#like use fiction use these larger than life portrayals of humanity to understand the world and understand people around you

[theghostofashton]

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[revenge-of-the-shit]

Writing Chinese characters set within Western worlds

If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, go check this out on medium or go follow me on instagram at @annessarose_writes!

Alright. You know what. I’ve seen plenty of stereotypes in fiction (and in social media) that are so incredibly pervasive I’ve seen many Chinese people within the western world internalize it themselves. So here’s a rough guide on writing Chinese characters in an English-speaking Western setting, written by me, a Chinese Canadian woman.

If you’re here to say something racist fuck off. Otherwise, welcome! This is not a comprehensive guide by any means. This is merely a brief overview based on my own experiences. My experience (as someone in North America) will differ from someone living in, say, Europe or South America. I’m not representative of every Chinese person because everyone’s experience is unique. So here were are.

1. Our names

Chinese names are usually written as follows: [family name] [name]. Let’s take a Canadian historical figure as an example: 黃寬先. In Chinese, it’s pronounced “Wong Foon Sien.” On Canadian documents — which are written [First name] [Last name], he’d be called “Foon Sien Wong.” He went by “Foon Sien” for most of his life. That’s his full “first name.” Nobody would call him Foon because that’s just half of his name (unless given permission). It’d be like meeting a stranger called Alex and calling them “Al” right off the bat. Sure, they could go by Al, but you don’t know that.

For those of us living in the Western world, some of us have both a Chinese name and an English name. In these cases, our Chinese name becomes our middle name in English (e.g. a character could be called John Heen-Gwong Lee).

For some people who immigrated to the Western world but were born in China, their legal name would be their Chinese name. Some choose to keep that name. Some choose an English name as their “preferred” name but keep their Chinese name on legal documents. It varies.

2. Parents & Stereotypes

There’s two stereotypes which are so pervasive I see it being used over and over in jokes even within Chinese (and, to a larger extent, asian) communities:

The [abusive] tiger mom and the meek/absent dad

Both parents are unreasonably strict/abusive and they suck

I have yet to see any fiction stories with Chinese parents where they’re depicted as kind/loving/supportive/understanding (if you have recommendations — please do send them my way). Not all Chinese parents are tiger parents. Chinese parents — like all parents — are human. Good god. YES, they’re human! YES, they have flaws! YES, they are influenced by the culture they grew up in!

That isn’t to say there aren’t parents like those tropes. There are. I know this because I grew up in a predominantly Chinese community where I had many a friend’s parent who was like this. Parents who compare their kids to the best kid in class. Parents who force kids into private lessons and competitions that the kid despises because the parents think it’s for the best. Parents who have literally called their kid a disappointment because they didn’t get 100%.

But please, also consider: there’s parents who support their child’s goals and who listen. Not all parents force their kid into the stereotypical trifecta of lawyer/doctor/engineer — I know of a good number who support their child in choosing the path they want. There’s parents who make mistakes and learn and try their best to support their child. So please, for the love of god, if you write a Chinese character, don’t reduce their parents to stereotypes.

3. Language & Learning

When I first read The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, I was so excited to see a Chinese Canadian character in Frank Zhang. Finally, there was someone like me. Finally, there was representation in well-known western media.

While I do appreciate that RR added in Frank Zhang, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t really know how to write a Chinese Canadian character. One of the most glaring examples: in The Son of Neptune, Frank reveals he can’t really read Chinese. In like, the next book (I think — it’s been a while since I read it), Frank is suddenly able to read Chinese because he “learned” it in two week’s time.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Learning Chinese is a pain, let me tell you. There’s thousands of different characters and it is something you need to devote a lot of time to learning (especially if you’re progressed past the best childhood years for learning a language). So if you’re writing about a Chinese character living in the western world, here’s what you need to know:

A character who was born and raised in the western world does not necessarily know how to read/write in Chinese.

If they were raised by their own family, the character would very likely know how to speak their own dialect. They’d be able to understand the language used in movies/TV and they sound like a native speaker, but they may not know how to use language outside of certain contexts (the term for this is heritage speaker).

They probably went to Chinese school. They probably hated it. Chinese school is usually universally hated and does not teach you jack shit other than a hatred for the place and a vague memory of learning how to read the language without actually retaining knowledge of what you learned.

Most of my friends who know how to read/write in Chinese learned from tutors, parents, or were born in China.

There’s two main types of written Chinese: Traditional (used by Cantonese speakers) and Simplified (used by Mandarin speakers).

There are MANY other dialects (which I don’t know much about). The most common ones are Mandarin (usually spoken by people from the mainland), then Cantonese (usually spoken by people from Hong Kong).

4. Fitting into the community

Usually, the story is one of two things: they’re the only Asian kid in the entire school, or they grew up in a predominantly East Asian community. Things to consider for both of these when you’re writing:

Growing up the only Asian kid

They’re “that Asian kid.” They’re different. They walk into a class and feel weird and out of place.

They bring food from home (usually ethnic cuisine) to school. Other classmates stare at it, make fun of it, demand what that strange food is.

“Where are you from?” “Here.” “No, like, where are you really from?”

“Your name is funny.”

People literally never getting the character’s name right.

And that horrible, horrible feeling: wishing that they were white so they could avoid all of this.

Growing up in a predominantly East Asian community

It’s not uncommon for Chinese cuisine to mix with other east Asian cuisines. For special occasions (or just for a casual night out), your character could very well go out to get some sushi, or go for some KBBQ, or get some Vietnamese noodles.

Screaming “AIYAA” at/with their friends unironically if they’re annoyed (I’ve done this a lot with Cantonese friends. Less so with Mandarin friends).

Slipping into Chinese for like, two words, during a mostly-English conversation to talk about food or some other topic that can’t be adequately conveyed in English.

Reading books by white authors and learning about white history and growing up thinking white names, white books, and white history is the norm and standard even though the community is surrounded by East Asian people.

When the character leaves this community, there’s a brief culture shock when they realize how sheltered they’ve been.

Things in common for both of these:

The character has grown up on ethnic cuisine. Yes, Chinese people do eat rice with many of our meals. Yes, boba (bubble) tea is extremely popular. No, rice isn’t the only thing we eat. No, not all Chinese people love boba (though as a Chinese person I admit this sounds sacrilegious to say…)

The character likely grew up watching film/TVthat originates from East Asia. It’s not uncommon to watch Studio Ghibli films. It’s not uncommon to watch Japanese or Korean shows with canto/mando dub (examples: Ultraman, Kamen Rider). If you want to see a classic Chinese film from Hong Kong that’s fucking hilarious, watch Kung Fu Hustle.

The character has felt or been told that they’re “too westernized to be Chinese, but too Chinese to fit into the western world.” They’re torn between the two.

5. General portrayal

It’s quite simple, really. We’re human. We’re regular people. We have regular hobbies like all people do. We’re good at some subjects and bad at others. We have likes and dislikes like all people do. So here’s a list of stereotypes you can avoid.

STEREOTYPES TO AVOID BECAUSE WE’RE REGULAR HUMANS AND WE DON’T FIT INTO A SINGLE COOKIE CUTTER SHAPE, DAMMIT.

The character is a maths whiz and perfect at all things STEM.

The character is a straight-A+ gifted/IB/AP student.

The character is the next coming of Mozart and is amazing at piano/violin.

The character’s free time is spent only studying.

The character is insanely good at martial arts.

The character is either meek and submissive or an explosive, dangerous force.

I’m not going to mention the other stereotypes. You know, those ones. The really obvious ones that make fun of and demonize (sometimes through multiple untruths) how we look and how we live our lives. You should know.

Of course, there are people who fit into one or more of these. That’s not the point. The point is: molding all Chinese characters to these stereotypes (which white media tends to do) is harmful and reductionist. We’re more than stereotypes.

—

6. Conclusion

We need more diversity in portrayal of Chinese characters. Reducing us into one-dimensional caricatures has done nothing but harm us — look at what’s happening now. This guide is by no means comprehensive, but I hope it has helped you by providing a quick overview.

If you want to accurately portray Chinese characters, do your research. Read Chinese fiction. Watch Chinese films/TV. Initiate a conversation with the community. Portray us accurately. Quit turning us into caricatures.

[juniaships]

Now I want to rewrite the whole show because of fucking course i would to he a generic adventure/world travelling action show and Kong is just a regular sized gorilla who don't fight the dino kaiju

Okay so! The show is more of a generic action cartoon, the characters travel all over the West Coast and beyond saving endangered animals from poachers. Just a reallg feel good cartoon with no overly horrible shit happening or DEEP LORE ONLY PHILOSOPHERS UNDERSTAND!! So like Wild Kratts, with a more Carmen Sandiego twist. Also Richard and Botila technically aren't EVIL they're still antagonistic but this time they have a more nuanced portrayal. Not that I'll be giving them any excuses for their actions but their more sympathetic qualities get expanded on.

Lukas Remy: Only a 1000x cooler than canon. Created his own search and rescue organisation with his inheritance. He's a tried and true California surfer boi, looks like a goody two shoes cinnamon roll but is actually rebellious and not a huge fan of the authorities but willing to work with them if its to save lives. Total wildlife enthusiast he has the closest connection to Kong. Estranged from his twin brother he seeks the chance to make amends He lost an eye in a childhood accident, a prosthetic and implants gives him some special abilities

Jonesy: Technician, Lukas's high school friend and co founder of their rescue team Jonesy may be the typical comic relief but he takes his job very seriously, and seems to possess Charles Atlas Superpowers. Has zero time for Richard's yt privilege nonsense, but all the time for Botila. Actually came from the East Coast, moved to Cali in ninth grade.

Cadenza: Lukas and Richard's spitfire childhood friend who grew up with them in Cali she lived her aunt, their nanny. She tries to figure out what to do in life and its at the opening day she meets the Remy bros again. After saving people from Richard's out of control Robot Lukas offers her a spot on his team, which pisses off Richard. OC

Richard: The "evil" twin but actually super salty about the accident that injured him and his twin. He dislikes nature so he looks towards technology as The Future. May or may not have gotten involved in the black market, which he needed the money to fund his Tech Start Up. Has a huge crush on Cadenza from the time they were kids, even modeling Botila's features off her; has a soft spot for his former nanny Anita and refuses to include her in his plans

Botila: Richard's robotic assistant who just has no time for his shit. She's comes off cold and aloof but the joke is she's a LOT more human than people give her for

Amy: Veterinarian at the zoological park, she helps monitor the park and devises the Team's Gadgets

Danny: Amy's brother who claims he can talk to animals but everyone shrugs him off. But the thing is he really CAN talk to animals

Fransiska: Cadenza's younger cousin, just as much of a spitfire but shares the one Braincell with Amy. A Lukas Fangirl who shares his passion for animals, and notices him and her cousin being a lore more than friendly

Kong: Named after the famous fictional ape, he's abnormally larger than most gorillas of his species and the team mascot. Kong is very warm and empathetic but be careful not to hurt his caretakers

Anita: Cadenza's aunt and guardian; and Fransiska's great aunt. She used to be the housekeeper and nanny for the Remy bros. Something of a Morality Chain for Richard she tries to help him learn the error of his ways. After Dr. Remy's death she received a large sum of his inheritance enough to retire.

Liv Remy: Lukas's and Richard's mom and Dr. Remy's ex wife. She lives in Maryland Massachusetts and gained full custody of Richard after the accident. Seemingly obsessed with the high life and hi- tech she actually adores her sons; this makes her blind to Richard's troubling behavior. Also an OC but pretty minor one

Commissioner Decker: a police chief at odds with Lukas, he's something of The Stern Uncle to both him and his brother. Kinda wary around Kong due to a past incidents involving way more vicious gorillas

Brag and Wheeler: Two poachers under the employ of their mysterious boss; they try to kidnap animals at the park or around Cali

Mysterious Man: Brag and Wheeler's boss they target the zoo park and especially has it out for Richard. Is responsible for the strange attacks all throughout Cali. Revealed at the end of the first season to Richard's former mentor who Richard sold out and now looking for revenge. They exist mainly as a reality check for Richard showing his actions DO have consequences. OC villain

Basically more emphasis on found family, giving the characters REAL character development and giving it its own voice instead of just being 7"King Kong In-Name-Only"

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Smart Characters

Since I started this blog, one of the most common questions I’ve received has to do with the portrayal of intelligent characters.  This is also one of the most difficult to answer -- excluding questions about characters with specialized knowledge sets, which are fairly easy to answer with source compilations.  Most of the questions have to do with:  how do you portray a smart character believably?  How do you make the audience relate to them?  Can I still make them likable?  How do I avoid the pitfalls of popular media?

Well, I’m finally here to answer, utilizing examples from some of my favorite (and occasionally, not-so-favorite) media.  Let’s jump in to the dos and don’ts of smart characters!

1.  Do let the audience follow the character’s thought process.  

As demonstrated by:  Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders

Albert Einstein allegedly once said, “If you can’t explain it to a five-year-old, you don’t truly understand it.”  And the sentiment rings true:  true genius doesn’t need to dazzle with big words and technobabble.  Instead, it makes the complex appear simple.

The same rings true for brilliant characters.  BBC’s Sherlock (more on that later) ceased to satisfy in its later seasons because it began to rely too heavily on visual glitz to avoid actually explaining its mysteries and how they were solved.  Similarly, the biggest complaints with block buster franchises -- Star Wars, The Avengers, Game of Thrones -- is that they became obsessed with “subverting expectations” cleverly instead of leading the audiences to their most logical and satisfying conclusions.

Meanwhile, the smartest and most satisfying media dazzles not by staying over the audience’s head, but by illustrating how simplistic the solutions can be.

Let’s start with my boy Tommy Shelby, the charismatic, swaggering protagonist of the charismatic, swaggering crime drama Peaky Blinders.  Using only his intelligence (and complete disregard for his own life/suicidal tendencies, but that’s not the point here), Tommy claws his way up from the near-bottom of the social ladder (an impoverished Romani in early 20th century Birmingham) to being a decorated war hero, to being the leader of a feared razor gang, to dominating the race track business, to becoming a business mogul, to becoming a member of parliament and trying to assassinate the leader of the fascist party. He’s also one of the paramount reasons why I’m bisexual.

So how can such a drastic social climb be conveyed believably?  Because Tommy -- as the viewpoint character -- is placed in seemingly inescapable situations, and then proceeds to demonstrate that the solutions to those situations have been there the whole time.  I recently watched a brilliant video on how this is done, which can be viewed here.

Early in season one, for example, he responds to aggressive new methods by the police by organizing a mass-burning of paintings of the king, and uses the press this garners to publicly shame the methods of the chief inspector who’s been antagonizing him.  In the next season, he talks his way into a deal by bluffing that he planted a grenade in his rival’s distillery.  My personal favorite is in season four, when he responds to being outgunned by a larger, American gang by contacting their rival -- none other than an Alphonse Capone.

All of Tommy’s victories are satisfying, because they don’t come out of nowhere -- we have access to the same information he does, each victory is carefully foreshadowed, and we are reminded at every turn that failure is a very real possibility (more on that later.)  So when he wins, we’re cheering with him.

Other examples:  Mark Watney from The Martian, who explains science in its most simplistic terms and with infectious enthusiasm.  He would make every character on The Big Bang Theory cry.  

Also, Miss Fisher from the AMAZING Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  The dazzling, 1920s, female Sherlock Holmes of your dreams.  I cannot recommend it enough.

To apply this to your own writing:  Remember you won’t dazzle anyone if you smack them in the face with a “brilliant” plot twist.  They want to take a journey with your character, not be left in the dust.  

Also, for everyone in my askbox concerned that they’re not smart enough to write intelligent characters, just remember how simple the problems confronting smart characters can be.  Put them in a difficult situation, and provide them with a means of getting out.  Then, just let them find it. 

2.  Don’t assume the audience is too stupid to keep up (or try to make them feel too stupid to keep up.)

As demonstrated by:  Sherlock Holmes from BBC’s Sherlock.

Say what you will:  there were reasons why everyone was so captivated by this show during its first two seasons.  It felt fresh.  People had yet to become frustrated with the inescapable thirst for Benedict Cumberbatch.  The writing was sharp, and the editing clever.  And it wove a tantalizing web of mysteries that demanded solution.  The problem was, there weren’t any.

The most frustrating for many was how Sherlock faked his death at the end of season two, after which devoted fans spent two years creating intricate theories on how he might have pulled this off.  The creators responded by mocking this dedication in the opening episode of season three, by showing a fan club spinning outlandish theories (one of which included Sherlock and Moriarty kissing.)  This might have been laughed off -- at the time, many seemed to consider it quite funny -- if the creators had bothered to offer their own explanation of how Sherlock survived.  They didn’t.  And so began a seemingly endless loop of huge cliffhangers that promised -- and consistently failed to deliver -- satisfying answers.

The most egregious examples occur in season four, which provided answers to questions no one asked, and withheld answers for things everyone wanted to know.  For example, did you know that the real reason Moriarty engaged Sherlock is because he was hypnotized by Sherlock’s secret evil sister?  The same one who killed Sherlock’s best friend, whom Sherlock convinced himself was a dog?  Yes, that was a real plot point, in the climax of the series.  It’s an effort to befuddle the audience with brilliant and unexpected writing, but instead pulled them out of a story they were already invested in and made them far more critical of its pre-existing faults. 

It’s pointed out in the brilliant (if bluntly named) Sherlock Is Garbage, And Here’s Why that Moffat can be a great writer, but is a consistently terrible show runner, because he’s more interested in dazzling the audience with cleverness than actually telling a satisfying story.  The video also points out that the show often implied Sherlock’s brilliance, without ever letting the audience follow along with his actions or thought-process in a way that DEMONSTRATED his brilliance.  

I highly recommend giving the aforementioned video a watch, because it is not only a great explanation of how Sherlock Holmes can be best utilized, but about how writing itself can be best utilized.

Other examples:  The Big Bang Theory.  As Wisecrack points out in their wonderful video on the subject, the punchline of every joke is “oh look, these characters are smart nerds!” which is repetitious at best and downright insulting at worst.

How to avoid this in your writing:  Treat the audience as your equal.  You’re not trying to bedazzle them, you’re trying to take them on a journey with you.  Let them be delighted when you are.  Don’t constantly try to mislead them or hold intelligence over their head, and they will love you for it.  Also, cheap tricks do not yield a satisfying story:  readers will know when you went into a narrative without a plan, and they won’t appreciate it.

3.  Do remember that smart people can be kind and optimistic!

As demonstrated by:  Shuri from Black Panther.

Yes, brilliant people can be unhappy and isolated by their intelligence, or rejected by society.  But remember that intelligence isn’t synonymous with a cantankerous attitude, or an excuse to be a pugnacious ass to those around you!  

Part of the reason why Shuri of 2018′s Black Panther was such a breath of fresh air was the fact that she subverted almost all preconceptions about how a genius looks, acts, and regards the world.  And it’s not just the fact that she isn’t a sullen, middle-aged white man that makes her stand out:  Shuri has an effervescent attitude, and genuinely loves contributing to her country and family.  She referred to sound-proof boots as “sneakers” (and then explained the pun when her brother didn’t get it.)  She’s fashionable.  She teases her older brother, and cries when he is apparently killed.  She’s up on meme culture.  This makes her unlike pretty much every other genius portrayed in the MCU.

Except maybe the Hulk.  He can dab now.

Shuri is also allowed to take pride in her genius, and can be a bit insufferable about it, which makes her more enjoyable and rounded.  But she is an excellent example of how genius can be explored and portrayed in fiction, and I will forever be embittered that she was underutilized in Infinity War and Endgame.

Why, for example, are all geniuses portrayed as arrogant misanthropes?  Albert Einstein battled depression, but he is also said to have enjoyed blowing bubbles and watching puppet shows.  He was kind to those who knew him.  Similarly, Alan Turing behaved little like his fictional counterpart, described as “shy but outgoing,” with a love of being outdoors.  Nikola Tesla fell in love with a pigeon.  Why do we have to portray these people so damn gravely?

Other examples:  Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.  Also an excellent portrayal of an intelligent person on the autism spectrum, as he struggles to interface socially but cares profusely for his fellow human beings.  He is brilliant, and completely precious.

Also, Sherlock Holmes -- the original version, and all faithful adaptations thereof.  Anyone who thinks Sherlock is an austere, antisocial jerk isn’t familiar with the original canon.  He blushed when Watson complimented his intelligence, for God’s sake. 

Then there’s Elle Woods from Legally Blonde and Marge from Fargo.  Brilliant, upbeat, optimistic geniuses.

To apply this to your own writing:  If you have a smart character who hates everyone around them for no identifiable reason, ask yourself why this is necessary and what this adds to the plot.  Are they angry about injustice, towards themselves or others?  Are they frustrated with an inability to relate to people?  Do they want to protect themselves or their family at all costs, including politeness?  If not, question why your brilliant character can’t also be kind to those around them.

4.  Don’t make your character perfect at everything they do.

As demonstrated by:  Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Ah, Wesley.  Some call him the original Mary Sue, and it’s one of the only times I’ve seen the term applied with some accuracy.  He is somehow the most gifted and least qualified person on The Enterprise.  He’s Hermione Granger without the charm, jumping in to answer questions before any of the trained officers in the room have the chance to, always in the right.  His only obstacle?  Why, the boorish adults he’s surrounded with simply don’t understand his brilliance!

As early as the series’ very second episode, Wesley -- inebriated by an alien illness -- forcibly takes over the ship from Captain Picard, only to later save it from a threat with a reverse tractor beam of his own design.  

Wesley was obviously inserted as a means of attracting younger viewers, but failed egregiously, because he was too annoyingly perfect for kids to relate too, and not cool enough for them to be invested in.  I binge-watched the various Star Trek series in my youth for Spock, Data, and my wife Seven of Nine, not to watch seasoned military and scientific officers get lectured by an adolescent.  Even Wil Wheaton, who had the misfortune of portraying this character, expressed a dislike for him.  

Precocious children are great, if you get them right.  But get them wrong, and they can easily become your most annoying character, marring the face of otherwise great media.  The most important thing you can do for a brilliant character is endow them with weaknesses and flaws -- even something as small as Shuri’s fondness for teasing her older brother made her enjoyable, as anyone with siblings could relate to their dynamic.  

But, what if you want a supernaturally talented character who not only fails to be a ray of sunshine, but is something of an arrogant, antisocial jerk?  Can they still work, especially if they also happen to be a child? 

Yes, under one extremely important condition:

5.  Do keep your characters out of their depth!

As demonstrated by:  Number Five from Umbrella Academy.

Okay, he’s not exactly a child.  He’s a fifty-eight-year-old trapped in a child’s body, who’s traveled back in time from a post-apocalyptic future to warn his siblings of an incoming Armageddon.  In other news, Umbrella Academy is a weird show.  Unlike the comics, however, the apes don’t engage in prostitution. 

 The effect, however, remains the same:  a preternaturally talented child who talks down to everyone around him, including his (apparently) older siblings.  So why does he work while Wesley fails so egregiously?

For one thing, it’s demonstrated early on that Five has the skills to back up his sanctimonious attitude, with the delightfully ultraviolent Istanbul (Not Constantinople) sequence.  It also helps that he lacks Wesley’s squeaky-clean moral code, to the point at which he can get drunk in public or kill without remorse.  

But:  the element most vital to his success as a character is the fact that he’s kept completely, and consistently, out of his depth.  He knows the world will end in eight days, but he doesn’t know how this will transpire or how to stop it.  Ultimately, he fails again to stop the apocalypse, and must travel back in time with his siblings for another chance.  

Most authors have the impulse to demonstrate a character’s brilliance by allowing them to succeed against insurmountable odds, but the Umbrella Academy writers show tremendous wisdom in allowing Five to fail.  This allows the audience to empathize with him, and countermands the effects of his arrogant attitude.

This advice isn’t just true for pint-sized prodigies.  Look back over this list, and take notes of how often the most successful characters are allowed to fail, to have flaws, and to ascend past their comfort zone.  

Other examples:  Virtually every successful example on this list.

Tommy Shelby, a character of limitless ambition, conducts a new, perilous climb outside of his social rank each season, which almost always puts him in positions of mortal danger.  He faces threats both external (rival gangs, evil priests, and rising fascists) and internal (hello PTSD, suicidal tendencies, and crippling addiction) but either way, we understand that his fast-paced climb is not for the weak-willed or faint-hearted.  

Mark Watney is a brilliant scientist who has been stranded in an utterly impossible situation for which absolutely no one could be adequately prepared (spoilers:  it’s on Mars.)  We are drawn in by his plight, and how he could possibly escape from it, and there we come to admire him for his courage, optimism, and humor.

Shuri, though not the main character of Black Panther, is allowed to show off both tremendous gifts and vulnerability, as she is powerless to stop the apparent death of her beloved older brother.  She watches Wakanda’s takeover both as an innovator and a young woman, and a large reason for her success is that she is allowed to be both.  

How to apply this to your writing:  When portraying intelligent characters, take stock of how often they fail, their level of control over their surroundings, their vulnerability, and their flaws.  We don’t want to read about flawless deities.  We want to read about characters who embody and personify our humanity.  So remember they need to fall down in order to pull themselves up.

Happy writing, everybody! 

[raptured-night]

Hello, I have two questions this time. Why do you think we can’t really compare Death Eaters to Nazis? Why can’t we really compare purism with racism? Oh and do you think Death Eaters are more like nowadays’ terrorists or not?

So, it's no secret that I have drawn attention to the issue of Death Eaters being treated as literal stand-ins for Nazis or blood purism as a literal example of racism. Importantly, there is a difference between acknowledging the ways that Death Eaters or blood purity might work as semi-functional allegories for the Nazis and their ideology, white supremacy, racism, etc., and treating fictional representations of invented prejudices as if they were comparable or on par with non-fictional Nazi ideology, white supremacy, or systemic racism.

An article for Medium makes this point very well:

Silent resisters and ‘I don’t really care about politics’ people deserve our contempt. But what makes those who filter life through fiction and historical revisionism worse is that they are performing a soggy simulacrum of political engagement.

As a woman of colour watching, all I can do here is amplify the call to step away from your bookshelf. Let go of The Ring. My humanity exists independently of whether I am good or bad, and regardless of where the invented-fictional-not-real Sorting Hat puts me.

Realise that people are in danger right now, with real world actions needed in response, and not just because you want to live out your dreams of being Katniss Everdeen.

The problem with discussing Harry Potter’s fictional examples of prejudice as if they were literal or completely comparable with real-life prejudices is that it does lead to an oversimplification of the reality of prejudice (whether white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia --looking at you Jo-- or otherwise) and the very real people who experience these prejudices every day. The fantasy of being Harry Potter up against Umbridge or Voldemort in a YA series where the line between the good and bad guys is almost clearly denoted by the narrator is a far cry from the reality of what activism is or what living under oppression is like for many marginalized people. 

I would argue that this is also a leading reason why the “social justice” (yes, in many cases I believe that deserves to be enclosed in dubious quotations) discourse in Harry Potter fandom trends more towards performative than it does sincere (one need only look at the defense posts for Rowling in response to real marginalized groups criticizing her for things ranging from her offensive representation of Asian people, Indigenous and Native peoples, or her failures in representing the lgbtq+ community particularly in light of her coming out as an open TERF and they can get an idea of how those “I’m an intersectional feminist/social justice ally and that’s why I read HP!” fans quickly shift gears to throw the bulk of their allyship behind Rowling instead) because when you spend all of your time debating fictional prejudices it’s much easier to detach oneself from the reality of non-fictional prejudice and its impact on real people.

Fiction has no stakes. There is a beginning, middle, and end. In Rowling’s fictional world, Harry Potter ends with Harry and “the side of light” the victor over her allegorical representation of evil and he gets his happily-ever-after in a world we are led to believe is at peace and made a better place. In the real world, decades after the fall of Hitler, there are still Nazis and white supremacists who believe in the glory of an Aryan/pure-white race and are responsible for acts of violence towards marginalized groups; even after the fall of the Confederacy in the U.S. we are still debating the removal of monuments erected in their honor (and the honor of former slave owners and colonialists like Christopher Columbus) while the nation continues mass protests over the systemic police brutality Black people and other people of color have long faced (not to mention the fact the KKK are still allowed to gather while the FBI conspired to destroy the Black Panther Party and discredit them as a dangerous extremist organization).

As a professor in literature, I’ve often argued that fiction can be a reflection of reality and vice versa. Indeed, it can be a subversive tool for social change and resistance (e.g. Harlem Renaissance) or be abused for the purposes of propaganda and misrepresentation (e.g. Jim Crow era racism in cartoons). So, I am not underscoring the influencing power of fiction but I do believe it is important that when attempting to apply fictional representations to real-world issues we do so with a certain awareness of the limitations of fiction. As I have already observed, there is an absence of real-world stakes for fiction. Fictional stories operate under a narrative structure that clearly delineates the course they will take, which is not the case for real life. In addition, the author’s own limitations can greatly affect the way their fiction may reflect certain non-fictional issues. Notably, a close reading of Harry Potter does reveal the way Rowling’s own transphobic prejudices influenced her writing, not least in the character of Rita Skeeter (but arguably even in her failed allegory for werewolves, which are supposed to reflect HIV prejudices, but she essentially presented us with two examples of werewolves that are either openly predatory towards children or accidentally predatory because they canonically can’t control themselves when their bodies undergo “transformations” that make them more dangerous and no surprise her most predatory example, Fenrir Greyback, seems to have embraced his transformation entirely versus Lupin who could be said to suffer more from body dysmorphia/shame). 

Ultimately, fiction is often a reflection of our non-fictional reality but it is not always an exact reflection. It can be a simplification of a more complex reality; a funhouse mirror that distorts that reality entirely, or the mirror might be a bit cracked or smudged and only reflecting a partial image. Because fiction does have its limits (as do authors of fiction), writers have certain story-telling conventions on hand through which they can examine certain aspects of reality through a more vague fictional lens, such as metaphor, symbolism, and allegory. Thus, the Death Eaters can function on an allegorical level without being problematic where they cannot when we treat them as literal comparisons to Nazis or white supremacist groups (particularly when we show a greater capacity for empathy and outrage over Rowling’s fictional prejudice, to the extent we’ll willingly censor fictional slurs like Mudblood, than we do real-world examples of racism and racial microaggressions). As an allegory, Voldemort and his Death Eaters can stand in for quite a few examples of extremism and prejudice that provoke readers to reflect more on the issue of how prejudice is developed and how extremist hate-groups and organizations may be able to rise and gain traction. Likewise, blood prejudice looked at as a fictional allegory goes a lot further than when we treat it as a literal comparison to racism, wherein it becomes a lot more problematic. 

I’ve discussed this before at length, along with others, and I will share some of those posts to give a better idea of some of the issues that arise when we try to argue that Voldemort was a literal comparison to Hitler, the Death Eaters were literal comparisons to Nazi, or that blood purity is a literal comparison to racism.

On the issue of blood prejudice as racism and Death Eaters as Nazis, per @idealistic-realism00.

On the issue of blood prejudice as racism, my own thoughts.

On the issue of Death Eaters and literal Nazi comparisons, per @deathdaydungeon and myself. 

Finally, as I have already argued, the extent to which fiction can function as a reflection of non-fictional realities can be limited by the author’s own perceptions. In the above links, you will note that I and others have critiqued Rowling’s portrayal of prejudice quite thoroughly and identified many of the flaws inherent in her representations of what prejudice looks like in a real-world context. The very binary (i.e. good/bad, right/wrong, dark/light) way that she presents prejudice and the fact that her villains are always clearly delineated and more broadly rejected by the larger society undermines any idea of a realistic representation of prejudice as systemic (we could make a case for an effort being made but as her narrative fails to ever properly address prejudice as systemic in any sort of conclusive way when taken along with her epilogue one can argue her representation of systemic prejudice and its impact fell far short of the mark, intended or otherwise). In addition to that, the two most notable protagonists that are part of her marginalized class (i.e. Muggle-born) are two comfortably middle-class girls, one of whom is clearly meant to be white (i.e. Lily) and the other who is most widely associated with the white actress (Emma Watson) who played her for over a decade before Rowling even hinted to the possibility Hermione could also be read as Black due to the casting of Noma Dumezweni for Cursed Child.

Overall, Rowling is clearly heavily influenced by second-wave feminist thought (although I would personally characterize her as anti-feminist having read her recent “essay,” and I use the term loosely as it was primarily a polemic of TERF propaganda, defending her transphobia, and reexamined the Harry Potter series and her gender dichotomy in light of her thoughts on “womanhood”) and as far as we are willing to call her a feminist, she is a white feminist. As a result, the representation of prejudice in Harry Potter is a distorted reflection of reality through the lens of a white feminist whose own understanding of prejudice is limited. Others, such as @somuchanxietysolittletime and @ankkaneito have done well to point out inconsistencies with Rowling’s intended allegories and the way the Harry Potter series overall can be read as a colonialist fantasy. So, for all of these reasons, I don’t think we should attempt to make literal comparisons between Rowling’s fictional examples of prejudice to non-fictional prejudice or hate groups. The Death Eaters and Voldemort are better examined as more of a catch-all allegory for prejudice when taken to it’s most extreme. Aicha Marhfour makes an important point in her article when she observes:

Trump isn’t himself, or even Hitler. He is Lord Voldemort. He is Darth Vader, or Dolores Umbridge — a role sometimes shared by Betsy DeVos or Tomi Lahren, depending on who you’re talking to. Obama is Dumbledore, and Bernie Sanders is Dobby the goddamn house elf. Republicans are Slytherins, Democrats are Gryffindors.

The cost of making these literal comparisons between Voldemort or the Death Eaters to other forms of extremism, perceived evil, or hate is that we impose a fictional concept over a non-fictional reality and unintentionally strip the individual or individuals perpetrating real acts of prejudice or oppression of some of their accountability. I can appreciate how such associations may help some people cope and for the readers of the intended age category of Harry Potter (i.e. YA readers) it might even be a decent primer to understanding real-world issues. However, there comes a point where we must resist the impulse to draw these comparisons and go deeper. Let Voldemort and the Death Eaters exist as allegories but I think it is important we all listen to what many fans of color, Jewish fans, lgbtq+ fans, etc. are saying and stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by treating these fictional characters and their fictional prejudices as if they were just as real, just as impactful, and just as deserving of our empathy and outrage as the very real people who are living daily with very real prejudices --because they’re not equal and they shouldn’t be. 

[aion-rsa]

The Little Things Reminds Us Why We’re Drawn to Charismatic Serial Killers

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This The Little Things analysis contains spoilers. Read our spoiler-free review here.

The Little Things can be seen as a tainted police procedural with its murky ambiguity and troubling ending. But it’s also the story of a man for whom the allure of a charismatic serial killer goes too far. After all, serial killers make up less than one percent of homicides but they average a double-digit percentage of Hollywood crime films, and probably a majority of prison fan mail. What is it about these one-percenters we love so much?

Directed by John Lee Hancock, the supposed sociopath in The Little Things is Albert Sparma, a drifter who works as a repairman. Jared Leto is certainly magnetic in the part, serving Sparma up with a now-stereotypical “charismatic serial killer” vibe. But the Oscar-winning actor also brings an ambiguous energy to the part, suggesting he may merely be a serial killer groupie.

Albert Sparma is a self-identifying true crime afficionado and has taken his fanboy fancy so far as to actually confess to a murder he didn’t commit. That could be seen as some dangerous roleplay or surveying a battle ground for future maneuvers.

Sparma is perfectly thrilled when he’s pulled into the interrogation room to face off against Det. Jimmy Baxter (Rami Malek). He luxuriates in the tension, and loves the décor. He stands in vast contrast to Stan Peters (Frederick Koehler), quite possibly the actual murderer, who’d earlier responded to the room with an almost claustrophobic paranoid mania.

But Peters is not the charismatic type. Leto’s Albert, meanwhile, has a bad boy quality which is just irresistible. At least it is to Denzel Washington’s measured portrayal of Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe “Deke” Deacon, who sees the makings of a young Ted Bundy in the suspect. Recall that in Joe Berlinger’s bloodless feature film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, Zac Efron plays Bundy with an abundance of charm. The film came out amid a glut of documentaries about one of the most well-known serial killers from the late 20th century, and Twitter exploded with posts about how attractive Bundy was. 

Albert Sparma could have been his biggest fan.

Leto doesn’t bring the clean-cut, all-American hunk to his serial killer. He’s the rebel. His hair hangs so long, he has to move it out the way when he cooks. Sparma goes to strip clubs before cruising the strip. He wins a drag race with Deke while still in park. He plays so many mind games with Baxter his head explodes.

Dennis Lynn Rader, aka the BTK Killer, taunted the police by sending letters describing the details of his crimes. That’s an old trick though, going all the way back to Jack the Ripper, who also wrote to Scotland Yard about his alleyway antics. Son of Sam, the Lipstick Killer, the Golden State Killer, even the Axeman of New Orleans dropped personal notes on current events to the authorities. The Zodiac Killer wrote his in code.

They also sent letters to the newspapers. Sparma collects clippings and is up on all the true crime literature. Some people are attracted to serial killers out of a necessity to understand their acts. It is outside their reality, and it is even a coping mechanism. News reports explain how, but they don’t explain why such unimaginable crimes can be committed. They want to know how someone can go so dark. If Sparma is truly just a “confessor,” as even Det. Baxter finally accepts, that confession shows one aspect of the depths of his kind of obsession.

Some serial killer followers might be drawn out of the curiosity of how it feels to take a human life.

The body count in The Little Things is only four when Deke first double parks at the station. It grows as the case draws attention. Real-life serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer became celebrity monsters because of the attention they got from law enforcement and the media, and a collective curiosity for the macabre makes them larger than life. John Wayne Gacy committed his atrocities in a Pogo the Clown suit. And Sparma’s repairman overalls are a little baggy.

While Bundy was on trial, representing himself, he proposed to a woman, who not only accepted but married the convicted murderer, and conceived a daughter with him. Even in prison, Bundy received marriage proposals and love letters, as did Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Chris Watts, and Charles Manson. Some may be drawn to the serial killer hoping to spark some transformation in an irredeemable beast; others might be prone to Hybristophilia, otherwise known as “Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome;” and some are just drawn toward the bright light of fame in any shade.

In Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson’s Mickey Knox is a mass murderer, not a serial killer, by strict definition. Nonetheless, when he and his wife Mallory (Juliette Lewis) are walked up the stone steps to the courthouse, they are surrounded by adoring fans waving signs like “Kill Me Mickey.” Stone was making pointed social commentary in a fictional film, but his scenario was all too real.

Read more

Movies

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By David Crow

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By Ryan Lambie

The Little Things is not based on a true story. It goes back to a screenplay Hancock wrote in 1993, which was too dark for Steven Spielberg. For inspiration, Hancock had to look no further than California serial killers in the 1980s like the Grim Sleeper and Randy Kraft.

Written before the glut of serial killer movies took hold in the 1990s, The Little Things is similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and the then-recent Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) in that they are psychological thrillers, as opposed to the proto-slasher Leatherface in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Yet all three of those films, from Norman Bates to Hannibal Lecter, were inspired by Ed Gein, who confessed to killing two people as well as digging up corpses from local cemeteries in the 1950s. Gein became internationally famous after being profiled in the book Psycho by Robert Bloch.

It’s no wonder an anonymous drifter might find comfortable skin to wear while traversing a sad, sick world. Sparma certainly walked the walk, and was up on his psychopathic patter.

“They are so friendly and so kind and very solicitous at the beginning of our work together,” forensic psychiatrist Helen Morrison wrote in her 2004 book My Life Among the Serial Killers. “They’re charming, almost unbelievably so, charismatic like a Cary Grant or a George Clooney.”

Sparma does everything short of asking Baxter for an autograph during their first meeting. Serial killer fans have been known to spend hundreds of dollars for a lock of a murderer’s hair. John Schwenk, a true crime afficionado from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, has gotten follicles, false teeth, and even dental floss from serial killers on death row. He is a collector of murderabilia, and his portfolio includes a sketch of a skull by Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez and a portrait by John Wayne “The Killer Clown” Gacy.

A Texas senator named John Cornyn began pushing a bill to ban the sale of crime-related materials in 2007. It must have sounded like a good idea to the federal government. They pulled in $232,246 auctioning off the Unabomber’s belongings in 2011. Rodney Alcala, who was sentenced to death in California for five murders, put himself up for a romantic racket bid on a September 1978 installment of The Dating Game.

The Little Things reaches a satisfyingly ambiguous conclusion. The best evidence in the case is a boxful of newspaper clippings. Are they forensically clean trophies of past dark victories, or are they a scrapbook from one of the biggest true crime fanatics on the planet?

Charismatic serial killers are a movie stereotype now. Leto helps twist this trope by letting his character buy so completely into it we don’t know if he’s become one or is merely a victim.

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[siriusist]

3, 7, 9, 15, 18

booknet ask game (Apologies for the delay!):

3. what was the last book you rated 1/5? 

Probably this horrific and justifiably priced 0.25 cent paperback I got from the library book sale. I care so little about the title I’m not even going to bother getting up to look at it, but basically it was somehow involving a mystery on a liner heading to New York, and The Kennedys circa 1941 when Joe (’God what a terrible person’) Kennedy was ambassador to England (And casual Nazi supporter/isolationist, lovely).

But the book promises you that it will mostly talk about Rosemary Kennedy as a character. Which I liked, because in case you don’t know, Rosemary Kennedy was JFK’s sister who was considered the ‘prettiest’ of all the Kennedy girls, but also constantly was on a diet because she ‘put on weight easily’ (Poor girl), and because she was seen as ‘simple.’ Supposedly when she was in her early twenties, she had the mental capacities or a naive thirteen year old/ writing level of an eight year old. They kept basically shoving her into boarding schools to try to push her forward in terms of education, but obviously when she most likely had something like a severe case of autism, there weren’t exactly many programs that directly addressed those who were learning disabled, and being a Kennedy, they most likely were like PUSH HER THROUGH IT AND SHE’LL BE FINE (Great, thanks guys).

All this being said, there is proof in terms of letters that basically everyone was afraid, because once she became a teenager, she started running away from these schools or sneaking out late at night, and they were literally worried because of how ‘naive’ she was, that she’d end up getting pregnant by some weirdo guy forcing himself on her/ convincing her to have sex. What most normal people/historians think now, is that she saw her brother being John F. Kennedy, El Primo Playboy of the World 1941, dating movie stars and having a buttload of friends (As my older brother used to say), and she obviously wanted to be involved in this glamorous, fun life with the rest of her family, rather than shoved away at some crappy boarding school with nuns the age of time immemorial (Understandable). (Also, for what it’s worth, JFK basically WAS a great older brother, for what I’ve heard, and wanted his parents to loosen up on her. He involved her in his social groups if she was around and never pushed her into anything that someone with her ‘limitations’ might be hurt by).

So of course the natural thing would be to do is to give her a lobotomy so she doesn’t run away, and of course, it had some horrific side effects and basically killed her personality entirely from all accounts, making her basically a human vegetable with only a shadow of the person she’d been before. After that Joe ‘I’m the Worst’ Kennedy carted his daughter off, and debatably, depending on who you ask, she was basically ignored by most of the family for 60+ years of her living in a care home, or embraced in private (The Kennedy message/propaganda/nice try guys). There’s really only consistent public photos of Ted Kennedy visiting her, because besides the whole ‘I accidentally murdered a woman I was having an affair with’ thing, Ted was the baby and seemed actually like ironically the most ‘Christian’ in the most broadest sense of the word besides Bobby Kennedy (Yes, I know they’re Catholic, it’s an analogy).

So bringing this back to this awful book, the ‘mystery’ on the cruise liner shit basically seemingly revolves around Rosemary pre-lobotomy and how she wants to get married to a ‘coloured jazz man.’ BUT THIS NEVER FACTORS INTO THE PLOT. NONE OF THE HISTORICAL FIGURES ABOARD DO EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE ‘POV’ CHAPTERS ASIDE ORIGINAL CHARACTERS.

You heard me right. xD I KNOW IT’S THE 1940S IN THE BOOKS AND THERE’S FAR WORSE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE AND THE JAZZ MAN IS NICE AND ALL BUT DAMN IT’S SORT OF THE WORST, BECAUSE THEY BASICALLY MAKE THIS THE ENTIRE REASON FOR HER LOBOTOMY AND WHILE THEORETICALLY IT WOULD FIT IN WITH JOE’S MOTIVATIONS HISTORICALLY, IT JUST CAME OFF AS SUPER SKEEZY AND UGH. Mostly the book A) Actually did a considerable job giving Rosemary a sweet and loving personality that you like, but considering what you know if you’re probably reading this book and how they’re just dropping bread crumbs the entire way through, it’s just incredibly morbid and bleh. 

If you’re going to write historical characters and fiction well, at least have something more to back it up than ‘Racism was more (outwardly) prevalent back then so she was going to be in an interracial relationship so lobotomy.” It just came off as conflating two important issues (The rights of the learning disabled to date and have families of their own, and interracial romances versus status in society), and just came out to justify it for a lobotomy we never even see. (Trust me, I’m making it sound far more interesting than it is).

Plus the mystery on the liner is the main aspect of the story, and I think that’s what makes it the worst: This author just chose to have these random historical figures on BECAUSE, and considering Rosemary’s background and what we know happened to her, it just seemed like a pretty desperate ploy to reel people in (like myself), and have them go, “Wait, this is just a sub-par mystery book, not a historical mystery book: She used that whole actual living person who existed and who was screwed over by her own family as ‘shock value’ and a ‘hook’ for the audience.” Double EW.

7. what was the last book that made you cry? 

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese, who is unfortunately no longer with us but a BEACON of Canadian Literature, and I'm SO sad he didn’t get to write more books, because his writing style is BEAUTIFUL and poetic.

“Saul Indian Horse is an alcoholic Ojibway man who finds himself the reluctant resident of an alcohol treatment centre after his latest binge. To come to peace with himself, he must tell his story. Richard Wagamese takes readers on the often difficult journey through Saul's life, from his painful forced separation from his family and land when he's sent to a residential school to the brief salvation he finds in playing hockey. The novel is an unflinching portrayal of the harsh reality of life in 1960s Canada, where racism reigns and Saul's spirit is destroyed by the alienating effects of cultural displacement.”

What you also don’t get about the book from this review, is the role hockey plays as being central to the narrative. In that moment, and when Saul is young, inside his own head, he is just what we as the reader see him as: A young boy who loves a sport and finds it freeing. A PERSON. A kid who loves hockey. 

He’s so good that he has a chance to make it to the NHL. He’s good enough to play on the ‘white teams,’ but when he starts beating white players, grown men and women throw things at him, like plastic ‘Indians’ from a ‘Cowboy and Indian’ set. 

He is a skilled player. He has raw talent. But to make it to the next level, and because they won’t let him be on the team in any other role, because a Native man can’t become a skilled star in 1960s Canada, he has to become a ‘goon.’ There’s actually a moment in the book where he snaps, and it’s so well written and heartbreaking, where it’s like this Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dynamic inside of him, where he literally just goes, “Okay? You want me to be a bloodthirsty ‘Indian’? Then I’ll be that for you.”

There’s also a movie I haven’t had the guts to watch all the way through, because I tried watching it on a plane ride from Australia to Canada without actually having read the book first, and having no idea what the movie was about aside from hockey and Indigenous culture, and Jesus Christ IT KILLED ME. I’m terrible at flying, had been throwing up and thoroughly miserable for about three hours at that point on the plane, tried to turn on a movie to distract myself, and within ten minutes, I was like “No, I think sticking to the vomiting is justified.” (To give you an idea of the directing style, it’s bizarrely produced by uber-Republican yet ‘weirdly-obsessed with Indigenous people’ movie star Clint Eastwood. If you’ve seen his other films and how sparse and depressing they can be, you can only IMAGINE what this material lends itself to. So I’d really stick to reading the book first. Because Wagamese’s voice is so much stronger within the book, and the pain and horror poor Saul is exposed to serves a purpose within the larger narrative much more clearly, and even when he is an alcoholic, he still is able to find hope within himself and returning to his people, and that’s a beautiful thing that I think was lost in the portions of the film I was able to catch.) Check it out: It was only written in 2012, but it’s already being heralded as a ‘classic’ in Canadian Indigenous Literature.

9. do you actually check out books that have been recommended for you?

I do. I might not actually READ them, but I’ll at least check out a snippet on Amazon to see if it’s my cup of tea. So if anyone has any recommendations, go right on ahead <3

15. how do you feel about reading buddies?  

I would love a reading buddy! <3 Feel free to message me if you’re keen. <3

18. what was your favourite book when you were 10?

Probably something by Roald Dahl or The Hobbit, if we’re talking sheer escapism or enjoyment (Or the original run of Harry Potter). My Dad is an English teacher, so I was always reading older books than were probably age-appropriate (I was placed at a college-reading level at twelve on an assessment test), so other than that, a lot of classic literature: Just name it, I’ve probably read it. 

I also was a nerd who decided to read the entire dictionary back to front somewhere around this time and copy down all the words I actually didn’t know on a list, so that was a hobby. xD I guess I could count that as a ‘favourite book.’ (-Insert Homer Simpson “NEEeeeRRRddddd” gif here-).

[pumpkinpaix]

You do realize that not allowing Wei Ying the ability to just freely be a bottom, and hell, even a little feminine is being problematic in itself, right? Acting like either of those are shameful things for a man to be, just because he's in a relationship with another man, is gross. Acting like they absolutely HAVE to switch to fit some standard that women or non gay men feel the need to hold them to is not being politically correct. It verges closer to being fetishizing. Not trying to be mean js

hello anon! i assume you’re referring to this post of mine (and potentially also the linked post within? though that one is more specifically about translation, so maybe not).

if so, i have to admit I’m… a little confused? i’m not sure where i said or implied any of the things you’re talking about, but i still want to address your accusations thoughtfully since they’re important things to consider.

if it wasn’t clear, i was only trying to explain my personal discomfort with assigning a fixed sexual role to wei ying (though this goes both ways—i would have said the same thing about lwj had the question been reversed) due to its complicated position within a larger cultural context. i say in that post that I don’t have this problem with a ship like crowley/aziraphale from good omens specifically because saying “aziraphale is a top” (or “crowley is a bottom”) simply isn’t as politically charged as saying that about wei ying or lwj because of how each ship relates to the source material and the cultural context that surrounds them.

good omens, while not a perfect show (i’m going showverse specifically bc i haven’t read the book in a long long while), makes a lot of concerted effort to be queer-friendly and is clear about its queer-friendly intentions, both publicly stated by the creative team and shown through its narrative choices. i’m generally familiar with current queer theory in the west, and i feel safer and freer to headcanon and write whatever i want because i’m not as concerned about the political statement my personal thoughts and choices re: a fictional character is going to make in relation to canon.

mdzs/the untamed is not that. we can argue about it all day, but i can’t in good faith really imagine either was written or made with real queer people in mind, given what i understand about queer rights on the chinese mainland, and also specifically about how queer people (mostly mlm) are portrayed in genres like BL. so i, personally, feel that i want to be careful about how i position myself with regards to that. if i decide wei ying only bottoms, like is implied in the mdzs novel, how does that read? what, if anything, am i implying about real mlm? regardless of my intentions, i don’t think i can escape all the cultural baggage that comes with it. the personal is political, as they say. alas!

does that mean that i think wei ying HAS to switch? no!! but by that same token, i don’t think he HAS to bottom either! what i want is to promote more respectful diversity in the way a character like him can be portrayed or headcanoned when the original text is so thoughtlessly restrictive, so that maybe in the future i would feel fine about writing/headcanoning him as anything i want without getting bogged down with all of this. that’s the dream, are you kidding me?? respectful portrayal of a bisexual chinese character that i personally love??? of course i have intense personal stake in that lmao, how could i NOT. on that note, regarding your first point, i can’t “dis/allow” wei ying anything because wei ying is, again, a fictional character who has no agency and whom i cannot personally ask about his preferences. none of this has anything to do with respecting him—only how our treatment of him impacts real people.

i never meant to imply that being a bottom is shameful—i meant that when a mlm character is LIMITED to being a bottom BECAUSE of preconceived, heteronormative notions about mlm relationships by content creators, that is uncomfortable. neither bottoming nor being feminine should be considered shameful, of course not, but we don’t live in a perfectly equitable world, and historically, those are traits that are associated with shame by larger societal forces—my point is that we don’t interact with media in a vacuum. even if i’m not saying “bottoming/effeminacy is shameful”, someone is. because that previous ask was focused on wei ying and bottoming, i understand why you might think that because my stance on it wasn’t unequivocally positive/validating, it sounded like i was implying it was shameful because that’s what we’ve all been primed to assume. if i rewrote the response to that ask, only this time talking about lan wangji being pigeonholed as a top, would that have made my stance more obvious? because again, it goes both ways.

you say that i’m trying to fit mlm into a standard that i, as a non-mlm, am imposing upon them, but i really have no idea where you’re seeing that in what i’ve written. if you still think i’m doing that, then i want to state here that that is the furthest thing from my intentions.

the top/bottom dichotomy that exists in mdzs is just an expression of a larger trend that sees and fetishizes mlm as defined by their sexual roles, especially asian mlm (looking at you, seme/uke terminology). i cannot see it as existing divorced from that. what i really want, more than anything, is for this to not even be a conversation i feel like i have to engage with every time it comes up. it sucks that queer people’s identities and private sexual choices are politicized!! i, too, just want to live!!! i don’t want to feel like i have to endlessly, carefully debate mlm’s sex positions as a political statement, but i also don’t think that i can stay silent as a bi woman(?) while they’re used and disrespected for others’ gratification. they’re my siblings too.

here’s the thing: i like bottom wei ying! I love feminine wei ying! i want to read fic containing both of those aspects! i want to write fic like that! in fact, i probably will! is everything i make and say going to be perfectly unproblematic? of course not! everything is problematic because everything is nuanced and everything is complicated. all i can do is try my best to make sure what makes me happy isn’t at the cost of someone else’s human respect.

so, i hope that makes my position more clear? i’m not trying to say that everyone has to do exactly as i do, or think exactly as i think. i just want to encourage more complex, critical engagement with media because i think interrogating why and how we like what we like helps us grow. i get that sometimes we just want to enjoy things, and that’s okay! i get it, it’s exhausting!! feel free to block me and never interact with another one of my posts again if they make you too angry. i love mdzs, and i love the untamed just. so much!! i haven’t felt so overwhelmingly moved by a piece of media in a while, and i happen to express my love by…. well, doing things like this, which i’m FULLY aware is not everyone’s cup of tea. (sometimes, it isn’t mine either!)

i just want to end by saying that i’m certainly not trying to outright condemn anyone with these posts. this is largely prompted by my own personal, discomfited reaction to comments i’ve received on my fic/things i’ve seen tossed around by the fandom at large. i absolutely don’t think any of the people making those comments are bad people (i mean it!!), but that doesn’t mean i can’t still feel conflicted about it to the point where I feel i need to address it. i can’t police the way someone else enjoys their content, and i’m really not interested in trying. i’m trying to control the way I engage with and present myself to fandom. haha, as wei ying said, to live my whole life with a clear conscience. that’s all i can do.

EDIT 16 APR 2020: My views have changed since I wrote this post. I will not delete this post because it reflects my views at the time it was posted about 7 months ago, but I now feel very differently about the issues discussed here. Hopefully, my views are more nuanced and carefully considered in the present, but you know! Please keep that in mind when you read this.

[wanderingwomanwondering]

So I wrote a long ass letter to SYFY/NBC re The Magicians. Here it is...

Greetings!

I am writing to share my concerns in the wake of season four of The Magicians on SYFY. I watched seasons one and two on Netflix two years ago and became an avid fan at that time. Naturally, I dove into season three live when it aired and season four as well. From my perspective as a Black queer person living with mental illness, the show has had a host of common problems with its plotting and character development as it relates to marginalized and underrepresented identities from the very beginning. However, in my mind, those problems were mitigated by the humorous storytelling and the seemingly sincere attempt to represent real people who often do not see themselves reflected in popular TV characters.

Evidently, my trust in the The Magicians showrunners - Sera Gamble, John McNamara and Henry Alonso Myers - was misplaced. All of my hopes for a dynamic and honest portrayal of the lives and challenges faced by queer people and people living with mental illness were shattered on April 17, 2019 when the thirteenth episode of season four, entitled The Seam/No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry, aired on SYFY. In this letter, I hope to communicate a meaningful measure of my despair and explain exactly why I was so profoundly impacted but the heinous and imprudent end that Quentin Coldwater met in that controversial episode.

In this television adaptation of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians trilogy, viewers are introduced to Quentin Coldwater, an awkward, queer, anxious and “depressed super nerd” who is struggling to find happiness and meaning in his life. As a fan of the fictional Fillory and Further novels, Quentin finds wonder and escape as a child that carries into his adulthood. In addition, he finds the will to keep living through his connection to the fantastical land of Fillory, which helps him navigate his suicidal depression. These aspects of Quentin’s lived experience are canon, clearly stated and/or demonstrated by the on-screen narrative.

Quentin is immediately and deeply relatable to the very group of people that flock to The Magicians and television programs like it. We are Quentin Coldwater in real life! His story is our story. Honestly, it feels odd to say that as a queer person of color in America with a mental illness, but it is true. Even when I was at odds with aspects of Quentin’s behavior, thoughts, or feelings, there were others that I felt reflected important parts of who I am. Just as Quentin is not “just some White guy”, I am not “just some Black person”. Quentin and I are both queer and we are both mentally ill. Those shared identities mean just as much as the ones that we do not have in common.

This is the crux of intersectionality. What it means for Quentin to be White is influenced and shaped by his identity as a man, both being shaped and influenced by his identities as a queer person and as a person living with mental illness. Quentin must be constructed and understood as a complex and nuanced concert of identities shaping and informing one another. The privileges that he possesses as a White man are mitigated by the marginalization and oppression that he is subjected to as a queer person living with anxiety and suicidal depression. Gins (greywash) does a wonderful job of examining Quentin’s intersecting identities in her article on Medium which you may access here.

The marginalization and oppression of queer communities and people living with mental illness cannot be disrespected, minimized, or erased from the real life socio-cultural and political context in which the fictional world of The Magicians is situated, nor can that larger context be extricated from Quentin’s characterization and narrative without said vulnerable communities noticing and speaking out against it. Simply put, if SYFY channel and the showrunners of The Magicians wish to include marginalized and vulnerable communities in the stories that you tell, then you must be careful and conscientious in how you depict those characters and their associated real life communities, because, as the refrain of the decade goes: “Representation Matters”.

The plotting and character development in The Magicians has real consequences for how queer people and people living with mental illness feel about ourselves and whether or not we feel seen and heard by the larger society of which we are a part. When The Magicians identified Quentin on screen with real life queer people and with real life people living with suicidal depression, that creative choice came with ethical responsibilities that the showrunners violated rapidly and unapologetically. What happened throughout season 4 - culminating in episode 13 - endangered, invalidated, and not so subtly erased identities that Quentin possesses, identities that were incredibly salient to many real life people who relied on The Magicians through Quentin to portray their story respectfully and faithfully. The ethical considerations in this situation do not evaporate with flowery statements about creative vision, good intentions, and entertainment value.

The Magicians showrunners plotted Quentin’s death by suicide under the guise of so-called heroism in the finale. In order to accomplish this, they spent the entirety of the season bludgeoning his mental health to create “ambiguity” (Hollywood Reporter interview) around the suicidal aspect of Quentin’s death. In a nutshell, writers killed his father, isolated him from his friends, traumatized him through the Monster’s killing sprees and through Alice’s unwanted (until episode 12) romantic advances, and maniacally exploded the protected and protective fantasy of Fillory. On top of all of this, in the fifth episode of the season, the showrunners elevated from subtext and canonically confirmed Quentin’s queer identity and introduced a real chance for him and Eliot to explore their complex and nuanced relationship within a romantic context. The showrunners then immediately returned Quentin and Eliot’s relationship to the realm of subtext and denied Quentin permission to achieve catharsis around this plot point, instead disrespectfully and irresponsibly using it and the aforementioned problems as fodder for the canon suicide plot.

If you wish to understand a fuller measure of the devastating effect that this has had on real life people who identify with Quentin as a queer character fighting suicidal depression, spend a few hours searching #QuentinDeservedBetter #PeopleLikeMe and #Queliot on Tumblr and Twitter. The finale did shock queer fans and those living with mental illness, but it did not do so in a constructive way that affirmed our experiences or our right to exist beyond entertainment for people who see us as “other”.

Ironically, in their attempt to down cast Quentin’s privileged identities as a White man (Hollywood Reporter interview), the showrunners accomplished the exact opposite; they trampled over his marginalized identities, seeking “beautiful tragedy” in the finale. Many people have no problem extracting their Wednesday night entertainment from the blood and tears of marginalized and vulnerable queer and mentally ill “others”. This is evident in the social media posts hailing season 4 as a triumph. Privileged fans have this in common with the showrunners whose own privilege is embarrassingly obvious to marginalized people, but sadly flies below the radar of the showrunners’ own awareness.

It is 2019. Our culture and society can no longer afford to have television programming that is ignorant of the larger social and cultural context in which it exists. We cannot afford to have networks, showrunners, and writers who do not understand the complexity and nuance of intersectionality, power and privilege. We cannot abide television shows that naively miss or maliciously ignore their ethical responsibility when telling the stories of marginalized and vulnerable people; please do not attempt to tell our stories if you cannot or will not tell those stories ethically and responsibly. However, I really do believe that with professional consultation, fan focus groups, and thoughtful determination in plot and character development, SyFy channel and The Magicians can continue Quentin Coldwater’s story respectfully and ethically.

As network executives, showrunners, and writers, you are aware of the power of story. In many ways, television is the contemporary campfire around which humans huddle to transmit the stories that establish and reinforce collectively who we are and who we hope to become. The stories that we tell on television and in other media have had and always will have power for this reason. The beauty of the stories that emerge in the science fiction and fantasy genres in particular is that we not only endeavor to see ourselves as we truly are, but we then endeavor to “imagine greater” as the SYFY slogan aptly phrases it. The Magicians, in the beginning, implied that it was ready and willing to do this and to center at least two marginalized and vulnerable communities in the process: queer people and people living with mental illness. It is my sincere hope that The Magicians showrunners and others involved in the creative process will examine themselves honestly and critically using feedback from fans and others with a stake in the stories being told and imagine greater.

All of the above considered, the way forward from my perspective would include the following:

Please issue a thoughtful apology that considers those of us living on the margins of society.

Please continue Quentin Coldwater’s story, with or without Jason Ralph. If, in fact, Mr. Ralph does not wish to return to The Magicians, there are other talented actors capable of breathing life into Quentin Coldwater. The characters live in a magical world where literally any explanation could account for a new actor portraying this much beloved and sorely needed character.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Me

*i tried to fix the formatting issues here in Tumblr to no avail. The email was cleaner than this format-wise.

[pplowden]

PRE FMP Exaggeration and storytelling

Exaggeration and storytelling are inherent in human society. What I really find interesting is the structure of how humans live their lives. People find a comfort in routine and success in repetition. There is a unanimous decision in how we should form our days; at what times we brush our teeth, eat, get dressed, go to bed etc. Not only does this satisfy people, it makes them feel secure and entertained, we even try to recreate this artificially, for example the game ‘Sims’ is all about building your own society, it is like playing with your own life, only with slightly more control.

I decided to take this even further, living by a strict manifesto of only eating orange food in my orange room. While there was a sense of comfort in the limitations this provided, it felt ridiculous and inevitably, made me physically sick. There are many artists who decide to live with such extreme routines - the most famous probably being Gilbert and George. People are infatuated with the mystery around their commitment to structure. Real or not they provoke the idea that structure provides something for humans, even if it is just people's interest in it.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gilbert-george-day-routine-life-453958

Perhaps this obsession with routine is about allowing us time to search for what is really important; our purpose in life. Often people long to turn the mundane into the interesting, which seems both an act of desperation and a form of existential crisis. The thought that there is something beyond us is scary, exciting and somehow important. The artist David Huggins is a 74 year old man who has spent his life painting the extraterrestrial woman who took his virginity and the hybrid human alien-babies this produced. What interests me about him is that he refuses to sell the works of his (fantasy) wife - his paintings are personal objects which form a part of his life, not mere pieces of work.

https://www.theartblog.org/2011/08/david-huggins-an-uncommon-life/

Furthermore, although he has lived his life in what we assume to be half fantasy, he has embedded these alien figures into an ordinary, human life. He is in a monogamous relationship and fathering a family. As much desperation there is to find something beyond humanity, there is still an urge to bring it  back round to what we have created. This led me to draw a series of imagined scenes of aliens performing the daily acts of humans, such as eating dinner.

This is why I am interested in exaggeration; people want to find something new and exciting, but only so they can share it with what human experience we already have. There is an absurdity in how dramatic humans are often tempted to be, it is humorous.

https://www.siff.net/festival/dj-nicfit-presents-fantastic-planet

Inspired by Roland Topor's ‘La Planète Sauvage’, which explores the relationship between human and alien, and his costumes for a production of the ‘Magic Flute’, I decided to knit alien costumes and perform a ballet, green screening it onto a background of the face on Mars.

I decided performance is a good way to dramatise what I am trying to explore, as it relies on amplification and being extravagant. The use of a green screen allows importance to be placed on the movement of the performer and any connections with setting to be removed. By replacing it with the the face on Mars, it represents perfectly what I am interested in, how humans have grasped a familiar figure and celebrated it, in a place full of the unknown.

It is this balance between truth and fiction which really holds my attention. Ultimately, fact and fiction is merely what people claim them to be. If stories are about perspective, how can we deem one version true and another false?

https://www.henson.com/storyteller.php

Folk tales, fables, and legends are interesting here, as the oldest and most famous forms of stories historically. The kids tv programme ‘The Storyteller’ by Jim Henson tells such tales, emphasising the importance of dramatics in storytelling through voice, setting and humour. The opening lines of each episode being;

“When people told themselves their past with stories, explain their present with stories, foretold the stories with stories, the best place by the fire, was kept with for storyteller”.

The act of a story is presented almost like a ritual which affects everyones everyday life, but also something which has a skill to it. As often seen in literature and art, this programme is a story about stories. It is not simply a retelling, there is importance in its own characters and their narrative.

Inspired by my own experiences and stories about being attacked/attacking birds, I researched the greek myths of Icarus, Prometheus and Leda and the Swan. Once again I found myself interested in the dramatic nature of such myths; the dramatic monologues and inevitable rise and fall of characters, the shifting perspectives and interpretations and mostly, the tendency to fabricate something unimportant to transform it into the important. To reflect on this idea, I wrote an essay;

Reflections on swans (and seagulls)

The swan is often considered to be the most beautiful and powerful creature. As described in Yeats’ poem ‘The Wild Swans at Coole’, they are “mysterious, beautiful” and “unwearied”, traits all humans aspire to have. We are in awe of them; as we are tempted by materialism and infidelity, grow cynical and die, their symbolic beauty doesn’t fade: the swan remains monogamous and elegant, living a simple, pure life.

Swans carry a purity in their graceful paddle and colouring as well as symbolising a sort of British greatness. They are believed to be silent until singing a final “swan song” – the pinnacle of their greatness - at their death. Perhaps this and the fact they are owned by the Queen, gives them a mysterious authority. We are taught to admire them from a respectful distance.

However, no matter how blinded by their beauty we are, we know never to forget their power. They are fierce, quick to feel threatened and will “breaking our legs” to protect their young.

This recognition and portrayal of their danger is not a new one. The myth of Zeus disguising himself as a swan to rape Leda has been a prominent tale explored in art for centuries. Although this story uses the swan to represent a cruel and deceiving character, Michelangelo painted it as an intimate and romantic scene, supposedly causing it to be destroyed in the seventeenth century due to its ‘lasciviousness’.

I find Stephen Pearsons’ ‘Wings of Love’, famously known for illustrating the divide between Laurence and Beverly in Mike Lees ‘Abigail’s Party’, reminiscent of this. While ‘Wings of love’ symbolises the progression and divide between romanticism and realism, exposing people for being over consumed with nature while also applauding nature for holding such power, ‘Leda and the Swan’, symbolises the relationship between cruelty and power.

Yeats has also written a poem on this, emphasising a much cruel explanation: “A sudden blow”, “He holds her helpless breast upon his breast”. Immediately we feel the brute force of Zeus raping Leda. However, what becomes surprising as you read on is the threatening softness in which he continues to describe it; “feathered glory”, “thighs caressed”. This seems to perfectly sum up the character of a swan - silent but deadly.

I find this imbalance of opinions peculiar and recurring with swans - perhaps it is only superficial beauty and the fact that the Queen owns them which makes us feel so proud and protective of them? In reality, they are dangerous and cruel.

I once ate a swan after it died flying into an electrical wire on my grandparents’ farm. Its flesh was dark, forbidding and fishy. It was unpleasant and I felt as if I was being let down, as if it was meant to be something life changing when in fact it was vulgar and sickening. I wonder if the pride of national ownership only added to this feeling? It was meant to be an honour to be eat something usually untouchable, admirable and wild; free but royal; yet it was disgusting.

Do we misunderstand all animals, all birds, all nature? We, like the Queen, assert ownership over animals with our pets. Yet we keep them in cages and on leads. We have a hierarchy – swans above seagulls, seagulls above caged budgies. What does it mean and is it more about ourselves than the animals we portray?

I am interested in this and in our relationship to other birds. I wonder if it is the status of Royal ownership which separates swans from the common bird, which we often fear or diminish. We fear birds trapped in houses. In a recent news story, we fear a seagull that stole a woman’s pet chihuahua. Why underestimate the seagull? It is an enemy because it steals our chips and our chihauhuas. But what has changed since the lesson of Prometheus, which warned humans not to be arrogant or misunderstand the natural order of the world? Why are we now taught to hate and disrespect the common bird?

I think we often use nature in art to try to understand and illustrate power complexes and ourselves - there is a craving to understand our place in the world. The conflicting views on swans is an example. In a way, swans are irrelevant to humans, they are in our art because there is a deeper craving to understand something much larger about ourselves. Thinking about this prompted me to make a film about the neglected and maligned seagull; to draw comparisons between the survivalist impulse which exists in these lonely, maligned birds and in lonely, maligned people.

What writing this essay and the script for my film really taught me is that it is the absurdity in the obsession of trying to understand something bigger than us which interests me, whether its natural order or power complexes, the need to exaggerate human importance until we understand such topics seems unavoidable. David Lynch’s new film ‘WHAT DID JACK DO?’ I find represents what I mean here: the nonsensical, circling script of cliches eventually defeats the storyline. Instead, what becomes entertaining and successful is the humorous journey of the dialogue.

netflix.com

In some ways, it seems a critique of stories as they are meant to be, instead suggesting it is the ludicrous way in which we tell them through exaggeration is what becomes the story.

Since realising this, I think what I am really interested in is not just the stories people are telling, but how they tell them that I am attracted to. For example, at my aunt and uncles house there are three stone sculptures of heads on their mantle piece which my uncle found in a skip. He says that in the medieval times they believed murderers all had the same anatomy, and these heads are in fact death masks of murderers used to figure out the bone structure that would possess every murderer. While sat at a candle lit dinner, the heads glowing and watching over us, I was told the story of the severed head. Our family friend had gone to open day for a boarding school and while playing football had kicked the ball into a nearby bush. Going to retrieve it and continue the game, he kicked it out into the playing field. What landed was not the football, but a severed head. The school sent out a small apology letter, but covered up the story and it was never heard about again, except through word of mouth. Becoming its own kind of myth, I hear and retell this story often, surprisingly regularly receiving a similar story in reaction.

I am interested in how to turn such accounts into their own visual stories or pieces of work. I believe one way to do this is to learn what is so interesting in each individual story and focus on this, whether it as obscure as the fact it is so dramatic and making an installation full of shadows and mystery, or as specific as a particular description of an object and recreating it.

I am interested in interactive works; I believe giving a role to the audience to be immersed is very powerful in its effect, especially when exploring storytelling, where the audience and the memories they are left with is half of the experience. Saying that, I believe it should be a memory they are left with only. Often people are interested in taking a physical object away from an artwork, as well as a memory.

https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/yoko-ono-cut-piece-1964/

For example in Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’, the audience members were invited to come and cut off a piece of her clothing. What is powerful about this performance is not the fact they walk away with a piece of her cloth -  an artefact of such a famous artwork - but the fact they committed the act. The fabric has become the documentation, the intimate act the work. Therefore, I find it more exciting to leave the room empty handed. If there is nothing to tell except for the story of the experience - we are left with a series of interesting experiences and accounts, becoming a story and artwork in itself.

Another way in which we can dramatise is through physical size and dominance. Working on a large scale excites me. Phyllida Barlows' work at the 2017 Venice Biennale felt almost like a stage design. The construction and emphasis on under cladding became the artwork, it was compromised of monumental structures of various, large heights filling the gallery.

https://www.designboom.com/art/phyllida-barlow-british-pavilion-venice-biennale-05-28-2017/

I hope to continue researching storytelling and exaggeration through an interesting, dramatic aesthetic.

[queercapwriting]

Important reminders about identities in our communities and our fiction from @purplesaline​ (edited by me slightly, where indicated, to take out the personal context from which these are drawn).

“Lee made some really good points... I’d also like to understand why [someone’s] identity grants [them] the right to be the arbiter of how a character should be portrayed but someone who is also non-binary and gay isn’t allowed. In many... posts that I’ve read regarding this subject it consistently comes across as... being dismissive of Cap’s identity and othering them from the community. Additionally I’d like to know why [people] seem to think that if an autistic person asks for very specific things in a fic that is representative of their own lived experience it qualifies as bad representation because [someone else doesn’t] relate to it as an autistic person. Is it purely because the person doing the writing is neurotypical (or assumed to be)? I might be able to give more credit to that logic if they had done it of their own volition but they were essentially acting as a ghost writer. It’s sounding an awful lot like [people] are allowed to demand people represent an identity [they] inhabit in a way that [they] relate to but that other people who share the same identity but have a different lived experience than [others] aren’t allowed to ask for that shared identity to mirror them. [People in our communities sometimes] say that these other representations are harmful and problematic because they don’t fall in line with [everyone’s] lived experiences but in disclaiming those representations [it is] harming people. There is no single way to be any identity whether it’s a gender identity or a sexual orientation or neurodiversity or any other identity out there and because of that you’re going to find honest representations of that identity that can read as stereotypical because sometimes a persons lived experience of their identity falls in line with the stereotypes. It is unfair to invalidate their lived experience of their identity, it is harmful to invalidate their lived experience of their identity. What is problematic is not that that example of an identity exists but that there is not a more diverse sampling of the different ways people can inhabit the same identity. And as a final point I have a HUGE problem with [people] deciding that just because characters have been portrayed as having sex in canon that it negates any chance of them being portrayed as Ace forever after. Having had sex doesn’t not disqualify someone from being Asexual. There are many reasons why someone who is asexual might have sex, not least of which is that they hadn’t come to the realization that they were asexual. I think [people’s] arguments would hold more water if this was a discussion about the representation on the show itself rather than fan service fiction and would hold more water if the fanfic world was lacking in the very representation [some of us] claiming to be the ‘correct’ one but even if we just look at the microcosm of QCW’s fic library alone there are multiple fics representing each of a wide variety of identities. How [someone] can claim Identity Erasure when there are ten fics representing the canon identity to every one fic representing an alternate identity i really don’t understand. One of the biggest draws for people about fanfic is the ability to change canon in a way that allows them to relate more completely to the characters and/or the show and to me that’s one of the best things about it. To try to police that? You come across as an elitist gatekeeper deciding who is or is not worthy of gaining entrance to the VIP club. Doesn’t the LGBTQIA2+ community deserve better than that? We’ve already got far too many cishet people telling us that we’re not worthy of being in mainstream society, let’s not mirror their actions in our own community. While [people in our communities’] criticism of representation that [people] find harmful to [their] lived experience of [their] identity is certainly allowed, [the] policing of the way other people express and represent their own lived experiences of their identities (even if that is through a proxy) is unacceptable...”

and 

“Okay so, first of all? Queer and Dyke? Some of us have gained a lot of empowerment from those words. I get that they are still being used as slurs and that they are really harmful to a lot of people still but this then becomes a case of “please don’t use that term in reference to me” and that’s cool but [people] don’t get to police how I, or anyone else, chooses to label themselves (or their incarnations of fictional characters). Sure [one] can point out that it’s possibly problematic because of the negativity still associated with it but it’s not a simple issue and a “You’re a bad person for using it how dare you” isn’t gonna cut it...

And look, I get that [people in our communities are] upset about what [they] see as stereotyping identities but the fact of the matter is that there are people who relate to those portrayals and by saying that it’s wrong to be portraying characters that way [people] are invalidating their experiences the same way [they] are feeling [their] own invalidated. The solution here isn’t a reductive one, but additive. Taking away representation because [not everyone] relate[s] to it is harmful to those who do relate to it. It’s definitely important to point out where representation is missing and that the experience portrayed isn’t indicative of everyone with that identity but instead of tearing someone down for trying and, if the comments left on these stories is any indication, succeeding in representing the experience for at least some, maybe try the approach of either a) asking for a representation that differs from what was already written or b) write [one’s] own. We need to avoid building ourselves up by tearing others down.

Now as for [people’s] point of a writer changing a canon lesbian into another identity if they don’t claim that identity themselves. That’s a complicated one. On one hand Cap is essentially acting as a proxy for a lot of people who want to see their head canon in writing and for various reasons can’t write it themselves and I see nothing wrong with that. These people trust Cap with their vision and from what I’ve seen most appreciate the results.

Changing the identity of a marginalized character is a bit trickier for sure. On one hand yah there aren’t enough canon lesbians on tv or in media in general but I don’t think fan service fiction is necessarily the place to be policing that. If for no other reason than [one] run[s] the risk of trampling over someone’s attempt to learn more about themselves through exploring these identities in fiction. I’m not trans and I’m not nb but I did go through a period in my life where I was seriously questioning my gender identity and writing about it was one of the ways I explored that about myself.

I think maybe the line there is the same one we tread with cultural appropriation. Changing a canon lesbian into a straight woman is blatantly problematic but changing them into an identity that is even more marginalized and has even less representation is maybe not as much of an issue. It’s human nature to want to take the thing we can most relate to and then change it so it reflects our experiences even more, which is why [we] see the gay characters being head canoned into ace characters etc.

Which isn’t to say that it’s not also problematic but I think that more than being problematic it’s just scary to see already slim representation being appropriated no matter who is doing it. I would honestly rather give someone who has no representation a portion of mine, however small mine may be, than them not having any at all especially knowing how much harder they would have to fight to claw anything away from the ‘mainstream’ than I would.

So yah, it’s not clear cut and there is no easy answer to that one but I’m certainly falling on the side of letting the even more marginalized appropriating canon lesbian characters and that it’s acceptable for someone to write outside their own identity especially if it’s fan service.

As for the pulse fic? Cap said they realized it was problematic and removed it which I think shows a great deal of character. Their intent for writing it in the first place though? Not off base. It’s natural for us to process grief through fiction, we do it all the time. Using a traumatic event in a story isn’t necessarily trivializing it, in fact it cam be incredibly helpful and healing for many people, author and readers alike. I read the fic in question and I didn’t see anything that stood out as being disrespectful. Obviously [people] saw differently and that dichotomy is going to echo on a larger scale as well and I think that this is another instance I prefer to err on the side of 'if it helps people then it’s acceptable’ and for those who would be harmed by it them we take the same action we would in other situations where content can be harmful like content or trigger warnings.”

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 14: Liberation of the Frontier Zone

Summer/fall 796/487. As the Alliance invasion progresses through Imperial territory, they find themselves suddenly responsible for feeding 50 million people that Reinhard deprived of supplies. The High Council decides appearances are more important than money and sends the extra supplies, right into the waiting missiles of Kircheis’s fleet. With resources now stretched super thin, the Alliance higher-ups authorize soldiers to take what they can from the people they “liberated” to feed the hungry soldiers, leading to riots on many planets. Meanwhile, Yang sits on his ship looking concerned, Reinhard and Kircheis make moon-eyes stare mournfully at each other, and Lazzll takes a nap.

More Heterosexuality?!

In the last episode Elizabeth discussed how portrayal of real straight romance or attraction is an important reference point for understanding all of the romance in LoGH; and in this episode we find our second Actual Legit Straight Romance™ in Franz and Therese, a couple of throwaway anime-only characters who quite possibly exist solely for the purpose of the comparisons I’m about to make.

Although they’re initially pushed together by Therese’s father (more on that in a minute), Franz and Therese bond over a shared dream of...well, living alone on an uninhabited planet, which is a bit of a depressing dream but whatever, we’re not here to judge. When the occupying force is ordered to steal food from the civilians and they (reasonably enough) fight back, Franz impulsively flings himself in front of an Alliance tank that’s tearing through the fields he helped cultivate on its way to quell the rebellion, and we get a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

The parallels between this scene and the flashback in episode 8 are so overwhelming that I’m tempted to accuse the anime team of lazy writing, except that I know there’s a purpose to it. Franz, seeing destructive abuse of power by his own society, can’t help endangering himself to try to prevent it, and is saved only by Therese physically removing him, after which they lie together on a dark grassy hill and discuss how fed up they are with the world. Of course Franz is no Reinhard, and his proposition here is to run away together to where they don’t have to deal with the problems of society, not to conquer the universe together. But the key is that it is an unambiguously romantic proposition: He talked earlier of living on a deserted planet with a wife and kids, and that’s the life he’s inviting Therese to join him in.

When we talked about the scene in episode 8, we said that the creators were trying to show us two conversations at once: one on the surface about overthrowing the Goldenbaum dynasty; and one, conveyed through posture, expression, and word choices, about the romance brewing between teenaged Reinhard and Kircheis. Because of the homophobia of both the Empire and the real world, all of the tangled layers and coding are necessary for Reinhard and Kircheis—talking in hushed voices of topics they’re afraid could be overheard, expressing themselves through gazes and lingering handholds while ostensibly talking about politics. But such coding isn’t necessary when it’s a straight couple. With the scene between Therese and Franz, the creators are able to show us a vision of what Reinhard and Kircheis’s romance would look like stripped of the need to hide itself, an explicit version of the romantic invitation just under the surface of the earlier scene.

Misogyny and Bad Parents

Does the cinematography of hiding Therese's dad's eyes as he spies on his daughter through the window suggest that he feels a bit of shame about trying to pimp her out to the occupying military force? I fucking hope so.

Although Therese’s body language and choices toward the end of the episode suggest that she ended up feeling some attraction to Franz herself, her initial interactions with him are entirely at the urging of her father, which gives me a chance to introduce an important running theme of LoGH: Fathers totally suck.

Franz, to his credit, quickly sees through the way Therese’s father is trying to use her, as does Therese.

It’s impossible to disentangle heteronormativity from misogyny: The assumption that the ultimate goal for all humans is straight sex/romance/marriage/reproduction goes hand in hand with a view of women as either objects of sexual conquest, vessels for producing the next generation, or tools to be used in negotiations between men. In this case, Therese’s father immediately sees a chance to use his daughter(’s body) as currency in his dealings with the occupying Alliance force; and when sure enough the relationship with the soldiers turns hostile, his desperation leads him to admit his schemes perhaps a bit more blatantly than he’d intended to: 

Yeah I don’t have any witty caption here; this guy can just go fuck himself.

Let’s talk for a moment about the verb he actually uses here, あてがっておいた (ategatte-oita). Ategau has two meanings: to affix/attach, and to allocate/bestow upon. The suffix -oita is used to imply an action done in preparation for the future somehow, which is made clear by the rest of his sentence: “I allocated my daughter to you so that you’d be on my side in the future.” This is absolutely one of the most fucked up lines in the show so far, and we’ve already seen some fucked up things.

This is neither the first nor the last example we’ll see of a father treating a daughter (or daughter figure) as an object to be allocated, sold, or used in some way according to his own (heteronormative) plans. Of course the most blatant case is Reinhard’s father literally selling his daughter into sexual slavery; but while Annerose’s story is striking and horrifying, it’s (shockingly) not actually the most problematic parenting we see, since the power dynamics involved meant that he likely had no more actual choice in the matter than Annerose did.

Still not exactly winning any Father of the Year awards. (From episode 4.)

Perhaps a better parallel to Therese’s father is Admiral Greenhill, who not only had a hand in getting Frederica assigned as Yang’s adjutant, but has already been rather pushy and nosy about their relationship several times. 

I’ve already discussed Yang’s discomfort in this scene in the context of his asexuality and anxiety about being pushed into normative romantic situations; Greenhill’s apparent eagerness to pair his daughter off with the rising star of the Alliance here directly puts pressure on Yang to play a role that doesn’t fit him. (From episode 10.)

The word Greenhill uses to refer to Frederica here is あれ (are), typically a word meaning 'that (thing).' I don't know all the nuances of using it to refer to a person, but it doesn't sound like the most respectful language to me. (From episode 12.)

In Frederica’s case it seems likely, given the way she talks about meeting Yang on El Facil, that at least some of the push to set her up with Yang comes from her own interest. We’ll soon see examples where that is not the case, including Cazellnu making nonchalant and uncomfortably only-half-joking comments about marrying off his six-year-old daughter to Julian when they’re older.

What Therese’s father, Admiral Greenhill, and Cazellnu have in common here is that they are not Bad Parents in any of the ways that bad parenting is normally marked in fiction (but don’t worry, we’ll see plenty of those too!). And it’s precisely that fact that makes the pressures they impose on their daughters all the more insidious. Annerose goes along with her father’s selling her to the Kaiser because she literally has no choice; Therese initially plays along with her father pressuring her to affix herself to Franz because she loves her father and doesn’t want to displease or disappoint him. The blatant political power structures at play in Annerose’s case aren’t the only way to limit agency.

Stray Tidbits

I could watch this gif of Andrew Fork passing out because anyone dared criticize him all day. 

Other things I could watch all day: Bucock getting exasperated and roasting people. ❤ Bucock. 

This is made all the more hilarious by Yang’s own obsession with his afternoon naps.

Like much of the middle of this season, the main action of this episode (everything involving Franz and his interactions with the villagers on this random planet) is original to the anime; in the novels it’s mentioned in passing that rioting has broken out on several of the occupied planets but no more detail is given.

Our one glimpse of Reinhard and Kircheis in this episode is a heartrending scene that serves to reinforce the Oberstein-centric tension that’s growing between them. The unguarded sadness in Reinhard’s eyes after Kircheis leaves the room is rare and so painful to watch. 

Another theme that’s set up by this episode is the question of what happens when a soldier finds his orders so objectionable that he can’t bring himself to carry them out. When Franz’s commanding officer, on orders from even higher up, sends his troops out to plunder food stores from the villagers, Franz decides he can no longer be part of the military. In his case this decision is personal and ultimately inconsequential to even the outcome of the rioting on that one planet, let alone the war on a larger scale. But the general question of the interplay between a soldier’s personal sense of morality and duty to carry out orders is one that will recur throughout the show. 

This theme was already introduced in episode 12, when several of the military higher-ups, including Yang, had serious reservations about the whole invasion plan.

The narrator helpfully summarizes the thesis statement of this episode at the end in case it wasn’t clear: As Reinhard schemes to weaken the encroaching Alliance forces by taxing their supplies and Alliance politicians fret about their poll numbers and whether withdrawal would make them look silly, it’s the people living on these border planets who get fucked over. We’ve talked about LoGH showing war at all levels of zoom; I like that the anime took this opportunity to depict how quickly a supposedly friendly military occupation turns violent and oppressive as soon as the soldiers are emboldened by official orders and worried about their own physical comfort.

I could say something here about this being emblematic of the futility of the struggles of the populace against military might, but.....I'm really just including it 'cause it's adorable.

Speaking of the end of the episode, for the second time (the first being episode 6) we get a scene playing through an instrumental version of the ending song. I absolutely love this technique and will rhapsodize about it a ton in the future. The scenes that happen during the opening or closing credits are some of the most powerful and beautiful moments of the show, including this pre-victory toast by the admirals of Reinhard’s fleet. Definitely the artistic highlight of the episode by a mile. 

[denise8691]

Finding her own way: Becky Lynch, identity, and wrestling

Part one of why the Lasskicking heroine is WWE’s greatest character.

by andrewmswift@andrewmswift  Jul 4, 2017, 5:30pm EDT

There are a number of great questions that all humans struggle to answer at one time or another: Why am I here? What am I doing? What’s the point of it all? What happens after I’m gone?

But there’s one great question that stands above the rest:

Who am I?

This question of identity leads to a process that everyone undergoes throughout their lives. Indeed the act of trying to “find yourself” is a universal human experience in the fragmented, immense, confusing world of the 21st century.

Too frequently “identity” in terms of WWE characters is boiled down to two-dimensional gimmicks lacking nuance and depth. (A certain scene from GLOWdefinitely comes to mind.) Seemingly part of the impetus behind the “Reality Era” was an attempt to flesh out characters in relatable, human ways that could help better bond the audience with respective performers.

Ideally, all WWE characters would come equipped with substantial backstories that explain why the character acts a certain way in any given scenario. But the world is far from ideal, and many WWE Superstars flit in and out from one week to the next, used in service to whatever desired plot at the expense of actual character development and growth.

The old adage is that the best wrestlers are simply themselves turned up to 11. This no doubt is true, but a helpful corollary is copying a performer’s real life motivations into their kayfabe persona. As we’ll see, few wrestlers in WWE more accurately track the performer’s personality with their character’s narrative than Becky Lynch.

In this era of rewrites and last minute switches, consistent, linear character growth is all too rare. It is thus completely remarkable that Lynch has not merely managed to stay on the same arc for several straight years but also provide value-added depth on a weekly basis. This consistency and clarity in purpose make The Lasskicker WWE’s greatest character.

Core truths

In WWE’s developmental brand, a renewed emphasis on layered characters seemed to reemerge in recent years. And there are no better examples of this sort of depth than the Four Horsewomen of NXT: Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Becky Lynch.

What initially made the Four Horsewomen so beloved in NXT—long before Revolutions or Evolutions—was their portrayal of complicated, nuanced personas that were natural outgrowths of the performers themselves. But it also must be noted that the group meshed so well with each other because the roles each had filled were inherently complementary to the other three.

Legacied, pedigreed, and coldly ruthless Charlotte claiming superiority due to birthright—and trying to hide the fact that her drive was so strong because she feared people would believe she didn’t deserve the name.Zealotous, righteous, chip-on-her-shoulder, chaotic good, “built on self-success” Sasha Banks shouting from the rooftops that she was the hero of destiny for a movement—a movement she believed could not and would not (and perhaps should not) exist without her at the vanguard.Wholesome, determined, innocent Bayley, who was unprepared for the cutthroat world of WWE and only through repeated failures at the hands of the other three Horsewomen learned to toughen her spine and fulfill her lifelong dream.

And then there is Becky Lynch. At first glance, the clear coherency of the other three and their natural interplay with each other are undercut by Becky’s numerous and wildly different gimmicks. Is she a stereotypical Irish lass—complete with emerald green outfit and aggressively lame jig? Is she a headbanging punk rocker with a prickly, cynical edge? Is she a steampunk pun queen who adorably battles cans of pineapple? Is she a near-sociopathic purveyor of violence and destroyer of innocence? Is she a virtuous and loyal friend whose goodness is rewarded time and again with betrayal?

Who is Becky Lynch?

The answer, of course, is all of the above, and there’s a very simple reason for the seemingly incongruent whole. At her core, Lynch is someone who experienced great loss at a very young age, and is desperately trying to hold onto what she regained while remaining pure of heart.

Characters in the world of professional wrestling have forever been defined by two categories: babyface (good) and heel (evil). But for a long time now this view has been outdated. With the intention of making its characters seem whole and realistic, WWE long ago largely shifted the domain of good and evil from black-and-white personas to a body of actions. Though too often un- or underexplained in storyline, the idea is to present characters that are relatable, whether good or bad, via motivations that are common to viewers.

Each character in WWE struggles with the flaws of others. But in works of fiction, it is frequently the complex struggle of humans with their own flaws where narrative beauty is found. The same is true in WWE, and that sort of internal struggle (the classic Hero’s Quest) is something that best binds characters and performers with the audience.

Like most others, the character of Becky Lynch has an overriding tragic flaw: she has experienced immense heartbreak, and is forever afraid of any relapse into despair and apathy.

In fact, the seesawing nature of Becky’s path is perhaps the journey of any of the Horsewomen that best fits with Reality Era use of the performer’s real-life backstory. It’s well known that WWE appropriates their performers’ real lives to add to their characters. But few characters in WWE are as finely tuned with their actual life than Lynch. As previously noted, her disparate gimmicks seem, on their own, incongruous with each other.

But this reading fails to see a larger truth: the story of Becky Lynch is the story of someone trying, and struggling, to find their way in the world—and for very good reason.

Origin stories

Becky’s story did not begin in July 2015 when her, Charlotte, and Sasha Banks were called up to the WWE main roster. Hell, her story did not even begin with the infamous jig she did during her NXT debut in June 2014. The story of Becky Lynch began long ago, when the then-Rebecca Knox was barnstorming around the world as a legitimate wrestling prodigy. She began her training to be a wrestler at the very young age (especially for a woman) of 15 and made waves worldwide—but stepped away from the business due to a head injury before she even turned 20.

Adrift for years after her ostensible retirement, she got an acting degree and landed more than a few parts; she studied to be a clown; she worked as a personal trainer; she was a flight attendant for over two years. Becky wanted to do anything possible to find herself after seemingly losing her true passion. But her heart forever remained with wrestling. Despite denying the truth for so long, she couldn’t shake the bug of the squared circle.

She was always a wrestler, even when she wasn’t.

Every part of who Becky Lynch is today—the resilience, the fear of isolation and loneliness, the desire to make it her own way, stems from the apparent heartbreak of her far-too-early retirement. The intensely emotional character we know today, who wears her heart on her sleeves at all times, is a combination of this exodus and her inherent manic, quirky energy. When it seems that misfortune has ended your dreams at 20, even the slightest hint of a second chance compels one to pour everything in their heart into the endeavor—and to do everything possible to make sure this resurrection does not go to waste.

It’s entirely understandable—coming-of-age struggles in our teenage years stick with us for the rest of our lives, regardless of what context we stumble into. Our formative experiences are buried deep inside our subconscious, guiding our motivations and informing our reactions to the world around us.

Becky Lynch’s journey is the story of an identity crisis—following your dreams, only to have them torn from you in seemingly definitive fashion to the point of resignation. What follows is the road back—the expanse of which forever after defines your very self. It is a narrative about remembering and fighting for who and what you are.

While it’s mostly a positive story, there’s more than a hint of melancholy in the idea. It is unrealistic to pretend that Lynch’s saga of continuous betrayal and trauma has not weighed a heavy toll on her mind, and furthermore it is doubly unrealistic to imagine that a natural human response to that backstory is always doubling down on being innocent and good. As seen onSmackDown Live in recent months, her frustration at times appears to be on the verge of boiling over.

Moreover, this wistful nostalgia can also easily be used against Becky—either by manipulating her into becoming a tool to be used for the nefarious purposes of others, or by blinding her from the truth of those around her.

The Becky Lynch we currently see onSmackDown Live is undeniably a fiery ball of positive energy. But just how “good” is The Lasskicker, though? Surely her run since the call up in July 2015 has been universally on the side of light, and frequently she has come across as the most pure character on all of WWE television. The sadly online-only promo she cut after Mickie James interfered in Becky’s steel cage title match with Alexa Bliss last January is almost certainly the most heartfelt and best babyface promo in the entire company for a number of years—but also hints at an eternal inner struggle.

Mind-blowing that this clip was not broadcasted over and over on the blue brand. Moreover, it’s a strange fact that some of Becky Lynch’s greatest work has been in online exclusive interviews. Presumably the creative direction should stress including those moments on WWE’s actual television programing, but even here we see the interplay between character and performer.

It makes sense that a character/performer like Lynch would hustle and grind in literally any way possible to make herself more whole, more coherent, to better round and ground herself. TV, online exclusives, social media—the platform doesn’t matter. Becky Lynch is going to do whatever it takes to present her character in a way that gets across the truth of her soul. She simplyneeds to do this—not just for the audience, but herself as well.

In this way, it is easy to see how Rebecca Quin’s real-life Bexile bleeds into the character’s motivations—and it’s yet another reason why Becky Lynch is WWE’s most honest character today.

This never-say-die fighting spirit has contributed a great deal to her positivity so readily displayed these days. But the memories of the years of heartbreak, and the desperate grasping of this second chance, could also potentially be fostering a darker, more cynically destructive side:

I don’t know what it’s going to take… but I’m willing to do it.

In that quote, we see Lynch’s frustrations bubbling up, but still she remains righteous. If (and when) she does eventually fall from the heavens, it will be wholly understandable given everything the character has gone through.

And it would not be the first time she has fallen from grace in WWE.

Despite her debut victory over Summer Rae on June 26, 2014—a match that is more remembered for her aforementioned jig, and Sasha Banks and Charlotte utterly taking the piss out of said jig in the background—Lynch struggled early on, falling short several times to then-NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte. In the process, she had formed a bit of kinship with another “lovable loser,” Bayley.

But it was Banks, who soon broke away from Charlotte, that saw an opening in the impressionable mind of Lynch. In an iconic piece of NXT continuity, Becky approached Sasha in the locker room on October 16, 2014, to criticize The Boss for attacking Bayley. But it was Lynch who ended up getting a parting piece of advice from Banks: “Maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself, what you need to do, to make it to the top.” Just as Banks had looked forlornly into the mirror over a year prior when Summer Rae gave her very similar advice, the troubled Lynch purposefully stared at her own reflection.

Only one week later, when Banks continued to assault Bayley after defeating her in a match, Lynch ostensibly came to The Hugger’s aid. The Boss scurried out of the ring, and Becky helped Bayley up, even giving her a slight hug. But when Bayley stepped forward to challenge Sasha, Lynch revealed her true intentions.

After attacking Bayley from behind, Becky raised the arm of her new “mentor” before sneeringly looking back at her naive former friend.

Imagine this. You are a prodigious talent that has your dream crushed due to circumstance at age 20. Finally, finally, a full eight years later, you get a second chance and begin to make good on your promise—only to find that the game has become “more fierce,” the competition that much stronger.

You’ve made it after such a long road back, but then you begin to discover that you are not as good as you once were and that others are better. You fail, repeatedly.

Enter a charismatic figure, who once maintained a similar overly-sunny disposition as yourself, preaching an “alternate” route to the glory that you surely deserve after all your trials and tribulations. The notion that your dream is once again slipping away from you, but if you only changed just a little bit, you could truly have it all—it’s a ripe cauldron for manipulation.

Becky Lynch, who told Alexa Bliss two years later that she “watched far too much TV and I listened when they told me, that if I believed in myself, I could be anything that I wanted to be,” is and always will be a believer—someone motivated by halcyon ideals and righteous passion. It is why she can inspire such loyalty among the WWE Universe—despite subpar booking and narrative drift, the chants of “BECKY! BECKY! BECKY!” remain as strong (frankly, stronger) as ever.

But that strong sense of belief can manifest itself in different ways. As noted, she has experienced true heartbreak and immense struggle, meaning that her intense passion is forever at danger of bubbling over into fear, despair, and anger.

In that moment, looking into the infamous Full Sail mirror, with failure weighing heavy on her mind, she wanted to believe the truth that Sasha Banks claimed to offer her. She wanted to believe that it would end her struggles and bring her the greatness for which she was always destined.

The decision to attack Bayley doesn’t make Becky a bad person. Yes, it made her a heel for the time being, but it’s ultimately wholly consistent with her core self. Sasha simply knew what buttons to push to chip at Becky’s soul. With Becky suffering consistent setbacks, Sasha’s manipulation was well crafted in order to succeed. And succeed it did, to the point where Becky was so twisted that by December 18, 2014, she would cheerily state she was going to end Bayley’s career like a downright sociopath:

The only thing that’s changed, is my ability to see what’s in front of me. Yeah? Sasha Banks opened my eyes to what it takes to get to the next level of NXT. Yeah? My eyes were opened, to the fact that smiling, and having the fans cheer, doesn’t mean anything when I am losing week, after week, after week. My eyes were open to the fact that, if I want to get anywhere, the only person I can rely on—besides myself of course—is Sasha Banks. And so I hope Bayley’s little starry eyes are open, so that way she can look into my big brown eyes and see the person that’s gonna end her career—permanently. Cheers Devin!

Her tone of voice is utterly consistent with everything the character has done and said before and after. That she scoffs when Devin calls it a “change of attitude” is telling: to Lynch, her frame of reference remains the absolute same as always. Sasha Banks didn’t “change” Becky Lynch in any fundamental manner; she merely persuaded her to view her place in life differently.

Can’t stop, won’t stop

Becky’s time as Sasha’s sidekick could easily be viewed as nothing more than a continuation of her kayfabe failings, but this ignores a crucial bit of context. Before coming under Sasha’s wing, Lynch was a featured player but clearly below Banks, Charlotte, and Bayley in NXT’s Women’s Division. But once she joined with The Boss, she was forever cemented as the final Horsewomen of NXT—regardless of wins or losses in storyline.

(It’s the sort of worked-shoot notion that makes most of Becky’s programs so compelling—she was elevated in storyline and in reality. She’s very much like The Miz in this constant ability to blur the lines.)

Indeed, this growth in stature eventually put Lynch in a position to famously shed off her skin as Sasha’s lackey during the Fatal Four-Way NXT Women’s Championship match at TakeOver: Rival on February 11, 2015. But unfortunately for Lynch, she did not came away with the gold—her former mentor did instead.

Now adrift from Banks, it would not been a surprise to see Lynch once again founder. Instead, she won a number one contender’s match for Banks’ title April 22, 2015 by fortuitously pinning Bayley while she was locked in Charlotte’s Figure Eight. Her exasperation upon winning the match seems innocent enough, but when placed in the context of the character, Lynch’s reaction to the idea of gaining an opportunity through what can be charitably acknowledged as a fluke victory is brilliant: utter shock and delight at getting a chance she never expected to have, both in the larger storyline and the match itself.

She would face Sasha Banks at TakeOver: Unstoppable on May 20, 2015—and though she did not win the match, she accomplished something far greater during her performance of a lifetime. (Based on ringwork alone, Banks-Lynch fromUnstoppable is almost certainly the greatest women’s match in WWE history and easily one of the company’s greatest matches this decade.)

Becky uncovered a certain truth during theUnstoppable match that to this day still guides the character’s arc: life is, well, unstoppable. We can be aware of how we came to be in a certain spot, but getting lost in the past and how things seemed destined to be at one time is an easy way to lose the present and future. Instead, life is “the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come.”

Venerating yourself and the idea of what should be yours at the expense of reality is more than appetizing, and it’s what led to Becky falling under Sasha’s wing. But it’s this trait that Lynch cast off during her performance that night in Full Sail. This realization, this understanding, prompted the character to undergo a transformation of sorts, from the arrogant cynic to the unabashed dreamer.

When the final chapter of Becky Lynch the character is closed, that May 2015 night in Full Sail will forever remain her most defining moment. But why?

In that night, in that match, Becky finally accepted the power of her journey. She accepted the path of her life. She accepted who she was. She accepted her exodus, and what’s more accepted that despite getting a second chance, things would not come to her because of some vague destiny—she would have to work endlessly for every little thing in her career. She finally accepted the beauty in her struggle and road back.

Sitting in the ring, crying, the NXT Universe serenading her with her theme song—those tremendous few seconds were a cathartic moment for the character and quite probably the performer as well. While nursing the left arm that Banks had thoroughly worked over, she washed out the remaining pangs of exile with her tears and entered a new chapter in life.

Becky knew there was no guarantee she’d ever have another title match in WWE. She vowed that night to make sure that would not be the case.

There are few better demonstrations of genuine emotion in wrestling history.

But it would be far from the last time that Lynch captured the hearts and minds of an audience through her struggles.

Bext: Betrayals and opportunities on the main roster

https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2017/7/4/15639746/finding-her-own-way-becky-lynch-identity-wrestling

[swipestream]

Conan and the Critic

It is an eerie thing to reread the half-forgotten stories treasured in one’s youth. For better or worse, the hold haunts never look the same. The worse happens when eyes grown cynical with age will see tinsel and rubbish where once glamor gleamed as fresh and expectant as the sunrise in the Garden of Eden. And, to the contrary, the better happens when one discovers added layers of wonder, or deeper thoughts to savor, than a schoolboy’s brain can hold.

So I decided to read, in their order of publication, the Conan stories of Robert E Howard. I was not a devout fan of Conan in my youth, so some stories I had read before, others were new. But in each case I was surprised, nay, I was shocked, at how much better they were than I recalled.

In this space, time permitting, I hope to review each tale as I read it, starting with Phoenix on the Sword. But before any review talks about what Conan is, let me tell the candid reader what Conan is not.

As with HP Lovecraft’s spooky tales or with the adventure yarns of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the unwary reader often confuses the popularized and simplified versions of iconic characters, Cthulhu or Tarzan, with the character as first he appeared in the pages of a pulp magazine. Tropes now commonplace, endlessly copied, at the time were stark and startling and one-of-a-kind.

The original character who is later taken into a franchise or revised for comic books, film and television, or who is copied or reincarnated by the sincere flattery of lesser talents, is inevitably more raw and real than such dim Xeroxes of Xeroxes. These franchise writers, imitators, and epigones rarely do justice to the tale they copy, some, for whatever reason, do grave injustice.

And, of course, certain writers of modest talent and no memorable accomplishment delight to assume the pen and mantle of the art critics and connoisseur in order to diminish the stature of author they cannot match. They do a deliberate injustice to iconic characters, and further muddy the perception.

Here, for example, is a quote from the loathsome Damon Knight. If the reader is surprised I use so harsh a word for this well-known figure in science fiction, please reflect that he is not well known for any creative writing, only for his ludicrous claim to be a critic:

The Coming of Conan, by Robert E. Howard, is of interest to Howard enthusiasts, who will treasure it no matter what anyone says, and to students who may find it, as I do, an intriguing companion piece to L. Sprague de Camp’s The Tritonian Ring.  Howard’s tales lack the de Camp verisimilitude – Howard never tried, or never tried intelligently, to give his preposterous saga the ring of truth – but they have something that de Camp’s stories lack; a vividness, a color, a dream-dust sparkle, even when they’re most insulting to the rational mind.

Howard had the maniac’s advantage of believing whatever he wrote; de Camp is too wise to believe wholeheartedly in anything.

This book contains the only fragment of a Conan story that I remember from Weird Tales – Conan tippy-toeing along a ledge with a naked girl held by the hair, and then dropping her carefully into a cesspool – which turns out to be neither as isolated nor as insignificant as I had supposed.  Another naked lady friend of the hero’s, in another episode, winds up hanged to a yardarm with a rope of jewels; and for that matter, hardly anyone, man or woman, squeaks through the Conan saga without some similar punishment, except Conan himself.

All the great fantasies, I suppose, have been written by emotionally crippled men.  Howard was a recluse and a man so morbidly attached to his mother that when she died he committed suicide; Lovecraft had enough phobias and eccentricities for nine; Merritt was chinless, bald and shaped like a shmoo.  The trouble with Conan is that the human race never has produced and never could produce such a man, and sane writers know it; therefore the sick writers have a monopoly of him.

  It would be a tedious task indeed to wade through this mass of sticky and malodorous bullshit to rebut each sly insinuation and answer each peevish insult as it deserves.

We need not dwell long here in the chamberpot of Mr. Knight’s performance as a critic. I am content with noting that there is not a word of actual criticism anywhere in the passage. It is merely a stream of insults against Robert E Howard, calling him everything from unintelligent to maniacal to emotionally crippled to sick, with occasional flippant insults against Mr. Howard’s fans and admirers, not to mention studied insults against other luminaries of the field.

(So is the candid reader to dismiss unread THE MOON POOL and SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN and THE SHIP OF ISHTAR, which were seminal works of science fiction and fantasy, on the grounds that the author thereof was chinless and bald and shaped like a shmoo? Is the reader not to judge the work of Homer and Virgil and Milton until the details of their jawlines and coiffeurs are known?)

When Mr. Knight dismisses Conan as someone who does not exist, he betrays a faulty understanding of what writing fiction is about. This disqualifies him from his pretense of being critic.

Fiction writers are not newspapermen nor are we scientists, attempting dispassionately to portray the world as it is. All art is abstraction and exaggeration. The pen both ornaments reality and pares away distractions, to hone things down to their essentials. Adventure yarns contain romantic characters, that is, larger than life heroes and villains, meant to embody ideals and archetypes. The things are writ large to bring to our weak eyes what might otherwise escape us.

Just as characters in a horror story act more frightened and more helpless than real people would, those in heroic tales act more bold and forthright. This is because that is what the story is about. It is what story telling is. Stories are about the things in which we believe.

In scoffing that the truly wise believe wholeheartedly in nothing at all, Mr. Knight further disqualifies himself. He is no fit critic. I doubt he a fit member of the human race. The comment is either rank hypocrisy or a grotesque self confession.

Mr. Knight’s trick of merely asserting, without proof and without honesty, the shortcomings in the inner heart of a man he never met is a simple game, and anyone can play it. For example, a hypothetical unscrupulous commenter could claim that what Mr. Knight’s crooked comments betray about Mr. Knight’s own masculinity, when he so unconvincingly dismisses as unreadable the portrayal of a romanticized yet savage fighting-man like Conan, a figure of rugged proportions and gigantic passions, as some sort of impossible and unrealistic product of sickmindedness, is too obvious to bear repeating. The gelding hates the virile.

Does he likewise dismiss the portrayals of Achilles, Aeneas, Roland, Beowulf, Zorro, or any other man of action from myth, history, or story? No?

For another example, were a hypothetical commenter to play his game, he might loftily assert that one need make no comment about Mr. Knight’s obsession with a naked woman being dunked in a cesspool, which is, tellingly, the only fragment Mr. Knight remembers from a tale he read in the magazine. It is something only an sexually deviant mind would sees as interrelated. That another woman in another story is hanged as a pirate, or that other men and women in adventure stories suffer hardships, goes beyond merely being dishonest, smarmy and slimy rhetoric. It is an unwitting self confession. The neurotic invariably accuse others of his own neuroses.

Such things would be easy enough to write, were our hypothetical commenter to be as unfair to him, as Mr. Knight was to Mr. Howard.

Lest we be accused of unfairness, let us must amend the harsh statement above that no one remembers Mr. Knight’s failed fiction career. After herculean effort, I was indeed able to bring to mind a single story written by Mr. Knight: a short story called ‘To Serve Man’ made into a respectable episode of Rod Serling’s TWILIGHT ZONE, and parodied in THE SIMPSONS. It is, of course, a shaggy dog story, whose sole twist is based on a pun in English, which for some reason is the same language in which the space aliens write their cookbooks. There is not even the smallest trace of plot present, nor any memorable character, human or alien, nor any real science fictional speculation. It is basically a campfire tale a boy scout might tell to spook his fellow campers. One would think a man whose sole contribution to the art of criticism was obsequious love letters to authors he wishes to magnify or verminous libels against authors he seeks to demean would have attempted more serious craftsmanship.

The sad thing is that such character assassinations need only score a glancing blow to do their work. Even if the honest reader is disgusted that creatures like Mr. Knight are willing to libel a skilled author who commits suicide, and is appalled that Mr. Knight would spit on a man’s good grave merely in order to mock his work, and even if this reader thinks Mr. Knight is overstating the case, rare indeed is the reader able to see that the whole thing is false from stem to stern. We give even liars the benefit of the doubt. We assume there is a grain of truth beneath the libels.

Such a reader is likely to absorb, unquestioned, in his unconscious mind the impression that Conan is a simplistic figure from a boy’s adventure yarn, a caricature of schoolboy dream-dust, unintelligently portrayed, a guilty pleasure at best. None dare to admit he is one’s favorite character, and, even if beloved, none will say Conan is to be taken seriously. After all, the wise man believes nothing, does he not?

Such a reader will picture Conan as a man in a bearskin loincloth, inarticulate, grimacing, with a shapely dancing girl clutching his knee while he cleaves the skull of a devil-beast or giant snake with a bloody ax.

That reader will be as surprised as I was on rereading these tales, particularly the earlier ones from 1933.

In the first Conan tale, Phoenix on the Sword, Conan is the king of a turbulent but rich and powerful nation, facing a conspiracy of embittered and ambitious nobles, weary of the burdens of rulership, and, in the fight scene, he is properly accoutered in cuirass, with shield and plumed casque near at hand.

The sole mention of any dancing girls, clothed or not, is when Prospero, the king Conan’s advisor, is cautioned to be on seemly behavior when visiting the court of king Numa.

However, Conan does cleave skulls, of men and devil-beast alike.

The reader is like to be surprised at this first tale at how badly untrue are critic’s dismissals of Conan as unintelligent, dreamlike, unreal, et cetera et ad nauseum.

The setting and tone in Phoenix on the Sword, are grim, the theme is trenchant, particular in the era when it was written, in the island years of peace between two world wars.

Both the background world and the foreground characters are expertly drawn is a few bold and simple lines, and both Conan’s world and Conan’s brooding figure continue to loom in the imagination, eighty-four years and counting since the time he stepped forth, brooding, blue-eyed and black-haired, melancholic, stark, huge and terrible, larger than life in the pages of Weird Tales.

But a proper review deserves its own column.

  Conan and the Critic published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Violence of the 2017 Whitney Biennial

Jordan Wolfson’s “Real Violence” (2017) on display at the 2017 Whitney Biennial (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

All art is political, so I don’t see this year’s Whitney Biennial as any more or less engaged with the terrain of politics than the institution’s previous biennials. What it’s more focused on is hybrid identities, particularly those not represented by the Trump administration or a political party that has gerrymandered its way to minority rule. Curators Christopher Lew and Mia Locks have given us an engaging, if uneven, Whitney Biennial. While this event may no longer offer an accurate barometer of that nebulous thing called American art, it does offer an artistic essay about the times.

There’s a real emphasis on representation and notions of truth here, which take on a new urgency at a time when “fake news,” the weaponization of “identity politics,” and nativist xenophobia are on the rise. The abstractions that influence our perceptions of reality are being scrutinized, and rightfully so. But perhaps the most notable theme of the exhibition is violence — its portrayal and circulation, and the systems of oppression that support it. Unfortunately, the biennial fails to probe violence in international theaters of war, prioritizing the way it’s acted out within US borders; that is only one aspect of a much larger story.

I would suggest that at the core of the biennial’s take on the depiction of violence are four works that explore the topic in their own way: Jordan Wolfson’s “Real Violence” (2017), which quickly became a conversation piece; Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016), which is already a focus of protests; Henry Taylor’s “THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!” (2017), which looks at the shooting of Philando Castile, livestreamed by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, on Facebook; and Postcommodity’s “A Very Long Line” (2016), which is part of a broader focus by the three-person collective on the violence of borders and colonialism.

After the initial shock of watching a white man bash in what appears to be another white man’s head on a contemporary Western street, Wolfson’s VR work feels surprisingly hollow, supplementing the stereotype of a white male interest in violence bred by ennui. The fact that both figures are white is not incidental — it points to Wolfson’s fixation on whiteness in his continuing work about violence. Artist Ajay Kurian (who’s also included in the biennial) wrote about Wolfson’s “Colored Figure” (2016) last year, identifying a “breed of white males who believe they are persecuted while being the aggressor, and are powerful while maintaining a sense of painful fragility” as one of the overarching themes in the US today. Here, like in Wolfson’s previous work, the white body is on display, but the larger question is whether it functions to universalize the scene or mar it in a feedback loop, providing us with a GIF of violence that feels difficult to escape once we’re confronted with it.

The aestheticization that takes place in “Real Violence” is deeply disturbing. Wolfson seems to be trying to transfer the ultra-violence of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) or David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) — or even Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002) — to VR, but he contributes little to the conversation; all those movies tackled the topic with far more sophistication and, frankly, gore. This is violence reduced to a formal concern, as if the context could ever be removed. The fact that Wolfson tries to couch it in a Jewish tradition, playing a Hebrew prayer over the scene, is equally off-putting. It shows a removal from the threat, violence abstracted into an idea.

The perceived — not actual — threat of random violence is at the core of white supremacy, and it’s often used as a justification for continuing violence against non-white populations. We have seen this at work recently with President Trump’s executive order announcing the publication of a weekly blotter of crimes committed by immigrants (aka “removable aliens”): the perceived threat of terrorism becomes an excuse for further violence against those who are often fleeing it. The feedback loop distorts our perception.

Yet violence is real for many of us, not an abstraction. Western imperialism and white supremacy destroy whole cities, push millions of refugees into desperate conditions, criminalize entire populations, and mine resources — human and otherwise — for their own benefit. To say that Wolfson’s position is detached from the ecosystem of violence is an understatement; it evokes the puerile outbursts of gamergate trolls, removed from the conditions of the real world and paralyzing the viewer with a threat they’re powerless to control. Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016) suffers from similar problems, but it also reveals the inability for most painting to render pain and history.

Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” (2016) (photo by Benjamin Sutton for Hyperallergic)

In 1955, Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman. He was only 14. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on having an open-casket funeral, and the graphic photographs of his body that were printed in the media are credited with helping to catalyze the civil rights movement. Schutz’s painting is based on one of them. What she couldn’t have foreseen while making it is that last month, the now 82-year-old woman responsible for the accusation, Carolyn Bryant Donham, would finally admit that she’d fabricated the story that killed Till. That fact adds another troubling layer to Schutz’s painting.

The portrayal of violence, and particularly this type of extreme disfigurement of a victim, is difficult to look at, and the artist’s choice to paint it is particularly strange. The image is particularly troubling because a white woman’s fictions caused the murder of the young man, and now a white female artist has mined a photograph of his death for ostensible commentary, which in reality does little to illuminate much of anything. What is Schutz contributing to the imagery or story of Till, or to the rendering of violence? The position of the contemporary artist is one of precarious privilege, but here the artist appears to have absolved herself by refusing to implicate herself in the image, preferring to let the history of the image, and her painterly additions, make the case for her. Removed from culpability, she has instead used Till’s brutalized likeness as a way to explore painterly technique, and without consulting the title, most people would likely not even recognize the subject. What does this do? How does the subject work here? How is this not a form of exploitation?

It’s notable that another of Schutz’s paintings, “Fight in an Elevator” (2016), renders an altercation between two African-American celebrities, Jay Z and his sister-in-law, Solange Knowles, as a jumble of forms. While the Whitney Biennial catalogue cites the actual subject of the painting, its wall label offers no such insight. Instead, we’re simply told:

… figures are seen embroiled in a struggle, both with themselves and with larger-than-life insects, denoting a state of anxiety and alarm. The work (whose dimensions mirror those of the Museum’s larger freight elevator nearby) plays with time, as action and gesture appear suspended. Like a truncated history painting, an epic scene is glimpsed between two doors that may be closing or opening. Schultz deploys the transitional space of the elevator as a metaphor for other social spaces that are at once public and private, intimate and estranging, inviting us to consider our own position or role amid the chaos.

Here, the source imagery is erased, as Schutz renders piles of body parts in oil on canvas. The white artist again gives us a fragmented portrayal, breaking black and brown bodies apart, removing their features, and rearranging them at will in a formal way. Her failure in adding any insight or to seeing why this might be offensive is the essence of that popular artspeak term, “problematic.”

Henry Taylor’s “THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!” (2017) (photo by Benjamin Sutton for Hyperallergic)

Unlike Schutz’s “Open Casket,” Henry Taylor’s painting about violence against African Americans, this time by the police, is less gratuitous and more successful. It starts by giving us a straightforward and identifiable view of the infamous scene in a car that was livestreamed to thousands of people online.

In Taylor’s painting, Philando Castile slouches in his seat as officer Jeronimo Yanez points a gun at him. The perpetrator’s arm is lightened, while the victim’s eyes look upwards and his wound is removed, replaced by splashes of yellow and black paint. This gesture emphasizes the fiction of the painting itself and reflects a self-conscious understanding that the artist’s image can never compare to the original. How can you compete with something as raw and immediate as that livestream? Here, the artist does his part by tending to the wound in the best way he knows how.

Inside the room that displays Postcommodity’s “A Very Long Line” (2016)

What’s more, by freezing a moment of the raw footage, Taylor is able to plug the incident into a larger system of violence. He highlights the importance of it happening in a car, that great symbol of what some would describe as American freedom. Here, any sense of safety in the vehicle is destroyed by faceless state violence, which reaches in to kill. We’re given the perspective of Diamond Reynolds, but it’s clear that the man with the gun is oblivious — or apathetic — to the viewer’s presence. But even here the tendency to stereotype slightly calcifies the composition, offering us insight at arms distance.

That distancing is more pronounced in the immersive four-channel video by Postcommodity, which envisions the border between the US and Mexico as an enclosure or sorts. The violence of state-sponsored division, which has cut through indigenous lands, severed once unified communities of color, and been bolstered by dangerous nationalistic rhetoric, is shown as a continuous horizon pan. Fences obscure our view, and we’re left wondering whether we’re standing on the inside or outside — what side of the border do we naturally associate with? The fragmentation is smartly devised to disorient us. The border, which is often portrayed as a fixed, physical site, becomes more psychological, leaving us frustrated by the fact that there’s no way around or through it.

Aliza Nisenbaum’s “La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times” (2016) (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic unless otherwise noted)

In addition to these four works that portrayal violence in different ways, I would add Aliza Nisenbaum’s “La Talaverita, Sunday Morning NY Times” (2016) since it doesn’t directly portray violence but inserts it as a ghostly presence through the pages of the New York Times. Nisenbaum’s painting, maybe inadvertently, captures the distance readers (or viewers) face in regards to their subject. It is a welcome commentary on our desire to create meaning in the everyday. The intimacy of the two figures overwhelms any looming danger contained on the pages. She treats the news as a casual undertaking, part of a personal ritual, half distracted and somewhat choreographed for those around us.

Despite the different ways they succeed and fail, all of these images raise one consistent question: who is being held responsible for the violence they depict? And, I would add, how do we start fixing that?

We can’t pretend that images of violence don’t have an impact on a very personal level. We can’t close our eyes to the cycles of pain that these systems continue to feed on. The challenge of today is to engage with images that we find difficult, painful, and complicated. Artists can imagine the world any way they want, but we also have a responsibility as viewers, critics, patrons, and others to respond, take action, and challenge them when they reveal something that we find particularly troubling. Often art mines our collective consciousness to demonstrate a truth, other times it reveals a breakdown in a system that refuses to mend its wounds or recognize new perspectives. Museums are no longer the rarefied sites that demand we listen. Sometimes we must talk back. Maybe this is one way to begin:

At the Whitney, a protest against Dana Schutz' painting of Emmett Till: "She has nothing to say to the Black community about Black trauma." http://pic.twitter.com/C6x1JcbwRa

— Scott W. H. Young (@hei_scott) March 17, 2017

The post The Violence of the 2017 Whitney Biennial appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[creatureoftheestuary]

A Critical Evaluation of Creature of the Estuary

Dr R.M. Sánchez-Camus

 Creature of the Estuary was the second part of the Monster Trilogy, directed by artist and filmmaker, Eelyn Lee. The trilogy is a series of collaboratively produced moving image works exploring notions of fear, inter-subjectivity, and place. The production process for the trilogy began in 2014 with a week-long experimental development lab in the Barbican studio theatre in London. The end result of these workshops was Monster, a short film exploring a dark seaside landscape populated by a variety of characters, and a mysterious creature-like being.

 These concepts were then further developed through a research residency with Metal, an arts lab on the Thames Estuary. Eelyn completed her residency with a 12-week participatory development process that incorporated professional performers and local residents along the Thames Estuary. During this time she merged the themes developed from the Barbican lab, with the research developed during her residency, incorporating many of the local residents she had met. All of these elements came together to generate the material for Creature of the Estuary. The final part of the trilogy, yet to be completed will be a feature length film, the culmination of the three phase process.  Though each part of the trilogy informs the next, they hold their own merit as works of art.

Creature of the Estuary begins to refine the language of film and collaborative arts practice. Multi-cultural in its outset the work contemplates human’s relationship to the wider sea, and its universalities, with a lens on fear and how it is manifested within us. The film explores notions of man and nature via the landscape of an estuary and a type of post-apocalyptic vision of seaside workers. The soft mud works as an analogy for the effort of survival amidst obstacles. The estuary comes across as both a creature and a character, as if the landscape comes to life through the human forms that grow out of its banks.

The estuary is anthropomorphised and presented as alive, breathing and watching. The physical topography abstracted into an animal in bondage or a tethered creature, ambiguous and unable to relate yet somehow reflective.  The characters for the most part remain silent with their words punctuating through for context rather than effect. The main power of language is delivered through the narrator, who in this case is also the director, retelling imagined pieces of poetic text mixed with quotes of everyday people, giving the film authenticity. Instead of being a reflection from an objective observer, the piece becomes the inner monologue of those who inhabit the territory.

The vision of naked human forms struggling out of the mud like undead corpses looks like a combination of polluted industry mixed with stagnant nature. In actuality the participants claimed the opposite. Performing naked in the mud was for them liberating and a return to childhood feelings of freedom and carefree fun.  Though the estuary was very polluted when they were children they recalled warmly playing in the mud banks, but no longer as adults.  

One interviewer told me how his step-daughter lives on the island but is ‘glued’ to the screen of her phone or tablet and does not venture to explore the shoreline. In actuality the Thames is cleaner than it has ever been, but most participants felt that parents are much more protective today and as such children experience less of the physical world, while being caught up in the virtual world.  Eelyn noted how this notion of ‘shared fear’ came up in one of the drama workshops she ran on Canvey Island, called Fear Lab, namely the fear for the safety of participants’ children as well as the projected fears of parents onto their children.  The labs also created a safe space for participants. Natasha, one of the musicians felt ‘the freedom to discuss things that aren't really part of everyday conversations’ in the labs and this created a ‘feeling of real togetherness and understanding that gave purpose and meaning to our work together’.

The mud both represented fear and safety. One participant jokes, “the mud is essential, it rejuvenates you, it’s healthy…”  “a mixture of essential oil and diesel oil!” another quips in. The participant recognises that the film is ‘a portrayal of an aspect of the estuary. It can be very mysterious these backwaters, this mud…” He does recognise that there is a flip side in the sport activities of sailing and racing, but that it doesn’t engage with the place.

 So if sports activities mark the territory but do not engage with the place, how does the participatory process of a film project succeed? Perhaps because it triggers storytelling through memories. Memory itself provides an intimate internal space of its own. Paul Ricoeur identifies the action of remembering as powerful as the memory itself. In remembering we generate a space outside of our own bodies and the world around us, that then gets ‘superimposed on the grid of localities’.  

The process of developing the work with the narratives of locals not only created this third space but inhabited the film with a haunting sense of those memories come alive, a sort of conjuring.

 As one participant said ‘there is an inherent spookiness of the place’ yet ‘nowadays you can be on the island and never walk on the mud.’

 This lamenting the interaction with the landscape was central to the thematic message of the film. Something has been lost, something ephemeral, and in its distance it is like a memory trapped in the mud. Working with locals allowed those memories to begin to awaken, and through the act of recollecting, opening the doors for new memories to surface. Zahna performed as the Coastguard looking out to see. For her the act of recollection triggered other memories, ‘suddenly you remember more.’  One participant remembers going out alone on a sailing dinghy as a child of 7 or 8 years. He recalls being scared of the river, for he may see corpses floating by. In order to conquer his fears as teenager he practiced controlled sinking near the shore. He never learned to swim, saying it was an old sailor’s belief that it would be a faster death if washed away as there would be no chance of the boat coming back for you. Death and the estuary was also referred to by another participant Chris, who when performing covered in mud and crawling from the banks, imagined himself a young WW2 German fighter pilot shot down in the sea. He spoke about the large amount of young German men who died during Luftwaffe invasions of Britain, and his sense of empathy for the other is a powerful way of thinking about travel and displacement.

This sense of empathy was especially poignant when the film refers to refugees found in one of the shipping containers. The idea of otherness became wound up with the larger discussion around immigration and belonging. Another participant Bob tells me how he crossed the channel on his sailboat and had to have consensus with the team on what to do if they should come across a refugee boat, which way do you go? Do you bring them where they are going or go back? A fear of the other grows yet the empathy that is present creates a marked tension. This is reminiscent of Lars Sund’s book ‘Happy Little Island’ where corpses begin to wash up mysteriously on the shores of a Scandinavian village and throws life into turmoil. Fear becomes a mysterious neighbour and heightens the tension between the comfortable known and the unknown other. This was exemplified by the responses of Denzel a young man who worked on the project as a Sound Assistant and musician and said ‘you may fear someone but then you can look at yourself’. Though the work is based on fiction, Denzel feels it shows a community, one where people can be suspicious of strangers at first but then warm up as ‘people don’t want disruption when the consequences are unknown’. As one of the younger team members he also recognised that older generations are fearful of change, but (waving at his friends in the theatre space) young people embrace it. Projects like Creature of the Estuary become a place of inter-generational community development as it ‘mixes people who other wise would not meet.’ He not only learned technical skills but also an interpersonal model of group work. Denzel recognised that there is solitude about being by the sea, but this solitude also brings people together.

This idea of collective solitude was most exemplified by Robert who has lived alone on a boat in a dockyard for 30 years. He tells me that in his boat yard live ‘about 150 people but almost all alone’ a veritable community of loners. When asked how he contributed he said ‘you have your ideas of what to show’, so that each participant’s perspective adds a new element to the development of the piece. ‘I had no idea what I was contributing to it, but it meant my participation wasn’t altered to fit an agenda’ says Bob, a skipper who works the estuary. Chris is quick to add the ‘fundamental difference is it is my film too, you throw your lot in, no one didn’t want to be there.’  Zahna tells me that the landscape seems to come alive with the stories. For her the stories are ‘held by the river’ and get ‘sucked up by change’. Change in nature and industry, which marks the shoreline. She felt like the film was ‘telling her story’. This shared ownership demonstrates a success in opening up the process of development to participants. Hi Ching who played the Captain tells me that what he learns about the concept of place, is that it resides within him.

What are the conditions necessary to foster creative participation? In this case one of the central components was how Eelyn was able to present the project as a shared vision and include local participants in the generative process. The artist here provides a compass. The final work of art is not just a film but a public art process, making it accessible to people in their daily lives. ‘The shared space of the earth is physically and metaphorically what unites us… so it makes sense to investigate the human experience from the ground up’ says Matthew Coolidge from The Centre for Land Use Interpretation.

 This universality is the strength of Creature of the Estuary, presenting the shorelines and it’s inhabitants as not only gatekeepers to London but the front line of a nation’s outward looking face.

Image Credits: Image 1: Anamaria Marinca & Tess McLoughlin in Creature of the Estuary Image 2:  Chris Fenwick as Mud Monster in Creature of the Estuary Image 3:  On the set of Creature of the Estuary Image 4: Results of a Fear Lab at Seevic College Image 5: Film Still from Creature of the Estuary  Image 6: Denzel Kachingwe working as Sound Recordist on the shoot Image 7: Hi Ching as the Captain in Creature of the Estuary