesser extent, neoliberal Democrats) have given Americans plenty of cause for doubting that Uncle Sam will be a faithful steward of their tax dollars. Asking voters to believe that the federal government knows how to invest their income better than they do can be tough. But asking them to believe that they know how to invest their employer’s income better than their bosses? That’s usually an easier sell.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #New York Magazine #bernie sanders #democratic socialism #socialism

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emmafrostyyy · 6 years ago

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how in the world am i just reading this now and THIS PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH

i'm just going to go ahead and say it. actress/model mj > reporter mj.

making her the generic Reporter Girl Next Door Girlfriend With Modest Clothes So She Automatically Has Agency trope misses the magic of what made comic book mj great and honestly the whole 'let's reinvent mj bc she can't be both beautiful and an actress THAT'S NOT EMPOWERING' thing is just internalized misogyny demon doing its work.

comic mj is fun. she's glamorous, vain, confident, obnoxious, independent, and LOUD. she's not your plucky Relatable™ down to earth girl who's clumsy and wears ponytails or whatever.

she's steals every scene, is proud of her looks, doesn't care much about 'intellectual' subjects and sciences like peter and gwen do, dates around, and refuses to be committed to a person. her personality has always been larger than life and her comfort with her sexuality is either too attractive or too uncomfortable for people. you either love her or hate her, but she wouldn't change for you. despite her bravado, she has so many gaps and struggles i still related to.

i think one of the main reasons why mj as a character gets some unfair (mostly sexist lbr) criticisms is because she's just the type of female character not everyone will like.

but there's also a reason why she had a huge popularity when first introduced - she was the first woman in comics representative of 60s counterculture. especially at the time where silver age comic women were..well, silver age.

60s was where second wave feminism began and women were challenging the outdated notions of women having to marry and be domestic. they were also opposing the system of work discrimination alongside fighting for their reproductive/sexuality rights. it's no surprise how a character like mj who refused to ever get tied down, was unapologetically sexual, and was working her ass off with her career to the point she's been living independently with her own apartment at just 19/20, became the breakout character in spider-man at that time.

and honestly the PS4 writers' logic annoys me because a female character being a reporter doesn't make her immediately 'strong' or have 'agency'.

why do these people attach a woman's worth to a job? when idk, women are MORE than that.

the implication that mj needs to be 'fixed' because apparently comic mj is not feministy enough for them?

mj breaking model/actress stereotypes and having the determination to be something in the entertainment industry because it's her true passion even when she's been called stupid/dumb/airhead her entire life, and even knowing that this is the industry where that sexism and stigma is prominent the most, makes her a FEMINIST CHARACTER.

mj fighting to get complex roles for female actresses and challenging people who want to typecast her as a one dimensional love interest who's just there to be pretty, makes her a FEMINIST CHARACTER.

mj being unashamed about wanting to be famous and loving the arts without ever compromising her traits that make people uncomfortable, refusing to be anything but HERSELF while people might deem her pursuit 'shallow' or 'worthless', makes her a FEMINIST CHARACTER.

mj being obnoxiously unapologetic of her sexuality and her hundreds of crop tops and love for attention and apathy to academia AND still being a well-written, complicated character with such character strength and flaws MAKES HER A GOOD, COMPLEX FICTIONAL WOMAN WHO DOESN'T NEED A 'REINVENTION'.

you know what doesn't count as feminist?

going to the cliche 'reporter girlfriend' route because you're too lazy to take the challenge of integrating an actress/model as a playable character to a game where radioactive spiders and scientists with psychokinetic tentacle arms exist.

implying that mj taking a culturally accepted 'empowering' job such as journalism gives her agency because apparently being passionate about acting/modelling means you're nothing but a stupid, talentless bimbo who depends on looks. ALSO, and according to them, being a reporter who's in the action side is better because being an actress/model means you just sit pretty and wait in the house for your boyfriend despite the fact that comic mj has beaten the shit out of some rogues and saved peter's ass more than twice.

making mj 'dress down/tone down' and removing her outlandishness because you want her to be more 'fit' to peter and you only accept one type of Strong Female Character which is the Generic Likable Fantasy Girl Palatable To Men. a girl who's sarcastic but not aggressive or else she's just a bitch, pretty but not TOO pretty or else she might be a shallow hag or whatever.

reporters are saving the damn world right now but that was never the reason why people rooted for mj, despite whatever ps4 or ultimate wants to tell me. using the 'reporter' as a plot imposed excuse just to put her in the 'spider-man' action side is a disservice to mj's history - an ambitious, proactive woman who was so driven to be an actress/model despite the barrage of mockery and sexist stereotypes thrown at her, who diversified the spider-man world BECAUSE she wasn't a reporter that gets shoved into the action plot. she was separate from that part and we get to see her own, individual story.

and personally, to strip those traits is to lose a large part of what made her stand out as a unique and interesting character.

i enjoyed mj in the game very much, but i can't stand the reasons, the laziness, the plain ignorance, and misogyny behind it. adaptational changes are normal but at least bury your arrogance somewhere 💀 thinking a 'fixed,' now 'empowering' mj is groundbreaking? buddy, comic mj has been that for 50 years.

#mary jane watson #spiderman ps4 #this got too long for my liking but im so angery shut your mouth about comic mj #long post tw

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asgardian--angels · 6 years ago

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Providing for Pollinators - my Syracuse Wildlife Garden

Hi everyone! Maybe you know me, I am a grad student with a B.S. in Wildlife & Conservation Biology and I study native bees. I am in New York for grad school and my landlady (I live in her personal home with one other PhD student) has agreed to let me turn part of her yard into pollinator habitat. I discussed this prospect a month ago here. On Memorial Day I got to work and finally planted everything!

I thought I would use this opportunity to share my ongoing experience and educate others about the importance and the feasibility of creating pollinator and wildlife habitat in your yard. Please, consider doing even just a little bit to help the natural world this year or in the future. Hopefully the information and resources I provide will be of use.

I will update this post throughout the season as the plants grow and bloom!

This first installment lays out the principles of habitat gardening and thus is pretty lengthy. Part 2 will talk about the plants I chose and include photos of the newly planted garden!

Wildlife habitat in the urban and suburban sphere is crucial going forward in the fight to save our planet from going belly-up. We think of ‘big ag’ as the enemies, and while that’s true, habitat destruction and fragmentation due to development has had just as large an impact, and we are all accountable. Pristine, untouched lawns, silent without birdsong or the buzzing of bees, has somehow become the ideal and a symbol of status and accomplishment (yet another way that western mindset of ‘man vs nature’ rears its ugly head). Few realize the harm that has done, and we’re at the tipping point now. But while we can’t overthrow Monsanto overnight, we can control our own little patch of earth. Reconnect the land, that’s the goal. You’ll find yourself reconnected to it too, in the process. And once you see the amount of thriving life you can support, you’ll never go back to that old turfgrass prison. Creating habitat is its own source of pride, especially knowing you will influence and inspire others to do the same.

There are infinite ways one could construct habitat on their property. It will obviously depend on time, money, desired use of yard (do you have kids? or barbecues? leave some grass), town ordinances, etc. I could have easily ripped up every ounce of turfgrass in the yard, but it’s best to start simple, especially when it’s someone else’s land! I have about a quarter acre to work with - which doesn’t seem like a lot until you realize just how many plants you could fit in there! More so, a quarter acre of habitat where there wasn’t any before sure makes a difference to the wildlife, especially bees, who often nest only a few meters from their host plants and will only travel as far as they need to for food.

Here’s an overview of the ‘before’:

Basically, what we’ve got is a lot of turfgrass and some exotic ornamentals, with a few native trees scattered about at the boundary between the neighbor’s house. Existing plants were hydrangeas, hostas, hellebores, and vinca. I didn’t even know what vinca was (I am rather out of the loop with ornamental plants) so I looked it up, as it seemed very aggressive and had formed a dense mat over much of the ground along the borders of the property. Lo and behold, it is considered invasive in many places, yet it’s sold at pretty much every nursery. It has purple flowers that attract virtually no pollinators, and my landlady loves the darn thing so much she wants it to spread to cover the entire yard if possible. I’ve tried to steer her away from that... a big problem though, was that she did not have any idea what plants were in her yard. Apparently the landscapers did not tell her what they were planting, nor did she seek out the information herself, so I identified them all for her. Maybe it’s just me, but I could never rest not knowing what plants someone put into my ground that I’d have to live with for the next few decades. There’s a huge border of stones at the front of the house, apparently to stop flooding. Let it just be known that stones are pretty dang bad for wildlife habitat, as they do nothing but cover the ground and prevent things from growing. She wanted more stones, I steered her away from that also.

Principles of Habitat Gardening

Insects are good. Insects are what you want. Insects form the foundation of the food web for whatever animals you want to support. This means changing your mindset to see leaf damage as beneficial, something that traditional gardening has drilled into our heads as wrong and ugly. Songbirds rely on caterpillars to raise chicks, and pollinators help plants create fruit, seeds, and nuts, which countless animals rely on. Predatory insects like wasps, mantids, and many true bugs keep populations in check so no plants are ever eaten to fatal levels.

NATIVE PLANTS. How do you attract insects? You plant the things they eat, and that certainly isn’t ornamentals from Eurasia. Insects have long co-evolutionary relationships with specific plants, attuning their tolerance to certain plant defensive compounds. Most butterfly and moth caterpillars eat only a small range of plants, and over half of our bees in North America collect pollen from only one group of plants. These are specialists, and they form a crucial part of biodiversity that’s often left out when habitat is lost and urban sprawl leaves ornamental plants that only a few hardy troopers (the generalists) will tolerate. Native plants are not ~in~ when it comes to gardening though, and it is difficult to find them being sold unless you know where your local native nurseries are. Demanding these plants has slowly begun to change the market, and now some can be found as seeds in places like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Recent studies have shown that songbird nests can fail in suburban areas with a lack of native plants, due to low abundances of insects. If you want birds, once again, provide insects!

Native plants are easier to grow and care for than exotics, because they are adapted to your region, its seasons and climate and precipitation. That’s less manicuring, fertilizing, and pesticide-spraying on your part.

Remember what all animals need - food/water, shelter, and a place to raise young. Providing only one of these things doesn’t do a whole lot of good, as they may stay for a little while but not forever, and you’re not actually creating habitat.

Coarse woody debris - aka logs, stumps, snags, and brush piles - are very useful to wildlife, as sources of food (they host many insects), shelter, and nesting sites (a LOT of birds nest in tree holes and excavated cavities, as well as mammals). Leaving these ‘eyesores’ is doing a lot of good, as well as not raking your leaves (or at least keeping them in a pile) and allowing dead perennial stems to persist through the winter and spring. Bees will be nesting and hibernating inside them!! See? Less work for you, with a hefty payoff.

Diversify as much as you can, in every way you can. Bloom color, bloom time, plant family, leaf texture, growth habit. It will maximize the species you can host in one space.

The goal of creating habitat in your yard is bigger than just inviting pollinators and birds. It’s restoring connectivity to the landscape. Fragmentation of habitat has massive negative effects on wildlife, from mammals and amphibians who need to cross highways and go through yards to get to the next woodlot to the ‘edge effects’ of habitat islands surrounded by parking lots, loud noise, and urban predators. The more people create habitat, the more we ‘plug’ our land back into the larger landscape and help support wildlife at a much bigger scale.

Research, research, research! You need to find what plants are right for your state and region, your soil type and sun levels, and many other specifics only you know. Luckily, there’s plenty of information and books out there to help you (I will recommend some further down).

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING, NO MATTER HOW SMALL. You could own one acre or ten, or maybe just a windowsill or patio garden. Put out a bee hotel. Keep natives in pots (that’s what I do at home). Spread the word (that’s a biggie). You are always able to help.

So, for my situation, we have silty loam soil (you can find yours here), mostly full sun with areas of part-sun and shade. A big problem I had to plan around was the deer, who come through the neighborhood regularly and try to eat the hostas and hydrangeas. Many ornamentals are marketed as ‘deer-resistant’ but a lot of native plants are as well. It has to do mainly with leaf chemistry and texture which equates to some level of palatability. Of course, if they’re very hungry, deer will even eat pine needles. My landlady tasked me with creating habitat that was low maintenance. She is older in age and does not have the time or means to be manicuring everything. Apart from the deer resistance, my landlady also wanted a new groundcover that would thrive in full sun unlike the vinca, because her goal is less lawn to mow. I have a vendetta against the vinca now so I’ve vowed to do all I can do diversify the groundcover. There are many butterflies and moths that rely on various weedy or groundcover plants as caterpillar food (especially violets!). With these criteria, I set out to find a list of plants native to New York available near me for sale that would create a wonderfully diverse wildlife and pollinator garden.

Luckily, central New York has ample resources for this purpose. I utilized the Habitat Gardening in Central New York network heavily, as they have an annual complete buying guide for all native plants in the region being sold by participating nurseries. Audubon, Cornell Habitat Network, Cooperative Extension, Xerces Society, and many others also have information to help. If you’d like a bit of introductory and insightful reading, check this out. Native plants can be bought online as seeds or root stock as well, from places like Prairie Moon Nursery, which caters to the eastern U.S. There are many websites with information on specific plant growing needs, like the Missouri Botanical Garden site.

But wait, there’s more! Don’t forget about our best friend, books! Scientists have been working really hard to gather information and publish it for the public and in the last decade or so a really good handful of books about native landscaping, pollinators, and ecology have come out to aid the everyday person in creating habitat! I want to offer a list of some of my top picks, whether you just want to learn more about the topic or use it as a planning tool, these are pretty readily available at major bookstores.

Books on Pollinators, Ecology, and Native Gardening

#1 - MY ALL TIME FAVORITE!! MY GOSPEL!! Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy (an esteemed professor at U of Delaware, I almost was his grad student). This gorgeous full-color book was the basis for a lot of what we have now and played a major role in introducing the public to the concept of native landscaping. It brought together concepts about the importance of insects, especially herbivorous ones, for birds and wildlife, why and how to support them, the reason we need native plants and why invasives are so harmful, and has a lot of resources and beautiful photos as well. You know how Christopher Lee would read Lord of the Rings every year? Yeah that’s me with this book. Everyone should own this.

#2 - The Bees in your Backyard by Joseph Wilson and Olivia Messinger Carril. This is the single best, most informative, well laid-out, usable bee book out there. Stunning portraits of every genus of bee in North America, with a section on their life history and a section (for us scientists!) on how to identify them under the microscope, thus it’s for all audiences. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the ecology and conservation of bees and how to create pollinator habitat.

#3 - Pollinators of Native Plants by Heather Holm. The book I’d write if it hadn’t already been written, this comprehensive book brings together an incredible amount of information and photos in a user-friendly format. It goes through wildflowers of the eastern U.S. from prairies to woods and wetlands, painting an in-depth picture of their ecological relationships with pollinators. Each plant has a profile about its life history and growing requirements, and the many pollinators that utilize it either as a nectar source or a host plant. Incredibly useful when planning habitat, and it has a huge section with a mind-blowing amount of charts and visuals to help you pinpoint exactly the plants right for your site and needs.

#4 - Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees by Thor Hanson. A brand new book that I fell in love with as soon as I started reading it. Not a field guide; a book of science, conservation, and personal experiences told beautifully and full of passion. My favorite work of bee non-fiction! It is incredibly inspiring. It focuses on native bees, not honeybees (none of this work for pollinator gardens is really for honeybees, and there’s plenty of books out there on them if you’re more interested in that). Native bees are poorly known by the public, and this book endeavors to give us a glimpse into their world, from the evolutionary story that begins millions of years ago to the millions of alkali bees that have found a home on one Washington farm. You will come away wanting to start your new garden tomorrow.

#5 - Summer World by Bernd Heinrich. Well, ANYTHING by Bernd Heinrich. He’s a renowned scientist and naturalist from New England who has a heck of a lot of books documenting his observations and discoveries about the natural world over the decades, as well as the challenges it faces in today’s human world. This is one of my favorites. I’ve met him and I am constantly inspired and often brought to tears by his words. He weaves tales of science, history, and his own life together to match that of Thoreau or Frost and offer us insights into nature that we so often pass by in our hurried lives. Other books include Winter World, One Wild Bird at a Time, Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death, and The Homing Instinct.

#6 - Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. A groundbreaking classic that follows the principles of E.O.Wilson (one of the fathers of our field!!), that all human beings need nature to be healthy both physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and that we have an intrinsic connection to nature and a drive to have it in our lives. Our separation from it in the modern era has come at great cost to ourselves and the planet. This book sets the stage for serious research and justification for why children need to have contact with nature at an early age, how it affects our whole lives and morals as adults, and how it ultimately decides the fate of our world when those children grow up to either want to save the earth or contribute to its destruction. A fundamental and frankly, earth-shattering read. I read it when I was in high school, and it is so so important to the work I do now. Don’t get all ‘hurr durr Thomas Edison was a witch’ on me. You know we have a problem, and I see it every time a two year old is watching an ipad instead of what’s outside around them.

I hope these resources were helpful. If I think of more, I’ll add them in future installments. Thank you for reading, and I hope you will join me in tracking this garden through the year! I’m so excited :D

#nature #conservation #pollinators #pollinator garden #bees #mine #sorry this is so long i've chosen to break up the actual plants into part 2

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tamlins-stories-and-poems · 3 years ago

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I was at a panel at a con a while back, about diversifying your reading, and one of the panelists struck us with this helpful advice that I find objectively horrifying as well as useful:

“If you want to find non-Eurocentric fantasy, look in the magical realism sections, because that’s where the publishers put it.”

So, I also don’t think Encanto qualifies as magic realism by its definition. Magical realism and diverse fantasy are treated as interchangeable, with the former phrase likely seeming more palatable to white advertisers.

Maybe this is because actual magical realism touched on racial diversity as a facet of life, maybe it was just a way to keep diverse fiction out of the fantasy section, I don’t know.

I will admit I skimmed more than read your essay bc I was trying to listen to something else too, but I’m absolutely going to reread asap after posting this. If my reblog is stepping on toes I’ll delete it. Thank you for bringing this up, and with such a well written essay!

"Encanto" and the myth of the Magical Latin America

Well hello again my gorgeous maritacas ✨ Today, we talk yet again about, yes, colonialism.

SOO, I hope I didn't miss the boat on this subject, cause I've been wanting to write about it since I first saw the very first divulgation of Disney's most recent animation movie, Encanto (2021).

I am Brazilian, born and raised in Latin America, and I have been in love with this place since I opened my little dark brown eyes. I spent most of my academic years researching latinex art and culture and history, and one of my deepest passions is our literature. So imagine my instigation when I heard Disney would be making this movie.

You see, in addition to taking place in Latin America and in a country neighboring mine, which would already be a reason for me to be 1000% more intrigued about this, most of the comments and publicity over it followed this line:

✨Magical Realism ✨

And then I started to worry

And then I watched the movie

Then I got more worry

Because, yes, I know that this is an ongoing discussion on if Encanto is Magical Realism or not, and there're people debating very fairly on both sides, but here I'd like to leave my arguments over why and how I feel culturally obliged to disagree. So, this is my point, and my side, so please don't take anything I say here for fact or go on me for idk, indoctrinate in an argument. But I will be linking a lot of references for you to really see where I'm coming from here, and that place is

NO, ENCANTO IS NOT MAGICAL REALISM

And we really need to talk about it

So buckle up, because this will be long (but necessary, trust me)

SO, I went to read those interviews with the directors and producers of this movie and they said this:

" [...] once Charise joined us, she had such a great grounding and magical realism, that this place, Colombia, which is one of the cradles of that literary style with Gabriel Garcia Márquez, it just made total sense, talking about a family. And a great way to get organic Latin American magic into this film without trying to force it into some European type of magic, that you’ve maybe seen before in other films." (source)

And then, when asked about the differences between "European magic" and "Latin American magic", Charise Castro Smith said:

"Well, I think magical realism is a fast tradition that doesn’t just exist in Latin America. It’s a literature tradition that’s throughout the world. But I think the way we started to think about it and sort of define it within the context of our film, was that it was magic that was born out of emotion. Magic that was born out of character and relationship, instead of something that was like an external force sort of foisted upon the characters in the story." (x)

So, they defined Encanto as "Latin America magic", and defined it as Magical Realism, and that as "magic born out of emotion".

That is not wrong, but that's also not quite right. From what I could get from these interviews, the thing is that, maybe it was wrong phrasing, but I think they mistook Magical Realism for metaphors.

But before I get into that, I have to state that I really liked Encanto. It's fun, it's colorful, and I really think they've done a great job representing how Latino families are structured, and how we relate to our families. I could relate to a lot of the situations in the film on a very personal level, and one of the ways they were able to do that, in my opinion, was through the use of, yes, metaphors.

Because, in this movie, you can divide magic in about two ways:

First, when it's used narratively. That's the case of Bruno's magic, and Dolores', for example. And actually, kudos to Dolores for being one of the biggest narrative tools I've seen in a long time.

And second, when it's used as a metaphor. That would be the case of Luisa's magic, and Peppa's, and etc

See that? That's a metaphor. A very clear one.

And it works just fine. It's good. It's well done. It does a gret job passing the point. Magic, here, works as an external representation of internal conflict. Makes us able to get the metaphor and relate to these very personal conflicts without directly adressing them (which would make the movie way, let's say, havier to watch kkkkkk I'm so funny). So yes, I definetly agree with Castro Smith that Encanto is about magic that comes out of emotion. That's great, 10/10.

But that's not what Magical Realism is.

And I could get into why the whole "magic as metaphor" thing couldn't be considered "European magic" or what even is "European magic" anyway, which would lead me to this whole "let's talk about Christianity" thread, but I'll stick to my current point here (for now)

And for you to properly understand my point here, before getting properly into Encanto I'll have to do some contextualization first, so...

1. MAGICAL REALISM

Let's name the donkeys (Brazilian saying, sorry).

So, the thing Castro Smith said there above, about magical realism not being like, Latin America exclusive? That's absolutely right. We have a huge plurality of great works and authors writing Magical Realism all around the world (one of my favorites is the Mozambican writer Mia Couto, btw). So, for this little contextualization here, I'll quote some lines of another post I wrote about Magic Realism, applied specifically in the context of Brazil (and feel free to check it out here), but which sufficiently covers my point at the moment:

To make matters short, if you never heard of it, Magical Realism is a 20th century genre that portrays "a realistic view of the modern world while also adding magical elements" to it, without this "magic" being perceived as such within this established world.

Matthew Strecher (1999) defines it as:

"what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." (source)

So, basically, one of the key points of Magic Realism is the assimilation of this magic as not being "magical" — as we are used to understanding "magic", but rather an estrangement within an apparently common scenario. It is closer to the uncanny than to the fantastical, and the fact that the "commom" people (the characters) within these realistic and common settings do not seem to perceive or assimilate the uncanny as being uncanny, is what creates this feeling of enchantment in these works.

And yes, I know that technically Magical Realism was born in Germany in the 20s, but it really peaked in America Latina. When you think of Magical Realism, the names that probably come to mind are Frida Kahlo, Gabriel García Márquez, María Luisa Bombal, etc. etc. We just nailed it.

And Frida can't let me lie

In his Nobel-winning speech (called The Solitude of Latin America) for his book Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez addressed a somewhat poor understanding of his work on the part of European society, who might perceive our Magical Realism as being fanciful and enchanted.

He said:

"I dare to think that it is this outsized reality, and not just its literary expression, that has deserved the attention of the Swedish Academy of Letters. A reality not of paper, but one that lives within us and determines each instant of our countless daily deaths, and that nourishes a source of insatiable creativity, full of sorrow and beauty, of which this roving and nostalgic Colombian is but one cipher more, singled out by fortune. Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude.

And if these difficulties, whose essence we share, hinder us, it is understandable that the rational talents on this side of the world, exalted in the contemplation of their own cultures, should have found themselves without valid means to interpret us. It is only natural that they insist on measuring us with the yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for all, and that the quest of our own identity is just as arduous and bloody for us as it was for them. The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary."

I've linked the full speech there above. It's translated to English, but I highly recommend you read the original in Spanish, if you can understand it. Is incomparable

What García Márquez is saying is that there is a subtle difference in the way we Latinos relate to Magical Realism. For us, the fantastic is not there because it is magical or beautiful, or simply as a metaphor. Yes, it is a metaphor, but one so ingrained in our sentiments and experiences that it becomes very difficult to explain or translate to outsiders. The fantastic is actually an European-imposed way of seeing ourselves, because it's how they saw us since the 1500s.

2. THE MAGICAL TERRA INCOGNITA

When Europeans first arrived in our lands, they described Latin America as a land of enchantments. As they were not familiar with the native cultures, native peoples, our fauna and our flora, their way of seeing us was through the lens of the fantastic; lens that they created themselves. If you search online, you will find a series of period maps of the South America depicting magical creatures:

Map by Pedro Reinel and Lopo Homem, named Terra Brasilis, 1519

See the little dragon? That's actually a true story: you see, when the Portuguese arrived, they heard the jaguars roaring in the woods, and thought it was the sound of dragons. They saw the manatees swimming under the river and thought they were mermaids.

As they entered the Amazon River, some boats were attacked by the Icamiabas, warriors of a matriarchal indigenous people in which women went out to fight — and they were spectacular warriors. Seeing these women, the Europeans thought they had arrived on the magical island of the Amazons, of Greek culture. And that's why the Amazon River is now called "Amazon", and that's why the forest is called the "Amazon" forest (source). Because Europeans mystified native peoples.

And ultimately, fetishized and bestialized these native peoples.

And that's just like, 3 examples in the specific context of Brazilian colonization process. That's just the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

Regarding that map above, the professor André Reyes Novaes, in his article "Terra Brasilis as Terra Incognita", says (translated by me) that

"At that time, “Terra Brasilis”, as named on the map, was “Terrae Incognitae”, which gave cartographers “carte blanche” (free pass) to fill in the “empty spaces on the map” (Safier, 2009). El Dourado, Ilha Brasil, the Amazon Warriors and many other “myths” occupied the interior of the continent on maps in the period of expansion of the Iberian colonies. [...] Contrasting with the "mythological" interior, the sea appears full of caravels, coats of arms and flags, a space clearly determinated and scratched by the geometry of the orientation lines of the portolan charts. [...] According to Hiatt (2008), the expression terra incognita is today a powerful metaphor, because even in the era of the comprehensive “Google Earth”, it continues to be applied to discuss the relationship between imagination and “unknown” spaces by specific groups. As Wright (1947:72) stated, “if today there is no terra incognita in the absolute sense, there is also no absolute terra cognita”, as we continue to relate to space based on socially produced and shared representations and models." (source)

So, through these records, Europeans created the contrast between European civilizations (organized, mapped, civilized) and native civilizations (bestialized, savage, magical). And that was a very important tool in the domination of our lands. Because when you mystify a people, you dehumanize that people. And it is easier to dominate a dehumanized people.

This enchanted narrative they created actually masked a history of oppression, exploitation, rape and genocide.

And this fantastical way of seeing ourselves ended up being imprinted on us. Magical Realism does not exist to be magical, it exists to express in words, using the language that has been imposed on us, the absurdity of our narrative. It's the way we can translate the reality of our otherwise unbelievable history. As García Márquez said,

"we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable".

And this resonates even today. Because even after the movements of Independance, Latin America suffered and still suffers from the consequences of colonization, first by Europe, and later by the United States. As Reyes Novaes continues:

"As literal terra incognita, the South American frontiers have gone centuries without being properly explored and represented by European cartographers. As metaphorical terra incognita, these regions continue to be recurrently qualified through imagination and shared narrative in metropolitan centers. Even in the 21st century, the idea of “empty space to be occupied” still populates the imagination about the borders of South American power centers and new mythological “monsters” are represented in these spaces, such as drug-dealers, invaders, smugglers and criminals." [...]

"Considering the metropolitan and coastal vision of many Brazilians, Terra Brasilis remains Terra Incógnita, a relatively "empty" and "uncivilized" space, dependent on public policies formulated from outside. The persistence of this vision in the 21st century is perhaps one of the great challenges for the recognition of our own dynamics and autonomous exchanges existing in border spaces, often imagined as areas to be occupied, protected and colonized by the metropolitan centers." (x)

And by no means this just the story of Latin America. This is the story of Polynesia. Of Southern Asia. Of the African Continent. Of so many nations genocidated by the violence of the colonizer. This mystifications (and later demonizations) of non-European cultures shaped the fantastic imagination of these cultures. That's why I said that Magical Realism found a huge plurality around the world. It represents the imaginary of a colonized nation.

3. MAGICAL REALISM AS A WAY OF PRESERVING AND EXPRESSING COLLECTIVE MEMORY

For this, I'll use García Marquez's work (so often cited to relate to Encanto) as a reference. In his best-known work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Marquez weaves the story of generations of the Buendía family, founders of the city of Macondo, over 100 years.

After the book's release, not few managed to find, in Macondo, an analogy for Latin America itself, and the events that surround the characters in the book, mirrors for events that marked our own history.

The metaphors that appear throughout the book, not so much metaphors for personal feelings, are closer to metaphors to express the feeling of an entire nation during actual events, as he said in his speech, of unbelievable, "unbridled reality".

Look at this excerpt:

"Although in the months that followed they reinforced the grave with walls about it, between which they threw compressed ash, sawdust, and quicklime, the cemetery still smelled of powder for many years after, until the engineers from the banana company covered the grave over with a shell of concrete." (source, p. 69)

At a certain point in the book, an American arrives in Macondo and, settling himself next to a train line, starts an innocent banana plantation. Later, his business grows and he starts a banana company, which takes over Macondo and suddenly, the entire production of the city consists only of bananas. Macondo no longer produces anything other than bananas, which are quickly loaded into huge train cars that carry these bananas away. The city is then taken over by a banana plague, and as the above passage describes, eventually even the cemetery is covered by the banana company.

Now, if you have ever studied anything from Latin America, you will probably immediately associate this with the famous United Fruit, a real multinational known throughout the world for creating the concept of the Banana Republic and for changing the political and economic directions of an entire continent (ours).

It's like a scheme:

Basically, using local (and inhumanly cheaper) labor, they specialize in the cultivation of a single commodity, produce that commodity on a large scale (thus ending any family farming systems that might exist and alienating production and the local market) and then export this commodity abroad at ABSURDLY lower prices than other markets. That's what happened with the banana. This type of system forces a country to remain in underdevelopment, and this was a large-scale project carried out in Latin America by the Americans. And we reap the "rewards" of that in our industry and economy to this day.

And then García Marquez writes:

“Look at the mess we’ve got ourselves into,” Colonel Aureliano Buendía said at that time, “just because we invited a gringo to eat some bananas.” (p. 114)

Do you know what happens next? The exploited workers revolt against the banana company, and they are all machine-gunned by the American military. Women and children too. After managing to escape with his life and return home, José Buendía counted about three thousand dead. And when he goes and tells all this, horrified, to the first person he meets, do you know what that person says to him? She says "What are you talking about? There weren't any dead".

"The official version, repeated a thousand times and mangled out all over the country by every means of communication the government found at hand, was finally accepted: there were no dead, the satisfied workers had gone back to their families, and the banana company was suspending all activity until the rains stopped." (p. 151)

Now you go, and you Google "United Fruit Banana Massacre" or just "Banana Massacre". That's the Realism in Magical Realism.

Through a prosaic narrative, what García Marquez is doing is documenting historical events. Trough the narrative of One Hundred Years of Solitude, García Marquez told the story of his own land.

And the banana case is clearer to understand, but these historical relationships run through every aspect of the book. Take this other example: Right at the beginning, the narrative shows the patriarch of the Buendía family, José Arcadio Buendía (and his wife Úrsula Iguarán) guiding a group of people into the virgin forest in search of a place to build a village, and then,

"When they woke up, with the sun already high in the sky, they were speechless with fascination. Before them, surrounded by ferns and palm trees, white and powdery in the silent morning light, was an enormous Spanish galleon. Tilted slightly to the starboard, it had hanging from its intact masts the dirty rags of its sails in the midst of its rigging, which was adorned with orchids. The hull, covered with an armor of petrified barnacles and soft moss, was firmly fastened into a surface of stones. The whole structure seemed to occupy its own space, one of solitude and oblivion, protected from the vices of time and the habits of the birds. Inside, where the expeditionaries explored with careful intent, there was nothing but a thick forest of flowers." (p. 12)

They find a Spanish galleon. Intact. Filled with flowers. They were for the first time clearing a virgin forest, making their way, and when they arrive in the land that in the future would be their home, they discover that Spain was already there, craved in the stone soil. Here, the galleon can be interpreted as representative of the Spanish domination, which is embedded in the imagination of our lands by the invention of the narrative of a "discovery" that completely erases the history that existed here before the arrival of Europeans.

But if you are not familiar (or at least know about it) with the collective feeling of the solitude of being the result of an erased history and memory, the only thing you'll take from this scene is how beautiful it is.

And as I said before, Latin America is not the only one to use Magical Realism to translate a fantasized reality. The book Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto (I just love this author so much), is another great example of what I'm talking about. And I won't go into this otherwise it would be very long, but just go and read it. It's amazing.

So, I think you got the hang of the ideia by now.

But what does all of this have to do with Encanto?

4. "LATIN AMERICA MAGIC"

Now that you've been covered up with all this historical contextualization and some examples above, I'll repeat what I said at the beginning: to me, Encanto is not Magical Realism. And this is due to two factors:

The magic is perceived as magic within the movie's stablished universe

The magic in Encanto is always individualized

Let's start with number 1. As I said there above, there isn't exactly a rule on this particular aspect, but it's a general consensus that for Magical Realism to happen, you can't have phrasings like "this is magic!" or "they did magic!" within your universe. As Figueiredo points out (and yes, I'll put here yet another source here, but this is only to stablish my point using more then one academic source so you don't think I'm taking this off my ass (another Brazilian saying, sorry again), in Magical Realism

"...the supernatural is presented in a realistic way, as if it doesn't contradict reason, and there are no explanations for the unreal events presented. There is no reference to the mythical imagination of pre-industrial societies, as if the author, not concerned with the reader, exercises full freedom of creation. Magic refers to inexplicable, prodigious, or fantastical occurrences that contradict the laws of the natural world, and there are no convincing explanations in the text for their presence. It differs from the fantastic in that the narrator is not altered, intrigued or disturbed by this reality." (source, translated by me)

You can see that in Sleepwalking Land, where the character Kindzu sees his brother turn into a rooster in front of him and his reaction is closer to "well that sucks, guess we gonna put him in the chicken coop now" than some astonishment.

Or in O Tempo e o Vento (The Time and The Wind, a Brazilian novel), which tells the story of generations of a family in which the fate of women is to spin, cry and wait, and where, on the return to his wife, a man ends up arriving 50 years late.

And he finds her an old woman, of course, waiting.

You can see that in One Hundred Years of Solitude, when the city is attacked by a plague of oblivion and there's no fuss over it. Or when it rains for 4 years and the old people just decide to wait to die in the drought, because they don't want to die wet. Or when a pig-tailed baby is literally carried into the earth by countless ants and no one bats an eye. Or when Remedios the Beauty had to be isolated from any contact with foreigners because her scent was so seductive and so strong that in one incident, upon seeing her naked, a man's blood turned into oils soaked in her perfume, torturing him even after death. Or when, after the death of José Arcadio Buendía, the city was covered with yellow flowers that fell from the sky, and the only reaction was that they had to mobilize people to clean the streets so the funeral procession could pass by.

In fact, the only scene in which a character in the book is truly astonished by something is when, for the first time, José Arcadio Buendía and his son Aureliano see ice.

"MANY YEARS LATER as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." [...]

“It’s the largest diamond in the world.”

“No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”

José Arcadio Buendía, without understanding, stretched out his hand toward the block, but the giant moved it away. “Five reales more to touch it,” he said. José Arcadio Buendía paid them and put his hand on the ice and held it there for several minutes as his heart filled with fear and jubilation at the contact with mystery. Without knowing what to say, he paid ten reales more so that his sons could have that prodigious experience. Little José Arcadio refused to touch it. Aureliano, on the other hand, took a step forward and put his hand on it, withdrawing it immediately. “It’s boiling,” he exclaimed, startled. But his father paid no attention to him. Intoxicated by the evidence of the miracle, he forgot at that moment about the frustration of his delirious undertakings and Melquíades’ body, abandoned to the appetite of the squids. He paid another five reales and with his hand on the block, as if giving testimony on the holy scriptures, he exclaimed:

“This is the greatest invention of our time.” (p. 8-15)

CAN YOU FEEL THE CHILLS WHILE READING THIS? CAUSE I CAN

Magical Realism doesn't enchant us because it is magical. It enchant us because it is so raw, and crude, and so painfully real, that we feel our souls tearing apart when we come in contact with it. Just take a look at any Frida's paintings and you'll get what I mean

In Encanto, however, the "magic" is definitively perceived as magic, and it's often pointed out by MANY characters throughout the story. So, to me, that kind of breaks the Magical Realism thing.

Because it just looks like a "magic as a metaphor" situation, not anything out of the ordinary for a Disney movie. For example, how are any of the magical situations in Encanto different from, say, the ones in Beauty and the Beast? Really, it's pretty much the same idea, magic as a metaphor. And a magic house.

You even get the emotion magic going on and all

And that's super ok.

I love Disney magic. Everybody does.

So why call it differently just because it's set on Latin America?

AS FOR NUMBER 2

This might seem more of a personal opinion, and maybe it is, but this was actually one of the things that bothered me the most in this whole "Encanto is so Magical Realism" thing.

Because, as I spent 90% of this post explaining, Magical Realism in Latin America has very specific contours that are the result of centuries of troubled history. To ignore the social, historical and, above all, political undertones that the Latin works of Magical Realism have, is to ignore all the effort that this movement had in reclaiming the fantastic narrative of our own existence.

Is to ignore all the power we got by taking away from the colonizers the right to see us as "enchanted" or "magical".

And again, maybe this is a personal feeling of mine. But I can't see a work in which magic is used in such a personal and individual way by the characters as Magical Realism. As a metaphor for overload, or for personal conflicts, or for intergenerational trauma, or for singular heartache. Don't get me wrong, I loved the way Encanto created these metaphors. And they are great. I just can't fit it into everything I said above.

And I know the film DOES represents a reference to our troubled history and violence through the story of Abuela Alma. And again, this may be a personal opinion, but although I was deeply moved and cried the whole time, I don't think it was enough to frame this scene as "social criticism", or as something political.

In fact, I think this scene relates much more to the children and grandchildren of immigrants who had to leave Latin America for violent and inhumane reasons, than to us who stayed here. And perhaps that was the purpose of the film, to speak to the Latino families who were forced to diaspora. But then we are talking about another story. Not Colombia's.

I can't disassociate Magical Realism from politics, and I don't think it should be done. Because when you strip the Magical Realism from the political and historical and social contexcts, the only thing left is the "magic". And that's giving back the power to the colonizers. We are not "magical". Latin America is not "magical".

And I think that when you strip the symbols created by García Marquez from their original contexts, so carefully stitched together by him, you vastly impoverish his work.

For me the best example of this is the yellow butterfly.

The yellow butterfly ended up turning into something, apparently. Not only in Encanto, but in more than one "Latin" recent work I've seen some mention of butterflies that were clearly based on One Hundred Years of Solitude (yes, All The Crooked Saints, I'm looking at you)

And you can see that there is a direct relationship between the yellow butterflies in Encanto and the yellow butterflies in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

And while there's no way to know what was going through García Marquez's head when he wrote these butterflies (only that yellow butterflies populated his grandparents' house during his childhood), the yellow butterfly ended up becoming a symbol of Latin Magical Realism.

Which is beautiful. But if you read the book, you'll see that they only appear in the narrative of the life of Renata Remedios (Meme), great-great-granddaughter of José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán. More precisely, the butterflies would only appear around Mauricio Babilonia.

"It was then that she realized that the yellow butterflies preceded the appearances of Mauricio Babilonia. She had seen them before, especially over the garage, and she had thought that they were drawn by the smell of paint. Once she had seen them fluttering about her head before she went into the movies. But when Mauricio Babilonia began to pursue her like a ghost that only she could identify in the crowd, she understood that the butterflies had something to do with him. Mauricio Babilonia was always in the audience at the concerts, at the movies, at high mass, and she did not have to see him to know that he was there, because the butterflies were always there." (p. 141)

The passion of Meme and Mauricio is one of the most detailed and poetic of the book. When the relationship is forbidden by Meme's mother, Fernanda, the two start to see each other in secrecy. Mauricio spends every night sneaking into Meme's quarters. And as, consumed by passion, she lives for the moment she will meet him, she waits for him lying on the bathroom floor, naked and burning with love, surrounded by scorpions. And the first sign of his arrival are the yellow butterflies coming through the window and infesting the house.

There's a line, when they're meeting at the cinema, that says:

"Meme felt the weight of his hand on her knee, and she knew that they were both arriving at the other side of abandonment at that instant". (p. 142)

The thing is, the two are lonely. And the more they sink into each other, the lonelier they get together. After Mauricio's death, the butterflies start to follow Meme, who drowns in lethargy. The yellow butterflies are, in the book, the symbol of the relationship of these two characters, who drowned their loneliness in each other's carnality. It's an intense, and carnal, and sensual, and painfully shallow relationship. And most of all, it's incredibly sad.

"Aureliano recognized him, he pursued the hidden paths of his descent, and he found the instant of his own conception among the scorpions and the yellow butterflies in a sunset bathroom where a mechanic satisfied his lust on a woman who was giving herself out of rebellion" (p. 200)

This is what was translated into the feeling of the solitude of the Latin America. Not by García Marquez himself, but by later interpretations. When I think about it, I always picture it as the feeling of the moment when, every night, Meme sees the first yellow butterfly coming through the window, and she can feel that in her gut.

And now you tell me,

why would anyone consider using this symbology in a Disney movie?

And even more, to use as a symbology of reconciliation and protection and family love? And...???

Disney my beloved??????

So, yeah, I think this movie had a lot of beautiful references to García Marquez, but taken so far from the original contexts and in such shallow ways that to me it felt more like they researched and saw that apparently yellow butterflies represent Latin Magical Realism and García Marquez and thought "wow this is lovely let's totally use that look how beautiful this is" because it looked "magical".

SO IN CONCLUSION

I like Encanto. This post is in NO WAY an attack on the film, or the Latin representation of the film. In fact, I think Encanto does a really great job at it (and as a light-skinned latina, I can stand by that very deeply).

But the statements about the magic of this movie, and the divulgation around it, and the way the producers of this movie have labeled it and approached all of this... Idk. I don't know why they felt the need to place Encanto as belonging to or inspired by Magical Realism, rather than simply telling a story that stands on its own, and happens to be set in Latin America.

I don't think the homages they paid to García Marquez were wrong or offensive in any way, in fact I thought they were all nice. I thought the yellow butterflies were beautiful, and yes, they did ended up becoming a symbol of Colombia, whether this is based on their original meaning or not. I am not complaining about the fact that they were there. What bothers me is that label. This justification that the magic of Encanto would be, somehow, different, because it was latina. That we'd have a magic that'd be different from the "European Magic".

And that bothers me even more because, I was curious enough to research to see if I was missing something, and I couldn't find ONE Latin story or legend that mentioned a magic house, for example. In Brazil we have some stories that take place in magical houses or castles (my favorites when I was a kid were "The Devil's Godchild" and "The Black Bird"), but all of these are adaptations of originally European tales. That arrived here with the European colonizers. This idea of a magical house with lots of doors and rooms bigger than the outside and fantastic things inside each of them is INCREDIBLY European. Based on European fairy tales and fables.

Aside from the fauna and flora and architecture and clothing and family dynamics the movie depicted wonderfully, there was NOTHING in the magic of Encanto that referenced or translated any folkloric magical elements of Colombian culture. I saw nothing remotely close the the La Madre de Agua, or a patasola, or a candileja, or Las Brujas de Burgama, nothing.

Why, when Disney makes a movie based in some European country, they choose fairy tales and stories from those countries to adapt, but in Latin America they ignore our stories? The legends of the native people, indigenous people, inland culture, anything?

Curious, isn't it?

But anyway, back on track. Since they didn't take an already existed tale from here, guess they thought that Magical Realism would be a good way to convey that. But they kinda didn't do that? As I said, I don't think Encanto is Magical Realism.

And honestly, if they had just made up a story that made sense and was respectful to our culture, and just placed it in Latin America (like The Emperor's New Groove, the most flawless Disney movie ever made), I think I would have enjoyed it a LOT more. But to me, it just felt like they were trying to make the whole thing about Magical Realism, without delivering it properly.

So they just made Latin America magical for the gringo eyes again.

Cheers.

SO YEAH, these were my thoughts on the subject!!! Please don't take any of it as any kind of personal attack on the people behind the movie, if there's any blame I'm more then happy to just put it on Disney Company (but we all agree on that, I think). I just wanted to tell a little of our history and explain why Magical Realism means so much to us. And you are totally free to have whatever opinion you do on this!!! RISE AND SHINE

And, as always, thank you so, so much for reading!!! ❤

#encanto #tamlin speaks #magical realism #fantasy #they are not the same #reread now and A+ essay #definitely going to throw this at my family to read

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royalame · 4 years ago

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refreshmint1 · 5 years ago

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HOW TO IDENTIFY CORPORATE FRAUDS?

Frauds are fascinating, almost like work of art. Why?

Every time they happen ( and do they happen often) you think that how the hell was this missed. But therein lies the beauty or art of the fraud. The promoters or companies use the same playbook but make it look very different than older ones. A combination of financial engineering and money management are tools used to execute this art.

The root of every fraud stems from either greed for money or desire for power or a combination of both. And interestingly, they both arise from success. We don’t know of any company which was unsuccessful from the start and was also a fraud.

Ergo, as a CEO, Promoter, Founder any moderate success ensures that both greed and power are available to you in reasonable doses. This is the trickiest part, top management needs both these to keep the company forging ahead but over-indexing on any of them means they have set the company on a slippery path.

Let us take a few cases from the previous decade. We choose older cases so that you can see that patterns remain the same for newer frauds also.

Take the case of Satyam.

When Ramalingam Raju started everything initially was going great. But then the greed of market cap came in and the power of owning an empire came in. To hit them Satyam starts to give far more aggressive guidance to investors, who lapped them up to push the stock prices up and they flywheel continued to move. To satisfy the urge of power Maytas, an infra company was created ( infra was super hot at that time). A fair bit of Financial Engineering and funds from Satyam started to move into Maytas and that engine also got its fuel. Eventually, we know what happened. The lies of higher guidance's led to fake revenues to fake cash and so on

Take the case of Moser Baer.

Moser Baer started very well. They were trying to make a brand play in a commodity business of CD’s. After initial success instead of realizing that Chinese competition was going to make this really hard, they started getting greed. The numbers would show Moser Baer a fast-growing, high-tech, export-oriented company having huge margins and 10% of the global market of its products in early 2000.

Moser Baer claimed to have a 10% share of the global market. Its two key competitors Ritek and CMC Magnetics (both of Taiwan) at that time supplied nearly 50% of the world’s recordable, compact discs (CD-Rs). Their gross margins were under 20% in 2001. However, they realized after some time that this was not working but instead of cutting out their greed they moved to start a new business.

As oil prices have been high since 2007, Moser cooked up the idea of getting into solar power. The lure of power and money combined here eventually leading to the bankruptcy of both the companies.

Translating this greed and power to more palatable motives leads to cited motives like: meet earnings expectations; conceal the company’s deteriorating financial condition; bolster performance for pending equity or debt financing, or to increase management compensation.

From this lens what are the few things which you can look for to get your fraud signal alerted

When a company tells a story which usually is too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true. Greed and Power often combine to drive this narrative.

A sudden increase in PR/ Media Appearances— > While the PR appearances do tend to make the brand more recognizable, but usually they are part of a bigger narrative. Great companies typically don’t need PR for CEO’s as the consumers do that work for them.

A great business suddenly diversifies into a very hot area. The story usually told is that we are great executors of X and therefore will be able to execute the Y

A company is showing great results when the whole sector is screwed. This is often much harder to execute than its shown. Divergence from the performance of other companies may not necessarily be due to the ability of the company.

Then there are a lot of smaller indicators like low delivery to volume ratio, consistent price rise with huge volumes which the share has never seen.

Even with tools like above Detecting fraud is fascinating as you need to use the data and news to figure out if the company is on the path of greed and power. That is much lesser science but much more art.