#which is also the mammy trope. and i have issues with that

[qoldenskies]

actually genuinely depressing that when people write april's mom as an actual character she's just kind of a one note Good Caretaker Mom... and like i know why this happens (let the the mammy trope dieee) but i still think there's a lot of untapped potential. im not saying she has to be a BAD parent but there are infinitely more interesting things you can do with april and her relationships with her parent(s), especially because she's WROUGHT with insecurity and is shown to develop a close bond with splinter, who she seeks out approval from, not to mention the absence of her likely working parents is so loud despite it never being mentioned as a reason for her issues, really.

april can take on the front of confidence because she's excitable and courageous but she is so deeply insecure. her being so tenacious despite that doesn't negate it. she notices how she doesn't seem to get along with other people and desperately desires balance between her love of the weird and her need for normalcy. april will work hard to fit in and she'll never succeed (also i really do relate to the fact that the one "friend" she has at school before likely sunita is kind of a creep that she doesn't like, can we talk about that more), and she does seem to find it frustrating that her only actual friends dont understand how that feels. being in the in-between point. wanting the best of both worlds and not truly fitting in either.

i think these are problems that can come with having a bad social life at school even with great parents, but unintentional emotional neglect due to being working class would be interesting, and parallel with splinter in a really fascinating way (+ they do say she has parents but i do prefer the idea of her having a single mom, more to be done with that. maybe they're divorced? that'd add something).

actually april's dynamic with splinter is really unexplored in the fandom because i do think there's a reason she finds his approval so validating,,, i think april's strong personality is mistaken for genuine confidence when it's really not.

SHE THINKS SHE'S A FAILURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi I am a Black writer and I have a plan for a fantasy series that is a commentary on Blackness and how we have to navigate an Anti-Black world. But I have a bit of a dilemma. There is a type of character I want to make and she's my critique on the mammy trope and how Black women were forced into subservience to white people which reflects the historical reality where Black women were hired as maids (and often still are)!

This character is a Black maid that worked for a white family, but each member of the white family died off one by one. When the MCs meet her (they are also Black) they see her. Later it's revealed that this maid recently gained vampiric abilities and has slowly been killing off each member as a way to gain her freedom. But the issue is, murder is bad and illegal. Her vampirism also comes from a parasite that has taken over part of her brain and needs to be expelled.

I think the tragedy is that she feels trapped in a house that has caused her so much trauma and even though the family was objectively terrible to her, she still feels guilt for killing them off. But she also feels attached to the parasite, it has protected her and trying to take it from her seems like a really cruel thing to do.

And I'm thinking what the MCs should do. Should they let her keep it or should they expel it from her brain? The parasite doesn't kill or harm her but it causes her to have an uncontrollable thirst for blood that one of the MCs is almost a victim to.

If I'm being real, her having the guilt complex is the bit that feels Mammy-ish to me. You gotta remember, Mammies did not have any real attachment to their white enslavers and their white children. They had to pretend that, because that was the position they were put into as slaves. It was that or inhumane punishment. So for me, saying "murder is bad and illegal" in the same story as "she had to gain her freedom".... 🤷🏾‍♀️ If they didn't want to be murdered by their enslaved human being, maybe they shouldn't enslaved another human being. I do not feel bad for these people.

We can't go the Twilight route and have her drink animal blood, if human blood is that bad? She can't rob a blood bank? Work in a hospital graveyard shift where her skills will be applicable AND she can sneak into the blood bank? Or she could just be forced to let the parasite go, a sad moment where she releases something that very well protected her at the time but is no longer healthy to do (which is how a lot of trauma behaviors can go!)

[writingwithcolor]

Desexualized Mammy & Strong Black Woman, too busy for “frivolous love”

“Alyse” (Anon Submission) asked:

My science fiction story includes a black woman (Talia) who raises two children that aren’t her own and takes on two young adults as apprentices. One of the children she is raises has Arabic background and was taken into her home upon his father’s death (his mother’s whereabouts are unknown). She was a close friend of his father and the closest thing he had to a relative. The second child has mixed French-Latinx background and was taken in after becoming shipwrecked with no means by which to contact her people. Talia was the first non-hostile individual she encountered and one of the few who would so openly embrace a stranger. Since Talia is Master Medic (the highest medical authority in her community) she is training two apprentices (think residency) and eventually mentors the second child as well. She was once married and passionately in love but lost her husband to illness. In this setting, some technology we take for granted is inaccessible and violence against their people is commonplace. Most have experienced sudden loss. This particular loss was the catalyst that drove Talia into medicine- a desire to protect her loved ones and prevent others from experiencing similar tragedy. She is usually kind (though businesslike) but sometimes succumbs to a frigid, furious depression when, despite all her knowledge and determination, she can’t save someone. 

I worry that her maternal association with the two children (one of whom is an outsider) mires her in the mammy trope. On top of that, she hasn’t pursued romance since the death of her husband. I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career. 

In terms of race and culture in this story, practically every character can trace their ancestry back to populations displaced through war. Even Talia’s second child was shipwrecked during a botched evacuation from a military science lab. The people who live here have been isolated for generations and no longer have a real concept of their ancestry. Cultures have blended, new religions have formed, and many of our familiar racial/ethnic issues are forgotten. However, new and different but equally toxic ones have replaced them. In this way, Talia’s blackness doesn’t carry the same associations in her world as it would in ours. However, readers may still make these associations. Do you see any issues with her character that I could amend? 

So! You have:

A highly educated Black-coded woman (the highest medical authority in the community)

She raises two kids alone 

She also looks after two apprentices

She is widowed (not sure the race of the husband, was he Black?)

Having experienced heartbreaking love, Talia's drive to look after, protect and save people through medicine is a great motivation for the way she is. Her experiencing depression and taking losses seriously is also very human and is dynamic characterization. 

However, such characterization with Black women is prone to brush across several tropes. You have a Black woman who gives and protects, but what does she get in return? Who cares for her? 

Prioritize your Black character’s happiness

"I’ve considered giving her a romantic subplot but there are already so many characters to keep track of. Furthermore, I just can’t see her engaging in the frivolous pursuits of new love when she’s dealing with kids, students, and an extremely taxing career." 

Priorities, priorities. Is love a frivolous pursuit in her eyes, or yours? Because I strongly disagree. You probably don't mean to but you, as the author, having an excuse to NOT give the Black woman romance is showing that you do not think she's worth being loved. TV viewers and stans who are uncomfortable when Black women characters have relationships find similar excuses to explain away not wanting BW in relationships.

"She's too strong and independent for a man/relationship" 

"I liked her better alone." 

"It'll take away from her character."

“A romance doesn’t feel right for her”

These sorts of statements above are grounded in racialized misogyny. 

Relationships do not lessen the woman.

Relationships does not lessen Black women. 

Love

Whether that love is romantic, familial, or friendship, it can come in many forms. Give Talia love. Because Black women characters deserve it! Either one or all! 

Let her have a loyal best friend, a cat, and a girlfriend. Because why not? And not to downplay the love of children to parents, but please provide her love beyond what she gets on a maternal level from the children she looks after. 

The stories that Black women are in today severely lack love for us, so why add to the narrative of Black women being all work and no play, and too [insert excuse here] to be loved? 

Of course, you didn't provide all the details from your story, but I'm not seeing much of a balance from the struggle. She is a caretaker, teacher, doctor (or doctor-like figure). 

Her position and background in itself is okay. It's the Strong Black Woman being presented with seemingly no commentary that strikes me. 

Where is her team to help balance the weight of the world? 

Who takes care of her when she's depressed from another loss? 

What does she get in return from taking an emotional and physical toll to heal her community? 

Do those around her recognize all she does for them and offer their friendship? 

When does she get to relax and turn off the need to be everything for everybody?

Fitting love into a book with many characters

There are many books with several characters to keep track of. People tend to manage. Also, I'm sure some of those characters are in and/or out of relationships. Even stories that couldn’t be classified as romances have relationships of some sort. It’s unrealistic to have a ton of characters and none of them be in relationship(s) of some sort. Not when there’s so many forms of it and many sexualities. 

Friends, frenemies, enemies, romance, affairs.. Relationships make stories (and life) interesting. By no means do I think adding these dynamics harm your tale. And what’s one more for a hard-working Black woman who sacrifices a lot and clearly deserves a shoulder to lean on? And, if you use an existing character to be that friend, family, or lover, then you won’t need to pencil in another character.

For romance specifically - I think a misconception when it comes to including romance in stories is that they have to somehow take over the story. Romance does not have to bombard the plot nor be described in lavish detail. Not every story is a romance and those sort of details aren’t everyone’s style or things they’re comfortable with. A sentence or two establishing relationships does not take away from the story.And how those relationships look and affections expressed will vary based on the characters, sexuality, etc.

Not every character needs to have a deep level of detail. 

“Katie and Lisa, a newly engaged couple, walked into the meeting.”

“Jack and Jamie are a married couple in their 40s.” 

“The two met in college. After two months of blissful courtship, they eloped, eager to start their happily ever afters. Twenty years together, they were still blissfully in love and never too far from one another.”

Sentences like the above are enough for some characters. You don’t always need to put in paragraphs worth of relationship-establishing details or plot. 

When it comes to the characters whose love you would like to highlight, at least a bit, you still don’t have to go over the top.

Use subtle details. 

“As soon as Talia’s back was turned, he gave her a longing look before shaking his head and getting back to the patient.”

“He squeezed her hand before taking hold of the stethoscope.”

“She kissed her wife goodbye before racing out the door.”

“You mean the world to me.” he had said, holding her face. Those words stayed with her all day, making her heavy load light as a sack of feathers.

“She soaked his shirt with her tears and he just held her tight, saying nothing, silently holding her together.”

As for Talia specifically…

Talia having the mindset you described, as love being frivolous and not a priority, is understandable knowing her background (I just don't agree with you as the creator using this as a means to keep her alone. Whether she’s romantically alone or without close friendships). She has lost so much, and continues to experience loss with patients. This can be extremely traumatizing. I gave some examples of being subtle, so perhaps that will help with the burden of feeling a thick subplot of romance doesn’t fit in your story. 

And as Talia doesn’t strike me as someone who would go looking for companionship, what if she stumbles upon it without trying? Is there someone on the medical team that can offer her friendship? Someone who admires her and feels the urge to care for her that she feels the same for, or has pushed feelings down for? What happens when she can’t hold those feelings down anymore?

Takeaway

Talia deserves healthy love, even if she doesn’t believe it or feel she has time for it. That love can come in any and many forms, not necessarily romantically required, although it is a plus. A struggle-ridden novel is balanced by love, support and rest for characters that hold the weight of the world. If you do not, evaluate why you want to write Black characters in these struggle roles without at least a social commentary. 

~Mod Colette

[bikenesmith]

i have some thoughts about monica rambeau in wandavision re: antiblackness & misogynoir that i've been musing over. crossposted from twitter.

note: wanda maximoff in wandavision is whitewashed. comics wanda is originally nonwhite (romani + jewish). because of that, i'm going to refer to wandavision wanda as "wanda" to create distance because "wanda"'s status as a white woman is important here

i have an issue with the way wandavision positions monica & "wanda". there's not enough attention brought to why monica feels so strongly about helping "wanda". monica speaks vaguely about her own experience with grief in the few times she's able to communicate with "wanda".

but wandavision doesnt take the time to explore this, even though the content is there. monicas relationship w carol makes her sympathetic to powered beings in ways others arent, she's looking for someone to relate to about grief directly correlated to the snap, etc

instead we get monica repeatedly risking her life for a white woman for reasons we, as the viewers, don't get a close look at. and we need to get a close look at that, for the benefit of monica's character and the narrative as a whole. this lack of context creates a replication of antiblack media tropes of black women sacrificing themselves, their safety, and their happiness for white women & girls. this is directly related to the sassy black friend trope (which is descended from the mammy caricature).

speaking of sassy black friends.

we all heard that "which one is the sassy friend" line. yes, it came from hayward, who is a complete asshole. we're meant to see him as a bad person. but there needed to be more dialogue to expose the racist overtones of that statement. otherwise we are left with a random piece of antiblack microaggression in the dialogue that confuses and/or harms black audiences. there was a big opportunity there to expose the realities of workplace macro/microaggressions against black women and wandavision dropped the ball.

this calls back to "geraldine". in the 60s ep, her character is characterized normally. however, in the 70s ep, this changes completely. 70s monica is loud, sassy, & blissfully unaware bc she's too self-absorbed. she's the exact picture of a 1970s "funky black woman" stereotype.

lets be clear. there is nothing wrong with being black and loud and sassy. im sarcastic af. thing is, monica's nothing like that. she's a very serious person. this characterization makes no sense outside of 70s-style stereotyping. later, we literally see her cringe at the replay of "geraldine". it's as if, metatextually, she recognizes that antiblack caricature.

the implications of "wanda" pushing monica into that stereotype and forcing her body/mind to play out that role is horrifying. and outside of the fiction, it is similarly horrifying for the white showrunners to include that. compounding that with "wanda" violently throwing monica out of the hex once she breaks from that role....it paints a very ugly picture

monica still wanting to help "wanda" so bad and so unconditionally after that....? points back to what i said about black sacrifice for white women

(also: even if "wanda" isn't really "in charge", and agatha is, it doesn't matter. they're both white, and monica believed wanda was in control to some extent)

monica is an incredible character and incredibly important as representation for darkskinned black women. i teared up at the scene of her pushing into the hex and gaining her powers. so much of that, & her characterization at large, can be narratively connected to the trauma black women and black people of other marginalized genders go through, and have to come out on the other side of

that’s why it’s so important to be critical of the ways (white) showrunners write her (and black characters in general), especially in relation to their white counterparts.

[hyperfixation-stations]

Now that season 2 of HSMTMTS is coming to I wanted to talk about something I’ve noticed in the fandom during this seasons run that rubbed me the wrong way and that is the treatment of both Nini and Gina in their relation to Ricky. 

Now I’m not super super active in the fandom, but I read a lot of posts and regularly and a trend I noticed as the season drew on was whenever their was a “relationship” issues between Ricky and one of them, Ricky tended to be absolved of any role he played while the girls were always painted to be the root of the issue. And hears the part that’s going to hurt for some people, just because Ricky has trauma does not mean he gets a free pass for his behavior, no matter how recent it is. It is ok for Ricky to be insecure about his relationships and struggle with being in one, having your parents go through divorce is hard and it is totally understandable that he would struggle with such a massive change like that. However it feels like fans would get annoyed and angry at the characters when they didn’t react in a way that was more in line with a therapist or an adult in a situation where Ricky was struggling and either lashing out or shutting down, Nini in particular. It felt like at times fans wanted the two of them to be there as like a yes man for Ricky to try and make him feel better or prop him up, rather then as individual characters with their own journeys and stories. 

I also feel like it’s important to remember that all of them are like 16/17 at the oldest. Teenagers struggle with communication in relationships a lot because a lot of times they are experiencing things for the first time and either don’t know how to communicate it or don’t realize that it is something they should be communicating with their partner. I found that with the Rini drama in particular people would get mad at Nini for not communicating something to Ricky but either ignoring the context of the situation or were only willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Ricky was constantly allowed to be unsure and have missteps in their relationship, however Nini was never given the same chance and was constantly expected to have full understanding of every situation and express herself perfectly. In situations like the rose song which are scenes where we see Nini coming to terms with their relationship and how it’s changing, fans don’t let her get the chance to come to terms with how she knows the song reflects their relationship and what that means for them going forward. 

What really irks me about the whole situation is that this is happening to two female POC characters. Like this would totally happen to a white woman as well, and we’ve seen it before with characters like JJ for Reid on Criminal Minds. But there is an extra issue with the fact that these are POC characters. There is already the whole trope of black characters specifically exhist to like be caregivers to white people (i.e. the Mammy trope) which we see with Gina at times and Nini as while (I don’t know if you would consider her falling under the Mammy trope as well as she isn’t black, but it’s a similar issue). There seems to be this inherent issue with media where fans infantilize a white straight man (or straight passing man) while constantly using the females surrounding the character to use as scape goats for the issues of the man, rather then actually confront that their fave has issues and that is ok. 

I don’t know I feel like this is something I have seen a lot of this season and something I’ve been thinking a lot about. And just to be clear this isn’t an anti Ricky post and not even a knock on the character, because I really do feel for the kid. I do find however that the writing and fans tend to infantilize him a bit too much while giving him passes for his problematic behavior. 

[zalrb]

I have a question that I hope isn’t taken to be offensive or ignorant, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on gone with the wind as a film? And also … Like, do you think it’s okay to enjoy it based on the characters and the pull of the toxic romance, while also acknowledging how and why it’s problematic and what issues that has caused throughout history. It was one of my favorite books / movies as a child when I didn’t fully understand what exactly was all wrong with it, and as I’ve grown up and become more educated - I find it hard to reconcile this with my enjoyment of both book/movie. But more so the movie because of things Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen had to go through regarding segregation and racism at the time. I hope this isn’t dumb :/

So, personally, I do not fuck with Gone With The Wind and its glorification of the antebellum south and its romanticization of slavery and its sympathetic portrait of slave owners --- in the 30s a poet, Melvin B. Thompson, said it was a more dangerous film than Birth of a Nation, which was a KKK propaganda film:

“Birth of a Nation was such a barefaced lie that a moron could see through it [...] Gone with the Wind is such a subtle lie that it will be swallowed as truth by millions of whites and blacks alike.”

you mentioned Butterfly McQueen who, as I'm sure you know, pushed back against the demeaning nature of her character by purposefully messing up lines, and she demanded Vivian Leigh apologize to her about an onscreen slap, and Hattie took her aside and told her if she kept it up, she would never get a job in Hollywood again.

While I respect Hattie McDaniel and I respect why she took the role and I respect her Oscar speech and I respect the position she was in, the role of Mammy is a stereotype that has endured in cinema throughout the years from Black women always being maids to being the Black best friend and now the current trend of constantly being therapists. When I think of the legacy of Gone With The Wind, all of these things are what comes to mind (although the tropes were found in Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852).

Rhett and Scarlett are the least of my concerns when it comes to Gone With The Wind, which is just a blatant lie of a movie.

In terms of whether or not I think it's okay to like it, I'm not going to answer that for you, I think all of us engage with problematic material constantly and we each choose what we can accept and what we can't.

[marysfoxmask]

“the secret garden” (2020) review

(warning: spoilers!)

just watched the latest adaptation again! i wanted to see it a second time to really get my thoughts and feelings together. and, while i think it was a good effort, ultimately i was disappointed. my instincts when i first saw the trailer were more or less correct—really vibrant, flashy visuals ultimately subtract from the low-key nature of the book. when adapting a story about realizing the magic in mundanity, realizing the magic inherent to the turning of the seasons and the growing of plants that we usually take for granted, it’s monumentally better to prioritize realism over fantasy.

mary’s character was served the best by the new film, though sadly that isn’t saying too much. while i understood that this mary would be different from her book counterpart, i definitely felt the original’s absence more than i would have liked. the mary of this film is just too well-adjusted, to the point where her arc is less about a spiritually stunted, completely neglected child becoming healthy and whole through the power of nature and socialization (as it is in the novel) and more about a vaguely troubled child apologizing to the specter of her late mother for feeling badly about being neglected, which is essentially the opposite of what burnett was getting at.

was anyone pining for a mrs. lennox redemption story? the same woman who, as per the book, never wanted a child and only cared about going to parties? i’ll forever be baffled by people being more invested in the adults and their ponderous backstories rather than the emotional development of the child protagonists; this film seems a lot more interested in the impact of the deaths of mary and colin’s mothers, to a bizarre degree. “grace” craven (really? was “lilias” not good enough?) and her sister (this and the 1993 film both depart from the book, where mary’s father is related to lilias, in favor of making mrs. lennox and mrs. craven twins—a decision i’m confused by in terms of thematic relevance on both accounts) are never characterized more than being essentially the angels of misselthwaite. they float by, laughing gaily, dressed in white, at points during the film. they are bittersweet representations of the idealized past and, at one point, guardians of their loved ones left behind.

i’ve never enjoyed the romanticization of lilias craven in any adaptation. mary calls the fairytale trope of beautiful princesses falling asleep in a garden for a hundred years stupid in the novel; and what is lilias but a princess eternally sleeping in her beloved garden? she’s beautiful and innocent and good and thoroughly uninteresting. she’s the angel of the house, embarrassingly dated compared to her imperfect, misfit niece, who is coming awake and growing healthy while lilias is frozen in amber, a beautiful idealized figure even in death. the interest in her in this film, the broadway musical—and even the 1993 movie, to an extent—seems to completely contradict the point of the novel, fetishizing the past and resisting lending enough focus to the events of the present. mary is a spunky, interesting, flawed heroine who doesn’t need to share the spotlight with any angels of the manor; the story of the secret garden is one about healing from trauma, not wallowing in it.

that isn’t even touching on the decision to have mrs. lennox be an apparently good person brought low by depression following her beloved twin’s death. i find this adaptive choice to be positively loathsome. mrs. lennox, as a character, is a bad mother and a silly, foolish person, point blank, period. she hands baby mary off to an ayah the moment she’s born, keeps her isolated and locked up, and insists that the ayah keep mary quiet lest “the mem sahib” become angry. when given the chance of evacuating due to the cholera epidemic raging, she instead stays in order to go to a party. she’s a frivolous character whose superficial prioritization of amusement leads directly to her death. she doesn’t need a sympathetic reason to be neglectful to mary; she doesn’t need to be sympathetic at all. the decision to make that a priority in this latest adaptation hurts mary’s character. when she tells her uncle that it was too hot to play in india (a sentiment taken directly from the novel), it doesn’t ring true—in the multiple flashbacks to india, mary plays a lot with her loving father (her ayah, while mentioned, is rarely seen; what we see of india is populated entirely by privileged whites), and is shown to enjoy herself tremendously until she glimpses her mother wilting sadly on a cushion or something. it undermines what little development mary has in the film. 

the prioritization of mary and colin's mothers in general make the film feel weirdly overstuffed while giving little weight/emphasis to the events present in the source material. how many lines did major secondary characters like dickon or martha have, for example, compared to all the waffling mary and colin do about whether or not their mothers loved them and whether mary really killed her mother or not they, at the end of the day, really knew their parents, et cetera, et cetera? it’s a frustratingly shallow addition to the original story, devoid of thematic relevance.

speaking of shallow additions…

hector, a stray dog, assumes the role of the book’s robin (bizarre, considering the robin is also present), being the friendly animal character that leads mary to the secret garden. i’m not sure why the decision to add hector was made; he’s also the catalyst for mary leading dickon to the garden, while she needed no such thing in the book. did marc munden feel kids wouldn’t sympathize so readily with mary befriending a bird, despite the success of all the other adaptations saying otherwise? hector gets a lot of attention in the film, which is frustrating, because so much of the movie is filled with strange original additions that say little. 

despite the clear talent of the actors and the vividness of the visuals, the changes to the story are devoid of purpose. the time period, for instance—why 1947? why have mary’s orphaning take place during the partition of india when her parents die of cholera anyway? why make martha and dickon black when the script pussyfoots around it, refusing to interact with that aspect of their characters in the same way burnett directly (if somewhat tactlessly) interacts with their poverty? save for vague, implicatory dialogue, like the threat of having poor dickon whipped if he’s sighted in misselthwaite by mrs. medlock, the racism of the time period isn’t featured at all. martha is stripped of any characterization at all, her cheerfulness diluted to the point of being nonexistent once mary gets a bit snappy. perhaps the decision to mute martha’s characterization was made out of fear of the implications of a black maid being cheerfully nurturing to a white girl despite her cruelty (invoking the mammy stereotype)—but if so, why make the decision to change martha’s race at all?

the structure of the film is odd, too. mary meets colin early on (in the book, mary explicitly states that she’d hate the imperious and bratty colin if she hadn’t met kindly martha or dickon first) and doesn’t meet dickon until halfway through. why? it directly contradicts the novel for no particular reason; it doesn’t help that dickon is so underused that he’s virtually a non-entity, his three whole canonical character traits (poor! happy! in tune with nature!) watered down to nothing. In this film, dickon isn’t particularly happy (he’s just as solemn and damaged as the other two kids, though in a more subdued way, as his father has died in the war—it’s frustrating that his rich white peers get to air their mommy issues at length while poor dickon’s grief is only glanced at) and his skill with animals is only vaguely alluded to. his skill with plants, negated by the apparent flourishing of the secret garden even when no one’s looking after it, is only brought up when, in one scene taking place in the garden, colin asks dickon what certain plants are.

it’s also frustrating that dickon, the only poor and nonwhite character in the trio, is the only one doing only actual gardening work while his friends sit around and talk about their trauma. the whole time, i wanted to urge mary to stop indulging in her overactive imagination for once and pull some weeds or something. putting in the work to make her secret garden flourish is an important part of her growth in the book, but that’s entirely absent here in favor of the occasional frolic. dickon even eventually whittles colin a cane he uses to eventually stumble into his father’s arms. this gesture should be touching and evident of the strength of the boys’ (offscreen) bond but instead is only another example of dickon selflessly and thoughtlessly serving his betters, making the classist implications of burnett’s original story more obviously troubling by adding race into the mix. it’s also bizarre that mary can cartwheel but dickon can’t, given how physically adept he was in the book. poor dickon is sapped of all his accomplishments, it seems. his character is completely glossed over, though i do like his feistiness in his meeting with mary, with him coming out of the mist and sharply remarking that martha loves him much more than she likes her. even more sadly, unlike his ‘93 counterpart, he doesn’t even get to eat a worm.

mrs. medlock is one-notedly antagonistic, being hard-nosed and strict and disapproving of mary’s wild ways—which is also disappointing. she’s not outright villainous, but she’s denied the shades of sympathy allowed her by the original novel, where she was a straightforward, unsentimental woman working a thankless job trying to satisfy and care for a tyrannical little hypochondriac. she’s also probably the closest thing we have in the movie to a xenophobe/racist, frequently making coded comments about the primitive and savage nature of the english colonies in india where mary grew up, but that’s only ever hinted at without being called out by mary or anyone else. there’s also an odd moment at the beginning of the film where mrs. medlock states the book-accurate sentiment that nothing lives on the moor but wild ponies and sheep, yet mary sees in the mist multiple shadowy figures with what i think are wheelbarrows and gardening tools (it’s a bit hard to tell with all the mist). this probably is meant to clue mary in to medlock’s classism, foreshadowing that mary will be given insight to the outdoors and different people in a way medlock could never be, changing her views of the class hierarchy she’s been inundated by—i’m not sure what else can be gleaned by the contradiction of medlock’s words and what mary sees but that—but nothing is done with it. we never see anyone on the moor but dickon throughout the rest of the movie. it’s another missed opportunity. maybe it’s meant to set up that there are poachers on the moor who set traps, like the one hector is hurt by? after seeing the movie twice, i’m still not sure what the purpose of that imagery was.

there are parts of the film i enjoyed! all the children do wonderfully in their roles (amir wilson does well with what frustratingly little he has), and i enjoyed this film’s characterization of colin as somewhat stiff, with a practiced, affected way of speaking that subtly indicates that he’s spent more time with books than with people. it makes a nice contrast to mary’s plainspokenness as a (relatively classless) orphan and dickon’s “rough” (lower-class) yorkshire accent, showing off his education and status as an upper-class boy. 

the scene just before mary shows colin the tree his mother died beneath, when colin asks dickon about the names of flowers, is very sweet and book-accurate; i especially appreciate the nod to the kids’ book mastery of yorkshire, with colin mimicking dickon’s speech and noting that the names of the flowers sound better in his accent. 

i also loved him calling dickon handsome. it is socially awkward? yes. does it make sense for colin to be socially awkward? also yes. and it’s adorable and book-accurate, in my opinion; if dickon weren’t so homely in the book, i imagine colin would call him handsome there, too. and mary proudly stating that dickon can whistle, as well, is lovely.

similarly, mary and dickon teaching colin to swim is very sweet—while i found most of the garden’s cgi magic wholly dispensable, i did enjoy the plants shivering along with colin. that sort of playfulness felt very attuned to the innocence of the book. 

edan hayhurst does a wonderful job playing colin haughty and upset and an equally lovely job playing colin giddy and happy—if only he’d been allowed to really show off his screaming in a proper adaptation of his hysterics, instead of the pale imitation we got in the film!

it’s funny to note how much these kids get enjoyment out of pretending to be dogs. mary barks at hector when she first makes friends with him, pretends to be a yorkshire terrier with dickon when hector gets well in the garden, all the kids start barking when playing together, mary recites in a letter that colin pretended to be a dog all day...these kids sure love to bark. it’s not a bad thing, necessarily, just funny. why the dog obsession, marc munden? though i like the idea of them pretending to be animals (the masks they wear at one point are lovely), dogs feel a very typical choice. still, i can’t help but get enjoyment out of the kids playing together, though these moments are sadly brief. 

i also really enjoyed all of mary’s outfits. they were adorable. if only we could have gotten more interactions between the children! part of the beauty of the second half of the novel is just watching the kids be kids in the garden; we rarely get that in all of the adaptations, of course, but in this one i was particularly sorrowful, given all the new directions the story went and how none of them directly impacted the children’s friendship with each other. there wasn’t even the mild jealousy colin has over mary spending more time with dickon than she is with him, which is present in most of the films. it’s a real shame; colin doesn’t even know dickon exists until he meets him, in a hurried scene that doesn’t remotely convey the sweetness of their meeting in the novel. the movie flits over all the book’s little idyllic joys in favor of its own original drama (which is not nearly as compelling as the movie thinks it is).

i did also enjoy the ending scene, with the kids swimming together, and mary attempting to tell a story with colin and dickon interrupting. it’s nice to see an ending to this story that doesn’t follow the book, which forgets mary and dickon in favor of colin. i think ending with the kids playing happy and whole in the garden is much more representative of the book’s charms. and the scene where mary and dickon first enter misselthwaite and are giving all-clear signs to one another as they go is fun, too.

i also enjoyed the set design, including all the green present in misselthwaite’s decor. i loved the high ceilings and the bareness of mary’s bedroom. poor colin still didn’t have any proper pajamas, reduced to wearing a white tank top for some reason, though i liked his goofy little hat that he wears when going outdoors. i wish we got to spend more time in colin’s room, and i wish the color saturation had been toned down a little just so we could get a better look at everything. all the insistent gloomy blues felt a bit overbearing. 

i love the opening credits, though, and “the secret garden” slowly appearing in the title screen. the music and the soft green of the trees against the words really conjure up the novel’s near-pagan melancholy and mystery.

the less said about the third act climax of misselthwaite burning down, the better. it’s unneeded and resolves a film-only subplot about mary’s mother that didn’t need to be there in the first place. i think it also unfairly paints misselthwaite as a cursed, doomed place that can only benefit its inhabitants by being destroyed, which is unfortunate. misselthwaite wasn’t the problem, its people was, and they only thought misselthwaite was gloomy because they’d made it so. if they’d followed the teachings of burnett’s book, the one they were adapting, and thought a little more positively about it, then maybe they’d find it wasn’t such a terrible place to be. but, then, i guess we wouldn’t have the third act climax to artificially ramp up the stakes. how sad.

i could say more, but i’ll stop for now. i appreciate the effort, like i said, but i can’t help but feel this missed the mark.

[galactichoneybee92]

Thoughts on Isaac and Representation

I don’t have a point- let me just say that now. This also stands to be perhaps my most controversial post, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to get my thoughts out. This will be long and rambling. You have been warned. 

With the release of Sex Education Season 2, fans have been introduced to a character named Isaac, to mixed response. He is Maeve’s new neighbor, a barrier to her relationship with Otis and potentially a new love interest. 

It’s not unusual to introduce a new love interest into a show to prolong the drama and keep the tension will-they-won’t-they romance alive. In season one we Otis in love with Maeve, thwarted by the fact that Maeve was dating Jackson, and that Otis never really believed that Maeve could like him anyway. Resigned with this fact, Otis attempted to move on with Ola who had appeared conviniently around the time that Maeve had realized her feelings for Otis and ended her own relationship. It was all very ships in the night. 

In season two we get a sort of role reversal: This time it’s Otis in the relationship and Maeve left pining, thinking that he could never love her. It makes sense that this would be the time to introduce a new love interest for Maeve, sort of HER Ola, if you will. The difference here is that Ola is sweet and wonderful and Isaac is sketchy AF. 

I hate him, and I’ve made no secret of hating him, because personally I find him sketchy and manipulative.  There are other fans who like them though and ship the two of them. That’s fine; it’s a perfectly valid opinion, and shipping wars have been around as long as fandom. That’s nothing new. There is another issue though...

Isaac is in a wheelchair. 

While that isn’t necessarily a problem in GENERAL, it is something that effects the way his character is handeled, as well as viewer interpretation. It’s my experience that in media, certain characters are usually gifted a sort of “plot armor.” While that term is most commonly directed towards characters who play too pivotal a role in the story to be written off, I find it often also applies to characters who fit into the role of “representation.”

But wait, you might say, that doesn’t sound right. POC and queer characters get killed off all the time. It’s practically a horror movie trope, and “Kill your gays” didn’t come from nowhere. To which I would reply: Exactly. We have all seen it a million times, have raised it as an issue, and I would like to think that as a society we are attempting to move past it. That gay characters are less likely to die because of the attention brought to the “kill your gays” trope.  

It’s my understanding that these common minority tropes originally stem from their initial introduction into media. At first they didn’t have any representation at all, and then gradually they were allowed to be incorporated in media in small ways that didn’t offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities. A very famous example would be the inclusion of African Americans: At first they weren’t in movies at all. Then they were(sort of?) but they were represented by white actors in blackface. Then when black actors were allowed to play their own roles, those roles were harmful stereotypes; You wouldn’t get a black actor playing a heroic lead, but he would be the brutish savage, or the “mammy” character. They were either relegated to minor side charactes, comic relief, or the villain- roles that didn’t challange the views of society. 

There was a similar experience in regards to homosexuality in films, where once gay characters started appearing they were portrayed as sexless comic relief or villinous. The general idea behind it seemed to be that there could be homosexuality in films, but it had to be shows as wrong and corrupt, or destined to end in tragedy. After all, how could anybody in such a relationship possibly be happy? Ridiculous. 

While media  (and society) are still making strides towards diversity and inclusivity, you can’t say that media isn’t in a better place now than it was even ten or twenty years ago. I was born in the 90′s and the amount of difference I see even in the twenty-seven years I’ve been alive is actually a little astounding. I can’t even imagine the difference for people who are older than I. Even just since I graduated highschool (2010) I’ve seen such a huge difference in regards to representation across the board and while we still have a ways to go we are certainly far from where we started. 

But what does any of this have to do with Isaac? He isn’t a POC, he isn’t in any way queer. No, but he is disabled which is another sort of representation and one that doesn’t get as much publicity. As such it is admittedly one that I don’t know as much about, but If I had to guess it’s probably because theres never (to my knowledge) been a big court case about whether or not disabled people deserve rights. It’s never been a hot button issue in a political debate the way that race politics or gay rights have and so I feel like it hasn’t gotten as much attention. Still disability representation is still a topic that comes up in conversation when discussing media.

So what does that have to do with anything? Why was I talking about plot armor? I had a reason, I promise. I’ve found that due to the problematic history of representation, shows (at least the socially aware ones) have been taking strides to try to avoid falling into the same harmful patterns as their predecessors. Since there was a long history of POC characters being cast as villains, evil characters to be defeated by the white protagonists, there was a stretch of time there where you wouldn’t see a single POC villain at all. It wasn’t quite true equality, but it was an effort to combat the harmful stereotypes that the media had perpetuated for so long.

Eventually we got to a place where it was generally acknowledged that you could have a POC villain as long as they weren’t the ONLY POC in your entire movie. The same goes for people of various gender and sexual identies. You can have a gay antagonist, but it’s impportant to include other gay people who ARENT evil to show that it’s the character that is evil, indepent of his sexuality. This isn’t seen as often however, probably due to the relative novelty of the inclusion of queer characters, which is why my examples for these points are POC characters who have a comparitively longer history of inclusion. That’s not to say that the history has always been positive, just that queer inclusion is a newer development and active disability rep seems even more recent. 

I apologize if I’m phrsasing any of this poorly, but I’m hoping that you’re tracking the main points. Now. I repeat: What does ANY of this have to do with Isaac? 

Isaac is, as of now, the only disabled character in Sex Education. As such, I feel like it’s kind of expected for him to be given “plot armor”, not in regards to being killed off but in his depiction. As the show’s only example of disabled representation, as well as his introduction as a love interest for Maeve, I feel like the expectation is that he would be a protagonist. At the very least he would be a good guy.  And maybe some people think he is? I don’t know, he has his fans, but I’m not one of them. 

This is the part of my post where I stop having a point and just start listing my thoughts.

When I met Isaac I expected to like him and I wonder how much of that stemmed from the fact that he was in a wheelchair and as such I expected that the show wouldn’t possibly portray him in a negative light. Even when he was rude to Maeve in the beginning I was willing to forgive it- I don’t mind my characters being prickly and Lord knows no other character on this show is perfect. And he was handsome, and snarky, which are usually traits that I love and I really REALLY expected to love him. However as the show progressed he just gave me bad vibes. I find him manipulative and untrustworthy.

I’m not going to go into my feelings about Isaac because I’ve already made one very long post duscussing his character, but instead I’d like to discuss his role in the show and how his disability factors into that role.

As I said before, it makes sense that this season would introduce a new love interest for Maeve. It’s not a terribly uncommon formula in shows like these. Considering that Maeve is considered the “bad girl” (even though we all know she’s a cinnamon role that just deserves ALL the love) who has self esteem issues and an inaccurate view of herself, I was honestly surprised that the show gave her such a cute, healthy relationship with Jackson. Were they perfect for each other? I don’t personally think so, but there wasn’t anything inherently problematic in their relationship. Jackson is a legitimately nice guy, I wish him the best and he was a pretty good boyfriend. 

It wouldn’t be unheard of though to see her fall into a more toxic relationship, and while that’s a very strong term that even I am hesitant to use toward Isaac at this point, it does look as if the groundwork might be there for that kind of subplot. It could really go either way at this point- maybe Isaac’s actions are influenced by his own personal insecurity and he would be much nicer once they were in a relationship. Or maybe he would be scared of losing her and things would get worse. It’s not just the fact that he deleted her message in the last episode, but that he’s seemed very manipulative throughout the entire season. 

It seems to me that Isaac fits the stereotype of the abusive boyfriend- He’s handsome and charming, but also very skilled at manipulation. If you watch their relationship, it also falls into a lot of the same patterns as romantic comedies. That’s not meant as a compliment however, a lot of romantic comedy relationships are built on very questionable foundations. The leading men do a variety of unethical things, but are forgiven on behalf of being handsome and funny and those actions are forgiven and even romanticized for the sake of the love story. This also reminds me of Maeve and Isaac. How often does he push himself uninvited into her life? How often does he managed to get out of facing the consequences of his actions?

It’s a fairly common trope tbh, and the only thing that isn’t common is that he’s also physically disabled. Which honestly lead me to doubt whether or not he was being sketchy or not. Like, could I be wrong? I eventually concluded that I don’t think I was, but it leads me to consider the fact of his disability on viewer perception. 

Are viewers more likely to forgive his behavior because his wheelchair paints him in a more sympathetic light? That isn’t to say that everyone who likes him only does so because of the wheelchair - I’m sure some people just legitimately like him- but I wonder how many do? And why? Is it because you feel bad for the character? Or is it because, as our only disabled character, we are programmed to view him as a protagonist? Is his disability part of an effort to be more inclusive, or to subtly subvert our expectations regarding his character? Neither? Both?

If he is indeed going to be an antagonist then that raises further questions in regards to Isaac as disability representation. On the one hand, it’s not like being in a wheelchair automatically makes someone a good person- as with any other demographic of people there are going to be nice guys and assholes.

Is it better that they’re treating him like they would anyone else? Like, he’s just a regular guy who happens to be in a wheelchair, and the guy that he is, is prone to questionable behavior. Is it better that they’re treating him the same as they would any other able bodied character in this role? Or, as their only depiction of a disabled character, should they be portraying him in a more positive light? I personally find him to be very manipulative, and often he uses his disability as a part of his manipulation. Is that just an example of Isaac being opportunistic and using the resources available to him, or is it indicitive of a larger problem with his depiction? 

Have physically disabled people faced the same issues in media as other groups, in that their depictions were historically negative? I’m going to be honest with you here, that’s not a question I know the answer to. I haven’t seen them largely portrayed as villains, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened. 

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, and I won’t until I see where season 3 plans on taking this, but these are the thoughts that have been circling my mind since I finished season 2. Do you agree? Disagree? Did any of this even make sense? 

[tryingfeminism2019]

Beyoncé does not limit herself to represent only one movement. She has been in the public eye most of her life; and therefore, her character has been allowed to evolve as she grew up. “She has used her lyrics and her persona to become a powerful icon of black female sexuality because of the many ways in which she chooses to present herself to the world, but also because she interrogates many of the tropes of womanhood that are problematic for all women” (Trier-Bieniek 27). Beyoncé portrays not only black female struggles with womanhood and motherhood, she also highlights what white women go through, which allows her to broaden her audience. She proves intersectionality exists, and that feminism does not encompass all women equally. African American women’s battles sometimes differ from white women’s due to their race. Beyoncé has had time to evolve in the public light, which is why we are able to see multiple sides of her. By seeing multiple sides of Beyoncé, she can reclaim the black female body. The black female body has “never [been] alone it always has the male gaze following it and [is] packaged for popular consumption (Trier-Bieniek 28). Beyoncé uses the status quo of male gaze following the female body to her advantage to make money from her sexuality. In the past, the portrayal of black women as jezebel and mammy has led to the oppression of black women. Due to this history, black women in the media are constantly scrutinized for taking back their sexuality. “Many black female performers [are] forced to walk a fine line in self-presentation and to maintain the audience they needed to ensure continued vitality as performers” (Trier-Bieniek 29). They must not only please their fans which usually involves invoking patriarchy norms within their art, they also must not offend the community in which their skin color says they must reside. Beyoncé has been criticized for following respectability politics too closely and spreading colorism. Black women were sexual victims in US history and respectability politics does not address this issue. By falling into respectability politics or embracing the patriarchy to make money, Beyoncé is leaving these women without a voice which is why I struggle to say Beyoncé is an intersectional icon.

I hate to say that Beyoncé is too white to be an intersectional icon, but she is in looks and previous respectability politics. Beyoncé similarly to Lena Horne can deny their skin tone while allowing there to be a portrayal of diversity within the arts without there really being diversity. Lena Horne could pass as white, and for many people because Beyoncé originally played into what white people wanted to hear and see, she was able to pass as white too. Her light skin and blonde hair also perpetuated this image. Being able to be white when you are black is what Langston Hughes wants to end. He wants people to be themselves when he says “if white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too…. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves” (Trier-Bieniek 30). The problem with Langston Hughes’ call to end respectability politics is it focuses on the self instead of the group, a post-feminist viewpoint. Many of the performers are making a career out of making music and art for people to consume. Performers must provide the fans with what they want to make a living. The second problem is if you are offending your own culture there are no steps forward. It relates back to how Beyoncé offended many people with her song "Formation," when she talked about the mixing of creole and negro heritage to make her. Beyoncé embraces the attitude of I do not care what you think of me and I am just going to be who I am in her performance of "Formation."  She is making many political statements in “Formation,” but the focus always turns back to her. Beyoncé portrays the notion of “we believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression” (Trier-Bieniek 33). Beyoncé does this by being the center of attention and recognizing others on the side. This mindset is toxic though. Only elevating yourself up does not mean equality for all. Beyoncé has started to give black sexual power back to African American women, but the focus is still on her.

Beyoncé is developing this sense of sexual empowerment because black women must purposefully develop a sense of self-worth and positive sense of sexual empowerment to overturn the historical, voracious image of the black female body as being nothing more than a temptress. The problem is we receive mixed messages from Bey. Her songs such as "If I Were a Boy" or "Irreplaceable" appear to place the agency with men, while her newer music appears to have herself as the agent. Beyoncé has grown over the years, especially since her release of Lemonade. If Beyoncé is not her own agent, whoever it is allows her to be a badass black feminist and while yes, her perfect body can bring back historical memories of mammy and jezebel representing the hypersexualized black female body, she has reclaimed it for herself and black women. She is an artist which is "free within herself" according to Langston Hughes (Trier-Bieniek 36). She has this ability because she can choose how she wishes to portray herself. If she wants to be portrayed as sexual she can, and she owns her own agency unlike how historical women did not when they were portrayed a jezebel and mammy. Beyoncé mocks past stereotypical norms while giving the black female body back to the women who embody it. Yes, she is a performer who uses her flawless body to make money, but that money and the art that is made is hers. She chooses what she does unlike in her original days when her parents helped form her image in Destiny's Child. Beyoncé is becoming intersectional and while she is not there yet, she could be the pop culture icon one day as she continues to reject the patriarchy and respectability politics.  

Original Source: Trier-Bieniek, Adrienne. The Beyoncé Effect: Essays on Sexuality, Race and Feminism (p. 27-38). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[canihldthemic]

The Transcendence of Stereotypical Norms in Media Texts

Since I was a young girl, my mother always made sure to raise me in diverse settings in hopes to develop my adaptability skills and well-roundedness. All of my life we lived in an African American upper-middle-class neighborhood in Washington, D.C. I went to schools in low-income areas like Anacostia and wealthy areas like Georgetown. Although my mother had good intentions with her school choices for me, I struggled to find my identity in both of these settings. I found myself posturing and conforming to what I thought was acceptable; even then I felt like an outcast. I was always asked about my hair and “why it looked like that” or asked, “why I talked so white”. These issues of shifting and isolation are not uncommon among Black women in America. We are constantly trying to fit into molds or break out of the ones cast for us. This is especially hard to do when society’s understanding of us is formed by stereotypes reinforced by the media. There are hundreds of examples in contemporary media where negative stereotypes of Black femininity are portrayed. However, in recent years there has been an increase in more dynamic depictions of Black femininity. One example is found in the 2018 film Bad Times at the El Royale, where character Darlene Sweet transcends the traditional tropes of Black femininity.

Bad Times at the El Royale is a neo-noir thriller film that follows the stories of seven strangers who meet in a mysteriously isolated and run-down hotel in 1969 Lake Tahoe. Each character has their own motives as to why they found their way to this whimsical hotel and as the plot develops the viewers are able to understand the complexities of each character’s narratives. First, we meet Father Daniel Flynn who is introduced as a priest but is actually a bank robber named Dock O’Kelly who came to the El Royale to recover money he stole 10 years prior. Next, is Laramie Sullivan Seymour, who is an arrogant vacuum salesman who doubles as an FBI agent that came to the El Royale to recover surveillance devices from the hotel. Then we meet Miles Miller, who is the hotel's only employee. By the end of the movie, it is revealed that he is a traumatized Vietnam War sniper who has killed over 100 people. Lastly, is the twisted cult escapee Emily Summerspring who kidnaps her younger sister, Rose Summerspring (who is under steadfast control of the sadistic cult’s leader, Billy Lee). The hotel itself also has a very bizarre past as it used to be bustling with high profile celebrities and politicians, but behind closed doors, hotel management would record their guests’ sexual encounters and sell them. As the movie’s plot develops the viewers are able to understand the depth of each character and all of their grueling pasts. However, there is one character who provides hopeful relief to this gory film, songstress Darlene Sweet. Unlike her fellow characters, Sweet’s identity remains the same throughout the film. This does not take away from her dynamic role in the film's plot and her robust personality. Initially, the audience is able to understand her as a former background singer who is traveling to Reno, California to fulfill her dreams of being a lounge singer. Sweet is full of poise, wit, determination, and modesty. Ultimately, Darlene’s character challenges tropes widely portrayed by Black female characters.

There are a number of oppressive myths that are constructed and circulated which contribute to how Black women are seen, understood and classified. Three of these myths include Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire. Each of these myths are rooted deeply in slavery and the social, economic and political persecution of the Black woman. Jezebel suggests the myth that Black women are sexually promiscuous and irresponsible. It reduces the value of the Black female to the efficiency of her body. The Mammy myth speaks to the social limits of Black women during slavery which categorized them as domestic, loyal, motherly, and overly-submissive. The Sapphire myth portrays the paradox of unwavering strength in Black women; often characterizing us as unfeminine, invulnerable, angry and loud. These stereotypes maintain the social foundations that uphold white supremacy and patriarchy within this society. It is important for both Black women and other demographics to see representations of Black femininity that challenge the typical architypes of Black women. Darlene Sweet’s character is the perfect example of this challenge. Her character does an outstanding job of being, “neither a martyr nor a magical negro. Neither a mammy nor a jezebel, nor is she a token or a helpless damsel. She is smart and cautious and ready to fight, but only if she has to. And this is a refreshing sight compared to how we normally see Black women written and conceived of in films … especially as the sole Black character” (Brown, 2018). Throughout the film, Darlene Sweet encounters many of the microaggressions, stereotypes, and the oppression experienced by Black women in America every day. Nevertheless, her reactions to these experiences display her character as transcending the tropes historically portrayed by Black women in media texts.

In the second scene of the movie, Darlene Sweet and Father Flynn meet Laramie Sullivan in the lobby of the El Royale as they wait for Miles to check them in. As aforementioned, Laramie is very arrogant and narcissistic and this is unwavering throughout this scene. He does everything from belittling Darlene by referring to her as “girl”, to forcing a cup of coffee in her hand after she insisted she didn’t want any (Goddard, 10:44), then suggesting that she was a prostitute when she didn’t want to room near Father Flynn, “Miles! She doesn’t want to room near the priest. It’s not like we didn’t see her walk in her with her own bedrolls under her arms”(Goddard, 16:35). All throughout Laramie’s microaggressions, Darlene held her composure, focused on what she came to the hotel for and remained respectful (however, only to those who deserved it).

In the scene titled “Room Five” (Goddard, 35:10) the audience gets an in-depth look at Darlene’s backstory. The scene opens up in a recording studio, where Darlene is one of three background singers. During her recording session, she decided to insert her creative genius into her background vocals by adding unrehearsed runs to the melody of the song. Immediately, the producer of the record label cut the recording to have a private meeting with Darlene where he gave her an ultimatum, “Darlene, I think you have a choice here. Give me one year of your time and I can make you a star…. or you can continue to treat my time as disposable and keep scrounging for back up gigs until they dry up”(Goddard, 38:51). In this scene, Darlene’s male counterpart is constantly divulging his power by waging his job against hers in hopes of intimidating her into submission. Both the lobby scene and “Room Five” scenes reflect the constant oppression Black women face socially and professionally, whether in passive (Laramie) or aggressive (the record producer) ways. Darlene does not use loyalty, submission, ignorance or cooning to make the situation less uncomfortable in either scene. Instead, she uses calculation to focus her intentions and actions. The end of “Room Five” alludes to Darlene quitting her job as a background singer so she could focus on saving money to fund her career as a lead singer in Tahoe; her dream is realized in the final scene of the movie.

The relationship between tropes in the media and ideologies formed in society is circular. On one hand, we internalize what is portrayed of us and work hard to prove these archetypes wrong. On the other hand, we work hard to conform to what the greater society considers normal. However, focusing on characters that transcend the widely circulated stereotypes of Black femininity, like Darlene, can teach both Black women and the rest of society valuable lessons about the true essence of being a Black woman. Characters that transcend historic caricatures teach us that we can be both attractive and smart, driven and feminine, opinionated and poised, challenged and respectful, Black and talented.

In one of the closing scenes, when the plot reaches its peak, Darlene, Miles and Father Flynn are being held hostage by Billy Lee when she says, “ I’m not even mad anymore, I’m just tired. I’m just bored of men like you. You think I don’t see you for who you really are? A fragile little man preying on the weak and the lost” (Goddard, 1:57:00). Darlene’s relentless words to the man who has her life in his hands is parallel to the perspectives many Black women have across the nation. Those who have power hide behind their titles, gender, and race to oppress Black women on all scales, but many Black women take Darlene’s approach and refuse to submit to them. Black female leaders like Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Audre Lorde, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and hundreds of others choose to step out of the molds cast for them every day for the sake of Black femininity. In conclusion, more realistic representations of Black women in media texts are essential to making opportunities and respect equivalent across genders and races.

References

Goddard, D. [Director/Producer]. (2018). Bad Times at the El Royale [Motion Picture]. USA: Goddard Textiles, TSG Entertainment, & Twentieth Century Fox.

Brown, S. J. (2019, April 16). The underrated brilliance of cynthia erivo as darlene sweet in ‘bad times at the el royale.’ Retrieved October 21, 2019, from The Black Youth Project website: http://blackyouthproject.com/the-underrated-brilliance-of-cynthia-erivo-as-darlene-sweet-in-bad-times-at-the-el-royale/

[navigatethestream]

The “Mammy” trope—which depicts Black women as perpetual, asexual servants loyal to white supremacy—is particularly damaging to Black women. It holds that Black women are happiest when they are serving others, which means that they all too often are expected to delay their own self-care and joy. This trope gained popularity in the 19th century, but its remnants remain with us as Black women continue to be thought of as strong. If we take the Mammy trope as an example, a Black woman’s only role is to be in service to everyone outside of herself. Black women activists then become the depository for any affliction that ails people. Many Black women have tirelessly fought to resist ascribed roles. Triple Jeopardy and the letters of Bambara and Lorde taught me that Black women used activism and writing as forms of self-care. Self-care is antithetical to the Mammy trope, which represents Black women as self-sacrificing. Black women’s ability to write each other, about their personal, creative, and organizing lives, was deeper than just catching up. Letter writing served as a tool of survival, as the authors reimagined their lives as Black women. They also supported each other, as they provided feedback on each other’s poems and stories; they uplifted each other, and made plans for meetings and celebrations. Many of the letters I came across in the collections of Bambara and Lorde expressed gratitude to the sender from the recipient whose spirits were lifted after receiving a personal letter. “I got your lovely card, and it picked up my dropping spirits—just like your fiction does,” scholar Mary Helen Washington wrote in a letter to Bambara. In another letter addressed to Bambara, the writer (signed only as “G”) said, “Girl—I just got your letter—and was it ever on time.” Black women writer-activists also did some form of consciousness-raising via letter writing. They expressed rage and humor at the audacity of people, mostly white male publishers, trying to define them through a white, masculinist, and heteronormative lens. And they sought understanding and reconciliation from each other as Black women and feminists. In a letter to scholar Evelynn Hammonds, Lorde writes:    Please forgive the delay in this reply to your letter…I wanted to think about issues you raised in your letter reaching beyond the material ones…Evelynn, it is not clear to me the exact nature of the conflicts underlying the history between you and Barbara and Cherrie, nor does it need to be. But the bitterness on both sides is quite obvious…I do not like this. It makes me very sad because I feel it is unnecessarily destructive for us all. We have so little time, and there are so few of us doing real work, and under so much pressure…I ask you to consider: WHO PROFITS FROM THESE SEPARATIONS BETWEEN US, THESE ACRIMONIES, THESE FEUDS? So, I am wondering if there is any way possible for each of the three of you, having been separate now for over a year, to re-examine your relationship to the personal conflicts between you…and consider what some of the real bases are upon which you can deal with each other with some amount of respect and trust? They gathered strength from each other as they talked of how things are, and how they wanted them to be. These letters challenged the narrative of the strong and ever-enduring Black woman. They serve as an example of the importance of quality of life for activists, and how they can best be supported. In order to have sustainable movements, social justice movements and organizations need to center the care of activists. Organizations and movements can make sure that they are creating space for self-care by prioritizing wellness, and encouraging activists and movement builders to take the time to do the same. I know that the work to destroy all forms of oppression requires all of our time. We are, after all, fighting to bring about a more just and equitable society. However, it is possible to do the work and prioritize health and wellness at the same time. I know that conversations around self-care can sometimes be elitist and classist. Yoga classes can cost an average of $18 per session, and massages sometimes start at $70. Self-care can quickly become about who can afford to relax and release some tension. But costs don’t necessarily have to be a barrier to relaxation. Community care is essential to the lives of activists. Activists and organizations can host massage and healing circles, journal together, check in with each other regularly, and seek authentic and honest relationships that affirm them. Instead of being seen as more work, this actually can be an essential part of a wellness routine that can aid activists in their work. Love for each other, and an investment in our individual as well as collective needs, will help us as we navigate and work to dismantle hostile environments. Activists can encourage each other to take care of their emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical selves. Managers and executive directors can create wellness as part of work culture by checking in with their employees. Some already do. I hope others will catch on.

‘Overworked and Underpaid’: On Organizing, Black Womanhood, and Self-Care by Charmaine Lang

[andsheoverthinks]

@kanelia 'medical abuse and unpaid work isn't an exclusively black female issue' (1) i never said it was exclusive and (2) am i bugging here did CHATTEL SLAVERY not exist? were Black women not relegated to domestic labor in white households in the U.S. during the postbellum period? were Black women not raped and forced to carry children to work the plantations during slavery and forcibly sterilized after it? do Black women not have the highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S.?

half of white medical trainees in the U.S. literally believe we have 'thicker skin' or 'less nerve endings' in the skin that causes us to feel less pain!

do i also have to go on PubMed and start linking studies and statistics for you to 'believe' medical abuse is a Black female issue?

sorry, i know you're not from the U.S. and don't exactly have the cultural context for American/Caribbean slavery and its fallout and probably don't even know any Black people IRL, but even so i'm having a hard time believing this is good faith at this point because from my end, it feels like you are being purposefully obtuse and dancing reallyyyy close to 'i don't think racism exists'.

i already talked about the true meaning/context of 'strong' and 'independent' when used to refer to Black women. The 'mammy' is 'independent' because no one looks after her, no one cares for her or sees her as a human being with needs and feelings. she doesn't have a family because that would detract from her putting her masters first. she is 'independent' in the way that an object is. the 'independent' part is important because (1) the 'ideal' Black woman puts serving people who think they deserve her help first, because she's independent from family, friendships, or relationships that she might put above said entitled person and (2) the 'ideal' Black woman doesn't ask for help, which would inconvenience others.

additionally, funny that you should say that this stereotype/trope of maternal, asexual, loyal cheerleader doesn't exist in modern Black characters when there's an entire TV Tropes page about it:

Your black best friend is sassy. She's never too busy to lend an ear, or come along on your wacky schemes. She is flawless to the point of being unreal. (Until it's time to save the day of course. That's what white heroes are for.) Is it because she has no love life, no apartment, and no family? It's hard to say, but there's one thing for sure. She has a cell phone, and never ignores your calls.

is the mammy stereotype exactly equal to the 'strong independent black woman stereotype? no, and i didn't say that they were. but the commonality of serving others and self-abnegation is clear.

i chose my words carefully. i did not say 'feminists' i said 'white feminists'. this has a meaning that is not 'feminists who happen to be white', the term 'white feminism' specifically refers to forms of feminism that focus exclusively on issues that affect white women and ignore issues that affect women of color.

if you don't 'get' misogynoir i can't make you. what's the point of bringing up Henrietta Lacks. what's the point of talking about the aberrantly high Black maternal mortality rate and the callous way the Louisiana governor justified it by saying Black women's deaths are unimportant, aren't worth investigating, and the 'issue' of maternal mortality should be focused on white women:

"About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. [...] Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”

i encourage you to read the insightful tags and comments that other women added to this post. however, the fact remains, whatever examples i give, even if i write an entire PhD thesis, if you decide not to see racism you will not see it. i cannot drudge up some example that will magically change your worldview unless you first remove whatever mental block/cognitive-behavioral dissonance you are experiencing. just because something is not in your lived experience doesn't mean it does not exist.

this is my last 'clarification' on the matter.

i think the reason white women/white feminists glorify the 'strong independent black woman' trope is because they mistakenly think it's some GNC, anti-patriarchy thing that black women came up with to stick it to the man... we didn't. idk what the men told you. but make no mistake it's not about us being respected leaders but moreso packhorses.

the strong black women trope is very much gender-conforming and hyperfeminine. it may not be pink and ribbons and cute but it is indeed Feminine (Pertaining to Female Stereotypes). the strong black woman is the ultimate 'mother' figure (see the Mammie stereotype). she gives and gives and GIVES, having no feelings of her own. she can be abused and raped and tortured without showing any trauma or shedding a tear. she is whipped to the point of death while in labor. her children are stolen from her at birth. she breastfeeds her mistress's children the milk meant for hers without a complaint.

she is self-sacrificing having no self-love or indeed self-identity. every Black woman tries her best to escape this stereotype in order to maintain her self-identity. this is the stereotype which causes us to die at crazy high rates in childbirth... still think it's empowering? Black women cling to the feminine aesthetic because we hope it will humanize us, earn us a scrap of empathy. we hope people will look at us and see just a woman instead of a black woman. you can laugh all you like at the bright-under-eye dark-lip-liner long-nails IG girls but you don't understand how they got there. 'princess' may be a cage but it's a nicer and better cage than 'mammie.'

women of all races have to escape the programming but it's different for all of us.

why do you think hollywood loves portraying the strong black woman struggle love stereotype so much? do you think holly-WEIRD is down with the cause?

being 'soft' and expecting to be waited on and prioritizing our feelings is GNC for Black women. that's how men behave, after all.

*waves hand* make me a plate.

[equalityforher]

A Tale of Two Feminisms

by Kaila Philo

A Tale of Two Feminisms: How Black Women and White Women View Social Justice Differently

I’m going to be honest: I could not fully understand the Hilary hype. She ran on a starter feminist campaign—I’m With Her, Chillary Clinton, etc. The only times I truly resonated with Hillary was when she was juxtaposed with Drumpf, where the whole world had to compare a brilliant, competent woman against a blithering demagogue several levels below her. He cut her off, he raised his voice, he recruited sexism to debase her campaign, and it reminded me of so many women, so many scenarios in my own life. This experience was nearly universal, but it was also the only time I understood the hype.

Otherwise, White women appeared to gravitate towards Hillary Clinton in an unprecedented fashion, whereas Black women (as a collective) were justifiably critical of her, despite 94% of them voting for her in the end. It wasn’t until months later that I realized why.

There are profound differences between White feminism and Black feminism.

White feminism, or, arguably, mainstream feminism, centers general women’s issues such as reproductive health, the wage gap, slut-shaming and shattering the glass ceiling, among others. This branch of feminism differs from intersectional feminism in that it much too often omits trans people and people of color. It all began with the first-wave, when White women in America began campaigning to gain women’s suffrage, and was perpetuated by leaders such as Susan B Anthony, Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem, each with her fair share of terrible actions. White feminism is essentially a basic form of activism that employs progressive philosophies in order to propel White women to the same societal status as White men, which sounds better than it is. Think of it this way: White feminists want to be as destructive as any White man.

Black feminism, or womanism, is a school of thought founded as a response to the overt racism of mainstream feminism back in the mid-20th-century. The term “womanism” was coined by novelist Alice Walker, inspired by the Black colloquialism “womanish” (“Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered good for one.”) This branch was formed in the 1970s during the Civil Rights Movement, but scholars have cited proto-womanist thought in the works of Zora Neale Hurston and even in Linda Brent’s Incidents of a Slave Girl. Contemporary womanism is an expansion—or, at least, more specific form—of intersectional feminism. It centers Black women’s issues such as misogynoir, colorism, and the intersection of race and class, and is informed by thinkers such as bell hooks and Michele Wallace. It is inherently more intersectional than White feminism but considering the definition doesn’t expressly state that it includes trans women of color, some womanists still strictly abide by the gender binary. It isn’t perfect.

These two branches of feminism catalog the differences between American history for White and Black women based on the chasm between their socioeconomic positioning. White women, while abused and maltreated in America from 1492, maintained a sense of comfort and security in their Whiteness. The fight for women’s suffrage in the late-19th and early-20th century was credited as the beginning of continental feminism despite the gender equity throughout the Iroquois communities in pre-colonial America, which Elizabeth Cady Stanton later used to inform her activism. Ironically, she only prioritized middle-class White women as suffragettes.

Meanwhile, thirty years after the enslaved Africans were allowed societal agency, Ida B Wells traveled to Great Britain in 1893 to deliver a speech about racial violence in the United States. It was 1893 and lynchings had become dangerously commonplace to the point there were 161 reported attacks in 1892 alone. The women’s rights movement was launched in the throes of the Reconstruction era so while White women at the time were expected to remain in the household, Black women were thrust from one workforce to another as they left slavery with no home, money, or resources. Some Black women freed prior to the Emancipation Proclamation founded small institutions to fund and support women of color; for example, pioneering journalist Victoria Earle Mathews established the White Rose Mission in New York City to help young Black girls find work. It wasn’t until half a century later that White women begin to join the workforce, prompted by the onslaught of World War II. The aviation industry saw a surge in women workers as men left their positions to join the trenches. The number of employed women in America grew from 14 million in 1940 to 19 million in 1945, so that they then made up 36% of the workforce.

The latter information you probably learned in high school, as did I. Unfortunately, the word most public school textbooks and beginner’s history websites refuse to use in these kinds of articles is “White”. The most popular scholarly work does not go enough in-depth about the racial disparity in certain industries, as well as how many Black women were employed by both employed and unemployed White women as housekeepers or nannies. In fact, nearly ninety percent of Black women in the South worked in middle-class-and-beyond households, but they are rarely factored into statistics about working women because these infographics exclude domestic work.

Thus, the standards for femininity within these cultures differed greatly: White women were expected to be docile housewives while Black women were expected to work. There was never a period of American history where Black women were not expected to work, and so the dominant Mammy and Sapphire tropes arose. Black women became Strong with a capital S. This is why Black women today tend to reject mainstream feminism—they cannot relate to it.

There is no monolithic experience of womanhood or femininity, but certain cultures do have experiences in common. The worst thing we as feminists can do is act as though Hillary Clinton’s feminism is the same kind as her housekeeper’s, and ask ourselves who She is when we say “I’m With Her.”

Kaila Philo is an English lit major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, currently working as a freelance writer and journalist. She is the editor of Purple is to Lavender, a literary and cultural zine that aims to bring women of color artists from the margin to the center. So far she has been published in Mask Magazine, The Millions, Winter Tangerine, Arts.BLACK, and Catapult. Her academic work will be featured in the forthcoming book Critical Insights: Civil Rights Literature—Past and Present, to be released in 2017 by Salem Press. She is currently based in Baltimore, MD, and someday hopes to establish herself as a novelist while pursuing a PhD in American Literature.

[zalrb]

Hey I’m curious to hear your thoughts of the white lotus because I actually really enjoyed it and thought it was a different type of show to what I’ve watched before. The setting/dynamics etc. I also agree that I just didn’t care about Alexandra’s character. I understood her husband was a dick but I guess I didn’t care about her cause I just didn’t see why she would stay with him cause it didn’t seem like she cared. Mostly enjoyed watching the hotel staff and was rooting for them because everyone else was so annoying which I guess was the point lol.

For the most part, I liked The White Lotus. I liked the atmosphere of the show, I liked the weird sort of off-kilter humour, I really like Connie Britton so it was fun seeing her as this character and I found a few conversations between her and Sweeney to be a funny example of generation divides, though it got a bit one note after a while, but like, the ending kind of undid a lot of stuff.

I felt like The White Lotus was a show that fell into its own trappings, as in, it kind of missed its own point and the finale undid the commentary the show was making.

Like, I know that the show isn't about the hotel staff, it's about entitled, rich white people and how they operate filtered through a vacation space because it's a microcosm of the larger issues and Mike White, the creator, spoke about how he wanted to show that these people have the privilege of basically causing havoc and then leaving the carnage, but the hotel staff barely got any interiority and that bothered me, like the woman whose first day it was, who lied about being pregnant because she wanted to keep her job, she just disappears. Like, there's supposed to be a commentary on the fact that Francois didn't even remember her name but the show doesn't remember her either.

There is sort of a commentary on the Mammy trope through Belinda and Tanya's relationship and a commentary on the way marginalized people are used as sounding boards, used as mules and when Rachel basically does the same thing by unloading her issues onto Belinda and expecting advice and Belinda says that she's done and leaves, it's supposed to be a subversion, but I found that it was way too small of a moment for it to be satisfying or cathartic.

The whole situation with Paula and Kai and Paula was a mess and I was like, what are you trying to say here? That Paula is a hypocrite because she's on vacation with a family she clearly disdains but her anger is also justified because they ignorant and racist shit daily? But then the way she uses Kai ... she instigates a poorly thought out robbery and does nothing when she knows it's going to go sideways. Mike White said that she was just supposed to freeze and didn't know what to do but that didn't translate onscreen, it just looked as if she was like, well fuck that guy, and then she throws away the bracelet he made for her and rather than seeming remorseful for potentially destroying his life, she and Olivia are in a weird place and then ultimately reconcile? Why?

And then there was stuff where I was like, when Kai talks about the hotel and how they stole his family's land and how his family hates that he works at the hotel but he needs a job and he's basically in this torn place, I was like, that's the show I want to watch, that's what sounds interesting. I want to see this show from the perspective of the staff who work at the hotel not from the guests.

[ponyatta]

A (soon) comprehensive list of replies to antis when you have too much to do and can’t argue

I thought this would be nice to do for fans especially with all the goodies we are getting for 3B and anti’s are already coming with their negativity quickly. Its isn’t completed yet but you can still take a read, save it for future, use some of the arguments and tell me what I can add to improve it. I will leave this one up with a link to the updated one before the read more. There are links I haven’t found yet/arguments I haven’t added yet.If there are any mistakes then tell me. For example I can’t see if somethings that should have a link does thanks to the new layout so message me if they don’t. If there could be a point in an argument that isn’t as well then message me also.

Enjoy

Viewers/I don’t dislike Iris because she is black/she makes up an interracial couple/I want my white faves to be together

Interracial marriages were not legalized in the united states until 1967 so on June 12, it will be 50 years since our version of Iris being Iris West-Allen was even legal in a significant portion of where the show is set.

Even with 50 years passing there is still a large issue many have with interracial relationships.

In 2013 there was the huge amount of racist backlash to a cheerios commercial involving an interracial couple and their child to the point that the company had to disable comments from said video on youtube (but you can still see the gist of how terrible it was in the link).

May of 2016, there was an old navy ad on twitter featuring an interracial couple and it also got a flurry of racist comments with many saying they would never shop there again because of the image and just at the end of 2016 there was another incident with a State Farm ad on twitter collecting a large amount of racist comments with people saying how the image disgusted them and making the black man out to be a predator.

A couple was evicted because the landlord found out they were interacial while another were stabbed by a man after they kissed in public.

This is not just your neo-nazis, trolls on twitter and youtube or violent racist. There are also studies which have been done on the way people claim to be okay with interracial couples but may hold subconscious bias.

I/Viewers are not racist for not liking WA/Iris

How would you know? Here is a nice little paragraph from here that gives you an insight on why I ask.

“The problem with asking people to report on their own attitudes about sensitive topics like race and gender, however, is that people are often either unaware of their own biases or unwilling to report them. For example, although most white Americans self-report little to no racial bias against black people, they’ve been shown to possess robust implicit, or nonconscious, biases.”

Why are you attacking me for expressing my opinion?

The same way you are allowed to express your opinion, I am allowed to express mine on yours. You must remember that freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to retaliate of censor you but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us cannot correct/argue. Attacked is a very strong word that carries a lot of implications. It is unlikely that anymore is happening than people expressing their own opinions about yours to you.

You said something that was wrong and you are being corrected. There is no need to get defensive about it. Realise a mistake and take to correction

Or

You stated an opinion as fact thus denying others theirs/said a blanket statement that doesn’t represent everyone involved.

Or

You said something that has racist undertones and you should acknowledge that then endeavour to fix that.

*Insert anger or defensiveness about the possibility of one being racist/acknowledging their racist action or tendencies*

“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”  A quote from this journal.

WA have no chemistry

Chemistry is subjective. That is why we have experts (in the form of casting directors, producers and critics) that bring together people or acknowledge those who have the best chemistry. David Rapaport casted most of The Flash’s main characters. When talking to buzzfeed, he said the following:

“That was a really hard role to cast,” Rapaport said. “We had seen Candice initially, but I think we were too early on in the process to cast her so we ended up testing Keke Palmer and this other girl, but they felt a little too young next to Grant. When building an ensemble, you have to do those chemistry reads to find out who works best together. We went back and looked at the tapes and Candice shines — when she smiles, it’s out of control — so we thought, Let’s do another chemistry read and we’ll bring Candice and one other girl in and it was just magic. Everyone in the room and looked at each other and we all just knew it. It just made total sense.”

So not only was she picked based on her chemistry with Grant, they went through a lot to make sure she was the right people and still after all that EVERYONE (which undoubtedly included the executive producers) in the room knew her chemistry with Grant was magic. To say that everyone in that room (including Grant who said once she left the room that Candice was the Iris West they were looking for LINK NEEDED ) somehow is so incompetent at their jobs that a subset of fandom knows better than them is rather insulting and very far fetched.

Furthermore the WA ship or their scenes have won almost all polls taken on various sites when polling the flash so even with how subjective chemistry is a large percentage enjoy the one WA has the most.

Various publications have put WA as one of the best relationships in one way or another. Also for the season 3 premier their chemistry was one of the highlights as noted in many articles. (add link to master post or individual ones) (Add tweets from write who loves westallen)

Even the cast and the people who work on the show love westallen with directors talking openly about how epic the relationship like Kevin Smith and consistently stating that their scenes are the best out of the episodes they direct. Executive Producers have said how much they enjoy writing westallen and Geoff Johns talk about the two of them almost anytime he brings up the show on twitter. (add links)

I like their platonic relationship more

How because they never had one. From the very beginning of the show We know that Barry Allen is hopelessly in love with Iris. During the pilot, He is trying to ask her out. The next episode he confessed his love for her but she just couldn’t hear it and in that same episode she admitted that Barry was one of the reasons that she had never had a real boyfriend before. We see her insinuate in flashbacks that she wouldn’t have dated Eddie if Barry wasn’t in a coma and especially if she knew how he felt about her. And in episode 13 we see that she had been unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession then we learn in the next episode that she always has had/still has these feelings but they just need something to make them come outwords. They literally went on movie, bowling and multiple coffee dates together. They have never had a strictly platonic relationship in the first place. They’ve always had a secretly in love relationship.

Moreover, they are still each other’s best friends while dating. They will still always be the most important person is each others lives. They can love each other in multiple ways at the same time.

Lastly why are you so against them becoming anything more than that? Might it be because you would like her to fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x)/mammy figure (x) (x)? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Barry doesn’t deserve her

Barry makes mistakes like any human being and she has forgiven him for them. Still it is still understandable to be angry at him but it doesn’t change the fact that he loves her and he makes her happy which is what you should want for her. As noted in this post Barry supports her a lot. We also see that Barry has been described to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep Iris alive in 3B so I think she is lucky to have someone like that.

This sentiment easily fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x). This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Finally if you support an opposing Barry ship and you feel this way then why do you want to him to be with your fave if he doesn’t even deserve Iris. In fact why would you want to watch a show where the protagonist isn’t even good enough for the love of their life.

Iris doesn’t really love him: she’s just following destiny.

Here is a good post that explains why this is not true. Also in season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Much before she saw anything about them being together. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0. (add Eddie’s “It’s not about the future its about here and now speech)

In addition to what was said in the previous paragraph about Fake!Wells explaining that Iris’s feelings needed something big to make them conscious rather than subconscious. We also see that she keeps them subconscious so thats he doesn’t mess up the great relationship she already has with Barry because as we have seen, she doesn’t do well without him in her life. So she uses them being married in the future and Earth 2 to reassure herself that if she did try it out it wouldn’t end with them hating each other and never talking again. The same way that his possibly dying was enough for her to have the feeling coaxed out of her in 2x20.

Moreover, we can see that both Candice Patton, Grant Gustin, other members of the show/DCTV and the executive producers do not agree with this. They have all expressed in interviews that that Iris West does love Barry Allen. Aaron Helbing said in an interview “She just moved in with Barry, she’s madly in love with him…” recently in fact. And last year he also said “Barry Allen and Iris West are an iconic relationship. We set it up, at the end of Season 2, that they were going to get together, and then he undid it. But, these two are destined to be together. I would say to keep watching. As with destiny, things end up playing out the way you hoped they would.”

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding  their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris doesn’t really love him: she loves the flash.

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Immediately after that she found out he was the flash. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0.

It wasn’t until he had lost his powers that she next confessed her feeling for him. She told him then that she didn’t care if he was the flash or not but wanted to be with him - Barry Allen. In season 3 she even tried to keep him being the flash out of their love life and told him he was perfect without his powers. What more do you want from her?

Candice Patton, who plays Iris West has spoken about how the reason we saw such intense attraction between Iris and The Flash was because The Flash was everything Barry was but more confidently. Also it allowed her to explore her feelings for Barry without her having all the restriction in her mind of her relationship with Barry Allen i.e. best friends she would never want to lose because without him she is miserable. I REMEMBER THIS BUT I CANNOT FIND WHEN SHE SAID THIS.

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris’s feelings came out of nowhere

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0.

Even her boyfriend and her father knew that there was something more between them with Eddie knowing that he couldn’t never compete with it. It was his own words when he said that “There were always three people in this relationship.” MAY BE PARAPHRASED The show finds it hard to deal with the point of views other than white men but we see their more-than-friends-but-don’t-realise-it a lot in season 1. We see her struggle with her feelings for Barry a lot in with his confession, as she asks him if she should move in with Eddie and so much more that valeriemperez highlights so much better in these series of gifs called westallen by scene and the tags are a goldmine for understanding their relationship. You can see all of their scene that season here.

In season 2, their scenes are less especially before the winter break because they were selling Barry/Patty and she was grieving her dead fiance while Barry was feeling guilty about Eddie’s death as well. Still we see Iris parallel her response to him dating Linda in the way that she responds to finding out he is going on a date with Patty. She trusts him with her life enough to jump out of a skyscraper when he tells her to. She talks about her doppelganger having sex and them possibly getting married with him at a club. She tells him to come home (which we learn later meant to her) before going to earth 2. He helped her get closure with Eddie. She stopped seeing her rebound guy to spend time with him. She went to him about her brother first and he relied on him to tell her father about him. You can see these scenes and more here. And even them it wasn’t until next season that they became a couple.

ALSO ADD THE ARGUMENT ABOUT HOW IT MAY BE DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE OF COLOUR. I’M LOOKING FOR A STUDY SO IF ANYONE COULD PROVIDE THAT WOULD BE GREAT. Therefore it might have been difficult for you to see her feelings manifest.

They are siblings/Iris and Barry are incest

It if very rude to people who have actually experience incest for people to be using their trauma wrong for petty fandom fights. Like incredibly disgusting. Like don’t do that. Ever. Stop. You don’t like them. Fine. Don’t call incest.

Why aren’t they siblings? Well a large number of reasons. One is that they never saw each other that way. In the very first episode they explains that they are not brother and sister but they just lived together. This is the narrative of the show that was set up at the very pilot of the show. They did not start their relationship from when they lived together like some who many believe to be in comparable situations but rather had a preexisting relationship as friends that they simply built up on. They were raised as friends - not siblings. We see how Barry treats Iris and how it is different to how Wally and Iris treat each other as to further highlight how they are not siblings. Nobody in the narrative has a problem with their relationship. In fact Joe was very supportive of them throughout season 1.

They do not share the same father as one of Barry’s storylines was him getting his father out of jail which was not Joe. We see him call Joe “Joe” or “your dad” when talking to Iris constantly. The only reason that Joe took in Barry was because he was his daughter’s best friend and when Barry was growing up they were not all that close because the only other person that believed that Henry Allen didn’t kill Nora Allen was Iris West before the particle accelerator accident. We can see how strained their relationship actually was before Joe started to help him find his mother’s killer in the pilot. Joe is Barry’s father figure and all of team flash is a family and especially so the west-allen clan but that doesn’t make them siblings. We’ve seen Iris interact with Barry’s father as well as she brought him in to help Barry and tried to get his medical license back. 

Moreover, they aren’t siblings full stop though because Barry wasn’t adopted by the West or his name would have changed to Barry West. So they aren’t related. They made it very easy to see the difference between them for the sparse viewer by making one black and the other white, ergo making them look nothing alike. On this note I should add that SB shippers sometimes use the argument that Grant and Danielle look so similar to each other as a reason why the ship should happen but outside small fandom circles that fact is never used against the relationship.  Legally there is nothing wrong with Barry and Iris’s relationship as noted in more detail in this post here. So the claim that they are sibling is wrong. The claim that they are “kinda” or technically siblings doesn’t make them that. It  is also wrong because you can either be someone’s sibling or not. It is a discrete variable. A yes or no. And the answer is no. There is no inbetween. You tick boxes to be yes not the ones you make up and they are legally, genetically and interpersonal connection. They don’t tick any of them. 

The cast see nothing wrong with their relationship and Grant and Candice don’t see them as siblings also. And the people who are making the show feel that there is nothing wrong with it either. In fact they have stated many times that they love writing their relationship evolve into a romantic one. And many other DCTV starts like Violette Beane and Caity Lotz have said that they love their relationship as well. Even the child that played young Barry loves their relationship as well. Directors that come for an episode at a time have also spoken highly of the two of them and their scenes together.

So not only are they not siblings as in line with the narrative of the show and nobody has a problem with their relationship in the world of the show but that they are legal and people who work on the show and make it have no problems with them and even love them as a couple.

I would also want you to note why you stick with this claim after almost 3 seasons? Could this be because of race? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well? We see that Brotp or the exclamation that two people are like siblings is seen disproportionately with characters of colour as noted by many people here, here, here and here. So you many want to critically analyse your intentions of shouting this wrong claim.  

[motherhoodcoloredblack-blog]

I Am a Black Mother

What is a mammy? A mammy is a Southern U.S. archetype usually given to a slave woman in charge of caring for their master’s children. Duties of mammies included preparing meals, cleaning homes, nursing and rearing their owners’ children amongst having to nurture and rear their own children. Often times “mammies” children went neglected due to the strenuous role of caring for their master’s children. Since slavery, black women have worked and long after slavery black women have worked. Black women seem to face the most scrutiny when it comes to their personal lives and especially as mothers. In present day, black women are viewed as welfare queens, lazy, and greedy. The picture is painted to believe that black children are birthed to single unwed mothers, who live to draw government assistance, while allowing their children to run free and be delinquents. I find it funny how the paradigm shift occurred from mammy to welfare queen of black women.

I had the pleasure of talking with 3 friends within my social circle who are mothers. Their experiences as a black mother in present day had greatly added to my views of black motherhood. The first friend I had the pleasure of talking with was Lexi, Lexi explained that the biggest obstacle she had to face was the judgement from many people. They viewed her as promiscuous and assumed her child’s father isn’t in her life. Although Lexi is not with her father’s child, they have a great relationship with each other as well as a great co-parenting relationship. When Lexi first discovered she was pregnant, she had many different waves of emotions wash over her at once. One being the scrutiny she would face as a young and unwed mother and how her mother and grandparents would take the news. She explained that after a week of stressing she told her family, to her surprise were excited. The further she got along in her pregnancy, the disrespect and disregard for a pregnant black woman began to show. She ran once ran into an encounter where an elderly white woman purposely allowed a door to close in her face. Lexi later encountered visiting a baby boutique where she had hoped to buy a brand-new crib. Once entering the establishment, no one paid her any attention all while the pregnant white women were being catered to. They were being offered refreshments such as cookies and water while they shopped, after 15 mins Lexi was only approached by an employee in the boutique to simply inform her that the crib she was considering purchasing was probably too expensive. Lexi often catches herself worrying about the lessons society may be teaching her now 1 year old daughter about who she is as a black girl. She tries her best to instill in here how beautiful she is just the way she is and how smart she is. She teaches her that it is ok to have emotions and to embrace her blackness, the opposite of the “strong black woman” trope.

Amber was the second mom within my social circle that I had the pleasure of discussing her life as a black mother with. Amber is a mother of two and finds that the stereotypes of being a black mother are the hardest to cope with. Many associates and colleagues assumed that she isn’t marries, they often go as far as to question her birthing choice as well as if she decided to breastfeed. Amber feels as though she is always fighting to be the mom she wants to be and not who people assume the mother she is. Even women within the black community side eye her because she isn’t harsh to her children nor does she practice commons forms of punishment such as spanking. Advice that Amber would like to give to another black mom would be to be the mom that she wants herself to be and not the mom society places on her or other moms assumie she is. The greatest sense of joy that Amber has when it comes to her children is simplu watching them grow into the divine humans that they are. She feels it is important to teach them to be proud of their blackness and to never feel ashamed.

Kennedy, the third mom I had the pleasure of speaking with, enlightened me that although children are young, black children are taught to hate whom they are at an early age. Kennedy faced with a very difficult topic to discuss with her 5-year-old. Kennedy always thought the hardest topic for her to discuss with her daughter would be about the birds and the bees, she thought she would face things dealing with how to teach her daughter to handle a bully or proper bus etiquette. However, Kennedy learned that although her daughter is growing up within a different era, a different generation, her daughter also would face the same trials she faced growing up. Kennedy enrolled her daughter into home school where they taught Spanish mostly during the day and then English to encourage bilingual speech. Kennedy picked her daughter up from school one afternoon and noticed how quite she was. She proceeded to ask her daughter about her day in which her daughter began to cry. Her daughter exclaimed “I thought you said I was pretty mommy, you lied”. Kennedys daughter had been bullied that day, children were telling her that she was dark and dark girls aren’t on tv so therefore dark skin girls aren’t pretty. Kennedy was shocked and very sad after hearing about the way her daughter had been treated. Kennedy decided the best way to teach her daughter about self-love and embracing her blackness was to give her lots of pep talks. She found books and comics that encouraged self-love and self-growth.

These mothers are just 3 out of many black mothers who have dealt with many of these issues. These issues are constant in the black community and constantly must be addressed. Mothers in my current generation seem to be grasping a better handle of addressing these issues in the black community.