#sadia

[braimee]

Very obsessed with the way Monopolis is talked about in Starmania

Like, Monopolis meaning the One city, the Only city, when we know for a fact that it is a sprawling city, that it is expending all over the country - according to Sadia at least

Add the fact that Monopolis is the very first “character” that is introduced to us. Before anything else, before we can find out about the characters or the story, the very first thing we learn is that everything happens in Monopolis. There is no escape from it, there is no way for the characters to exist outside of it, no story can take place beyond the borders of the city - assuming there even are borders

Love love love the implication that there is nowhere else to go; Johnny and Cristal want to leave, they want to find a no man’s land, and it doesn’t exist. There isn’t a place that is not the city, because it is everywhere, it’s the only thing there is left

Also, call me a nerd, but the way it’s just called “la ville” by various characters reminds me a lot of how Rome was called Urbs (City in latin). Like. There is only One City. We don’t need to add anything else, because there is only one place that truly matters. It’s driving me insane 

[starmaniamania]

It's raining Starmania fic this week on AO3!

Comme les étoiles ont besoin des étoiles (by massmedia, Cristal/Johnny, rated T, warning for Major Character Death, available to signed-in users only)

Un joli scandale (by @capitaletele/TeleCapitale, Cristal/Johnny/Sadia, rated E, available to signed-in users only)

Ca m'trouble les sens (by @capitaletele/TeleCapitale, Johnny/Ziggy, rated M, available to signed-in users only)

Nos planètes se séparent (by @melancholic-cinnamon-roll/peurderienblues, Marie-Jeanne & Ziggy, rated T, warning for Major Character Death)

like sleep to the freezing (by @docwormie/gayicedtea, Johnny/Sadia, not rated, author chose not to use warnings)

Here's hoping there will be many other occasions to do weekly round-ups!

[melancholic-cinnamon-roll]

Trio de la jalousie vs sos d'un terrien en détresse

Merci cam pour l'inspi + source du template

[capitaletele]

J'ai jamais lu un journal...

One of my early headcanons about Johnny, which is half serious and half crack, is that he can't read.

(I know, he's supposed to be leaving his name tagged on all the walls of Monopolis, but also kids who can't read at all, or read well, can still definitely learn how to write their names, and be wonderful artists who can reproduce shapes. Johnny was just never taught, back in his shitty banlieue nord school, or maybe he skipped too much for it to stick, or maybe he has severe undiagnosed dyslexia, or needs glasses, which doesn't fit the rest of my story but I love the image of Johnny in glasses so here, take it as a gift from me.)

Anyway, that's why he's "never read a newspaper." And also why he loves comic books, because he can look at the pictures.

So anyway, it goes like this:

Cristal joins the Etoiles Noires in the hangar and figures out that several of them have huge gaps in their literacy education. She has nothing much to do while she's supposed to be hiding out in the hangar, so she takes it upon herself to make Cristal School happen and raise the reading level around here.

Meanwhile, Johnny is always ~~around somewhere while that's happening, tinkering with his motorbike, cleaning his gun, puttering around the car or "taking a nap" (with his eyes open).

At first Cristal thinks it's because he wants to keep an eye on her - is it because he doesn't trust her around the Etoiles Noires? Or because he doesn't trust them around her? Neither is a great option.

But no, one day she catches Johnny peering intently at the bit of wall she's using as an improvised chalkboard, and he's frowning in concentration and his lips are moving. He's hanging around because he wants to follow the lessons, but he doesn't want anyone to know! And especially not Cristal!

So anyway, Cristal confronts him one night when they're in private, and he admits to it, and also lets slip that Sadia knows -- she's been helping him cover for it with Cristal -- but that she also used it to demean him and never let him forget how dumb he was and how much he needed her to make up for it :(

Cristal never noticed because he keeps a hoard of comic books piled up next to his pallet, and she's found him "reading" them a bunch of times. But he explains that he looks at the pictures and makes up his own stories, which are probably cooler anyway.

Obviously, sexy alphabet learning ensues! Cristal helps him practice using his comic books, and she's kind and patient and never treats him like he's an idiot (contrary to all his teachers, and his father, who never missed an opportunity to tell him how much of a disappointing idiot he was.)

Following up on the "he can't write but he knows how to draw his name" idea, maybe Johnny is good at sketching! And he has little notebooks that he pilfers from around town that are full of portraits of the Etoiles Noires and random stray cats (Johnny loves cats, but that's a headcanon for another day) and also Cristal -- Cristal asleep, Cristal smiling at him in the passenger seat of the Jaguar, and mortifyingly for him, many many sketches of half- or fully-naked "Starmania"-era Cristal that definitely predate their meeting and that she wasn't supposed to ever find out about.

But he leaves her little sketches of herself with her name carefully written in block letters underneath, like: CЯISTAL, and it fully melts her heart.

And then massmedia, she of the brilliant ideas, said: "What if Sadia knew he/the Etoiles Noires couldn't read and so she was careless with incriminating evidence of her being a double-agent around, and now that Cristal is here they find out!"

Which is an excellent idea for a way to introduce a fix-it where they get to live out the rest of their days happily on their goat farm :) :) :) And Johnny draws his own comics about their adventures to show their future children, and when Cristal is pregnant and uncomfortable, he reads her stories to help her go to sleep.

[chocolateluma]

Pretty sus in my opinion.

[docwormie]

Little rant about the Etoiles Noires and gender ahead (i need to get the starmania brainrot out of my system and can not stop analyzing everything i watch through a queer lens)

i can't quite articulate how much i love the 2022 version of Starmania but one of my fav bits is at the end of travesti, after sadia's just sung about being hot and fucking crazy and Not Cis™, and after killing like 3 different people in the span of one song, all of the étoiles noires (which are mostly men here) gather around the car and sing with her !!! like. they know, they don't care, and they think it slays.

the fact that those murders happens during travesti makes the queer narrative more obvious because, of course, it's all about transgression. the étoiles noires are those left behind by society, those who don't "fit in" an expected norm, so they embrace what makes them different and they find community in violence. sadia (who is literally the allegory of that violence) embodies that !! the whole group singing the word "travesti" while in the middle of organized crime to overthrow the system is a political statement (and it would have been even more radical back in 1979, though idk how the song was staged). the things that makes them outcasts and their anger feeling left out are their fuel to act.

of course their respective reasons to join the zonards/étoiles noires must be different but queerness (and more generally, non-conformity to social norms) is definitely a part of it. the fact that sadia is not the one singing "des gars qui se maquillent" in 2022 confirms it, and although the étoiles noires have this "manly" behavior (which the women share anyways), they also somewhat subvert the norm, wearing make up and nail polish, showing emotions... btw i think it's good that the 2022 show goes back to a sensitive, vulnerable, somewhat feminine portrayal of johnny (which Balavoine definitely had and that was kind of lost in the 1988/1993 versions). i also really love how there seems to be a real spirit of camaraderie/friendship between them all ?? like there are displays of affection, (cf. johnny with the guy that helps him put the white coat on + the person sitting on the car next to him). they're literally commiting heinous murders but all you can see is how much fun they're having !!

then there's also the "besoin d'amour" bit which is really great because just like in travesti (the parallel in the choreography is very obvious !), they have cristal, aka stereotypical barbie, singing this girly, very much france gall-esque, pop song on the top of the car, about how joyous and fun it is to be in love, and the whole gang is dancing around her like a chorus to highlight how universal the message is. and then cristal's transformation after joining the étoiles noires !! it's clear to me that what the media depict as a "kidnapping" is actually a sort of liberation for her: she's allowed to leave behind her perfect image (= the golden cage stella never escapes) and maybe even a part of performative femininity as shown through her outfits. (i have a short post about that coming soon!) to become this more "messy", darker version of herself that doesn't need to be pure as crystal (lol) all the time.

overall the way the étoiles noires are portrayed is really cool because it subverts the classic representation of that scary gang with cold, judgmental, unfeeling vibes, and instead makes them a supportive group that faces together a cold, judgmental, unfeeling society ! (however !!! the different periods (1979/2022/whatever year starmania takes place in) overlapping in starmania do create a dissonance in how queerness is portrayed, and of course queercoding villains is a little problematic, but that's a post for another day!)

so yeah this violent group (of outcasts) terrorizing the population being made of gnc characters that aren't afraid to show feelings means a lot to me that's it 🫶🫶🫶

[tiendei]

C'est le scoop de ta vie, tu peux pas passer à côté!

[sadiahakim]

I'm not what I was a few moments ago. And that's the beauty of nature; to evolve and grow.

Sadia Hakim

[nillabasco]

[brazaesthetic]

Nuggets Sadia (1998)

[rains-of-words]

The real pain is not that the people around you don't see you making efforts to cling on to life, the heartbreak is they see it, make fun of it, and then unsee it.

Sadia Hakim

[braimee]

this took me way longer than it should have

[starmaniamania]

[melancholic-cinnamon-roll]

"Sadia et Cristal, au premier regard, c'était comme le feu et l'eau"

Qui est le feu, et qui est l'eau ? Même si l'ordre dans la chanson laisse penser que sadia = feu et cristal = eau, pour moi, c'est plutôt l'inverse (et mis dans cet ordre là uniquement pour la rime)

Sadia, c'est plutôt l'eau, déjà de part son code couleur (elle est associée au bleu de par ses cheveux, et dans le spectacle actuel, beaucoup de lumières bleues sont utilisées pendant travesti), mais aussi, de par son comportement. Si on découvre l'histoire, on pense que Sadia, même si très imprévisible, est du côté des Étoiles Noires : elle est à leur tête, et semble s'entendre avec Johnny. Mais au dernier moment, on découvre qu'elle travaille pour Zéro Janvier. Comme l'eau qui monte doucement, au point où on ne se rend pas compte de sa dangerosité, jusqu'au moment fatidique, où elle détruit tout sur son passage. Si on ne se méfie pas assez d'elle, on en subit les conséquences.

Cristal, de son côté, est associée au feu, avec ses tenues dorées et ses cheveux blonds (sa tenue bleue est beaucoup moins iconique que la dorée, je pense, donc je ne pensais pas l'évoquer, mais elle rentre techniquement dans le code couleur des flammes, donc pour moi ça passe). Elle est chaleureuse, pleine d'entrain, réconfortante, comme un bon feu de cheminée en plein hiver. Mais dès le moment où elle est libre, elle s'embrase, détruisant elle aussi tout sur son passage, jusqu'à se consumer complètement. Quand Sadia dit à Johnny "tu joues avec le feu", c'est pour la prévenir du caractère de Cristal, qui semble au premier abord belle, calme impossible à toucher et pourtant si attirante, mais qui, une fois lâchée de toute emprise, va se déchaîner, et ne plus obéir à aucune personne.

[wildishmazz]

I've watched two versions of Starmania over the past couple of days(I'm supposed to be writing a dissertation about Starlight Express and gender politics so ofc I've found a new rabbithole), the 1989 Rouge Edition and the 1994 English version at the Mogador, and I keep thinking about Sadia and how drastically different she is between the two already drastically different productions.

In the 1989 she is a trans domme with charisma and magnetism off the scale. Her introduction is a showstopper that basically says "I'm a genderfuck and you don't know what to do about me except take me on my own terms. Fuck you if you don't like what you see, but I know that you do"(I didn’t count how many times the word "travesti" appears, but it's a lot). She drops her former co-conspirators in the shit after feeling(whether justified or not) that she's been usurped by a newcomer and rejected by the antiestablishment terrorist group she essentially created.

In the 1994, she's a performatively rebellious child of the elite ruling class, apparently cis and very young, who enjoys slumming it and automatically expects to be put in charge. Her song is altered to "I'm a very versatile sexual chameleon who can roleplay any character type you like, but I’m the one who chooses what it's going to be, not you", with maybe the slightest hint that she's not cis("you deserve a bit for free"). She's unpleasant and immature, it's hard to see how she gained a following of people willing to commit violence at her word, and it's no surprise when she apparently gets tired of the whole rebellion thing after she's not allowed to be in charge any more and returns to the ruling class, betraying her former friends on her way.

I just feel that the 1989 Sadia is a far more compelling, sympathetic, and ultimately tragic character. It's easy today to see her as an example of a child of immense wealth and privilege who gets thrown out of all of that after coming out as trans, who picks herself up and rebuilds herself from the ground up after that fall. As an abuse survivor existing in the margins of a harshly stratified society, she has to develop a lot of coping mechanisms. She is flexible, resourceful, charismatic, tough as nails, and hypervigilant to threats and percieved threats. She finds a handful of misfits, identifies their leader, and stays a step back as the brains of the organisation while he's the face. They are her found family, and relies on them for acceptance and security.

But then Cristal happens. Cristal is the presenter of the tv talent show Starmania(much like Hunger Games' Effie Trinket), pretty, hyperfeminine, the very face of unthinking privilege and wealth, potentially everything Sadia wanted to be before her fall from grace. Sadia still has the right connections and dregs of social capital to contact her with the offer of an interview with the Black Stars, intending to use her platform to further their cause. What she doesn’t anticipate is an explosive infatuation between the Black Stars' leader Johnny and Cristal. It's galling in many ways when Cristal joins them, and with the zeal of the convert pushes for more extreme ideas than Sadia, leading to the Black Stars listening to her instead. The final straw for Sadia comes when she threatens to leave and no-one tries to stop her. In a very short space of time, she loses her influence over Johnny, loses her position of authority in the group(to someone who effortlessly embodies what she wanted to be before her first rejection), and finds/feels that the people she previously trusted, her found family, don't care about her at all.

And she brought it on herself by inviting Cristal to interview Johny.

Her pain, her rage, her rejection - they eclipse what she already felt for the elite ruling class, because a)this has only just happened and b) these motherfuckers should know better than to turn on one of their own when they should be united against a more powerful enemy. It's bad when your family of origin reject you because they don't understand or accept what you are. It's worse to be rejected by the people who do understand and accept your truth, who should be on your side.

And, aside, the more powerful enemy is pledging that "we will no longer be slaves to nature". There might be something in that that appeals to her. Sadia's been hurt and rejected by both sides, but she can get revenge on one of them by playing them against each other - the rising fascist dictator and the antifascists trying to stop him.

She does. Cristal dies. And fascism takes over.

And this version of the character just feels so much more authentic, emotionally cohesive, than the rebelling-against-Daddy-by-being-promiscuous-and-starting-a-terrorist-cell-then-throwing-a-privileged-tantrum-that-gets-people-killed Sadia of 5 years later.

[chocolateluma]

Drawings from June when I was testing new markers.