#so they gift a one dimensional queer character. made as THEY see queer people

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

Here’s the thing: After 15x18 - after Castiel’s confession - I will be devastatingly heartbroken with any ending less than a full, explicitly romantic relationship between him and Dean.

Let’s be clear: If they hadn’t had Cas confess, I wouldn’t be terrified about what they’re going to give to us on Thursday night. We’d all made our peace with Destiel never going canon. We never, ever in a million years expected to actually get it. All of us shippers were content to live with what we got on screen, determined to see it live on in our fanfiction, with faith in the fandom to tell the story of Dean and Castiel. We were fine. We were excited! The ending of any show is a momentous occasion, but the ending of this one? With this fandom family? After this long? No matter what happened, it was going to be something we’d cherish forever.

Instead, in the third-to-last episode of all time, Supernatural gave us a confession of love from one of its most beloved characters to the hero of the story. And we all lost our minds. Quite rightfully! We never, ever thought it would happen - no matter how much sub there has been in the text over the last 12 years. You know why? Because of Disney.

We’re used to the Disney version of LGBTQ representation. The kind where about a month before a movie comes out, we see a flurry of articles published about how there will be a “gay character” in it - somehow always for the first time. And the character is always gay; nobody cares enough to draw any distinctions within the community. All of human sexuality that isn’t purely straight is purely gay. *cue the eyerolls* And maybe the first time we got a little excited. (Probably not, but go with me here for a sec.) Maybe for Beauty and the Beast, we thought, “Oh, LeFou was kind of a fun character in the cartoon version. Maybe it’ll be cool to see him have a crush!” But always and inevitably, the “representation” is one of two equally hurtful things: 1) the character’s sexuality is bluntly on display, but it’s a source of ridicule for the person, and the audience is encouraged to laugh at it “with” the character (o hai, LeFou); or 2) the scene is less than two seconds long, or the character is unnamed, or the circumstances of the “representation” are such that they can easily be cut from the project for foreign audiences or swept under the rug in the minds of viewers who’d rather not admit that queer people exist (what up, Star Wars and Endgame?).

And that shit really fucking hurts. We’re told to shut up and be grateful, even enthusiastic that mainstream fiction media noticed we’re here at all. But we’re never main characters. Our stories are never told. This part of our identity is not only left unexplored; it is so exploited for woke points as to be made the single most defining thing about us. It’s offensive, over and over again, to have us included solely because of how we are different.

It fucking hurts.

Things are changing, slowly. We’re starting to get some deeper, three-dimensional representation in television and film. It’s not all starting out in 2005 on the same network that brought us 7th Heaven anymore. My niece is 14-years-old and out, and she will never remember a time when she had to scour the Internet to see queer versions of her favorite characters; she just has them. But all of us adults, well... chances are, our journeys have the potential to look a lot like Dean’s. We didn’t get to come out in high school. We didn’t let our younger selves think too hard about what we knew in our hearts would make us happy. It took us longer to arrive at a place of security and safety in order to be able to admit to ourselves and others who we are. Hell, the whole damn process of recognizing human sexuality is fluid might have taken us years!

Us queer adults - the ones who have been watching and loving Supernatural for longer than its younger audience - can now taste the possibility of seeing something that probably looks a lot like our very own romantic and personal experiences in Dean Winchester. We’ve been celebrating bi!Dean for years on our own, picking up the crumbs the writers give us and clutching them tightly, because what a gift it would be to see this good man, this hero as one of our own! And now... we’re so close to actually seeing it. On screen. For real and for sure.

These last two weeks have been incredibly difficult. We’re ecstatic! Wildly so! What other kind of reaction would we have to the writers allowing Castiel to admit these feelings we’ve all thought would only ever exist in our heads? But we are equally anxious, wary, and - quite frankly - battling hopelessness. Supernatural doesn’t have a great track record with these things. Everyone on Tumblr - even those that don’t watch this show - is well aware that this one is the master of queerbaiting. And then there’s Disney banging around in our skulls, a psychological trauma sounding again like an alarm. We’ve been burned so many times before, by other mainstream media and by Supernatural itself. It feels crazy to hope. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched the confession scene; I still can’t believe it’s real. A male-shaped main character said “I love you” to another male-shaped main character. It can’t be cut out and ignored, or brushed aside as platonic. It wasn’t a joke at the expense of queerness. It happened. It was big, and it was right there.

And now we are so, so close. Fuck.

That’s why if Supernatural doesn’t follow through and give us Dean and Cas unequivocally in love in the final 42 minutes of this beautiful, ridiculous, wonderful, preposterous, absolutely WILD show, it’ll just completely fucking break me. It will be the worst kind of tease, the deepest cut buried in the briniest salt. If they hadn’t given us Castiel’s confession, we’d have no expectations. But they did. And now, if they don’t deliver after all that’s been said and done...

...it will utterly shatter my fragile little bisexual heart into a million fucking pieces.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Lets debunk the BS from this. Up top a lot of this BS comes from Bob Chipman/MovieBob who is the guy who if you recall said:

-         Superheroes like Superman (and thus by extension Spider-Man who marry civilians were jerks for putting their spouses through the same stuff soldiers’ spouses go through

-         Spider-Man appeals best to teens (even though he provably doesn’t since most people get into him before their teens and he appealed to college students in his heyday)

-         The Spider-Marriage was nothing more than a forced publicity stunt

-         Sins Past is worse than OMD

-         Spider-Man is about passive aggressive power

-         And the best one, ever since OMD Peter and MJ had become ‘more interesting’

That all being said lets dive into this:

Someone asked the panel what a queer reading would add to the character of Miles…Jesus…that’s just the greatest sign of hope for this podcast isn’t it? Shoot me now…

Miles was not 3 dimensional when he was created. Even if you disagree it is nonsense to say that Peter wasn’t  three dimensional when he was first created. Just look at how much Stan explored Peter’s psychology in this singular panel from ASM #50

Look at that. Peter Parker pulled between the two sides of his life. Making a judgement of someone. But then calling out his own judgement of them and acknowledging maybe he’s in the wrong.

This was 1967!

That isn’t three dimensional?

Additionally other people would disagree that Peter wasn’t three dimensional early on.

And even if you disagree with that it’s nonsense to say he hasn’t SINCE become three dimensional or that retaining his origin story (which Miles broadly uses as the basis for his story in every version of his character) somehow holds him back from being three dimensional. If nothing else Peter was at least multifaceted for the time period.

Spider-Man wasn’t an example of stories about a 15 year old made for 7 year olds. Spider-Man was intended to be a senior in AF #15 and the stories were written by Stan for at worst an older audience but at best basically just for him.

Stan Lee confirmed that AF #15 was written not as a one off but as something that if successful COULD become an on-going series.

Its BS to say Peter makes no sense as a character because he makes sense about as much as any character within the confines of the superhero genre can. MILES doesn’t somehow make more sense whatsoever.

No. Spider-Man wasn’t merely a thrown together ‘hey here is a teenage superhero story with a downer ending’ it was a story about selfishness, responsibility and appealed via it’s relative normalcy and lack of idealization of the superhero protagonist.

The psychology and thematic idea of his exclusive powers (invisibility+venom blast) is the same…how? How is disappearing and repelling people the same thing? They keep saying that in the podcast as though it’s obvious and it’s really not

Great Power=Great responsibility isn’t Peter’s catch phrase it’s the philosophy underpinning everything he does

‘The young end millennials have been thrown under the bus by society so the optimism is reserved for the young end millenials like Miles and Gwen’ oh but also ‘you need 5-10 years added to each character to have this make sense and also Spide-Ham doesn’t quit fit’…So…the theory doesn’t  make sense then does it. Also, what optimism is there for teen millenials in the late 2010s? We are all shit scared Global warming needs to be fixed within the next 10-20 years. The young end millenials will not be in much of a position to do that. Maybe not the high-end millenials either. The power rests in older Gen Xers or even older generations. So this ‘generational’ theory is bullshit. Yeah, Miles as the next generation maybe makes sense but not when you apply real world concepts of who the different generations are. Especially considering that’s made up bullshit anyway.

‘Blah blah blah for most of my life I’ve been uninterested in Spider-Man because I’ve believed him to be WHITE MALE teenaged wish fulfilment.’…*internally groans*…oh boy…this woman is one of those  types huh. Frankly I, and I would advocate others too, take a salt shaker with them whenever they hear someone say something like this. But more importantly Spider-Man is seriously NOT what she describes. For starters Peter was a senior in high school when he began and shouldered adult responsibilities when his father died. That’s wish fulfilment? That’s a BURDEN. The reason that spoke to so many people was because he was just different and because his imperfections made him more relatable. The whiteness idea is also bullshit since he was intentionally or otherwise subtextually Jewish and has spoken to countless people of all colours across the generations. He very particularly has a HUGE following among African Americans which was partially what prompted the creation of Miles Morals in the first place!  Shit, the showrunner for the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon was black for God’s sake. Many of the head honcho creators for ITSV were people of colour who were clearly MASSIVE Spider-Man fans!

‘As a woman Spider-Man didn’t resonate with me’. Spider-Man is male. And he acts in ways a male would in the context of the situations. But the character as a whole, in his deepest themes and concepts, is a universal character. He does and has spoken to people across race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, culture and generations. Spider-Girl, Mayday Parker, was her father’s daughter and far more similar than different to him. She spoke to male and female readers. Peter Parker himself has had female fans since his inception. There is no end of female fans here on tumblr or in other online spaces that are the proof of this, to say nothing of old letters pages.

Miles feels more like a real kid and fits together better than most other versions of Peter Parker?...how? I don’t like USM the comic but hwo the fuck do you take that, Spec Spidey, the 1994 cartoon and the Raimi movies (that MovieBob adores btw) and say ‘it doesn’t fit together properly like Miles’. Dude, Comic Book Miles Morales is a teenager in New York who goes to a bordering school for scientifically gifted kids and yet is supposed to be an everyman. That fits together well? He risked his life before  being motivated to do so which is how most 13 year old woudn’t  have acted. Then he feels guilty about Peter dying but his BFF explains it’s not his fault and he accepts this but then goes on to become Spider-Man anyway. And somehow this equates to guilt+responsibility. THAT’s better put together? His character got web-shooters two different ways by the same writer and the guy he was a legacy to was resurrected within like 3 years of Miles’ debut. That’s well put together? This makes more sense and is more believable than a kid who’s Dad dies because he didn’t use his gifts altruistically, so he spends his whole life striving to use them altruistically?

Blah blah blah MovieBob spewing more shit about how Peter is a teenage wish fulfilment power fantasy even though he clearly isn’t from a modern POV and REALLY wasn’t in the early 1960s.

By extension arguing Peter is an adult male’s retroactive teenaged wish fulfilment fantasy of working stuff out is so plainly wrong. Peter Parker in the early 1960s didn’t have everything figured out. The whole world was against him totally unfairly. He needed Aunt May or the Human Torch at times to give him pep talks. His social life was barely existent! You wanna see a middle aged man’s retroactive young wish fulfilment fantasy? Go read Brand New Day, which MovieBob claims was superior to the pre-OMD era. What is the wish fulfilment here? That attractive young women like him? Is that it? That one thing vs. all the horrible shit beating Peter down?

Bob claims there was a lot more Steve Ditko in the early issues of his run compared to Stan Lee because Peter was very angry. First of all Ditko was such a private person claiming he was definitely angry and that the anger was all him is a MASSIVE speculation. Especially considering Stan wrote Spidey as angry plenty after Ditko left. More importantly, Peter wasn’t  angry in the early Ditko issues except for maybe issue #8. He had his moments sure, but it wasn’t at all consistent. He wasn’t raging out or smashing shit like he did later  in Ditko’s run. He was more anxious and neurotic in those early issues which is comparatively closer to how Stan and Romita handled Peter in their earliest issues together. Peter and the whole world of Spidey got angrier towards the end  of Ditko’s run. You know when Stan was letting Steve plot stuff more and more…It’s almost like Bob is full of shit or something

Bob tries to claim by the time ITSV was being written the kinks in Miles’ character had been worked out in the comics. Nah fam. If anything they’d been exacerbated. In reality it was the ITSV writers who took the wonky early Miles character and worked out those kinks themselves, creating an overall superior rendition of the character. A viewpoint I am not alone in.

‘The Prowler has never been a particularly noteworthy villain in the comics’ That’s because he’s not  a villain. He was kind of a villain in his debut but he very quickly became an ally to Spidey

The panel then get into a very pretentious discussion about how ITSV preaches you arne’t stapled to your origin, you are not your trauma. That claiming that is pretentious ala Zack Snyder. But like…isn’t that the POINT of super hero origins? That they contextualize everything about the heroes thereafter? Isn’t carrying his trauma with everything they do practically the point of Batman and Spider-Man’s origins; you know the 2 most popular heroes? Uncle Ben’s death IS stapled to Spider-Man because it underlines everything he ever does. Shit it doesn’t even make sense when applied to Miles in ITSV. He does what he does because his Spider-Man died and then so did his uncle. There is even a whole scene in his dorm room where each Spider-Hero relays the grief that shaped their own lives. I’m not saying you need death and tragedy to be Spider-Man. But that’s neither a bad thing nor something that ISN’T applicable to Peter nor ITSV Miles. Aren’t these idiots supposed to be film buffs? How do you screw up such a basic reading like that?

One of the pundits claimed the movie preaches acting heroically in spite of your tragedies not because of them. Again though…that’ not Spider-Man. Peter is a hero specifically because his uncle died. Miles endeavours to become Spider-Man because his Peter died. His Uncle Aaron’s death further fuels him and allows him to make to final leap of faith. Yes, Peter B. continues to be a hero in spite of his failings but it is only his experiences with Miles that make that possible.

‘They don’t need the tragedies to be heroic they are already heroic in their own right. Look, I don’t disagree with that more broadly. Mayday Parker didn’t need tragedy to be a hero. But in terms of the specific characters in this movie? That’s clearly not true:

This whole ‘in spite of tragedy’ shit is so pre-Marvel DC comics it hurts. Heroes who just innately do the right thing because it is the right thing to do is a dated and archaic invention Spidey and the other Marvel heroes were reacting against.

‘Spider-Man Noir detracted from the film’s message of diversity because he was a brooding WHITE MAN who prowled the night to enact fist based justice!!!!’ Do I even need to say anything to that? First of all literally every hero in the movie enacts fist based justice. Why does Noir operating at night make him worse than Peter B? Why does him being male make that worse than Peni or Gwen? Why does him being white make that worse than Miles or Peni? And as for detracting from the message of diversity, shockingly diversity can be found within the same ethnic or gender group. You know white/male people aren’t a monolith and all that. Plus creatively you want PERSONALITY diversity more than anything else. In this movie in particular you want shorthand conceptual differences too. ‘Spider-Man but an anime mech girl’ ‘Spider-Man but a noir character’. ‘Spider-Man but a cartoon pig’. This is how asinine this disgusting modern day mentality is.

Wow…MovieBob defending Noir from the asinine comment. I’m genuinely surprised. Too bad he doesn’t use the most obvious defence of ‘that is obviously a ridiculous statement to make you moron’

The next topic of discussion was related to Marvel moving away from Gwen as Spider-Man’s dead girlfriend. I spoke a lot about Bob’s ice cold take on that in this post.

He claims they introduced Spider-Gwen because the idea would be taboo and thus would get people talking. HA! Spider-Gwen was done as just a general idea not something to spark controversy. It wouldn’t even BE controversial. Marvel brought back a version of Gwen within 2 years of her death. They brought her back again 15 years after her death. They brought her back again 22 years after her death along with other versions who melted because it was the Clone Saga. During and after all those times they had AUs of Gwen in What If, Age of Apocalypse, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and other such stuff. An explicitly AU of Gwen Stacy in 2014 was one of the most aggressively uncontroversial  things you could do.

Gwen’s ballet shoes differentiate her from every other Spider-Man ever. I mean yes in terms of being a dancer I suppose but in terms of being dedicated and studious, training hard and earning immense physical control? There have been plenty of versions of Spider-Man pre-2018 who are like that.

The only way you can make Spider-Gwen work going forward is by not tying it to her death in the canon? Boy…too God damn bad her debut and origin is entirely built upon that. Her origin in the comics and in the movies is built  upon a role reversal because it is Peter who dies to motivate her. Film audiences would’ve still grasped that role reversal because it was only 4 years ago Emma Stone’s highly popular rendition of the character died. And that was in the last pre-MCU Spider-Man movie to boot!

‘The only Iron Man story anyone cared about was Demon in a Bottle’ Actually they only cared about that story and Armor Wars. But yeah, the MCU version is lesser for neither having his alcoholism nor a crippling heart condition. The mere fact people became complacent about that doesn’t mean it wasn’t reductive.

‘These are fictional characters they need to grow and change with the times to remain popular’ Gwen Stacy sucked shit in the 1960s-1970s and was then killed off and defined by her death. Somehow she still  wound up becoming a fan favourite by the 90s and 21st century. Spider-Gwen sucks as a character but not in concept. I never had a problem with the concept. But the idea that she needed to exist to keep Gwen popular is bullshit because Gwen had somehow become immensely popular in spite of being a nothing character. And that even presumes anyone needed to perform maintenance on Gwen to keep her popular. No we didn’t. She was an irrelevant character beyond her death. It’s like saying we need to change Uncle Ben or Bruce’s parents to keep them popular.

Gwen’s affect on Peter Parker was important for awhile but we aren’t that society anymore. It’s not a fucking societal concern!  Putting aside how a 2014 movie did Gwen’s death just a few years before ITSV, Gwen’s death is about a universal human experience.  Death, grief, moving on. Oh, I see. This halfwit mistakenly believes Gwen is an example of women in the refrigerator.

Gwen died because Peter had this perfect lovely girlfriend and everything was too great for him and they didn’t know how to write beyond that. An oversimplification. Gwen died because they needed to shake things up for sales in general. Because Conway shipped Peter with MJ. And a 20 year old Spidey in 1973 really was too young to be killed off. Oh and you know she was written like shit. Yeah that’s the part no one ever talks about. Gwen is played up as this underserving victim of a character but she sucked shit.

It’s almost the 2020s! So fucking what? People still lose loved ones in the 2020s? I’m not even saying Spider-Gwen should have died in ITSV or revolved around her counterpart dying. I’m saying this dumbass is wrong for bringing it up as though killing Gwen off is dated on principle. But this is the same moron who unironically said ‘I never connected to Spider-Man because he is a teenaged white male wish fulfilment fantasy’. I’m sure she got top marks in her gender studies class

‘sOme PpL nEEd 2 gEt oVa iTTTTTTT’ I genuinely wish this person would wake up mute someday.

‘We could do a whole movie about Spider-Gwen’. I don’t respect where this opinion is coming from but I don’t necesarilly disag- ‘Get Seanen Maguire to write it’…nevermind. This gets even worse when you consider Maguire had only been writing Gwen for literally 3 issues at the time this podcast was released. Of the back of three issues  you are declaring this writer qualified to write an entire movie about the character? Not even Jason Latour who created her. I smell someone who just jumped on the bandwagon or worse is blinded by agenda and ideology.

‘Gwen could’ve done with 5 more minutes’ It’s not her movie!  It’s Miles’ movie and secondarily Peter B’s movie because he is Miles mentor. It is through their mutual relationship that Miles learns to be Spider-Man and Peter learns to be Spider-Man again.

It never made sense for an 80 year old woman to be raising a 16 year old boy! Aunt May in the 1960s wasn’t in her 80s. She just looked that way because, duh, standards of health were different back then. A 40 year old now looks much younger and in better health than someone who potentially might’ve been born in the 19th century circa 1962! A working class  woman no less…With chronic health problems! Even if she was in her mid-late 50s her looking like that was totally believable in context! And her raising Peter was also entirely believable depending upon how old Ben and May were when Richard and Mary were born. It’s not beyond possibility at all that there was 15-20 years separating Ben and his younger brother, meaning if Peter was born when Richard was 25, Ben and May would’ve been in their 40s. Thus by the time Peter was 15 they’d be in their 50s or 60s.

These idiots keep treating Peter from Miles’ universe as a bona fide version of 616 Peter when it’s blindingly obvious he’s supposed to be an idealized rendition of the character. A version intended to be a juxtaposition to the version we all know walking into the movie.

Peter B. Parker having a more traditional version of Aunt May as opposed to a more proactive and involved version has left him with a sense of giving up. Er…no. It’s pretty obvious Peter B. Parker is the Spider-Man we know and love who normally doesn’t give up but one string of failures after another has brought him to his lowest. But he rises back up again. Look Peter is supposed to be a representation of human beings. Human beings need people and need emotional support. When you lose those people and are alone you can go to a very dark place. That’s Peter B’s story. If Aunt May had been more involved but everything else went wrong (including her death) he’d have still wound up in the dark place he went to. Blonde Peter might’ve weathered May’s death better in theory but he had OTHER stuff in his life to keep him afloat. Peter B lost most everything. What horseshit it is to argue if Aunt May was different he’d have not given up.

There was no purpose for Aunt May being as old as she was or on the cusp of death in the original comics. Er…yeah there was. She was that old because it made her more vulnerable and thus accentuated the loss of her husband and the need for Peter to be her support network. It also internally justified why she was so frail and unwell. Old people usually have health problems. Duh! But then Bob admits there is a reason for those decisions. So he is contradicting himself.

Bob presumes Blonde Peter told Aunt May his secret even though there is no evidence in the movie to support that idea.

Kids today aren’t resentful of their grandparents like older generations were, that’s why Aunt May is played differently now. Um…Peter was never resentful of Aunt May in the first place. He sincerely loved her and felt he needed to pay her back for all she’d done for him.

‘Kids today have cool grandparents because 50% of them would have been hippies.’ Hippies aren’t cool. And never were. They were pretentious losers that hid behind causes as an excuse to do drugs and have lots of sex. Over half a century later the world they claimed to fight for and want to build has yet to materialise and in fact is in a lot of ways far worse off than it was before their generation rose to the seats of power. The hippy generation are part of the baby boomer generation that are so thoroughly mocked today. The people in power who’ve fucked up the job and housing market for consequent generations. These idiots literally spouted a dumbass theory earlier on about how first wave millenials have been thrown under the bus. Who do you think did that? The baby boomers, many of whom used  to be hippies! And NONE of this demands Aunt May has to be different. I have no problem with her being different in ITSV. But the idea of someone who used to be a hippy being doting? Being a worry wart? Why the Hell is that a dated concept?

These idiots clearly view the world aggressively through an identitarian and group weighted lens as opposed to how the world really is. I.e. 7 billion+ individuals

There was a weird amount of focus upon gangsters in the Spec Spidey cartoon considering it was for kids. Not really, the show was reverential of the original comics. The original comics (which were for children) had lots of gangsters

To the people who bitch and moan about getting another Spider-Man it doesn’t take away from the one you had before. No one was complaining about Miles as another Spider-Man in this movie. People weren’t claiming it ruins the Raimi movies or something. People resent it in the comics because it waters down the brand and makes Spider-Man himself less special when he is an ONGOING character. It’d be one thing maybe if the torch was passed from person to person. But nowadays it’s literally all of them co-existing.

Blah blah bah symbolism of a young black boy fighting a big WHITE business MAN. Blah blah blah this is the type of bad guy Miles would fight in real life blah blah blah…Jesus Christ… these people really just buy that type of Kool-aid in bulk don’t they? As if Miles, were he ‘real’ wouldn’t fight anyone who’s doing bad things. FFS they just got done talking about Tombstone from the Spec cartoon. Tombstone is an African American!  And he’s in this fucking movie. He’s not some weird fantastical guy, he’s a regular gangster who happens to be albino. That’s it. Miles fights him in this fucking movie! Miles first major adversary in the comics was the Prowler who was another African American. Miles wouldn’t JUST fight ‘evil white businessMEN’

‘As far as I know about Doc Ock from Superior Spider-Man, which is excellent’ Wow. So, as would be obvious with anyone with a working brain and some prior knowledge of Otto, Superior is garbage. And saying you are basing your assessments of Otto on Superior is like saying you have never known about the character

Doc Ock is in so many Spidey stories as a scientific assistant to other people because the Green Goblin is always either dead or completely untrustworthy. Bob really just said that huh? This is further proof Bob has read precious little Spider-Man material. Doc Ock is NOBODY’s assistant. Even in Secret Wars he had to be threatened into compliance by Doom himself when Ultron was his attack dog. Doc Ock isn’t recruited by other people for his genius, he is the mover and shaker. He recruits other people and is the man in charge. And who the fuck is looking to get the help of Norman Osborn because he’s a scientist? Not to mention Norman is untrustworthy, oh but Otto?????????? The guy who tried to nuke NYC???????? WTF is Bob talking about?

Since we are in the ‘age of heroes’ (whatever THAT means?) it is impossible for Spider-Man to not be mentored by some other hero. Er…yeah it is? This is obviously a defence of MCU Spider-Man and it holds no water. First of all DC and Marvel have had young heroes show up when there are a plethora of heroes around they’ve not had mentors. Second of all it’s entirely possible for Peter to not WANT a mentor and it’d be entirely believable that the other heroes might not see themselves as mentors or might mistrust him.

The Spider-Heroes take their grief and turn it into action. WHOA WHOA WHOA! Didn’t these guys say earlier that the movie preaches the heroes are more than their trauma? That they aren’t stapled to their origins? That they move on from it? What’s this change of tune all of a sudden?

Miles Dad was probably made into a cop to avoid having a difficult discussion about how the police would react to a black super hero or a black Spider-Man. Yeah, or it’s because you know…his Dad worked in law enforcement in the comics so you know…faithfulness. Also the police don’t discriminate against black heroes in the MCU except Luke Cage. Also, also not every fucking cop is racist. Also, also, also how would they know Miles is black his costume covers his whole body!

Miles Dad was super authoritarian. Dude. He didn’t like vigilantes and he followed basic rules like stopping not abusing police sirens. That’s hardly akin to being a jackbooted fascist.

Miles would’ve had a different relationship with authority and the police if his Dad hadn’t been a cop. Er…no not necessarily. First of all being the son of a cop doesn’t mean he’d have not experienced institutionalized racism from the police. Second of all even if he had experienced that he could still believe in justice and taking down obviously evil and dangerous people like Kingpin.

They never touched upon institutional racism from the police in Luke Cage which was for adults. Er, yes they did. The rapper in the later episodes of season 1 (the Bulletproof Love guy) stated he wasn’t going to call the police. The police were stopping and searching black men in their hunt for Cage. Black people wore shirts with holes in them in order to protect Cage and defy the cops. The rap mentioned how nobody was interested in protecting their neighbourhood.

Nobody wants the tell a superhero story about institutional racism within the authorities. Isn’t that literally Luke Cage’s origin? Didn’t Black Panther mention that earlier in the year ITSV was released.

I’m going to disagree that Miles fighting Kingpin was unnecessary because of the cultural connotations we talked about….God…You couldn’t just say ‘the main hero obviously has to defeat the main villain. Duh!’…

Dan Slott is a dang genius! As if you needed more proof these people are unqualified  to talk about Spider-Man…

Spider-Verse’s (the comic’s) fan service is what happens when you get Spider-Man fans to do the story vs. ITSV. Nah fam. ITSV is what happens when you get real fans who are talented  vs. Spider-Verse is what happens when you get a real fan who fundamentally misunderstands the characters and is a hack

There is no real Peter Parker. Who cares! The real Peter Parker is the original because he is the one everyone else is derivative of and therefore based upon. And fans AND creators and Marvel itself clearly care about that because they sure as fuck didn’t kill him  off so Miles could replace him. They killed off the secondary and surplus Ultimate Peter Parker. Treating the original version as the true  one doesn’t invalidate any other versions because they can still be great characters unto themselves. But given how disgustingly SJW this whole podcast has been I am unsurprised they go in for this participation trophy form of analysis where everything is equal all the time.

It also doesn’t invalidate the idea of Spider-Man being anyone. Spider-Man CAN be anyone. But not everyone can be Peter Parker. If we are going to say otherwise the praise these jackoffs lauded onto Miles for how his specific identity was explored is invalidated. Peter is Peter. Miles is Miles. They can both be Spider-Heroes worthy of the mantle.

Because Miles is a POC people who don’t look like Peter can believe they can be Spider-Man. I’m not arguing against Miles but seriously, that was the case before Miles existed. The showrunner of Spider-Man 1994 was an African American and he related to Peter Parker in the 1960s. Poc can relate to Spider-Man regardless of skin colour.

The original comic book version of Spider-Man isn’t the true one just because he is the original. Er….yeah. It seriously does precisely BECAUSE he is the version all the other ones are derivative of. Hence he’s from the PRIME universe. Shit the Spider-Verse comic book the movie takes mild inspiration from literally says that. Granted it then contradicts itself but the point still stands. Because he is the original one he IS the true one because without him the others would not exist. He is the canonical one!

The true 616 Spider-Man will never be in any adaptation because there is too much continuity…Yeah…so? How does that make him not  the original one in the broad context though when you compare every version?

Continuity is the killer of enjoyment when it comes to movies. No, this podcast is the killer of enjoyment. And btw, maybe ask all the people who went to see Infinity War earlier in the year ITSV was released and ask them if continuity ruined that movie for them. This is such a lazy, myopic attitude.

If continuity is used to exclude people it is bad. Good job nobody was ever saying ITSV shouldn’t exist because Miles isn’t Peter then

Infinity War is a fine movie even if you do not know who everybody is. No it isn’t. Infinity War is wholly inaccessible if you do not know who everyone is because it’s throwing dozens of characters at you with little-no context provided.

Black Panther is better than Infinity War, this proves continuity is bad. No. Black Panther not having to have it’s story wrapped up in everything else in the wider universe was what helped make it better. FFS, Winter Soldier is better than Avengers 2012 and that still relies upon plenty of continuity. Civil War is better than Thor the Dark World and the latter has way less continuity than the former. It’s not about having continuity it’s about how you use it. Black Panther was world building in it’s own corner. It wasn’t plugged in so directly to the wider universe the way Homecoming or FFH was. THAT’s what made it good but that’s not a continuity issue that’s a world building issue.

Continuity is toxic when you use it to claim a long running fantasy series didn’t satisfy you. Uh huh, hey do you wanna ask all the people who hated Game of Thrones’ final season that?

Oh, and one of the pundits, the one who bleeted on about Spidey as a ‘tEEnAgE WHITE mAle wish fUlLfiLmEnt fantasy!’ is a Hollywood actress. Now her views make waaaaaaaaaay too much sense

In conclusion…Sigh…For a podcast called School of Movies I think these guys need to go back to kindergarten.

[my-lady-knight]

Favorite Reads of 2019

As seems to be my usual, I’m posting this at what feels like the last second.

Writing this year’s post was hard. I’ve been complaining offline all year that it feels like I read far fewer books I really, truly enjoyed. Even the books I did enjoy, they didn’t stick around long in my head for me to remember details. On the other hand, this list ended up being thirteen items long, so it can’t have been that bad. And having to go back to the books in order to write this list did make me remember how and why I loved them, so there is that.

Presented in chronological order of when I read them:

The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

The first book I read in 2019, and I knew would end up on this list as soon as I finished. It’s also the first book of Guy Gavriel Kay’s where I finally understood what the fuss was about - when he commits to writing three-dimensional characters with compelling interpersonal and socio-political relationships, he commits. The cultural/social details of this secondary-world version of medieval Spain set at the beginning of the end of the Caliphate and the rise of the Reconquista are evocative, and the scope deftly alternates between being vast without tripping over itself and touchingly personal. Most importantly, this book gave me an OT3 I wasn’t even expecting in the form of Amman ibn Khairan, famed soldier, poet, and advisor now outcast from the city-state of Cartada, Rodrigo Belmonte, beloved cavalry captain with a complicated loyalty to the rulers he serves, and Jehane bet Ishak, an esteemed physician whose path intersects with them both. Together they represent the connections and tensions between their respective, secondary-world Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities, cities, and leaders in this secondary-world Spain and form a triangle of everything the country has, is, and can be. A year later I still love this book.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

This book is difficult to write about, because I remember loving it as I was reading it, but I can’t remember any of the essays very well several months after the fact (see above). What I do remember is that they were difficult, and complicated, and messy, and they did the thing I love when essays do where the fact that the things Alexander Chee was writing about are super-specific to him made them somehow feel all the more relatable. All the essays were nicely crafted stories and emotional journeys, withAlexander Chee tracing all the various aspects of his life through his writing, as an Asian man, a gay man, an aspiring writer, a professional writer, a resident of NYC, and a survivor of sexual assault, using prose that was both artistic and clear as water.

The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Amal El-Mohtar wrote in her NYT review that this book was akin to “Hamlet”, “if [the play] were told from the point of view of Elsinore Castle addressing itself to a Horatio who mostly couldn’t hear it,” to which my response was “huh?” Then I read the book and it a) made so much more sense and b) ended up being an astute, apropos explanation of the kind of book The Raven Tower is. It’s the story of a soldier and companion to the heir of a country investigating the disappearance of its ruler and the ascendency of another in his place. It’s also the story of a calm, patient god in the form of a stone who predates all of history and narrates the changing existence of gods, their power, and their relationship to humans and their civilizations. It’s an understated yet powerful book, full of Ann Leckie’s brilliant and clever writing, world-building, storytelling, and otherworldliness. It’s Ann Leckie. She knows what she’s doing. And it fucking works.

Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez

This book - is bonkers. It is insane. It is one thousand percent over the top. I kept asking myself “why am I not irritated???” Instead I loved it. Sal is the new kid, a practicing magician with as showman’s flair for the dramatic and boundless energy, and he can open up portals into other universes. Gabi is the sharp-eyed, bossy class president and editor of the school newspaper who just knows something’s up with Sal and his shenanigans. Together, they become friends! And open up more portals into other universes. This book is warm and empathetic and funny and kind-hearted. It’s too-muchness quality somehow worked. The whole thing felt like the literary equivalent of a hug. 

The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino

This wasn’t a Deep book, but I could not stop thinking about it, nor could I stop recommending it to people. It’s a zippy historical fiction novel set in 1830s NYC prior to the Potato Famine. Mary (or Maire) and her brother Seanin are Irish immigrants working in the same wealthy family’s house, she as lady’s maid to the marriageable daughter named Charlotte, he as a groomsman. Mary is half in love with her Charlotte; unfortunately so is Seanin, and the two of them are carrying on an affair, the aftermath of which leaves Mary in a bind about where her loyalties lie. I love that this book has a queer take on a love triangle that I’ve never seen before, and I loved Mary’s anger and resentment, her unashamed attitude towards her desire for Charlotte as well as other women, and her selfishness as well as her loyalty. I also loved the upstairs-downstairs nature of the book and the clash of Anglo-American and Irish immigrant ethnic and class mores and the larger social and political setting of the city and time period.

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson

I don’t even know how to begin describing this book. It’s a story about maps and boundaries and borders. It’s an epic of daring escape and adventure about a mapmaker named Hassan with a magical gift and a concubine named Fatima, two friends fleeing the Inquisition after the surrender of Granada, in search of a mythical island ruled by the King of Birds. It’s a story of faith and trust and bonds forged from disparate people, and transformation, transformation of yourself and the world around you because you will it to be so. It’s a beautiful, beautifully written book.

(As a side note, I’m intrigued by the fact that two of my favorite books on here are set during the Reconquista.)

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

In some ways I liked this even better than The Hate U Give. I loved the complexity that arose out of Bri rapping about the injustices she’s experienced, with people drawing completely different meanings out of her words, people wanting her to use her rapping and her voice for differing reasons, and Bri herself working to figure out the power she has with her rapping and how she wants to use her talents, when it comes to financially supporting her family, standing up for herself, and being herself when so many around her are creating all these false images of her based solely off her words. I loved Bri’s anger, the way she kept speaking before thinking, her loving, sometimes complicated relationships with her family and friends...Angie Thomas’s writing and storytelling is phenomenal.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

I’m not even sure what to say about this book that hasn’t been said but, um, yeah, it’s Octavia Butler, it’s a classic, and really my favorite aspect of the book is how it so effectively bridges the gap between history and present and demonstrates how the two aren’t so far apart, and effectively blends them such that for Dana, the present becomes the past and the past is her present and suddenly she isn’t visiting history at a somewhat removed vantage point, she is part of history, her own history, her ancestors’ history, in all its horror, caught in a catch-22 of needing to repeatedly save the life of her white, slave-owning ancestor who over time grows more and more violent towards her, in order to ensure the chronological security of her own life.

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

This was a harrowing read. Set in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia during the 1969 Malay-Chinese race riots, sixteen-year-old Melati has OCD, or what she understands as a djinn living inside her that forces her to obsessively count in order to keep her mom alive, a secret she tries to hide so people don’t think she’s possessed. When the race riots break out across the city, Melati has to make her way through the violence in the streets in order to find her mom, all while battling the djinn as its power increases in the chaos. I repeat, this book was brutal. The descriptions of Melati’s OCD alone make it a tense, taxing read - combine it with the violence and unpredictability of the race riots and all the threats to Melati’s safety and her ever-growing fear for her mom and it’s a lot. Even so (perhaps because) I could not put this book down. The recreation of this part of history (which I had no clue of before and knew nothing about) was both immersive and informative, the story was deftly plotted, and I loved how Melati’s characterization and her relationship/the depiction of her OCD and how it specifically affects her in her particular circumstances. 

Jade War by Fonda Lee

CLEAN BLADE CLEAN BLADE CLEAN BLADE

*ahem*

The second book of the Green Bone Saga was even better than the first. It took the story of the Kaul family and the No Peak clan and the worldbuilding of Jade City and turned everything up to eleven, expanding the story beyond Kekon into the global theater, particularly Espenia, bringing into the picture Kekonse immigration, diaspora, assimilation, and cultural heritage - what it means to be Kekonese, to be a Green Bone and carry jade and follow aisho outside of Kekon. The gang warfare between the No Peak clan and the Mountain clan spills over the domestic sphere into the international. Espenia grows more aggressive in its moves to gain control over jade at Kekon’s expense. It’s family loyalties and betrayals, it’s gang politics and warfare, it’s community, municipal, national, and international politics and culture clashes, and the changing world of being a Green Bone and wearing jade in a post-colonial world. Anyone who’s followed me this year because of Peaky Blinders - READ JADE CITY AND JADE WAR. YOU WILL LIKE THESE BOOKS I PROMISE.

Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee

With this short story collection, Yoon Ha Lee has not only successfully published fan fiction of his own work in the Hexarchate universe and is getting paid for it, he’s published good fanfiction. The cute Cheris and Jedao backstory pieces of flash fiction he first published on his website are drabbles. One of the original pieces in this collection is straight-up PWP. (How the hell Solaris agreed to it I have no idea, there is literally no plot.) The very last story (also original) is fix-it fic for Revenant Gun that left me kicking and screaming over the CLIFFHANGER that Yoon Ha Lee ended it on HOW DARE YOU I DEMAND TO KNOW WHAT CHERIS AND JEDAO ARE GOING TO DO NEXT YOU BETTER BE WRITING MORE STORIES SET IN THIS AU TIMELINE. In sum, Yoon Ha Lee is a delight, I love him, and I loved this collection.

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

A novella about the weight of history, especially painful, traumatic history, and the necessity and yearning for it when you don’t have it. To be forced to bear the burden of history alone is to be crushed and subsumed by it. To lose or become detached from it is to lose connection to the people you’re from. Either way, it is difficult to impossible to maintain a people’s history alone. Rivers Solomon is such a poetic writer with her prose, painting beautiful images with just the right collection and arrangement of words, all while packing an astutely aimed punch in 160 pages.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

I had some issues with how convenient some of the magic/magical artifacts felt, and the various threads of the murder plot didn’t tie up as nicely as I wanted, but oh, Alex Stern is a marvel - a survivor in every sense of the word who embraces that part of herself over and over, even as what being a survivor means changes for Alex over the course of the book. A dark/contemporary urban fantasy set at Yale where the university’s elite student societies are also magical societies— Alex is a dropout who got into drugs as a teenager in order to shield herself from the ghosts she can’t stop seeing, recruited to act as overseer of the societies’ magical rituals, and who takes it upon herself to investigate the murder of a young woman not too different than herself. The centrality of power and its abuse in this book is delicious, the read is gripping, and Alex is worth the price of admission. Yes, I will be reading the second book when it comes out.

(Also, this is literally the second book I’ve ever read that makes any mention or inclusion of Ladino (both Alex and Leigh Bardugo are Sephardi.))

Honorable Mentions

Finding Baba Yaga by Jane Yolen

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

How Long ‘til Black Future Month? by N. K. Jemisin

Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 edited by N. K. Jemisin and John Joseph Adams

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly

Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse

Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

It’s also been my practice over the past few years when making these posts to crunch the numbers regarding the number of books I’ve read by PoC authors. This year I read a total of 30 books, which is the exact same number as last year, but since I read fewer books this year, they accounted for 47 percent of my reading, compared to last year’s 43 percent. My goal since I started has been to get to 50-50 parity between PoC and white authors, and this year’s the second-closest I got (I reached 48 percent in 2017.) The goal for next year is once again 50-50.

[yasbxxgie]

I am reluctant to call any work by Octavia Butler “speculative”, as I suspect that she was in fact scrying the near and distant futures, and drawing inspiration from the lives of her ancestors, in her present, and sending us messages here, waiting for us, in our present, our future. Octavia Butler was a messenger, one of many, inspired, inspiring, and certainly gone from us far too soon. Two hundred years of her guidance and griot work would have been too little. Yet, she gave us much, and left road maps, and motivation.

I wonder what to think of our very American way of thinking over and to a thing, and to call it discovery, as it has always been there, and consider how this colors our childlike enthusiasm around Afrofuturism and Black speculative fiction. I think back to my time spent with Octavia’s Patternmaster, and Wild Seed, and Dawn, and both Parables, and I see her speaking directly to me, to us, in present and future tense. Watch yourself now, watch yourself as you are becoming.

And now, our joy, and discovery. This path was already charted, even before Octavia, but she took the machete to the path, just so. That path was worn well by her, and so many others who toiled to keep the path clear, but she, Octavia, she carved, and lit, and burned, bright. We should spend a moment with her, a moment that she left for us, for this moment, among ever so many, is an important one.

I have worked my way to what we popularly call Afrofuturism in very jagged steps. My Western trained mind and sensibilities first wanted to narrowly define and cage my understanding of the concept of Afrofuturism, and speculative fiction. I demanded categories and borders. The more time I spent with the arts, and the artists, and meditating on the vastness, the less frustrated i became. Octavia, and her works, soothed me as I was cast adrift. I simply needed to swim out into these works, knowing I would find my way back. I could forsake my sense of what is and isn’t and treat these works as living things. I felt the joy so many experienced when they lived with that film last February, but so many times over.

In my walk with, and curiosity about, Afrofuturism, what impacted me most was the complete absence of rules around identity. In Octavia’s work, there were very few ideological heroes and villains. There were very few clean antiheroes and pure causes. Even after the many tragedies and traumas faced by her characters, there were very few survivors, as my experience with fiction came to teach me to understand survivors. She created a very real diversity in purpose and psychology in her characters. They are creatures living in their moments, reflective, rich, and frustratingly complicated.

In one instant, I was made to assume the point of view of a body and soul snatching immortal who craved companionship, and struggled with having to learn love and the meaning of family. Complicated rites of passage, the meaning of being, extinction, responsibilities of station and status, so much more. In every work. Octavia would sail me out, toss me off of the ship, and order me to go and find the story being told. I would never return until I did.

What was, is, will be, so remarkably powerful about her work, about much of the focus of Afrofuturism and Black speculative fiction, is the telling and making of the world and galaxies and gods, in the image of Black people.

Not only in the physical image of all of those in the diaspora, but the full, three dimensional, fully realized, human image. She gave us all powerful rulers, beings remaking the world, prophets, all Black. Worlds and ways, all Black. She was a raucous part of this essential conversation, a gifted runner in this necessary marathon. Octavia scribbled a way forward before leaving us.

She gave me, us, those coming, both Lilith and Lauren. Deeply rich and evolved sisters, and both unlike much of what we came to know of Black women in fiction. They were, are, beings of immense potential, and purpose, and those were their powers. Taking circumstances, making change, leading their tribes through what appeared to be hopeless circumstances, making difficult choices and carving out solutions. Thanos would have stood no chance would he have crossed either.

And so, the question for me now, was, will be, what of the works going forward. There is Hopkinson and Okorafor and so many others confidently setting foot on the literary path of Afrofuturism, and they are setting down permanent stakes, well lit, for us to follow, but what of the messages and stories and lives?

With afrofuturism so readily shattering and bending and piercing these typical notions of identity, I would love to see so much more, and frequently, and shared without reservation.

I am ready for the great genius villain in the tale to be an elderly Black woman. And for her apprentice to be a confused Black boy. And for the hero to Black and Queer, and a gamer, and lover of candles, and….I want to see so many of our lives poured out and painted on these canvases in wide and messy and real patches.

I am seeing the films, often after an apocalypse, where our community saves the planet, and we are gods, and children, and create new civilizations. I am seeing the art, the images of heroes and demons, and our eternal souls, and I can’t wait for the cosplay to emerge from these images and manga, and films and stories. I am here for all of it.

And I thank Octavia for finding me, and pulling me in, and casting me out, and I thank all of those who swim in these waters, and refuse to be tethered, and show me how to live in the moments of us creating for an with ourselves, and I am preparing my part, my piece of the story, as Octavia guided me to do.

I ask you to head out, well past that experience you had last February, start with Octavia, but find all of those she birthed and taught who are still telling the story, and leaving the strands of clue for us to follow. Go, find them.

Our newer and best selves are in those arts and minds. Support, live with, and know them.

[violet--minds-blog]

‘The Bold Type’ and Surface-Level Intersectionality

Piper Gibson | July 26, 2017

Long time, no write, I know. It’s hard, as a mentally ill person working and going to school and trying to stay politically aware in these trying times, to update this blog. But I’m back with another post, because I am annoyed.

I’ve caught up with The Bold Type, a new Freeform series which is about three friends who work at a women’s magazine and is currently airing its first season. As I’m writing this there’s four episodes, but each is packed with so much that rubs me the wrong way that I’ve been incessantly livetweeting on my (private) Twitter about it. I don’t even know where to start, so I suppose I’ll begin with a few things I like.

I like that it’s a women-driven show. I like that we get to see women in power and at the top of their game. I like that the side characters are kinda diverse. I like that it passes the Bechdel test in a major, major way. I like that they are at least trying to come from an intersectional feminist perspective. That’s actually why I’m really frustrated with this show, but I’ll talk about that more later.

Firstly. Jane, the kind-of main character (To me, she’s clearly the main protagonist, but it could be argued that her, Kat, and Sutton are all protagonists) is boring. I’m sorry. She just is the human embodiment of plain yogurt. I cannot bring myself to care about her budding career or mediocre hetero love life. I don’t care when she wins, and I don’t care when she loses. I guess to some, her story might be interesting, but I just... don’t... care. I feel basically the same about Sutton, but she’s a teense more likable because the glimpses of her backstory spark an interest in me. For Jane, I think the writers were going for a Gifted-Child-Who-Grew-Up-To-Need-To-Please-Authority-Figures vibe, which I can relate to, except I see basically nothing of myself in her. Maybe it’s the bland cishet girl thing, but she’s not doing it for me.

My main problem with this show is that they focus on Plain Jane (low-hanging fruit, I know, but I had to do it), who has the personality of a lightly-salted potato chip, way more than they focus on Kat, who is IMO the most interesting person on the show. For a series that’s at least kind of trying to be diverse, it’s frustrating to me that 2/3 of the main characters are white and cis and heterosexual, but anyway. They have two cis, heterosexual, white woman main characters and then a black woman main character who is questioning her sexuality. Who do you think a large portion of the viewership for a show that claims to be feminist is gonna gravitate towards? Not the pasty heteros, probably.

Kat is dynamic, and interesting, and good at her job, not to mention gorgeous as all hell. Yet they give her storylines like "Black Girl Who Grew Up Upper-Middle Class Has to Have Poverty Explained to Her by White Girl” and “Black Girl Living In Modern-Day America Somehow Doesn’t Understand Why A WOC Immigrant Might Not Want to Interact With Police” and “Black Girl Who Works at a Feminist Magazine Doesn’t Seem to Know About Bisexuality For Some Reason” and y’all. It’s honestly so tiring. I understand that Kat is the one with the majority of the interactions with Adena to set up the queer romance between them (which I love and appreciate) but this also means Kat is their point-girl to explain xenophobia and immigration issues to the audience. 

I would like that they’re showing interracial ignorance issues, because people of color can be ignorant about and discriminatory towards other people of color, but I don’t think that’s what they set out to do. I think they wanted this to be a cool, hip, intersectional show, so they do a few kind of performative scenes where the Muslim lesbian woman on a work visa explains to another woman of color why she doesn’t take her hijab off or why she ran when the police showed up after a man assaulted her. At one point, Kat’s white boss actually explains to her that Adena ran from the cops because she could’ve gotten deported, which Kat hadn’t even considered somehow. What this actually does is tell the audience that Kat is ignorant on issues pertaining to women of color, and since Jane and Sutton literally never have race discussions beside one throw-away line about the Civil War from Jane, it feels like race is a topic secluded to only a few WOC characters. The women of color do all the literal and metaphorical emotional labor on this topic on the show, and the white women characters don’t have to deal with it. Which, I guess, is realistic to actual race relations between women, but I would like it to be acknowledged on-screen. For Kat to have to be the person with the brunt of the ignorance on xenophobia and queer issues while her white friends don’t have to deal with it is upsetting, to say the least. Because the show doesn’t address it, to me, it feels like them saying that white women are just so much better and more knowledgeable about these things than women of color, which is just... straight up wrong. I’d like at least one scene of Sutton and Jane not understanding something about race and Kat saying “Just Google it, I’m not gonna do the emotional labor for the both of you,” please, for the love of God. 

This isn’t even all of my problems with the show. It revolves way too much around romance and sex for media that seems to say women’s lives don’t have to revolve around romance and sex, for one thing. Both Jane and Sutton’s love interests are white assholes. Sutton’s boyfriend works for the same company as her and as such, is in a position of power over her. At least the show acknowledges that if this were to get out, the high-up board member boyfriend would not be the one in trouble and probably fired. But he’s still touted as this super sweet guy who tries really hard, despite him talking down to Sutton about how young she is and how he “remembers feeling like” there was no time to accomplish things like he’s so much more worldly and intelligent than her. Ew. Dump him, sweetheart.

Jane’s love interest is the. Literal. Worst. His name is like, Tyler or Aaron or something douchey, and he’s my least favorite guy archetype. Tyler-Aaron works for the “rival” men’s magazine about sex and relationships, with stunning article titles like “How To Make Your Girlfriend Fuck Like a Porn Star.” I know. Obviously, White Feminist Jane hates him at first. But I am a smart person, so when I saw them get in a disagreement in which he condescendingly calls her article “cute” and she storms off, I said, “Oh no. They’re gonna fuck, aren’t they.” Because that’s what happens every time a man and a woman dislike each other in popular media. A woman thinks a man is sexist? Yeah, eventually she’s gonna see the error of her ways and they’re gonna have sex.

See, what bothers me about Tyler-Aaron is that they made him a Secret Male Feminist. He tells Jane, “You haven’t read my articles, have you?” after she calls them sexist, and everyone tells her that he’s a pretty good writer and not a bad guy. He told her there’s nothing he finds sexier than a woman speaking her mind, and he wrote one good article about how women feeling like they need to fake orgasms is the fault of men, so he really schooled her, huh? Jane stands there with her mouth agape as Secret Male Feminist struts away smirking, and then within a day or so she’s kissing him. Yawn. Puke. Etc, etc.

This storyline doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because he already was a dick. He already condescended her writing, said she was sexy when she called him out for legitimate reasons, and wrote shitty sexist articles. Him writing one good article or being nice to her now doesn’t change that. And making him teach her something about feminism or prove her ideas wrong is akin to gaslighting. Women are already told every single day that we’re imagining all this discrimination and violence, that sexism is basically over and we need to shut up, that Congress passed X thing or a movie had Y plot so we “won,” and it’s time to move on. We’re told this despite seeing and experiencing this violence on every level, starting with interpersonal and going up to governmental and global. Tyler-Aaron apparently being an okay guy instead of the sexist douche Jane once thought he was (and I still know he is) is basically the show saying, “Hey, crazy feminist, not all men are bad, and some can be feminist, so calm down, okay? Your gut-reaction of a man being sexist and condescending is a fake reaction and you’re just making things up and jumping to conclusions.” It’s gross. And I expect better.

That’s why I dislike the show. It’s clearly trying, at least a tiny little bit, to be feminist and intersectional. It could be a really great, diverse, ground-breaking show. Instead, it is still so limited, racist, and surface-level white feminist-y. Most of what it tries to do, it fails. And, okay, I recognize that it’s important that a show like this, with a large majority of female characters, even exists. But they’re doing a disservice to characters like Kat, a lot of characters are boring and one-dimensional, and they haven’t even mentioned issues like trans or disability rights. It’s just not great writing, folks. Personally, when a show claims to be feminist, I expect it to follow through.