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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years

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Colonialism

You back into things sometimes.

One of my many guilty pleasures is old school pulp, which I first encountered with the Doc Savage reprints in the 1960s, then old anthologies, then back issues at conventions, and now thanks to the Internet, an almost limitless supply.

And to be utterly frankly, a lot of the appeal lays in the campiness of the covers and interior art -- brass plated damsels fighting alien monsters, bare chested heroes combatting insidious hordes, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Once past age 12, I never took these covers or the covers of modern pulps such as James Bond, Mike Hammer, or Modesty Blaise seriously; they were just good, campy fun.

While my main focus remained on the sci-fi pulps, I also kept an eye on crime and mystery pulps, war stories, and what are sometimes called “sweaties”, i.e., men’s adventure magazines.

Despite the differences in the titles and genres, certain themes seemed to pop up again and again.

Scantily clad ladies, typically in some form of distress, though on occasion dishing out as good if not better than they got.

Well, the pulps that drew my attention were the pups made for a primarily male audience (though even in the 1930s and 40s there were large numbers of female readers and writers in the sci-fi genre). Small wonder I was drawn to certain types of eye candy; I had been culturally programmed that way.

That’s a topic well worthy of a post or two on its own, so I’m putting gender issues / the patriarchy / the male gaze aside for the moment.

What I’m more interested in focusing on is the second most popular characters to appear on the covers (and in the stories as well).

The Other.

The Other comes in all shapes / sizes / ethnicities. Tall and short, scrawny and beefy, light or dark, you name it, they’ve got a flavor for you.

“Injuns” and aliens, Mongols and mafiosi, Africans and anarchists.

Whoever they were ”they ain’t us!”

Certain types of stories lend themselves easily to depicting the villainous Other.

Westerns, where irate natives can always be counted on to launch an attack.

War stories, where the hero (with or without an army to help him) battles countless numbers of enemies en masse.

Adventure stories, where the hero intrudes in some other culture and shows them the error of their ways.

Detective stories, where the Other might be a single sinister mastermind but still represents an existentialist threat.

And my beloved sci-fi stories?

Why, we fans told ourselves our stories were better than that! We didn’t wallow in old world bigotry, demonizing blacks and browns and other non-whites because of their skins.

Oh, no: We demonized green skinned aliens.

Now I know some of you are sputtering “But-but-but you wrote for GI Joe!”

Boy howdy, are you correct.

And boy howdy, did we ever exploit the Other with that show.

I never got a chance to do it, but I pitched -- and had Hasbro accept -- a story that would have been about the way I envisioned Cobra to have formed and been organized, and would focus on what motivated them.

They were pretty simplistic greedheads in the original series, but I felt the rank and file needed to be fighting for a purpose, something higher to spire to that mere dominance and wealth.

I never got to do “The Most Dangerous Man In The World” but I was trying to break out of the mold.

For the most part, our stories fit right into the old trope of The Other.

Ours were mostly about the evil Other trying to do something nefarious against our innocent guys, but there’s an obverse narrative other stories follow, in which our guys go inflict themselves on The Other until our guys either come away with a treasure (rightfully belonging to The Other but, hey, they really don’t deserve it so we’re entitled to take it from them), or hammer The Other into submission so they will become good ersatz copies of us (only not so uppity as to demand equal rights or respect or protection under law).

These are all earmarks of a very Western (in the sense of Europe and America…with Australia and New Zealand thrown in) sin: Colonialism.

Now, before going further let’s get out terms straight.

There’s all sorts of different forms of colonialism, and some of them can be totally benign -- say a small group of merchants and traders from one country travel to a foreign land and set up a community there where they deal honorably and fairly with the native population.

The transplanted merchants are a “colony” in the strictest sense of the term, but they coexist peacefully in a symbiotic relationship with the host culture and both sides benefit, neither at the expense of the other.

Oh, would that they could all be like that…

Another form of colonialism -- and one we Americans are overly familiar with even though there are all sorts of variants on this basic idea -- is the kind where one culture invades the territory of another and immediately begins operating in a deliberately disruptive nature to the native population.

They seek to enslave & exploit or, failing that, expel or eradicate the natives through any means possible.

It’s the story of Columbus and the conquistadors and the pilgrims and the frontiersmen and the pioneers and the forty-niners and the cowboys and the robber barons.

It’s the story where different groups are deliberately kept separate from one another by the power structure in place, for fear they will band together and usurp said power structure (unless, of course, they band together to kelp make one of ours their leader, and build a grand new empire just for him).

It’s the story where our guys never need make a serious attempt to understand the point of view of The Other, because they are just strawmen to mow down, sexy lamps to take home.

I think my taste in sci-fi and modern pulp writing in general started to change around the mid-1970s.

Being in the army quickly cleared me of a lot of preconceptions I had about what our military did and how they did it.

The easy-peasy moral conflicts of spy novels and international thrillers seem rather thin and phony compared to the real life complexities of national and global politics.

Long before John Wick I was decrying a type of story I referred to as “You killed my dog so you must die.” Some bad guy (typically The Other) does a bad thing and so the good guy (one of ours -- yea!) must punish him.

Make him hurt.

Make him whimper

Make him crawl.

Make him suffer.

The real world ain’t like that.

Fu Machu falls to Ho Chi Minh.

As entertaining as the fantasy of humiliating and annihilating our enemies may be…we gotta come to terms with them, we gotta learn to live with them.

That’s why my favorite sci-fi stories now are less about conflict and more about comprehension.

It’s better to understand than to stand over.

. . .

The colonial style of storytelling as the dominant form of story telling is fairly recent, dating only from the end of the medieval period in Europe and the rise of the so-called age of exploration.

This is not to say colonial story telling didn’t exist before them -- look at what Caesar wrote, or check out Joshua and Judges in the Old Testament -- but prior to the colonial age it wasn’t the dominant form of storytelling.

Most ancient stories involve characters who, regardless of political or social standing, recognize one another as human beings.

And when gods or monsters appear, they are usually symbols of far greater / larger forces & fates, not beasts to be subdued or slain.

Medieval literature is filled with glorious combat and conflict, but again, it’s the conflict of equals and for motives and rationales that can easily be understood.

It was only when the European nations began deliberately invading and conquering / dominating foreign lands that colonialism became the dominant form of storytelling.

It had to: How else could a culture justify its swinish behavior against fellow human beings?

Even to this day, much (if not most) popular fiction reflects the values of colonialism.

Heroes rarely change.

Cultures even less.

We’ve kept The Other at arms length with popular fiction and media, sometimes cleverly hiding it, sometimes cleverly justifying it, but we’ve had this underlying current for hundreds of years.

Ultimately, it hasn’t served us well.

It traps us in simplistic good vs evil / us vs them narratives that fail to take into account the complex nature of human society and relationships.

It gives us pat answers instead of probing questions.

It is zero sum storytelling: The pie is only so big, there can’t be more, and if the hero doesn’t get it all, he loses. (John D. MacDonald summed up this philosophy in the title of one of his books: The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything.)

It’s possible to break out of that mind set -- The Venture Brothers animated series brilliant manages to combine old school pulp tropes with a very modern, very perceptive deconstruction of the form -- but as posted elsewhere, imitation is the sincerity form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness, so while I certainly applaud The Venture Brothers I don’t want to encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

Because they won’t.

They’ll pretend they will, but they’ll veer off course and back into the old Colonialism mindset.

We need to break out, break free.

Here in the U.S. it’s African-American History Month.

The African-American experience is far from the Colonialism that marks most white / Western / Christian storytelling (and by storytelling I include history and journalism as well as fiction; in fact, anything and everything that tells a narrative).

It’s a good time to open our eyes, to see the world around us not afresh, but for the first time.

Remove the blinders.

I said sometimes you back into things.

Getting a clearer view of the world I’m in didn’t come from a straightforward examination.

It came from a counter-intuitive place, it found its way back to the beginning not by accepting what others said was the true narrative, but by following individual threads.

It came from Buck Rogers and the Beat Generation and Scrooge McDuck and the sexual revolution and Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance and the civil rights era and Dangerous Visions and the Jesus Movement and Catch-22 and the Merry Pranksters.

It came from old friends, some of whom inspired me, some of whom disappointed me, and yet the disappointments probably led to a deeper, more penetrating insight into the nature of the problem.

This Colonialism era must come to a close.

It can no longer sustain itself, not in the world we inhabit today.

It requires a new breed of storytellers -- writers and artists and poets and journalists who can offer

It’s not a world that puts up barriers by race or gender, ethnicity or orientation, ability or age.

There’s ample opportunity for open minds.

All it asks of us is a new soul.

#colonialism #morals #ethics #philosophy #history #Black History Month #how this writer's mind works #GI Joe

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theexistentiallyqueer · 5 years

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Okay so I’ve been thinking about that really bad Hot Take that’s been circulating about fanfiction. And it’s been kind of simmering in me. The root of the problem with it isn’t so much that it diminishes the quality of fanfiction so much as the way it characterizes two completely different genres of media.

Preface: at no point is this ever, ever, ever a diatribe or condemnation against fanart or the work fanartists put into their work. This is about the value that is ascribed to visual art vs the value ascribed to literary art. I am trying to talk specifically about the denigration of literary art in fandom spaces and the way it’s been recently, in a very popular tumblr post, martyred at the expense of queer and disabled writers and writers of color.

Fanart (as a collective genre, according to that post) - Good, artistically-driven, pure, wholesome. Fanartists draw for the sake of becoming better artists, and every work a fanartist draws or creates is made with the goal of becoming a better artist. Fanartists never draw anything that is base, silly, shippy, or smutty; if there is pornographic art, it isn’t pornographic but Erotica. There is no such thing as low- or middling-quality art, because all artists are striving to sharpen their skills and become better artists, and there are no fanartists who draw just for fun or shits and giggles. Fanartists achieve fame purely on the merit of their own artistic ability. There’s no room to criticize fanartists who attempt to cis-wash trans (or trans pesenting) characters, or fanartists who blatantly, frequently, and with frankly no impunity (as their art is reblogged, and reblogged, and reblogged) whitewash characters of color.

Fanfiction (as a collective genre, according to that post) - Smutty, ship-fodder, audience-pleasing trash. Fanfic writers write for the sake of expressing their inner boners or enacting their internal fantasies. No fanfic writers seek a sense of growth in their writing or work to improve their writing in any way. The only reason any works of fanfiction are popular is because they cater to the readership’s base instincts, and the True Authors, the Really Daring authors who write Real Literary Content, are cast the wayside.

It’s such a two-dimensional view of the situation--and it doesn’t even take into account edited content, such as gifsets, which makes up a huge portion of fandom content and has been a type of content, along with fanart, that fanfic writers have long voiced their (our) upset about getting more active & polarized attention than written works. It presents this dichotic view of fanart good/fanfiction bad. Which is also incredibly ugly and disturbing when you consider the fact that fanfiction is the earliest form of curated fan content, and fanfiction itself is inherently transformative in a way that fanart and edits are not, because fanwork in general, and and fanfiction in particular, is inherently in and of itself the public (fans) themselves overriding the corporate-owned landscape with their subversive interpretations.

Like, I have seen not-good fanart. I have seen bland, unimpressive, generic fanart. There is fanart from artists who don’t have their own unique sense of style. Fanart from artists who are just starting out and haven’t developed their skills yet. Fanart from artists who draw as a hobby, and damn they may be good, but they don’t give a fuck about contributing to The Body of Artistry because they have bills to pay and career interests outside of art, and damn, they’d really rather draw these two characters making out, or blushing at each other, or straight-up fucking, than they would create something of Great Artistic Importance. That art gets so many notes. It is liked and reblogged and shared.

And that’s all valid, because art ISN’T A COMPETITIVE SPORT. I embrace fanartists who draw just because they want to, because they don’t care about quality or artistic ideals or whatever, and just want to draw someone being happy, or sad, or angry, or getting dicked down, or whatever!!! It doesn’t matter. Draw because you want to draw. Because your art is an expression of yourself that speaks of your experiences and transgresses the definitions of the world you’ve been told to adhere to. You make art for yourself, to say fuck the system!!!! We’re just the lucky souls who get to appreciate it afterwards.

The complaints that come from fanfic writers--and yes!!! I am one, so proceed with the accusations of butthurt--are that fanart and edits get more social media attention (in the forms of likes, reblogs, retweets, shares, etc.) than fanfic does.

And it’s a valid complaint! It isn’t rooted in some alien reality that fanfiction is inherently more base and less artistic than fanart. I’ve seen some pretty aesthetically displeasing fanart get a high reblog count. And I’ve seen some incredible works of literary attention get no recs, no likes, no comments. I’ve seen works of middling writers who have a lot of fucking talent and show it in their work, and yeah maybe they write porn, but their prose SINGS, and no one comments, no one shares it, no one makes their love of it public the same way they do the fanart, the same way they do the edits and the gifsets.

It’s rooted in two things:

1. Literature (which fanfiction is a subgenre of) takes time to appreciate. You can look at a piece of art and reblog it without thinking about it. It could be a work on par with the Mona Lisa, and you could still look at it without any aesthetic or artistic sense and say, “Hey, that looks pretty.” But you can’t read without thinking; reading is an active mental pursuit you have to engage with. (If you try to pull out Twilight on this point to fight me, I’ll fight you back. I’ve actively read Twilight. Even reading awful literature takes effort; arguably it takes more effort than reading something good).

2. Literature is hard to market with words, because when you’re trying to encourage other people to read it, you have to use even more words. You have to use words to convince someone to read even more words! Some fanartists draw comics or fanart inspired by fanfiction--I love those artists and they do more for us than they could possibly know--but for the most part, you can’t use visuals to show someone why they should invest their time in reading a thing. And unlike fanart--when it’s a tribute, when it’s a showcase of the character’s or characters’ canonical attributes--fanfiction can’t be green-stamped by creators, because fanfiction is inherently built in narrative, and canon-compliant or not, that opens the legal owners of the property up to legal disputes.

So much easier, then, to focus on fanart, which distribution and publishing companies love because they see free advertising in sharing it, to complain that fanfiction is a dispirited genre of unartistic creators who just want to read the queer version of a bodice-ripper.

And then we get to the question of: why is the bodice ripper so bad? Are you willing to critique Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski with the same derision you have for queer writers? Are you going to hold the wish-fulfillment fantasies and introspective examinations of sexuality in relation to gender, race, class, and physical ability written by writers expressing their own experiences as inherently debauched and debased because pornographic fanfiction is popular, but not hold George R R Martin to the same standard? Are you going to criticize the prejudices and disparities and biases in publishing that prevent marginalized writers from being able to break into the industry?

Are you ready to combat the enduring popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is overwhelmingly a series of heroism tales about shitty and mediocre white men?

Are you going to take aim at HBO for taking a fantasy series that, while still written by a sexist author who has a disturbing fixation on female sexuality has uplifted its female characters as heroes in their own right, and then drove it into the dirt to end on a note with the male “hero” murdering his female lover, an abuse survivor, after engaging her in an intimate kiss?

Did you take issue with the streaming blockbuster Stranger Things only confirming a character as canonically gay--after planning to have her be a straight romantic option for a major character--because the actress is the one who repeatedly badgered the showrunners about how she didn’t feel her character fit that role?

Are you invested in the fact that video games continue to be majority white, majority male, majority able-bodied, and majority inaccessible to disabled gamers?

You want to complain about fanfiction having too much porn and somehow that deligitimizes fanfiction as a genre as a whole?

Fuck off. There are hundreds, thousands even more likely, of other authors of equal skill to you or greater, who are struggling to have their works recognized in fandoms that don’t want to put the effort in to reading them, the effort into sharing and appreciating them. It’s harder to make someone care about a fanfic. You can reblog a fanart, and your followers will see the art itself right away. If you reblog fanfic, they have to make the conscious choice to engage with it. And none of that is your fault, because you can’t control how other people engage with fan content, but you can advocate, vocally, for the fair and equal respect for fanfiction and fan-written content. You can remind people, again and again, how fanfic writers do so much for so little.

But you want to come into my house and compare fanart to fanficton and claim one is inherently better? You’re the Banksy to my Catherynne L Valente, to my N.K. Jemisin, to my Seanan McGuire.

Start understanding the system is built against us all and start understanding why your battle is uphill. What’s oppressing your creative success is a white, straight, cis monopoly on what the good story, what the correct story is, limiting your options, tying you to a narrative you don’t belong to. Queerness and marginalization exist beyond what’s depicted in mainstream media, and fans expressing that through their own written content?

That’s us taking back the corporate-owned narrative for ourselves. It’s self-liberation through the written word. And yeah, some of it is porn.

It’s porn when it’s a drawing too.

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yotsutama · 7 years

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SS1.12.1 - One Step Towards Tomorrow

Part 1 Side Story Chapter 12.1

Side Stories

Gaku: Thank you! Thank you all for tonight!

Audience: Kyaaaa! TRIGGER!

Audience: Your new song is the best...!!

Ryuunosuke: ......gh, haa haa... Ahaha! This new song is the best!

Gaku: Yeah! Everyone's really excited!

Ryuunosuke: I really like this song!

Gaku: Me too! I've always wanted to sing this kind of song!

Tenn: ............

Gaku: It's time for the encore, let's go! Of course, the song will be, "Let's✧NATSU"!

Audience: Kyaaaaa....!!

Momo: Good work!

Yuki: The live was great.

Gaku: Re:vale-san! You were here!?

Tenn: Well, I realized they were here.

Momo: Hey! You did some fanservice, right!?

Ryuunosuke: Even though Yuki-san and Momo-san are always so busy, thank you for coming!

Momo: No, no! We got to hear your new song, and I got to have a date with my darling. I'm so happy!

Ryuunosuke: A date?

Momo: Yeah! We came here holding hands!

Yuki: We didn’t, we didn’t.

Momo: We were two-stepping when we crossed the sidewalk! (1)

Yuki: Pfft... Even an elementary student wouldn't do that.

Gaku: Joking as always, huh, Re:vale-san.

Momo: Ehehe! We're aiming for an appearance in a commercial for household detergents so we're practicing for it!

Gaku: Another commercial!? You've appeared in commercials for cars, cosmetics, foods, drinks, smartphones, and even air conditioners too, right!?

Momo: We wanted to do the commercial for White Hot Thunder Dry the most though! Ryuu-chan, you were so sexy and cute up there~!

Ryuunosuke: Ahaha! Thank you very much!

Yuki: TRIGGER, your new song is nice.

Gaku: Do you mean it!? We're so happy to hear that!

Yuki: It resembles Zero. That Hyuuga-san, he's more than what I expected him to be.

Momo: It's different than the usual songs, but it's energetic and cute, I like it! "Let's✧NATSU"!

Ryuunosuke: Thank you very much! We look forward to Re:vale-san's new song too!

Momo: Ahaha! That's taboo for now!

Ryuunosuke: Eh!? Why’s that!?

Momo: It's writer’s block.

Yuki: We're currently cursing the whole world.

Gaku: You can't make a song if you curse the world, right? ...gh, ow! Why, are you pinching me!?

Yuki: Even if you're right, we can’t do it after all, you know......

Momo: Don't, Yuki! It's the face of the Desired Embrace No. 1, take good care of it...!!

Gaku: Putting my face aside, don't vent your anger on others please. I like the cool Re:vale-san.

Yuki: ............

Gaku: If it's Yuki-san, you can do it. Definitely. You're a great person.

Gaku: You're a genius. Everyone knows about it, and you know more than anyone, right?

Yuki: You're right.

Momo: Gaku... So cool......

Ryuunosuke: He's cool......

Gaku: Huh? We're talking about Yuki-san's coolness here, not me.

Momo: Haaa... So handsome... I wanted to say that line......

Yuki: You can say it later.

Momo: Wait... Tenn, why are you so quiet today? Are you tired?

Tenn: No......

Momo: Well, your new song used a lot of your energy, right?! The audience was so excited too, they were overflowing with happiness!

Momo: Tenn always thinks of the fans, you really showed TRIGGER's sincerity and spirit! The three of you were so cool!

Momo: Being able to see that kind of amazing stage overflowed with your pride and great services, I'm sure TRIGGER's fans were so pleased!

Tenn: ............

Tenn: ... We don't deserve those kind words. Thank you very much.

Tenn: I'll take my leave now.

Momo: Tenn......

*slam*

Ryuunosuke: What's wrong with him?

Gaku: I wonder. I don't understand what he's thinking. Just what is he unsatisfied with......

Gaku: After a great concert like today, I wanted to be happy with my members, and yet......

Ryuunosuke: Gaku......

Announcer: Now then, it's a single that reached the top of the ranking this week! TRIGGER's "Let's✧NATSU!"

Riku: Ah......

Nagi: ............

*turns off*

Riku: Y-you're not watching?

Nagi: I'm not.

Riku: But, it's Tenn-ni... I meant, TRIGGER's new song......

Nagi: It's not TRIGGER. Their name is "Shameless Song Thieves".

Nagi: Filthy criminals who dumped away their TRIGGER name.

Riku: ...... Don't say criminals! TRIGGER might have sung it without knowing anything, right!?

Nagi: OH... Riku, are you supporting the TRIGGER who stole our song?

Riku: That's not it. I'm upset too, but......

Nagi: But?

Riku: I don't want to talk bad about my family, I don't want to hear it either.

Nagi: That judgement is full of flaws. Even if reality is cruel, we must admit that......

Mitsuki: Nagi!

Nagi: ............

Mitsuki: Come with me.

Nagi: ...... I don't want to.

Mitsuki: What?

Nagi: Mitsuki, you're angry. I'm not in the mood to talk with an angry Mitsuki.

Mitsuki: I'm not angry.

Nagi: You're obviously angry. You can't fool me......gh!

Riku: Mi, Mitsuki!

Mitsuki: Why are you looking away? Look at me.

Nagi: ............

Mitsuki: Come with me.

Nagi: ...... Yes......

*slam*

Riku: ...... He took him away... Mitsuki can be scary sometimes.

Nagi: I... I won't apologize. I'm not wrong. I'm not going to forgive TRIGGER who stole our song.

Mitsuki: Why do you look scared?

Nagi: Mitsuki, you're gripping my collar......

Mitsuki: Well that's…! Because I was in hurry! I don't think it's good to say those things in front of Riku. Now, let's sit already.

Nagi: Excuse me......

Mitsuki: Nagi. We couldn't sing our new song, and I’m upset and angry too. Everyone is. There's no one who's ok with it.

Mitsuki: However, for Riku, TRIGGER's Kujou is his older brother. Of course, he doesn't want to hear insults about him.

Nagi: ...... That's a big mistake.

Mitsuki: What is?

Nagi: One can betray even one's own family for the sake of gaining an advantage. Feeling deep hatred, even more than towards outsiders.

Nagi: If we don't admit the facts, then we won’t take any countermeasures. Riku will just be hurt, without ever knowing the truth.

Mitsuki: ...... I don't think TRIGGER are those kinds of guys.

Mitsuki: And, even if they fight, or if there are things they don't like, siblings will be siblings. There's no way they would go that far......

Nagi: They wouldn't?

Mitsuki: ............

Nagi: Can you say that you would never do that to Iori?

Mitsuki: Of course.

Nagi: Can you say that Iori would never do that to you?

Mitsuki: ......, even if he did, he wouldn’t mean it, right?

Nagi: Even in situations where one didn’t mean it, as it piles up it will cause serious trouble. Pain can lead to hatred.

Mitsuki: I'd never hate Iori!

*knock knock*

Mitsuki: ...... Come in.

*click*

Iori: I'm sorry. I heard my name being mentioned, did you call for me?

Mitsuki: Ah... No, we're fine.

Nagi: Iori. What would you do if Mitsuki stole something important from you?

Iori: ...... Is it about the new song and Nanase-san? If it is, then you have used a wrong example. Nii-san would never steal my things.

Iori: He would say it straight out whenever he wants something. Isn't that right?

Mitsuki: ...... Yeah. Although, if it's something I can never get, then saying it out loud wouldn't change anything so in the end, I wouldn't say it.

Iori: Nii-san...?

Mitsuki: Anyway, you should stop saying bad things about TRIGGER in front of Riku. He gets weak from stress.

Nagi: ...... I understand.

Mitsuki: It's not like you, Nagi! You always find people's good traits. You always find hope in even those who are at their lowest.

Mitsuki: We couldn't sing that song. I know hearing that song makes our hearts hurt, but hurting others because of it is wrong, right?

Nagi: ............

Nagi: Mitsuki, can you spoil me.

Mitsuki: Ahaha, what the heck. Fine.

Iori: It's not fine!

Nagi: Mitsuki, Sorry... My heart has been rough. Please comfort me until the thorns are gone.

Mitsuki: Geez, you're so helpless.

Iori: You can just meditate by yourself. Japanese mind training. Rokuya-san, you like ninjas, right?

Mitsuki: Iori, don't say cruel things! Nagi is trying to hold back his frustrations.

Iori: ......, Even I, even I am holding my frustrations in too!

*slam*

Mitsuki: Iori! What's with him......

Nagi: Look, it’s just as I said. Even in situations where one didn’t mean it, if it gets piled up it will cause serious trouble in the future.

Mitsuki: Uum... Serious trouble, huh... If you say that, then MEZZO" too......

Nagi: OH! Stop thinking about other things. Now focus on comforting me. Let's try it.

Mitsuki: ............

Mitsuki: Good, good, you're a good boy! (2)

Nagi: OH... I feel like a dog being stroked. But, it actually feels nice.

Mitsuki: Nagi, are you on bad terms with your relatives?

Nagi: ............

Mitsuki: You said it before, right? Women treated you nicely, but you didn’t get along with men because they're jealous of you.

Mitsuki: The closest male near you is your brother, right? I also get jealous of Iori sometimes.

Mitsuki: Nagi is super beautiful, you can also do anything. But, I never got jealous of you.

Mitsuki: However, if you were my brother, I wonder if I would.

Nagi: Mitsuki.

Mitsuki: Hm?

Nagi: One more time please.

Mitsuki: ...... Good, good, you're a good boy!

*click*

Yamato: Sou.

Sougo: Yamato-san... You're still awake?

Yamato: That's my line. You stayed up late yesterday so you said you were going to sleep earlier today, right? What are you doing?

Sougo: I'm preparing for tomorrow's job.

Yamato: Preparing what?

Sougo: The script is written in difficult words, so I'm re-writing it to make it easy for Tamaki-kun to understand.

Sougo: I can't explain things nicely, so I always anger Tamaki-kun... I thought if I could make a memo, it will be easier to understand.

Yamato: I can explain it to Tama later. You should go to sleep.

Sougo: I can't let you do that. This is MEZZO”'s job......

Yamato: You are looking in a mirror every day, right? You haven’t realized it? You look tired.

Sougo: ...... I'm sorry.

Yamato: I didn't want you to apologize. I just want you to rest. Now, go sleep.

Sougo: But......

Yamato: No buts.

Sougo: ............

Yamato: Why do you look so troubled. Onii-san didn't want to trouble you. I just want to be told "Yamato-san, you are so niceー".

Sougo: ...... Yamato-san is nice, always......

Yamato: Yeah, yeah. I'm cool right.

Sougo: Yes......

Yamato: ...... You saying it like that is embarrassing me though......

Sougo: ...... I'm sorry for making you worry. It's my fault for being unreliable......

Yamato: I don't think you're unreliable. You're just unskilled at this.

Sougo: Am I, unskilled...? My way of doing this job......

Yamato: Wrong. Whether it’s refusing or relaxing, you should watch Onii-san and learn how to do things loosely.

Yamato: You should live more skillfully. If you keep being like that, you'll just break yourself.

Sougo: Yamato-san, are you living skillfully?

Yamato: I wonder.

Sougo: ...... I don't think you do things loosely. But......

Sougo: I feel like I've only seen your back. Because you always dodge things.

Yamato: Oh. You being able to complain now means you've recovered, huh.

Sougo: I didn't mean it as a complaint though......

Yamato: Night. I'm turning off the light. If you wake up again after I leave, there's gonna be punishment, okay.

Sougo: I understand. Good night... Thank you very much.

Yamato: Yeah, yeah.

*slam*

Sougo: ............

Sougo: ...... Oh right. The directions for tomorrow's workplace......

*click*

Yamato: Are you trying to wake up?

Sougo: I, I'm sleeping.

Yamato: Ok.

*slam*

Sougo: ............

Sougo: ...... Let's sleep......

Sougo: I hope I can do well with Tamaki-kun tomorrow......

*click*

Tamaki: Rikkun.

Riku: Ah... Welcome back, Tamaki. You came home late today too. Good work.

Tamaki: Did you want something?

Riku: Eh? What, that's sudden. Ah! Then, can you put this on the wardrobe?

Tamaki: Right.

Riku: And thenー Handstand!

Tamaki: You really like handstands, huh!? Fine. ......gh, here...!

Riku: Wow! Amazing, amazing!

Tamaki: ......gh, there you go. Anything else?

Riku: Next is......

Riku: Try praising Tenn-nii. Anything you can come up with, anything is fine.

Tamaki: Rikkun's big bro? Uum, he gave me King Puddings. He's nice.

Riku: Yeah.

Tamaki: He worked hard even when he had a fever. That's admirable. He always tries his best. And..., he's a good guy who always thinks about the fans?

Riku: Yeah... Yes, that's right!

Tamaki: Is this enough?

Riku: It is! Thanks! I'm cheered up now!

Tamaki: Hehe......

Tamaki: I, I like being with Rikkun.

Riku: Really? That kinda makes me embarassed!

Tamaki: Haha... Yeah. Rikkun, you are always happy. You think nicely of yourself......

Tamaki: ...... I'm not good at being with Sou-chan. It's not that I don't like him. How should I put it......

Tamaki: Being with him always makes me feel like a bad guy.

Riku: Tamaki... Are you fighting with Sougo-san?

Tamaki: We always, you know. Always. When we're not, we just keep silent awkwardly. I don't like that.

Tamaki: It feels like I'm troubling him just by being with him, I don't want that......

Riku: I see... So that's why you came here to do the handstand.

Tamaki: It would be nice if Sou-chan was easier to understand, just like Rikkun......

Riku: Don't say things like Iori!

Riku: Then, you can just help Sougo-san out tomorrow! Just like how you helped me today!

Tamaki: But there's nothing I can do to help him.

Riku: There is! Like, holding his bag, maybe? Tamaki is strong, right!

Tamaki: I wonder if that'll make him happy......

Riku: He will be! But before that, you should say to him that you want to get along, you want to help, that is.

Tamaki: ...... That's kinda embarrassing......

Riku: He'll definitely be happy! Those feelings are important!

Riku: Sougo-san and Tamaki are good guys! There's no way it won't go well!

Tamaki: Rikkun......

Tamaki: Should I, do the handstand again?

Riku: Yayy! Backflip! Do the backflip!

Tamaki: That, I made a hole in the wall when I did that last time!

*click*

Iori: You're so noisy!

Tamaki・Riku: Uwa...! You surprised me!!

Iori: Please think of what time it is now! Nanase-san, aren't you a working adult!?

Riku: Ahー! You only blame me!

Tamaki: Iorin, sorry... Riku-san ordered me to, and......

Riku: Uwaー! You suddenly act all innocent!!

Iori: I told you, you are all so noisy!

*click*

Mitsuki: Iori is noisy too, you knowー.

Iori: ......, Nii-san......

Riku: Mitsuki!

Mitsuki: Sougo is sleeping so keep it down, okay.

Tamaki: ...... Okay.

Iori: ...... We're sorry......

Mitsuki: The three of you, sit over there together.

Iori: What is it...?

Riku: ...... Like this?

Tamaki: Uwaa, he'll definitely hit us......

Mitsuki: ............

Mitsuki: Good, good, you're all good boys!

Iori: Wha......

Riku: Ahaha! What is it!?

Tamaki: Ahaha! We're not dogs, you know!

Mitsuki: Ahahaha! You're all, good, good boys!

Mitsuki: So that we don't lose to all the troubles we have, let's work hard starting tomorrow!

To be continued......

T/N

First, I'm sorry this is SUPER LATE. rl stuff happened and the next SS is SO LONG (I'll post it after this) thankss @ousama-pudding for proofreading!!!!❣

(1) two-stepping is a dance step that looks like this (lol)

(2) よーしよしよし is expression of affection and usually used when you pat someone/your pet on the head.. It literally translates to "good good good", I changed it into "good, good, you're a good boy" hahah

Thanks for reading~

#idolish7 #nagi arc when #i want to see nagi's brother #sidestories translation #yazutranslates

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blackbird-brewster · 7 years

Text

I had two profound experiences today, extremely unrelated in context but both thought provoking after the fact. The first experience had to do with me getting my first library card in 18 years and how I was very anxious to go into the library for any reason other than to print something. I will detail this experience in a different post but long story short, all of the embarrassment and shame I felt because of my learning disability melted away and I ended up spending nearly two hours just browsing books. I left feeling to included and happy, I actually cried tears of joy. Fast forward to the second notable experience of my day. Tonight I went on a date with my flat mate to “Naked Girls Reading: The Feminist Propaganda Edition”. Naked Girls Reading is apparently a sort of “brand”, started in the US as a protest against the ways women’s bodies are usually sexualized when naked. The theory is exactly what it sounds like, performers are completely nude and read aloud to the audience. I had never heard of this amazing concept, so I jumped at the invitation. ESPECIALLY since tonight’s theme was feminism. I figured naked women reading feminist works sounded AUHMAZING. [Rest behind a cut for length and transphobia]

The event was hosted by a popular personality in the New Zealand LGBTQPIA scene. They are a self labeled transvestite that MC’s events as their drag king persona, Hugo Grrrl. I assumed, if it was hosted by a gender diverse person it was going to be fairly inclusive. Welp, you know what they say about assuming.

Things started promising as Hugo opened their monologue with my favorite greeting “Guys, gals and nonbinary pals”. Hugo then went on to talk about some of the topics of the night including body positivity, body hair, porn, sex work, sex positivity, etc. It sounded really exciting and inter-sectional, I was pumped.

Within the ten minute monologue there was also the disclaimer that “Although this is called “Naked Girls Reading”, gender is a spectrum and the binary is bullshit.” (woo, yeah!!) ”...We only call it that because it was started in America and we didn’t come up with the name.” (Wait, what?)

Ok... but you could literally just call it “Naked People Reading” or “Naked Folx Reading” or ANYTHING else if you want to TRULY be inclusionary. I wasn’t even concerned about the title UNTIL Hugo made the point to say gender binary is bullshit... but then to say “meh, we didn’t come up with the title we’re just being complacent in it” Was sort of shitty. If you are trying to include people, then INCLUDE them. Don’t say “Hey I’m not transphobic, BUT....” There was no point of this disclaimer other than to point out you recognized a problem but would rather go along with it than change one word of the title of the show. Things only went down hill from there. A few minutes later as Hugo was wrapping up the monologue they wanted to get the crowd pumped before introducing the performers for the evening. To do this, Hugo had “all the women cheer!” (which they did) then followed by “now all the men!” (which they did). It turned out it was just a set up to make the men a punchline of a very stereotypical “feminist hate men” joke. These jokes are always obnoxious and yes, I recognize Hugo was trying to connect to the large feminist audience so we could all laugh at how society views us...but again, we were back at only acknowledging the gender binary.

Now I realize many people right now will think I’m being extremely cynical. “Kit, you can’t say someone is being trans exclusionary if they are a queer that self identifies as a transvestite!” But I can because they were. If you are going to mention nonbinary people. If you are going to make a point of talking about how the binary is bullshit. If you want to have a disclaimer that gender is a spectrum. It’s ALL or nothing. Inclusion isn’t “I acknowledged you, you should be happy” it’s “I acknowledged you AND included you with everyone else as if we’re all the same.

The monologue is over, I am properly uncomfortable and agitated, the performers come out. From the promises of topics, I expected diversity. Again, that nasty assuming sure got the better of me.

Instead I get two skinny women and one average sized woman. They all appear to be white (although one was painted head to toe in blue and pink body paint as a My Little Pony...and later I learned she isn’t actually white.) They’re naked. So I can tell body hair isn’t really happening. A bit of bush but perfectly smooth everywhere else. All have shoulder length or longer hair and present very feminine. Idk, again, maybe I was just so cynical by this point that I let my critic get away with me. I just wonder how hard it would be to find a more diverse cast? Am I just too deep in tumblr culture to expect to see different size bodies at a feminist reading? Or people with actual body hair, especially since there was a point of mentioning it in the monologue? Tattoos? Scars? Short hair? Disabilities? More racial diversity? (Again, the one woc was painted blue. And I feel shitty for thinking she was white but they could have included dark skinned people too.) Introductions are done. The de-robing has happened. We now have three naked women sitting on a couch. Let’s read “feminist propaganda”! Some pretty typical stuff, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, big names of the feminist movement. There was a reading of an MRA’s post from some MRA website. (Why are we giving MRA’s an audience at a FEMINIST reading?!) Intermission. During intermission, I got up the courage to go speak to Hugo and mention why I was peeved at the start of the show with the women/men division of the audience. They shrugged and said “well it was a set up to a punch line” I smiled and replied, “I realize that but don’t you think trans folks are the punch line enough?” They tried to back track but it got awkward and I walked away. Hugo does some “feminist” trivia during the break. Throwing prize bags of tampons and chocolate to whoever shouts the correct answer.

One question asks what does “SWERF” stand for. A woman yells the answer and Hugo repeats it back to the audience and says “Sex work exclusionary feminism isn’t feminism. Sex work is real work!” It would have been so easy to also educate about TERFs. They don’t. The irony is not lost on me.

More trivia. I win one. I’m told, “Here enjoy these tampons!” I catch it and yell back, “Not all women have vaginas” I turn to the women at our table and say, “Hello, I don’t need tampons and I hate chocolate. Enjoy” They gladly accept. Back to the readings... A dramatic reading of Spice Girl lyrics. Some very heteronormative erotica. A reading of a radfem manifesto of the 70s (that included very acephobic commentary) And then, the woman painted as a MLP says she’s going to read Ivan E Coyote. Now, for those of you who haven’t been blessed with reading their works or seeing Ivan perform (I just saw them again last week!), they are a trans writer from Canada. Very well known in LGBTQPIA circles. AMAZINGLY pure and moving stories and poems and “literary Doritos”. They are an amazing human being and have quickly become one of my favorite queer authors. SO I AM STOKED!! This night has been so cishet heavy and I’m crank, I am READY to end it with Ivan. Ivan has written four of five books, has mountains of published poetry and she chooses to read a piece that is so personal to me. She prefaces this with a quick word about Ivan being an LGBTQ author. But fails to mention they’re a trans masculine person who identifies as a Tom Boy. The piece starts out as a love letter to femmes who are often erased from Queer culture because they are “assumed” to be straight. But then turns to Ivan’s journey through figuring out they were trans and how they became jealous of femmes sometimes and how they will never be seen as who they are. How they will always be coming out of the closet over and over and over. Because their identity isn’t “visibly recognized” because it’s outside the binary. I sob every time I hear this poem because it is so personal to me. The first time I heard it was when Ivan performed in Chch last August. I was in the midst of struggling with how the world saw me and this poem touched a part of me I thought no one would <i>ever</i> understand. I sobbed again tonight. My flat mate patted my hand. She sobbed too for the same reasons. The journey to figuring out your identity can be so isolating, terrifying and lonely. But when you hear your story being told by someone who is on a stage, with an audience, talking as if your journey was the most normal and natural experience....it’s an emotional time. After she finished, the performer stated “As a cis woman, I obviously do not identity with the narrator. I do however think this poem speaks to me as a femme. Because we are often overlooked.” (This gets cheers from the audience) I feel sick inside. This cis woman just spoke the very personal words of a trans person bearing their soul and claimed it as a poem for her. No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to bend it to your whim. If you want to include poetry or stories about the trans experience, YOU FUCKING INCLUDE TRANS PERFORMERS. Thank god the night was over. My flat mate and I are sitting at our table deciding how to make our own event called “Naked Queers Reading” and how much better it would be. We’re minding our own business when out of the corner of my eye I see a crowd around the stage area. Of course. There’s a man who has taken off his shirt to pose with the naked women so he can get his buddy to take his picture. Of fucking course there is. That’s when we left. I don’t know if I am just lucky to live in such a comfortable Queer circle of friends that I’ve become blind to the world of heternormative, patriarchal bullshit or if I am truly too fucking cynical to go out in public...but fuck was I disappointed with tonight. Anyway, if you made it through this entire post, thank you. I promise I’ll post a really lovely story about the library tomorrow. Right now I want to watch Ivan E Coyote performances on YouTube and drink my tea from my Unicorn Elixer mug.

#long post #feminism #tw: transphobia #nonbinary #transgender #about me 2k17 #story time #/rant

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pianosmasher · 6 years

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Hey Ross! Curious to hear your thoughts on this - what is the role of the theatre in 2018? Is it dead, or does it still provide a space for society to ask conplex and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the human condition?

The first thing I should do before answering this question is qualify my relationship with theater. I’ve been a fan of theater since I was a child, having seen classics like Beauty and the Beast, Oliver, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera at a young age, and then later straight plays like an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. I like to read and imagine theater just as much as I like to see it, too, and used to count Death of a Salesman and Galileo among my favorite books in general in high school. But I’ve been, either explicitly or implicitly, discouraged from the stage since I was a child as well. I was not, as my mother put it, a “dramatic” child (though I wonder if her position would change if she looked through my history on this site?), and I tried my hand at producing a show to see if there was a place for me behind the curtain, but the experience was underwhelming at best and more than a little toxic at worst, so I don’t think I’ll do that again. So just, whatever I say, it’s coming from someone with a near-drought of inside information. By my estimation, I haven’t done this long enough to speak with the proper nuance required for a solid answer. Disclaimer over.

“Role” is a tricky word for me because it doesn’t quite fit into how I view media. “Role” implies that it’s supposed to do something for someone, that it even has a responsibility towards doing that thing. But the first thing I do when I sit down in any theater is ask myself one simple question: “what did everybody make?” It’s a collaborative medium, after all. Watching a production, my mind is racing from one aspect of the design to another - how would this read on paper? what is the lighting doing for the scene? what choices are the actors making? did they even hire a sound designer? All of those questions can get answered in exciting or disappointing ways, and that roller coaster of answers and emotions results in my critique of what I’ve watched. As much as I hate to admit it, I really am a critic above all else. I don’t measure a work’s effectiveness based on what I think all works in that medium should do. I try to just meet the work where it is and see if it accomplishes what it set out to do, and if it’s worth doing as well.

So, does theater provide a space for complex, uncomfortable questions and issues to be explored? That depends on what everyone makes. If the lighting designer, for example, didn’t take any risks with her work, then the play is less risky for it. That doesn’t mean it’s worse, just closer to the comfort zone than otherwise. If everyone - writer, director, designer, actor, etc. - decides to phone something in and entirely depend on proven methods, then theater of that caliber stays in place. That’s true in any collaborative medium. Theater can provide that kind of space, but theater is a means to do so. It’s the creative team behind the scenes that has to make theater challenging for the audience.

The real question here, I think, is “do theater people want theater to adapt, or die?” And as someone who spent an opening paragraph discounting my authority on the subject, I’m sure you can guess that I’m not the one who can answer that question. I don’t put the productions on (anymore). I just attend whatever I’m invited to. I’ve been to all kinds of shows living by that principle. I’ve been to Broadway just as much as I’ve squeezed my way into a basement with six chairs, props, and a sleeping bag for a stage. There’s not a lot about theater I don’t like, and with every new show I see, I enjoy having my mind blown by what’s possible in theater, as well as all the fun ways it can return to form, too.

I’ll leave you with this: I tried writing a play recently. 73 pages, about an hour and a half one-act. One room, two scenes, six characters, minimal props, very standard stuff, but since the material was written by an amateur, it has none of the theatrical instincts present in the content that an actual playwright would have (I know “theatrical instincts” is a vague term but I do mean something by it I’m just already on my fifth paragraph here). I asked my roommate, who’s done theater for twenty years now, for his input on the script. None of my feedback was about the format of the play, or the style of the dialogue, or the character development on display (if it was on display at all). It was about how one of my characters didn’t have any justification for being non-white (which, by the way, I don’t personally think “justification” is necessary), and about how another character was a grating pain in the ass to have onstage. To the latter, I responded, “oh yeah, the antagonist.” It really showed me just how much we, as theatergoers, take for granted in a well-made play, and what sticks out when the content doesn’t match the form.

I told him to read it again, this time without 12 Angry Men in his head feeding him expectations. And I think the possibility behind asking people to do that kind of thing will end up answering both our questions in time.

#Anonymous #Ask Ross #lotta text in this one #apologies in advance

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demitgibbs · 6 years

Text

‘Love, Simon’ Star Natasha Rothwell is Here to School the World

Oh, sure, actress Natasha Rothwell’s scene-stealing drama teacher in out director Greg Berlanti’s groundbreaking gay teen rom-com Love, Simon is bitter – and therefore, funny as all hell – about overseeing amateur teens in a student production of Cabaret. Hey, she had an oh-so-prestigious part in The Lion King musical! (As, um, an extra.)

But Ms. Albright is a dogged ally for life, demonstrating heartfelt compassion for her LGBTQ students when Simon and his queer schoolmate, Ethan, are bullied in the lunchroom. Enter Ms. Albright, who breaks up the fight in true Ms. Albright fashion: “That’s mine now,” she scolds, confiscating the bullies’ speaker. “I’m’ma sell it, get my tubes tied.”

Rothwell knows the teacher life well: She was a high school teacher in the Bronx for four years. Queer students confided in her, some even came out to her. Now, the 37-year-old actress and former SNL writer returns for a third season of actress-writer Issa Rae’s terrific HBO comedy Insecure, as Issa’s freewheeling, zero-fucks friend Kelli. And no details on her role just yet – she couldn’t reveal any during our recent interview, sorry – but Rothwell is also set to star in director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman sequel.

Plenty to chat about until then, though, including the importance of LGBTQ inclusion in her projects and her reaction to the criticism Love, Simon received for not being progressive enough.

Why do you think the women on Insecure have resonated with the queer community?

I think what attracts the queer community to Insecure is authenticity and seeing a group of women being celebrated on television for being their authentic selves. The courage that it takes for marginalized groups like the LGBTQIA community to be authentic – it’s so difficult and so brave and so admirable to do so that when you see a group of people doing that on screen I can understand why that resonates with the queer community. I feel that way when I see other marginalized groups of people on TV shown as full-fledged characters. I’m like, “Yes, yes, yes!”

It should be noted how effortlessly LGBTQIA just rolled off your tongue. You didn’t stumble over a single letter.

(Laughs) I think having been a part of Love, Simon and doing press for that I was like, “I’m gonna get this! They’re not gonna get me on camera or on tape!” Because I’m an ally through and through, and they better know I know what I’m talking about. (Laughs)

So, Kelli: Surely her unapologetic boldness – I mean, in season two, she got fingered at a diner – resonates with the community.

(Laughs) She was living her best life. She’s not gonna apologize for it. Until I got into my 30s, I felt like I was apologizing for being a woman, for being black. The beauty of playing Kelli is I get to have a character match how I now feel, and I get to play a woman who’s never known any different. Like, I imagine this is Kelli from the crib; when she was an infant, till now, she’s only ever known this version of herself. I love playing someone who doesn’t experience doubt in the way I do.

Do you write Kelli?

We all write Kelli. We’ll do internal table reads of the script and I’ll sit down and get to see what the other room was working on, and I’m like, “Oh shit, I’m getting fingered? OK!” It’s a real team effort to develop her and all the characters.

You’ve cited Lily Tomlin as an influence. How did she influence your comedic voice?

Female comedians that weren’t trapped by femininity is what resonated with me most. She was such a chameleon, subverting expectations. She plays a little girl (Edith Ann) and she’s sitting in this giant, oversized chair and having this monologue, and she’s so playful and inventive and completely embodies the POV of a small child, and using her body to tell a story. I just remember watching that and being obsessed.

You’re writing a rom-com called Bridal Recall for Paramount Pictures, and you also have a development deal with HBO to write and produce and star in your own project. Will the queer community have a place in those projects?

If I have a say. To me, I don’t think talking about inclusion and diversity is enough. We have to do it in actuality and in action. One of the brilliant things about Issa’s writers’ room? It’s not all black. We have representation from all over the spectrum. We have different sexualities represented, different ethnicities represented, and we can tell a nuanced story that way. So, I have every intention of making my writers’ room reflect the nuance that I want to tell in those stories, that I feel make worthwhile stories.

What did it mean to you to be a part of Love, Simon?

It meant everything. When I read the script and the book, I was just honored that I could participate in a project that really felt bigger than myself. The response has been insane and continues to be. People are discovering the movie even still and are responding to it in a really visceral way. I imagine it being that way for young people of color watching Black Panther for the first time. To me, that’s powerful to see your story represented and it’s not – it’s a love story first and a coming out story second.

It’s one of the things where it’s just, I want more of this. I want more people to see themselves represented in this very specific, common way that straight white people have had the privilege of. So, I want to see more of those stories being told, because I’m a child of the ’80s. John Hughes is my jam, and I loved Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. So, to see this story get that treatment was a magical thing. I will be forever grateful to Greg Berlanti for thinking that I could play Ms. Albright. He’s such a wonderful man and encouraged me and brought me to tears. He pulled me aside after I finished shooting and he was just like, “I have the same feeling about you I did when I directed Melissa McCarthy.” And I was like, “You just said a lot in that sentence!” And then I burst into tears. (Laughs)

Do gay fans recognize you as Ms. Albright on the street?

I don’t get “Hey, Ms. Albright!” I live in West Hollywood and the LGBTQIA community is en masse here and I love it. So, I’ll get recognized from Love, Simon and as Kelli, sometimes at the same time. It’s a great community, and I feel so welcomed and thankful for it.

In an episode during season two of Insecure, you and Issa call out Molly for being revolted by a male suitor because he has sexual history with another man. The episode acknowledges a glaring double-standard between men and women, and also hypermasculinity in black versus white communities. What part did you play in bringing that storyline to light?

We all talked about our experiences and something that would give us pause before entering into a relationship, or something that we wouldn’t even stop and think twice about. It varied by gender, by sexuality, by age. What boiled up to the top was the hypertoxic masculinity of communities of color, especially the black community. So, we really loved to present that specific part of the show to our audience because it caused conversation around the topic. One of the things that I love about our show is we don’t present answers – we present questions. We want people to have these conversations in a public way.

Recently, a massive Twitterstorm ignited when GQ featured the straight male cast in a photo spread that some deemed “gay.” One of the featured actors, Sarunas Jackson, called out the homophobic tone of the comments. I’m thinking, we’ve already been here.

We’ve already been here, we already did this, guys. We’ve already evolved. Let’s just move on. But this just goes to show that continued conversation and continued moments for educating yourself are helpful. One of the more palpable things that I think that photo spread did was spark that conversation again, so people can really, once and for all, understand their own toxic masculinity. I was shocked by the number of women jumping on board. I’m like, you were indoctrinated to think that way, and we have to unlearn some things in order to be the progressive, thoughtful, inclusive people that I know we are capable of being.

You responded to people who don’t feel represented by Insecure by telling them, well, then you tell your story, because no one story can encompass all of our stories. Love, Simon received similar criticism for featuring a white man in its lead role, versus someone of color. Would you respond to that criticism in the same way?

Absolutely. I think I would be remiss to say, “We did it guys. Let’s pack it up! We fixed it! We fixed inclusion in Hollywood!” I think that would be a gross mistake to be made. I don’t look at Insecure and even see myself represented all the time and I write on the show, because this is a story. This is Issa and her girlfriend in Inglewood, California. But what it requires is more art to be made to reflect those things that aren’t being shown. Let’s tell those stories because, if there’s anything I’ve learned when really resonating with audiences lately, it’s a hunger for diversity.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/09/20/love-simon-star-natasha-rothwell-is-here-to-school-the-world/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/178281727110

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cynthiajayusa · 6 years

Text

‘Love, Simon’ Star Natasha Rothwell is Here to School the World

Plenty to chat about until then, though, including the importance of LGBTQ inclusion in her projects and her reaction to the criticism Love, Simon received for not being progressive enough.

Why do you think the women on Insecure have resonated with the queer community?

It should be noted how effortlessly LGBTQIA just rolled off your tongue. You didn’t stumble over a single letter.

So, Kelli: Surely her unapologetic boldness – I mean, in season two, she got fingered at a diner – resonates with the community.

Do you write Kelli?

You’ve cited Lily Tomlin as an influence. How did she influence your comedic voice?

What did it mean to you to be a part of Love, Simon?

Do gay fans recognize you as Ms. Albright on the street?

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/09/20/love-simon-star-natasha-rothwell-is-here-to-school-the-world/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/09/love-simon-star-natasha-rothwell-is.html

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hotspotsmagazine · 6 years

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‘Love, Simon’ Star Natasha Rothwell is Here to School the World

Plenty to chat about until then, though, including the importance of LGBTQ inclusion in her projects and her reaction to the criticism Love, Simon received for not being progressive enough.

Why do you think the women on Insecure have resonated with the queer community?

It should be noted how effortlessly LGBTQIA just rolled off your tongue. You didn’t stumble over a single letter.

So, Kelli: Surely her unapologetic boldness – I mean, in season two, she got fingered at a diner – resonates with the community.

Do you write Kelli?

You’ve cited Lily Tomlin as an influence. How did she influence your comedic voice?

What did it mean to you to be a part of Love, Simon?

Do gay fans recognize you as Ms. Albright on the street?

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/09/20/love-simon-star-natasha-rothwell-is-here-to-school-the-world/

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

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6 Famous People Whose Origin Stories Are Dark Secrets

Nobody expects celebrities to actually be exactly the way they portray themselves publicly. Bruce Willis doesn’t go around killing terrorists every day (that probably happens, like, every other weekend). When you’re famous, it’s understood that you’ll have to bullshit a little and cultivate an image that appeals to your audience. But some do less cultivating and more top-to-bottom renovations. It’s always shocking when famous people turn out to be the complete opposite of what they’re famous for. And that’s the case with …

Kid Rock Was Born Rich And Grew Up In A Huge-Ass Mansion

No “celebrity goes into politics” story will ever be weird again, but the announcement that Kid Rock might run for Senate still managed to turn a few heads. After all, his biggest claim to fame was supposedly spending a summer “trying different things … smoking funny things,” and based on his ability to rhyme “things” with “things,” he surely has no better than an eighth-grade education, right?

Rock wants us to think he’s some rough-and-tumble country boy, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. His childhood home in Macomb County, Michigan recently sold for nearly $1.3 million, which we’re reasonably sure would be enough to buy whole towns around there. It turns out that his dad owned two luxury car dealerships and made some not-insignificant amounts of money.

Romeo High School “Your little rec center shall make a great showroom for our Bentleys. Papa will be most pleased.”

Mr. and Mrs. Rock’s “four-bedroom, four-bath, neo-Georgian colonial house” is over 5,000 square feet, has an indoor Jacuzzi, amenities out the wazoo, and the property itself contains an apple orchard. Rock has tried to flaunt his down-home country style and use it to smear politicians as “out of touch.” That doesn’t have the same gravity now that we know his past.

Adam Serwer/Twitter That’s a sad burger for so many reasons.

Rapper Rick Ross Was A Prison Guard

Florida rapper Rick Ross is best known for his songs about nonstop hustling and pushing it to the limit (“it” being all of the drugs). Hell, he got his name from a drug kingpin. That’s why it was kind of a shocker when it came out that Ross was a corrections officer (read: prison guard) prior to getting into the rap game.

After the story broke about his previous life of literally the opposite of crime, Ross originally denied it, but somehow the media managed to get ahold of pay stubs that proved it. For about two years in the mid-’90s, he worked as a CO in Florida. Granted, that makes him more of a badass than being a CO in, say, Terre Haute, Indiana, but it didn’t help his street cred any.

Florida Department of Corrections, Maybach Music Group His earliest songs were about how much he hated that Urkel kid who kept visiting his house.

Even 50 Cent took a jab at Ross in a rap to point out how dumb it was for Rozay to keep acting like he was something he wasn’t. After all, if you’re only learning about smuggling drugs and weapons from someone else’s case file instead of doing it yourself, can you sincerely say your raps come from the heart?

Probably thanks to some magical PR whiz, Ross finally owned up to his past. Rather than dismiss his old job as some kind of phase, he managed to call it a “hustle” in its own right. (We’re beginning to think that absolutely anything can be a hustle as long as one declares it so.)

Ron Jeremy Was A Special Education Teacher

Lots of people watch porn — about 67 percent of you are only reading this while you wait for some to load. Even the “casual” viewer can probably name a fair number of lady porn stars, but for some reason, about the only male porn actor most people can identify is Ron Jeremy. He’s been the mustachioed face of videotaped boning for decades, but believe it or not, that wasn’t really his Plan A.

On an episode of Judge Pirro, Jeremy admitted that his background was in theater, and that he’d gone on to get a master’s degree in special education. As in working with disabled kids.

Jeremy is happy to talk about his educator past, and always considered his teaching degree his fallback option, or “ace in the hole” (that’s probably not the only thing he’s called that). He majored in theater in college, and much like theater majors of today, he went and tacked on an education degree “just in case.”