asinajar - Tumblr blog

[asinajar]

I don't know why you would attack me like this in my own home but now I need to recover.

[asinajar]

[asinajar]

[asinajar]

A story from Mason Smith on Medium

Read this story from Mason Smith on Medium: https://aninjusticemag.com/interview-with-jaques-ze-whipper-5bd3d20424c1?sk=74fbcca1d35819dff5ec82f68fba4219

I did an interview!

[asinajar]

Hi, there @otnesse! I'm Mason (@AsInAJar), the writer of the article that you've shared here. Thanks, by the way. I mean that. It's a big help & I appreciate it.

First I want to ask if you actually read my article. Not because it seems obvious that you didn't and therefore are taking my words out of context, but because about seven (7) paragraphs into my article I explicitly say, "But, it’s important to note, that authorial intent is not the point of why we’re talking about the mermaid girl story today." And if you had read my article then it would be quite a misrepresentation of my entire point to ignore that I'm not actually claiming authorial intent about the story. Especially when I go on in the article to say, "The original story of Hans Christian Andersen’s mermaid — who by the way was never named — can be thought of as a self-insert character as much as it can be thought of as a spiritual or religious metaphor. Andersen isn’t around to be asked, and not only are both ideas valid for personal interpretation and enjoyment but authorial intent isn’t required for an audience to get a message from a story." And that's my main point in it: that marginalized groups relate to this story because they relate to the mermaid's experience which means that for queer people it's a queer allegory (even though the love is hetero), for trans people it's about gender transition (even though she doesn't change gender), for BIPOC people it's about race (even though she isn't human), and for you & me we see autism. I say things like this so much and so frequently that it feels like it would be impossible for someone with a literalist interpretation of a nearly 200-year-old story to not get so if you did read the article in full then because I was so direct and explicit in what I meant I would have to assume that you're deliberately misinterpreting what I mean. Which wouldn't be fair to anything I was saying.

Beyond that, I also want to add that my point for writing this was to respond to the racism being hurled at the 2023 movie from people demanding that it wasn't a "black" story who were very unwelcoming, racist, homophobic, and transphobic to diverse audiences who were trying to enjoy a story & who were excited that a fictional character would have a different hex code on the screen. I'd like you to keep in mind that I'm making the case that the intended audience of the remake has always been here for this story, and like you has always related to the experience of the mermaid specifically because of their identity.

On the same note, since you relate to it as an autistic person (like me!) I need to point out that it's very easy to turn your comment right around and point out that the mermaid doesn't actually have anything to do with autism in the text, just as much as the text doesn't explicitly mention the things I mentioned, and everything you're about to say to defend your interpretation and how you relate to the story is exactly the same and applicable to everything I said in the article, which you should read. If you haven't already. The same people saying, "The Little Mermaid isn't about race" or "The Little Mermaid isn't about gender" are the same people saying, "The Little Mermaid isn't about autism" because they're bigots trying to keep marginalized people out.

[asinajar]

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[asinajar]

#ItsTheGuns

[asinajar]

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[asinajar]

[asinajar]

Elon is now Trump.

[asinajar]

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[asinajar]

we thought it would be easy

[asinajar]

Big Oil robbed us all.

But there is an alternative it only we had the political willpower. Sigh.

[asinajar]

I didn't expect the turn this took.

jfk famously changed the course of fashion by making many appearances at state functions without a hat, which was previously considered mandatory for well-dressed men. at his inaugural address, he even bragged about "[his] big juicy melon, naked as a jay bird for all the world to see". unfortunately we can all see how that turned out for him in the tragic events of the zapruder footage