#but a lot of non-white cinema DOES allow women to be unhinged and messy

[thefudge]

hi dr fudge! Hope you're doing well! Sorry for the weird ask but do you have any favorite media that explore woc in unhealthy/twisted romantic relationships? I'm very fascinated with this but i rarely find a narrative that centres on women of color. Octavia Butler's books have been very helpful though because not only are they literary gems but the protagonists are always black women, so it's always fun to analyze the relationships from bipoc lens

i really need to get to octavia butler already

there's a real and frustrating scarcity of twisted/dark romance that features women of color. 90% of published romance with woc are wholesome quirky romcoms with cartoon covers. i'm tired.

i tend to find interesting and twisted content with woc protagonists in literary fiction more than traditional romance; so for instance luster by raven leilani could fit into this category. also, catherine house by elisabeth thomas which features a woc protagonist who is in many ways involved in an unhealthy romance not just with a boy but with a house and an institution and she's allowed to be super messy about it. i haven't yet read you made a fool of death with your beauty by akwaeke emezi, but i really want to, because apparently the woc protagonist gets involved with her boyfriend's dad? sign me up.

there's also stuff like the vegetarian by han kang which kind of irked me but which allows the protag to be really fucked up in her relationships. or you have writers like carmen maria machado and silvia moreno-garcia, both literary fiction darlings whose romantic plots i enjoy a lot more than those found in traditional romance.

a real treasure trove is short story anthologies from women of color. i've noticed that the short story is the real medium for delicious fucked-up dynamics, but check out danielle evans, zz packer, bora chung

i do want to mention a classic that again, isn't really romance, but will fuck you up nonetheless and that is corregidora by gayl jones. because wow, what a novel, and what a voice. so many fascinating and unhealthy romantic, queer, and familial dynamics in that one. in general, books from the 70s and 80s tend to be much bolder. i was really disappointed by the recent the other black girl which was trying to go for that 70s/80s avantgarde and just...fell so flat.

there's a lot of stuff out there to explore, but a lot of it may not be mainstream or as easily available as the media that focuses on white women. when you look, for instance, over lists of dark romance books....90% of them are about white women getting to experiment and be fucked up and messy. woc have to be respectable and "cute" on those clinical and sexless cartoon covers. ANYWAY. that's why many times i turn to our patron saint, fanfiction, which almost never lets me down.

addendum: i forgot about ONE OF MY FAVES: the idiot by elif batuman. goddd, the woc protagonist OWNS MY HEART FOREVER and she has such a terrible, fascinating time with a mysterious Russian guy in college.