shinypatrolhedgehog

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Queer Continent: Around the World in 52 Weeks

#2 United States

The Watermelon Woman (1996) Dir. Cheryl Dunye

"Sometimes you have to create your own history. The Watermelon Woman is fiction." - Cheryl Dunye, 1996.

Rarely have I seen, or think I will be soon to see again, a film that so delightfully blurs the boundaries of fiction and reality. Dunye's career defining foray into feature films deservedly took off with a flying start, embodying her University student self's determination to "make some change and have an impact on the world".

The reality of (fictional) Cheryl's difficult undertaking of discovering and documenting all she can about the Watermelon Woman - AKA Fae Richards - serves as a poignant reminder of the erasure of black women, particularly black lesbians, in cinema.

However, amidst decades of censorship, bigotry and ignorance, love emerges as a greater force than all. Fae Richards reaches across time on a bridge of community and sisterhood to modern day Cheryl in defiance of those from her time that would rather have swept her lesbianism under the rug; the truth will out! A truth not too dissimilar to Cheryl's, as she navigates excellently awful and awfully excellent romances, being out and proud in a way her fondly loved documentary subject could not.

Dunye's 85 minute treasure expresses the danger of erasure: how it can be just as harmful as outright hatred and damaging for future generations. Dunye teaches a lesson in the value at looking to ourselves in the past and bringing them with us into the present - into a future that we both owe and devote to those that came before us.

Rating: 9/10

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

I just finished The Watermelon Woman and I'm a bit confused on how people talk it.

Sometimes I'm looking for reccs on wlw couples in media and it pops a lot. And although its a part of the film I feel like romance is not a core part of the film. Like the women date and are in relationships but it wasn't romantic to me at all. I feel its much more about the daily life of a Black lesbian in philly.

I think people downplay how slice of life it is, its pretty clear TWW is not like some love story. Which is how people have always recommended it to me.

It feels disingenuous that i see people talking about the couples when the movie is really about the watermelon woman. Its like a theme from the movie didn't stick with people at all. There's a whole scene where Faes friend(?) tells the main character that her career and life was more than her relationship with one director/a white woman, and that focusing on that director so heavily distracts from Fae herself. But for whatever reason, the romance with a white woman is how people choose to summarize the movie in reccs?

I distinctly remember seeing someone saying even if you don't like the interracial couple there's a Black couple as well, but they're even less featured in the movie than the white woman I'd say.

It honestly took me a minute to finish the movie cuz i got bored at the beginning, but I loved the perspective of the main character being inspired to dig up the history of a local Black actress they randomly saw and finding out just how much she has in common with this complete stranger.

Another thing I liked was this scene where the main characters friend is filming the audience of a poetry show and comments on how fine/attractive the audience members are. It was interesting because I was like, 'these are just regular people'. But it made me think like how different this characters beauty standards are from mine, perhaps because of the time period. I think maybe that's the most romantic thing i remember from the movie, someone being so amazed by something i find mundane.

Anyways it's definitely a fun movie about a Black queer woman filming a documentary about a mysterious Black actress. But definitely nothing romcom, romance, love story about it to me. Or maybe i just didn't care for the relationships so much that I just blocked out anything romantic about it 😅

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Matching Rings on Fingers; Hachi and Nana

One of my favorite… I dunno what to call it… Concepts? Themes? I dunno, in NANA is Hachi and Nana’s matched engagement rings. Whether you wanna read Nana and Hachi as platonic or romantic, it is just a fact they are soulmates and I think the rings are great symbolism of this fact.

Keep reading

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Ah-ha, uh-ha, I figured it out

Ah-ha, uh-ha, I need to slow down

You have me runnin' (I got concrete on my feet)

Oh-oh, you have me runnin' (Coloured concrete on my feet)

Ah-ha, uh-ha, I figured it out

Ah-ha, uh-ha, I need to slow down

You have me runnin' (I got concrete on my feet)

Oh-oh, you have me runnin' (Coloured concrete on my feet)

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Adults Review

Chop

the opening with the masturbation contest

was kinda lost on who these ppl are and how they know eachother

lowkey wanted more paul baker

nasty former teacher-student relationship

8 20 minutes in crazzzzzyyyy in 2025

Bop

i liked the characters for the most part, i could see each characters strengths and weaknesses. loved the costuming!!!!

i like how all the characters interact with eachother and have their own things

i like how they were all figuring out their careers/had jobs appropriate for early mid twenties

I liked how they had big political issues but didnt take a PSA or like 'special episode' approach, rather just dealing with them like the part of life like it is

Pleasant suprises:

Billie paying off the hospital bill

jokes about paywalls!!

paul baker cares about the institution of marriage

If season 2 i would wanna see:

more Anton and Paul Baker

Issa or Billie should get with a girl

we should see one person's family or hometown

something about taxes

something about third places

climate issues something

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Simone de Beauvoir, from Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 1, 1926-27

Text ID: I observe how much I have matured since last year despite my belief that I was losing myself, how something strong was born from the painful experiences survived and from the numerous minutes that I believed were wasted.

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

I guess i understand somones cringe at these tidbits. But also things can be fun if you let them because i found these hella funny. Maybe because it wasnt too frequently and the characters saying them made sense given these are like 16 year olds

i need whatever screenwriters netflix keeps hiring for these things gone bc the cringe is actually painful

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

hey weewoo fandom. A former California firefighter is sitting in jail right now for being the victim of a hate crime. Let’s sign his clemency petition yeah?

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Excerpt from James Baldwin's Nothing Personal

The light that's in your eyes / reminds me ofthe skies / that shine above us every day-so wrote a contemporary lover, out of God knows what agony, what hope, and what despair. But he saw the light in the eyes, which is the only light there is in the world, and honored it and trusted it; and will always be able to find it; since it is always there, waiting to be found. One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith. Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.

What a journey this life is! dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth-quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

I know we often lose, and that the death or destruction ofanother is infinitely more real and unbearable than one's own. I think I know how many times one has to start again, and how often one feels that one cannotstart again. And yet, on pain of death, one can never remain where one is. The light. The light. One will perish without the light.

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Watching overcompensating and OMG I LOVE IT. Like this is the perfect example of cringe comedy and lowkey what my freshman year looked like. Having that big group of friends that slowly peeters off into only the people who truly get you. How much you're constantly changing and you don't know who you are exactly but you have a good sense of who you dont want to be

Like the cafeteria scene was sooooo funny bc at first you are soooo embarrassed to look like you didn't have friends. But also them having trash food in a random parking lot singing super bass is that quintessential midnight hangout. Trying new things and finding out you hate it and vice versa.

It's everything i want from a college show. I really hate when college shows have the characters be put together and then fall apart when you're really not that put together in the first place

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Fatima Hassona, a Palestinian photojournalist who stars in a documentary selected to be screened at Cannes next month, has reportedly been killed in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza. A graduate of the University College of Applied Sciences in Gaza, Fatima was not just a photographer, she was a visual witness to a reality that is getting harsher by the day. Hours before she was killed, she posted a photo of the sunset from her balcony, writing: "This is the first sunset in a long time." In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury." ... Fatima Hassona was not only a journalist, but a humanitarian voice and an unforgettable image in the history of a city that dies and is reborn every day. Her work bears witness to a reality that she did not stop documenting until the last moment.

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Currently obssesed with these characters and how everyone is interpeting them into memes now

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Small Axe - Education

Finally returned to Small Axe, this time I watched Education which has sort of torn me a part a bit. I have 4 main thoughts:

People in school should be taught how to read. Children shouldn't be passed to the next grade without having the skills to succeed in that grade.

Segragational schooling is awful. Children should not be seperated from their friends and peers, it only excaerbates their issues and makes it easier for them to be categorically ignored.

Black history is so important. It's important to know that people who look like you, who have been where you are, who talk like you, have succeeded and achieved despite systemic pressures to fail. It's encouraging but also engages students who may not have hope for themselves.

The parents in this film were soooo real. It's hard to get help in a working two parent household. Especially these immigrant communities who might not have other people to help them out. They might not live near family or friends and that makes it all theharder to notice when their children are struggling. I cried when the mom finally realized that she needed to confront her sons reading issues, that they couldnt hide from it. And when he reads at the end whhooo I'm tore up like. Even the daughter needing to explain it to the dad like, it's not just about him being able to read, but about him having more opportunities and choices in life.

Anyways perhaps I watched this at the wrong moment with all the stuff happeneing to the department of education, but it just hits home because I knew kids who couldnt read well and didnt get the encouragement to improve their schools. It gets harder the further you go in life. Education; reading and math, are so important in life.

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Small Axe: Lovers Rock (2020)

Every house party is built from the same ingredients. Gather some cheap booze and friends, and just wile away the hours. Just about the only thing about the excellent mood time-capsule Lovers Rock that beggars belief is that the music remains consistently good throughout and that at no point does anyone grab the proverbial aux cable and inflict their mediocre taste in music on the crowd. Samson shepherds the group well into the wee hours of the morning with confidence as DJ, crafting the perfect playlist for a night of revelry. Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting” has an almost universal ability to transform everyone listening into faux-sparring goofballs and a steady stream of steamy slow-jam crooners will put anyone in the mood to find someone to drape themselves against. By the end of the night, everyone has either found some corner to sidle off to or has succumbed to the madness. The final track of the night becomes an ecstatic explosion of self-expression, a space for unashamed and unapologetic self-actualization in this wonderfully cramped room.

McQueen’s film is at its best when it’s simply experiencing the night. The camera drifts about the room, gauzy in soft focus, exploring all of the different ways intimacy and comfort can be expressed: arms draped over shoulders, hands grasping sides or venturing to caress someone’s rear. The extended a cappella reprise of Janet Kay’s “Silly Games” is nothing short of sheer cinematic magic, that flash of perfect ephemeral synergy within a group all on the same wavelength for a few wonderful moments.

THE RULES

SIP

Someone says 'ladies'.

Samson addresses the partygoers as DJ.

Someone lights a blunt.

A girl rebuffs an advance.

BIG DRINK

The record is changed.

People sing a capella.

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

Lovers Rock (2020) dir. Steve McQueen

[shinypatrolhedgehog]

I'm watching toxic town and every other actor im like where do i know you from so far ive noticed:

Once Upon a Time

Game of Thrones

Sex Education

Bridgerton

I'm realllly suprised at rumplestiltskin because i watched that whole show thinking his accent was fake or played up for the show💀