#subverting stereotypes

[samasmith23]

This scene is such an important moment in all of Ms. Marvel in regards to not only serving as a defining character moment for Kamala’s older brother Aamir, but also in how it actively subverts and shatters Islamophobic stereotypes and misconceptions about Muslim men!

From Ms. Marvel (2014) #18 by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona.

[patbertram]

Subverting Stereotypes in The Wheel of Time

Last night, I spent a considerable amount of what should have been sleeping time looking for bad reviews of the last three books of The Wheel of Time series. After the death of the real author, the series was finished by a stand-in author, who did an execrable job, and I wondered why none of those books rated less than a three-star review on Amazon. One reason, I discovered, is that a lot of…

[daylighteclipsed]

[manyfrance]

Okay I know we all want Jod to suffer for his crimes and many don’t believe it’s possible for him to be redeemed but do you remember what fandom we’re in:

[cartoonybus]

ITS SO IRRATIONAL AND THEY WOULDN'T BUT. WHAT IF

[bberry005]

tbh to me what makes samira mohan and victoria javadi such good indian american representation is that they don't feel like they're just there to be indian american. yes, lots of indians in the US are doctors (and we see that accurately reflected in the pitt!), but a lot of the time, their stories are told in a one note way. you know, the stereotypical way you expect indian people to be represented in mainstream US television.

the thing is though, samira and victoria don't fall into that. you can tell that they're indian and that being so is important to their characters, but that's not the central factor. instead, cultural norms in indian american communities shine through in their essential character traits. hard work, respecting your parents, eyes on the prize attitude, a strong work ethic, and academic and professional achievement of the highest level are all things that indian americans value strongly, and you can see it in samira and victoria without it being handed to you. their cultural values and upbringing inform their characters, but its not so in your face it doesn't feel real. and mainstream american television always makes asians robots or messy failures, so just seeing two indian american women be so refreshingly real is so beautiful to me

also there's something wonderful in samira being the character with research focused on racial health disparities in the ER. when people in the US think about racialized healthcare, they don't often consider asians and asian americans in that assessment. the way we as asians face healthcare discrimination is different than other minorities in the US, but it does still exist and it's extremely prevalent. and samira studying that makes me so happy. and yeah, victoria is the progidal indian child, but her storyline frames it in a way that displays the way she (and many other successful indian american women) are at tensions with their family for pushing them so hard to be so successful and not allowing room for much else. it feels like victoria's story will play out with nuance rather than her just completely rejecting her family as many stories do end, and it's such a good way to subvert the genius asian character stereotype to me.

[traderoftrouble]

I just binged Geek Girl on Netflix and honestly it's one of the best cheesy teen tv shows I've watched in a while. Harriet is 100% autistic and I see so much of myself in her!

Although yeah, obviously everything has a happy ending which is very unrealistic given the circumstances it was very fun to watch! I was invested and most importantly I really enjoyed all the character work!

Often in these kinds of shows, nobody other than the MC gets any development/exploration but we get a small slice of everyone's life in a way that doesn't feel infodumpy. Every character felt like a real person who had their own goals/objectives that didn't centre entirely around Harriet.

Anyway! If you enjoyed Julie and The Phantoms, or are in the mood for something silly and sweet I definitely reccomend! :D

[fulcrum-021]

I think the funniest thing Star Wars could do is bring back Kallus and make it canon that he does not drink caf and refuses to even touch the stuff

[sugarcoatedrattrap]

🕺

[lesbianscxlly]

everytime someone tries to make mulder rude and bad-boyish and scully emotional and people-pleasing to fit them into gender-roles one year gets taken off my life

[funboxsupreme]

Whenever the whole “Tau have to get mandated pregnancy” is brought up wrt to Human/Tau ships it’s usually presented as something tragic for the human, but I kinda wish people dug into that?

As in like, do the sexual politics of the Tau treat sex as something you just do for procreation rather than recreation, or do they just see sex as not that special and likewise don’t understand why humans get so bent out of shape when their partners have mandated breeding time?

Personally I would rather see more of Tau being casual about sex and treating it as not that important to their relationships. Because yeah, it’s fun and all, but it’s also just something they have to do for procreation and everyone has to do it, it doesn’t mean anything to them or have any impact on their relationships with someone else.

[cryptidafter]

okay I'm not a fan of the whole "JC gets pegged by WQ because feminism, am I right ladies?" thing that fandom goes wild about, for a number of reasons, BUT

I would love JC and WQ in a Love and Leashes style arrangement. JC who totally doesn't have a mommy kink, why the hell would you say that?, wanting to be smacked around by his very competent but uptight and kinda scary coworker WQ. WQ, who definitely isn't upset by the fact that she can't seem to get a promotion because her dumbass boss doesn't like her and she doesn't really get along with her teammates because they don't do things right and why the hell is the new guy always staring at her anyway?!

Do you see my vision? Do you get it? This is the only BDSM type arrangement I want for these two, okay? If you're gonna go for it, I need you to COMMIT. Fully invest!

[whomstsnek]

godddddddd andy specifically calling out that Shepherd isn't fearless </3

he's so, so afraid but remains so, so brave through it all......

[ferretwhomst]

did i ever tell tumblr about my dear ocs rosette and avalon

[girl4music]

I have to second everything Melissa Blake says here about Rob Tapert. Every time I have heard that man speak he is always proving himself to be the true feminist he is well known for in being the main showrunner of Xena. He is just constantly “You know what bugs me? There’s never any women-led…” and will just complain about the severe lack of women in everything in the TV art/entertainment industry. Or in any medium of public entertainment whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak in an interview where he didn't say something about the lack of female representation in everything.

He is always championing and cheering for women and their hard work all over the world and it never ever comes off performative or like he is trying to appeal to a specific demographic. He genuinely supports women’s rights. He has spoken out so many times about how much he wishes there had been more female creators in Xena but that he just couldn’t convince all that many to give it a try and said that apart from Renée O’Connor, Liz Friedman, Chris Manheim and Nora Kay Foster, no female was really a regular on the set as a writer/director/producer and as much as he loved his entire team, it always bothered him that his show was male-dominant as far as the creative field went instead of female-dominant because, as far as he was concerned, that was how it was meant to be. A women-led show in every sense of the phrase. But that they just weren't interested in doing action/fantasy and preferred rom-coms. Donald Duncan - director of cinemaphotography on Xena - attested to that in the commentary he did for the episode ‘King Con’. He spoke about how there were very few female directors that directed for Xena and that it was a shame because that was really what the show was made for. To give women the opportunity they often do not get in the industry.

I’m not saying it’s got everything to do with her love for him but it’s no wonder why Lucy Lawless married Rob Tapert. It’s also no wonder why the Xenaverse fandom (Xenites) - which are predominantly gay or queer women - respect Rob so much as an executive producer. I mean as Melissa Blake said… you hear horror stories about the way women are treated by male showrunners (coughWhedoncough) and it’s something that I really think gets overlooked about the on-set experience of Xena. That it was a family environment even though it was male-dominated. Women had more opportunity and authority on the set of Xena than probably any other set because that’s how Rob wanted it to be. He didn’t just cater to the Xenaverse fandom - he catered to every woman on his team and never ever made any excuses for why anything couldn't be done for them at any point. It just genuinely ended up being that not many female creators wanted to stick around on the Xena set because the scope of it often meant leaving their families behind for a long time. But Rob and all the other showrunners or the leads of all the different departments working on Xena always made sure to make their environments as comforting as possible on the off-chance a woman wanted to join their team and stick it out for the long haul like them. That's what 'Xena: Warrior Princess' was about. It wasn't just an "in-show" representation thing with having two lead female characters in a romantically-heavy type of character dynamic. It was for female creators to get a foot in the door in TV art/entertainment amongst a plethora of male creators that were constantly catered to just because their sex chromosomes were XY. Rob and all of the male creators on Xena did not want that but they ultimately had no choice because few female creators were willing to take the risk on doing something that's outside their field.

Something that - at the time - was only ever expected for men to do.

I think we - as a fandom - take for granted what Xena was in this way. It was a very unique and groundbreaking experience on-set as well and if there were any horror stories, it never had anything to do with poor treatment from an abusive and oppressive male showrunner because that showrunner was the first person to offer his support.

Sure, Xena was his baby but he would have happily shared his baby with women if they were inclined to accept the offer of opportunity. I think Liz Friedman was probably the closest we had to a female showrunner on Xena. Especially since Babs left so god damn early. I do often wonder what Xena would have been if Babs stayed but then catch myself on that because that would've meant no Steven L. Sears since he is who joined the Xena team in replacement of Babs leaving.

Xena took the representation of women incredibly seriously and it's not given its due for that in my opinion. Not on the creative side at least. Rob Tapert isn't credited even half as much as he should be on this either. People remember Whedon, Moffat, Roddenberry, Murphy... the list goes on. But when you mention Tapert... it's just cricket sounds. I don't know. Maybe he prefers it that way because - like I said - he was never performative about it or seeking glory.

[sodrippy]

well nobody MADE you do all that though.