#inclusion in media

[alwaysbewoke]

[iwouldkickahorse]

hey gang, in the event of project 2025 coming about, make sure to archive media that will literally be illegal if it were to happen.

ARCHIVE

ARCHIVE

ARCHIVE

Please for the love of god archive

Now WHY should you archive? Well…

according to page 36-37 of project 2025 it states the following

To quote, “P*rnography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered”

ok…well what constitutes as p*rn? The answer is

THEY DONT GIVE ONE

so please archive media

[thepopsicle]

Hello there dbda & other queer show friends just a PSA!

Healthy reminder that “ #netflix Cancels “ has been blocked by Netflix on social media platforms which means if you’re using the tag; your posts won’t be seen by them!

I’ve seen a lot of people switching over to the tag “cancelledbynetflix” now!

[televised-uhhh-nerdistry]

Cartoon rec of the week:

Craig of the Creek

I haven't seen enough people talking about the show, so I'm mentioning it here. Absolute 10/10 cartoon. Just three kids, running 'round, making friends, running their own semi-sustainable community in the forest (there are some concerns about how much trash they leave there but ultimately they're better than most adults). Literally such a dream. they encourage each other to be emotionally healthy and they protect each other from "danger". Like they'll help each other achieve their dreams as they come (and new dreams show up pretty often because they're young kids).

And they're so funny! Like genuinely these kids are so earnest and intelligent and incredibly humorous and full of heart! They have full lives and they live them to the fullest out in nature after school, on the weekends, and in the summer. It's one of the best representations of found family I have ever seen in a cartoon, and I absolutely love it.

Also several of the writers behind the show are POC and queer (I think the head writers are all Black but I could be wrong), so you know that it was written well and the representation is awesome like I know that it should absolutely go without saying, but representation is much more than just showing BIPOC people on screen, and in terms of cartoons I haven't seen that many shows understanding that fact except maybe the Proud Family, Fat Albert, and a few others whose names will return to me once I've taken my ADHD meds. But the point is that Craig of the Creek gets it right. Most of the characters throughout the show (from what I've seen) are BIPOC, and you can tell that there are caring nods to BIPOC communities (primarily Black American communities), and more than that, that the writers know what they're talking about and are deeply familiar with and are a part of those communities. Craig, the titular character, is a young Black boy, and his family are middle class and ultimately very successful Black people. Kelsey (one of the main characters) is Jewish and Polish, and written with more complexity than having a one and done Hanukah celebration. The Creek's main business, a trading post, is run by Kit, a young Black girl with a love for economy and business. And many other characters are racial or ethnic minorities as well, and it warms my heart to see these characters done justice time and time again.

There's great subtle queer rep too, and you can tell it wasn't written just for the sake of representation, like it was thought out and intentional, and it worked beautifully. There are queer witches, and there are no labels applied to them, they're just allowed to exist with no explanations, happily in love with one another. There's a non-binary character later in the series (I'm only like 10 episodes in so I haven't met them yet but I've read amazing things about them). Kelsey also apparently identifies as a lesbian later in the series (I say "apparently" because I haven't done much reading so as to avoid spoilers, not because I am discounting her identity). On top of that, JP (one of the main characters) has a sister who is dating another girl.

There's also a significant amount of body positivity in the show, at least far than I've seen elsewhere. Not only do they openly say "all bodies are beautiful" and follow up on that by defending one another, there's also very little need to defend one another, because there's a very unspoken and deep respect in the Creek for things like body type, skin colour, disabilities, and so on. The kids of the creek, and their grown ups, are all different body types, and given their penchant for community and uplifting one another, it's no wonder they all seem confident in their bodies.

Not to mention the disability representation. There is a character later on in the series who is Black and deaf, and he not only speaks in Sign Language, but in Black American Sign Language. In addition, though unconfirmed, many of the kids in the creek embody aspects of various neurotypes. For example, the three main characters, Craig, Kelsey, and JP all come across as neurodivergent, with special interests, neurodivergent ways of thinking, and so on. Some have speculated that JP has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a disability often comorbid with ADHD. Not to mention that all the kids in the creek embody different special interests, most of which would be considered weird or frowned upon in everyday society, but that are given the opportunity to shine and flourish in the Creek's accepting culture.

Take the Horse Girls for example, a small clique of girls who roleplay as horses in a pasture near the Creek, and of course many of their behaviours are played as jokes, but ultimately they are accepted and involved in many adventures because of their unique interests and abilities which are ultimately how they aid the rest of the Creek. Every kid is a useful and accepted part of the Creek, with the exception of the ranger scout kids, who are essentially the same as cops, who are often exploitative, rude, and disruptive to the community as a whole.

Ultimately, the show is one of love, friendship, community, and acknowledging differences as a natural and helpful part of life. On top of that, it's not copaganda! What more could you want?

[fun-k-boards]

People who just put reader when they actually mean curvy but also skinny, cishet, fem reader who has long hair, is white and American, has a wealthy family that's nuclear, likes to wear dresses and skirts, likes to wear makeup and nail polish, likes specific foods and wears high heels everywhere are my fucking enemy, especially if it's for a game WHERE THE PLAYER ISN'T LIMITED AND IS CUSTOMISABLE!!

If you do this I hope you get trapped in a ball pit full of legos, it takes approximately five seconds to put 'Oh btw the reader is basically just an oc but because I'm annoying I'm going to say it's a reader anyway to get more reach'

[sailorsnightmare]

Last post unleashed the angry aroace in me regarding fandom reactions to aroace characters again so now I have to rant about it (as one does).

The canonical aroaceness of characters have always been heavily debated in queer and non-queer communities and it is ALWAYS aroace characters specifically.

For example: When Ryusui Nanami from Dr Stone stated he’s attracted to all people, everyone accepted and respected that he’s canonically Bi.

But when it comes to Senku repeatedly, physically AND verbally expressing his disgust with romance and sex, stating numerous times that he holds no interest in it, ending off the series with NO LOVE INTEREST, it’s suddenly a debate if he’s really aroace or not.

The second a character is aroace, all of a sudden they have to scream “I AM AROACE AND I DO NOT PARTNER AND I AM SEX REPULSED” for people to even fathom that they could be aroace, solely because gay pairings are more palatable.

And even then, tons of people won’t even respect it and will instead do anything they can to excuse dismissing said character’s aroaceness in favor of romance and sex AGAIN because “aroace people can be in romantic and sexual relationships too!”

Sure they can! That isn’t relavent here though, so stop using it as an excuse. When a character in media is explicitly aroace, why would you still go out of your way to force romance/sex into the characters identity? That entirely defeats the purpose of said representation.

If we had enough blatant aroace representation to be able to explore the complexities and varieties of aroace individuals that would be absolutely lovely! All kinds of aroaces deserve to see themselves shown in media we enjoy. But that isn’t the case here given that aroace rep in general is about as frequent as a droplet of rain is a desert during a drought.

Platonic relationships, familial relationships, queer platonic relationships, there are SO many different kinds of love out there that people refuse to explore despite the fact that they’re equally as emotionally impactful and important as romantic or sexual relationships!

What about platonic soulmates? Two friends who are bound to each other no matter the world they’re in?

We’re all familiar with found family, why not explore it more? Blood families even? Close-knit circles of longtime friends?

So many beloved troupes can be depicted and enjoyed in platonic means without erasing a characters aroace identity in favor of another queer one. We all deserve to feel seen in media we enjoy and we all have the freedom to choose how we consume said media, but please keep in mind that behavior like this is harmful.

No queer identity is lesser than another. Allow our community the joy of inclusion and please refrain from constantly coming up with excuses to erase an aroace character’s identity because you wish they were something else. This doesn’t happen nearly as often with other queer characters as it does with aroace ones.

[seaweedstarshine]

Late to the game as I’ve kinda been kinda non-here for a minute but I scrolled through the Dot and Bubble tag, and thought I wanted to write this post into existence.

There's this part in Doctor Who Unleashed where RTD says this:

“What we can’t tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending. Because they’ve seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse. I wonder, will you be ten minutes into it, will you be fifteen, will you be twenty, before you start to think, everyone in this community is white. And if you don’t think that — why didn’t you? So, that’s gonna be interesting. I hope it’s one of those pieces of television you see, and always remember.”

And I'm like. Yeah. But the reason this works even as well as it does is largely thanks to the work of the previous showrunner with the previous creative team, which was notably the first era to have any writers of color (amongst other firsts in terms of inclusivity in directors, composer, actors). While Chibnall fumbled whenever he tried to write about race himself, he did have the self-awareness to have Black and South Asian writers writing the episodes where race is the focus (and a female writer for the episode where sexism is a focus; my point is, he seemed to know his shortcomings).

I wonder what the current creative team looks like? (not really, but I wasn't 100% sure for all of them)

To quote RTD:

“...before you start to think, everyone in this community is white.”

This is pretty non-self-aware, right? It's pretty “It is said, and I understand this, there was a history of racism with the original Toymaker, the Celestial Toymaker, who had ‘celestial,’ and I did not know this, but ‘celestial’ can mean of Chinese origin, but in a derogatory way,” right? (from The Giggle Unleashed) It's pretty “and I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that: associating disability with evil,” right? (from Destination Skaro Unleashed)

—none of which are issues that should be overlooked, but think how much exponentially better they might’ve been addressed if he’d consulted with Chinese writers and wheelchair-using writers before going straight to giving the Toymaker weird fake accents and making Davros walk?

How many Black or non-white people do we think saw the Dot and Bubble script before it landed in Ncuti’s hands?

And this just keeps happening.

And like, from some of the shocked responses I've seen from white viewers to the ending of Dot and Bubble, maybe the episode's unsubtlety was needed? From the way RTD talks about it in Unleashed, the episode was written with a white audience in mind, Baby's First Microaggressions (where of course the microaggressions come from people who are pretty self-admittedly white supremacists). Ricky September, a more seemingly normal depiction of someone in the racist bubble of Finetime, seemed like an interesting element, up until the way he died.

The ending worked for me, because I do think the Doctor's reaction is true to how the Doctor would react. I just keep thinking of how much better the core themes could've been handled by someone with actual lived experience on the subject matter.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Do you know why it's so important to me and so many others that Jews are cast to play Jewish characters?

Because despite all that we've contributed to the film industry, we are excluded from it.

Jewish actors are hardly ever cast to play attractive, desirable characters. In the rare instance that Jews are cast to play Jews, it's to play villains or nebbish side characters.

Jews are never cast as the heroes. The love interests. The sympathetic characters.

Our features aren't considered beautiful. Or attractive. Or aesthetically pleasing.

Even in plots with Jewish main characters, hardly any time are actual Jews cast to play them. Because film studios can't fathom an audience sympathizing with or liking a character that's actually Jewish.

Can't sympathize with a character with stereotypically Jewish features. Or mannerisms. Or accents. Or backgrounds.

This is why it's important for Jews to play Jews.

Because we're rarely given an opportunity. Because Jewish audiences deserve to see ourselves. To see our people uplifted.

[trobeds]

i love the goldenheart kiss in the film sm because like. its just because they love each other and Can kiss and its not any big dramatic moment which calls for a kiss but yk they get those quiet moments too!!!! where theyre just in a park and everythings fine and they just laugh together and kiss and thats all. i think its nice when queer couples just get to kiss for the hell of it instead of only in these dramatic life changing moments where a kiss is "needed" . m/f couples get those showing affection just because they can moments alllll the time which might be why this kiss is so personal to me <3 if this makes any sense at all

[alwaysbewoke]

Imagine how many people JUST LIKE HER are in ICU, TRAUMA, BIRTH AND DELIVERY, NICU, STEP-DOWN UNITS, PYSCH WARDS, ELDERLY CARE, OBGYN, CARDIOLOGY, POST OP CARE, etc…

[man-squared]

Watching Prom Dates right now because decompressing, but there's such a weird need to put down the queer kid in the movie. Like every time they bring up she's gay, they have to say something about her clothing or wearing her brother's jorts or "let's go to the local co-op poetry slam vegan restaurant to find you a date."

Like it's only funny for so long, especially because the stereotypes don't stop when they are between the straight characters talking about her sexuality behind her back. And I can't remember the lesbian ever making a joke about herself, it's always her straight bestie or brother....

We've continuously seen this with the gay men characters in media that are there to be the best friend who is essentially a personified joke, but it feels like some of these movies think they can just get away with queerphobia and laughing at the queers because they are in an inclusive era or the character actually gets a love interest.

[odinsblog]

I have been very critical at the way that media has helped legitimize what essentially is a propaganda campaign. We need to call that what it is.

We know the actors. The actors are very explicit. They don't camouflage what they're doing.

In fact, one of the biggest actors, of course, Chris Rufo, regularly goes on Twitter and says, this is what we're going to do. He said he was going to turn critical race theory into a term that made white Americans think about indoctrination, their white children being treated as the oppressor. I mean, he lays it out, and then he lays out his strategy, which is we keep pushing this until we get some mainstream media to pick it up, and then the rest of mainstream media feels that they have to now pick it up or it will look like they're being biased.

So these folks have studied, I think, really the flaws in media and have exploited it. So what happens is this desire to be ‘balanced’ then actually means we obfuscate the truth.

The first thing we should have done as journalists is said, okay, show me in a classroom where this is happening.

Provide evidence that this is happening.

Let's define what Critical Race Theory is, and what it isn't.

And instead, we allowed bad faith actors to really define the terms in a way that I think has been very harmful because that's how propaganda works.

Attempted bans were against 1619 specifically. Then they came back with critical race theory. Now, of course, they're coming back with DEI and we just keep making kind of those same mistakes again and again.

I also just want to add that when we think about something like critical race theory, when we think about what should and shouldn't be taught in the classroom, part of what we did as a failure media is to ask what is the role of an education? And is it wrong to teach a theory? Is it wrong to teach things that every parent wouldn't agree with?

I mean, that is actually the role of an education.

—Nikole Hannah-Jones: The Attack on Black History

[pleasantmsp]

I love Beauyasha so much. I miss them so much.

The reunion gave me so much joy and now I'm in this weird happy but melancholy state. I love the Nein so much and I want more of them. And I especially want more of Beau and Yasha. If we get a Fjorester wedding one shot, I will be stoked. But then also give me the Beauyasha wedding too!

I'm really just hoping they keep doing these little reunions cause I love the Mighty Nein so much and seeing them makes me so happy.

[daybreaksys]

Shoutout to the Clone Wars which put a nonhuman character among the main characters, as well as giving importance to so many new and already existing nonhuman characters and treating them as equals to human characters after decades of Star Wars ignoring their nonhumans and placing them below and never giving them any meaningful importance

I love you, the clone wars!

[emotinalsupportturtle]

sometimes a piece of media gets praised too much that I loose some appreciation for it (maybe because it raises expectations). The star beast however, is a piece of media which I love more every time I see it criticized on mainstream social media

[virtchandmoir]

Tessa's Instagram Story (March 8th)