Solidarity Is For White Fangirls. Only.

Hello everyone and welcome to another video on white privilege and fandom that I all hope you enjoy. This is only a little bit of what happens in fandom but it’s indicative of what happens on an almost daily occasion, especially when it comes to characters who are from a marginal class, such as being a POC, LGBTQ, disabled, or intersect across them all.

For additional reading, here is the link to the wonderful takedown of Michelle Coltee by Melissa Harris Perry that I mention near the beginning of the video:

Michelle Obama A ‘Feminist Nightmare?’ Please.

Doctor Who, You Broke My Heart

Most of you will be tuning in this weekend to watch the 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who.

I won’t be among them. I thought on it and not even the cheeky hawtness of one David Tennant can sway me.

The Doctor broke my heart for reasons I explain below.

Am I aboverred? No. Well, maybe a little. But I’ve moved on. And I’m better for it.

Continued reading…….

I Want To Be A Magical Girl Part I: Of Pretty Killers And Trans Girl Obstructionis

Okay, so I recently read Pretty Killers: Diamonds and it caused me to dwell on certain things for, like, more than a week and I’m trying to organise it all into something coherent.

I was really excited when I came across the Pretty Killers series of novels. In case it isn’t clear from my writing about Sailor Moon before, I love magical girls, and these books promised to be about a socially conscious magical girl adventure with a black protagonist in a team of mostly girls of colour. Well, most or all Japanese magical girl stuff have all-girls of colour teams unless they get whitewashed in the US dubs, but I assume this meant a more diverse racial make-up and that’s always cool. Plus, a free e-book version was up on the site so I could read it first and, when I’m able to impulsively buy things, support an author who writes fantasy stories with heroes who aren’t molded from the cracker cutter.

You know what? I’m glad I couldn’t impulsively buy when I heard of these books. I try not to pay for anything looking to take a shit on me.

The Delphine LaLaurie Rubric for Ethically Compromised Women of Color Characters (SPOILERS for last night’s American Horror Story: Coven)

Previously I came up with the Walter White Sliding Scale of Sympathetic Villainy and the Tony Soprano Litmus Test for Morally Dubious Main Characters as a way of putting the actions of female characters doing dirt into some perspective.

The gist of it was this: if you didn’t say anything about a fictional cishet white dude doing bad shit, you can STFU and sitcho ass down when a fictional woman does bad shit.

But if the reactions to last night’s episode of American Horror Story: Coven is anything to go by, we need to add to the Walter White Scale and the Tony Soprano Test.

I’m gonna call it the Delphine LaLaurie Rubric for Ethically Compromised Women of Color Characters.

Hourman? You Are Wasting My Time

 

Hourman? Seriously?

Here’s a textbook example of white privilege.

Even though the success of Blade is primarily responsible for the comic book renaissance, we’ve only had maybe 2 other superhero movies featuring characters of color.

Every other black actor in Hollywood has been campaigning to play Luke Cage for years while Marvel has sat on their thumbs. And rather than giving him the motion picture debut he deserves, he’s getting a miniseries on Netflix?

Wonder Woman, 1/3 of the Trinity and one of DCs flagship titles can’t get a series or a tv show because writing about girls is hard, they have cooties or something, but Superman and Batman get yet another reboot. Green Arrow (a poor man’s Batman) gets his own show where we get to watch him explore his white boy pain. And Flash is getting another show.

But even though he can actually rival Bats in skill ability and coolness factor, notice that Midnighter is not getting his own series. Because despite the success of Torchwood, gay super anti-heroes can’t sell. Only breeders can.

DC has gone on record about not doing any more animated films with heroines as the main protagonists because of the Wonder Woman animated movie totals. Yet both her and Supergirl outsells the Green Lantern cartoon movie which got a sequel that also bombed.

Cassandra Cain’s ongoing series outperformed several legacy characters including her blonde inferior WHITE replacement. And even though DC profited off of this amazing character, they grew resentful of her success and wanna act like she didn’t happen.

And speaking of Batgirls who earned their mantles, Babs Gordon can’t get her own series but Jim Gordon is getting his own show?

The guy is not even a cape. Hell they could’ve at least given it to a complex badasses like Renee Montoya or Marissa Rahms. But heaven forbid we have a queer woman of color or a trans woman as the star of their own stories.

Even though X-Men was primarily inspired by the Civil Rights movement and the struggles of blacks—

Yes white folks X-Men is based on black folks like the Lone Ranger and like Xena. Xaxier’s DREAM for peaceful coexistence, I know you didn’t think a white boy came up with that shit. Oh you did. That’s adorable.

—race is all but erased from the narrative and the films (and spinoffs) are focused on the Angry White Dude and walking White Guy wet dream.

Never mind that Storm, the First Lady of Marvel has more than warranted deserving her own push in terms of solo comic and movies.

Marvel hems and haw about a Black Panther movie because making a film about a Utopia of Uppity Coloreds is soooo hard. So hard in fact that Marvel didn’t even bother to support its own BP animated film, even though it outsold comparable Iron Man and Hulk animated movies which had a live action film to help in its sells. But Ant Man, Marvels premiere woman beater, is getting his own movie.

And when we do appear in these films, we’re a sidekick at best or we’re subjected to racist tropes like Yellow Face (Iron Man 3) or our ethnicity is whitewashed like Talia al Ghul in Batman or Shredder in the upcoming TMNT.

Superheroines can’t translate into dollars yet Resident Evil films, Buffy, Nikita, Michonne, Cass Cain, Olivia Pope, Kill Bill have proven otherwise.

PoCs don’t generate box office success. Only Fast and the Furious and GI Joe (the comic book movie with the black superhero protagonist) both shined at the box office this year.

But Hourman is getting his own show. Not Vixen, not Black Canary, not Static Shock, not Jamie Reyes, or any more deserving marketable superhero. Just another inferior and irrelevant white guy with a Marty McFly/Butterfly Effect/Tru Calling gimmick.

We have to work twice as hard to gain half of what we earned, and even then, we are often sabotaged for our success. But this nobody gets his own show simply because he’s white.

We’re in the 21st century having to endure 19th century excuses for this garbage. And yet when me and mine aren’t blindly cosigning, we’re told we’re being angry or unreasonable.

And this is why I’m not here for your Adventures of Straight White Guy with cameos from token minorities. This is why I don’t accept breadcrumbs.

Call me angry, uppity or any other not so coded racist descriptor you want to use. What I’m not is a sheep, an idiot or a doormat. Another thing I’m not is wrong. What you misconstrue for anger is actually pride, self love and enough self respect not to cosign on bigoted cultural societal BS like this.

Because having the power love yourself and others enough to fight for better in a world that fears and hates you, is nothing short of a superheroic feat in and of itself.