thelordgoblingking - Tumblr blog

[thelordgoblingking]

[thelordgoblingking]

So here’s a thought: A lot of white liberals who claim to hate the south because of nebulous things like bigotry or political oppression are masking their real gripe.

Whenever we see a portrayal of southerners in media, any kind, and the media is attempting to be critical of southern culture, the south is always portrayed as poor, ignorant, uncultured, and inbred. Sure you might have your redneck character sling slurs around to justify your hatred, but in reality the real reason a lot of these milquetoast white liberals hate southerners is because they see the south as culturally inferior: it’s simple classism. There’s no regard for the diversity of human experience in the south: of queer and black southerners who call this land home and are actually quite FOND of their home. The south to the yanks is just… dirty.

It’s the same schtick used by conservatives when they talk about the Middle East, especially Palestine. They play up the rampant homophobia (with no genuine care towards queer Palestinians) and use arguments of bigotry and religious extremism to mask their true position: the ideal of cultural supremacy.

Always be mindful of the aesthetics people evoke to try to get you to have someone, and be more critical of this sort of classism, whether it’s ’white trash’ or otherwise.

[thelordgoblingking]

So I just had a thought:

So I watched Atypical a while ago (Not the IT show rn ig), and something that bothered me wasn't necessarily the portrayal of an autistic character, but rather the narrative framing. For context, I have autism, and I like to seek out media that may be able to represent me

Anyway, the thing that bothers me about how autism is portrayed in media is that whenever characters that are neurodivergent are featured, the narrative is inevitably centered on how difficult it is for the FAMILY of this person to deal with them. In Atypical, a big deal is made of the difficult and sacrifice sam's family has to make for him, especially his mother. You can also bring up examples like rain man, where the main character is an autistic man's brother, who makes the difficult and weighty choice to put his brother in an institution.

We don't really have autistic led narratives, not ones where the main character is officially autistic. When we do, the portrayal is still fundementally disinterested with the internal experience of autism. Ultimately, autistic people are not seen as the audience for narratives concerning their lived experience, and instead their friends and families are always centered.

I'm just so sick of this 'neurotypical gaze' man, cause not only does it reinforce this idea that autistic voices are less important, but also, ima be real, these autism mommy narratives are not NEARLY as interesting as showrunners think they are.