#a completely uncontroversial episode
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you didn’t think we would join the gender wars on the side of anything other than gender did u??????? episode 8 Gender Studies 101 is up hot & ready to be slurped like some fresh noodles
welcome to ur first day of Gender Studies 101! in this episode your esteemed professors take you through foundational gender theory texts: we’re talking about Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, Leslie Fienberg, and Michel Foucault. we’re also wading through the discourse about how we talk about Gerard’s gender, and what does it actually mean to be trans anyway? (also we’re wading thru some asks & sharing some Completely Uncontroversial Opinions that will Make No One Mad)
Topics include: the gender wars, wrangling the discourse, a history of gender expression, the inherent truth of gender, gender as a doing, “reality”, terms and conditions, what is a “woman” and what is a “trans person”, drag and subversiveness, bad takes from cis people and why they are wrong, X gender markers, identity politics and coalitions, cyborgs, hyperpop and posthumanism, Geoff Rickly and postmodernism, the normative politics of internet spaces, and meaningful community at live shows.
#mcr#my chemical romance#gerardtweets#honey this podcast#gerard way#frank iero#ray toro#mikey way#Spotify
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I've found the best RWBY fans to interact with are the ones who like the show but still acknowledge its flaws.
Like, so much of the FNDM seems to have this "All or Nothing" mentality where you either unconditionally love and praise everything Rooster Teeth does or base your entire personality around hating everything Rooster Teeth has so much as breathed on, and honestly both extremes are horribly unhealthy.
I mostly agree with this, though I feel like it's worth pointing out that a lot of the "unconditional love" fans are really just fed up with the years' worth of negativity on the part of people who make hating the show their entire identity. I think it stems from the YouTubers, to be honest. For a lot of them, producing content is an actual job. While I don't personally care for that content and have no interest in watching any RWBY YouTuber, I can't dunk on any of them too hard because they actually get paid to do this and I'm well aware that there's a certain price for which my personal integrity is for sale: if it meant I would never have to sacrifice my physical and mental health working 40-60 hours a week ever again, if it meant I'd have time for myself and the people I care about, if it meant I could devote myself to the things I love or use my hypothetical wealth to make the world around me better... yeah, I'd absolutely base my brand around hating a show and appealing to shitheads, as long as I'm not expected to start shoving people down the alt-right pipeline. I like to think there's somewhere I'd draw the line, that there are things I wouldn't do for money, but the thought of not being fucking miserable and in physical pain at almost all times is really tempting.
Anyway, the point is that for at least some of these people, hating on RWBY is an actual job, as stupid as it sounds. It puts food on the table, which means they have a vested interest in building their brand, which means promoting their content and getting it exposure, which in turn means that avoiding negativity can take actual effort and isn't always as simple as just blocking people you don't like if you want to participate in fandom spaces that aren't total echo chambers. I don't know how blocking works on reddit because I mostly use my reddit account to look at pictures of breasts, but what I do know is that even going to the main RWBY subreddit to do something like read the reaction thread to a new Ice Queendom episode runs a not-insignificant risk of at least passively exposing me to the newest stupid take to escape quarantine in r/rwbycritics. As a result, there's a subset of the audience that feeds itself by whipping up negativity, by targeting emotional responses, that can be pretty hard to escape. I don't blame people who just don't want to deal with it anymore for responding defensively, though I'll concede that it can make having nuanced discussion... difficult.
This is not to say that everyone who is critical of RWBY is exactly the same. What most people think of when they talk about the critical side of the community contains people with anything from the relatively uncontroversial belief that the Battle of Haven was poorly choreographed or that some of the early voice acting wasn't very good to people with spicy hot takes like "Team RWBY are the real villains" and "Blake abused Adam and ruined his life". I guess I'm technically a critic, given that I post about things I like about RWBY, things I dislike, things I think worked well and things I think didn't, and then try to support and explain my views, but I don't really like thinking of myself that way because I don't want to be lumped in with the more extreme elements of either RWDE or rwbycritics. It's why I use the "analysis" tag instead of "rwde" (well, that and I think using "rwde" inherently sets a more hostile tone than I'm going for in a lot of cases).
I do think it's funny that RWDE and rwbycritics frequently come at the show from completely opposite directions (think "I'm worried that Rooster Teeth is using Bumbleby to string queer viewers along with the promise of representation without ever delivering on it" vs. "Rooster Teeth defiled Monty's memory* by making his action show political (read: gay)" and think the possibility for friendly fire between the two is hilarious. My solution is simple:
So yeah, the critics ("critics") definitely annoy me more than the people who are just relentlessly positive (though this may be because I've never personally experienced the harassment that each group supposedly directs at the other) given that most of the people who like the show at least engage with the text in good faith, while certain critics... do not. There are definitely a couple RWDE blogs that I think are reasonable, and even r/rwbycritics will inadvertently generate something resembling a coherent thought every once in a while, but I don't particularly care to engage with that community beyond browsing it once in a while out of curiosity because the good isn't worth wading through the garbage. RWDE is better in the sense that content is associated with specific blogs rather than threads posted to a subreddit, meaning that if someone posts nothing but stupid takes you don't want to interact with, you can just block them.
As for Rooster Teeth the company, I'm not an expert on its history by any means, but I know they've had issues with crunch in the past, I'm aware of the drama after Monty's death, and I know their brand was built on dudebro humor, so like... I'm sure there's been plenty to criticize in the past and is still plenty to criticize now, but I don't really care about Rooster Teeth beyond the fact that it produces RWBY and don't watch any of the studio's non-RWBY-related content. There's really not much I can give anyone here. Other people are a lot more invested in the company one way or another than I am.
*I really hate the "Monty's vision" argument. Nothing proves a point like dragging a dead man's name into your argument so you can pretend you knew what he wanted better than the people who actually knew and worked with him. Just utterly classless.
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Here to lend a reprieve from all the negativity: the only reason people are so sure byler isn't going to happen is because the expectation of film is that it promotes the "normal and good" way of life and so when people write for film they wind up regurgitating that narrative which conveniently appeals to a wide audience.
Literally every Wheeler is meant to play up this expectation and subvert it. Ted is a bumbling sitcom father and is just as much of a nuisance as having a parent or spouse like that would be in real life, Karen is a supportive sitcom mom who is deeply unhappy in her marriage and desperately wants better for her kids, and Nancy's story subverts expectations because her distress in season two isn't solved by getting with Johnathan.....it's resolved by her getting to bring closure to Barb's family and to relieve her of some of the guilt she's been carrying. What part of Mike's storyline has really subverted the idea of a white fence, completely uncontroversial ending yet?
They've been setting up a big plot point in Mike and El's relationship by repeatedly suggesting the two aren't a good match, and for some reason Mike has rapidly gone from the kind of person to jump off a cliff for one of his friends to someone who can't sit through one dnd session without being an asshole to his oldest friend. They're heavily setting up the idea that Will is gay and has feelings for Mike. The standard resolution to this plot (which literally every casual viewer expects) is that despite all their issues Mike and El will inevitably get back together without addressing any of the reasons that their relationship isn't healthy for either character, and for Mike to find out Will has feelings for him and let him down gently because he's totally straight but he and Will are still great buddies ™ and then Will gets a boyfriend in like the last episode or something.
They're doing this on purpose and I really don't see why outside of executive meddling they would not go in this direction for the story.
youre absolutely right i have nothing to add you said it really well
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discourse is exhausting I need to hear some completely uncontroversial tma opinions. honestly I truly just think that jon was in the most episodes.
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Which presidents do you consider good prior to Eisenhower?-TBH
It may seem totally cliche, but Lincoln and Washington are my top two. I know, super uncontroversial and thus, uninteresting. Jefferson, TR, plenty of the hits are ones who I think were good.
As far as the modern presidency is concerned, I consider FDR good but overrated. Not in the sense that he wasn't good, but that his fans seem to brook no criticism of him, even on things that he very clearly was 100% in the wrong for, like the Air Mail scandal, corruption, surrendering Eastern Europe without even trying to help them, or most egregiously, EO9066. As I mentioned in my Presidential Cults episode, he had two intelligence reports from an agency he trusted that the Japanese-American threat was overblown and that internment was not just morally wrong but completely pointless (a sin that Eisenhower shared re: the Lavender Scare and the Crittenden Report). Both men committed a grave moral failing in pursuing that path.
Truman I consider to be good as well. Much more clear-headed on Stalin than FDR. Corruption was a problem with Truman as well (and for most, save perhaps for Carter and Ike), but for the most part, he worked to create the conditions for large-scale economic prosperity and strong alliances.
There's others of course, but the problem with the pre-modern Presidency is that there are so many caveats that it just bogs down how you rank it.
Thanks for the question, TBH.
SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King
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Should Hiro Mashima die?
My answer is no.
Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)
This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.
Again, though, my answer is still no.
Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.
Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect.
The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern.
The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.
Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.
The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.
The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths.
Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.
My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.
This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made. Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?
Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.
That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible.
As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation.
By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.
I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.
Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.
It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author."
At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.
It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.
That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)
I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."
At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.
As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.
Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.
I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.
At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.
Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.
By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.
What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.
This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.
If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?
Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind.
It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)
Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.
My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.
This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.
I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.
It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.
Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.
There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things.
I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.
And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.
Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?
Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)
In Conclusion:
“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.
#fairy tail#hiro mashima#death of the author#i'm back#and what a way to return#i've been meaning to do this forever#fav
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that fancam u made of troy and abed with the marceline song.... can we talk abt the parallels between bubbline and trobed PLEASE.....
Damn, well I don’t know why I sat on this for so long, as if I thought I was going to write something incredibly daunting and massive. Anyways...
Let’s look at the facts here:
Abed: A creative genius with a heart full of love who is cursed with a dad who doesn’t understand him and a mother who disappeared from his life a long time ago and a society that sees him as monstrous and strange
Marceline: Um, same
Both of these people go through life seeking social connections, but due to rejection, they spend a lot of their life alone. Then they find their people. For the first time, they’re not seen as monstrous and strange, they’re not feared or shoved in lockers, but rather they are welcomed into a community that sees them as worthy of love.
This happens offscreen for Marceline, long before the show begins. But it’s almost heartbreaking to think about how she must have reacted upon meeting someone who wasn’t afraid of her, who liked her sense of humor, who wanted to be around her because Marcy fit into her lonely life just as much as she fit into Marcy’s.
We do see what this looks like when it happens to Abed. We get to see Abed make some missteps early on as he tries to feel out the limits of their new friendship. Friendship is new to him! In those early episodes, he doesn’t yet understand pranks or lying or the need to perform gender appropriately or any of that weird stuff that seems to matter so much to Troy.
Both of them are delighted to find, for the first time in their adult lives, a relationship where they’re completely seen and at peace.
Then we have Bonnie and Troy, two characters who are honestly really different, but face some of the same challenges. Both of them grew up with a burden on them to Be Something to people. A masculine icon. An inspiring leader. In both cases, they need to be uncontroversially powerful, and that means performing gender in a conventional way that the people around them will accept. Both have a lot of fears about failing to live up to the persona they are pressured to embody. Through the device of fantasy, Bonnie’s need to perform gender appropriately is heightened because of the stakes: she has to behave like an uncontroversial woman, because what will happen to her people if they turn away from her and she can no longer lead? By contrast, Troy is lucky: he is just a kid in community college, finally free from his parents’ oversight. If he wants to take a dance class, finally, after all these years of repression, he can.
In stifling themselves for the sake of public approval, PB and Troy have become repressed, touch-starved, and lonely. So it really means the world to them to find a friend. And not just someone who looks up to them through the eyes of one of their fans (Troy) or citizens (PB), but a real friend, who sees them and thinks they’re smart and funny and interesting just as a person. We see PB open up to Marceline in ways she would never open up to anyone else, like when she makes mean jokes for Marcy’s ears only. Expressing herself in a way that wouldn’t be accepted by the public exposes the cracks in PB’s persona, and reveals that her relationship with Marcy fills a need for her that isn’t being met by anyone else. Troy, too, shows a side of himself to Abed that he’s afraid to show others, revealing the vulnerability and femininity that he grew up thinking he could never express.
At the risk of being overly sentimental, it’s just like the most romantic kind of love there is! Through knowing Troy, Abed gives himself permission to be himself. He doesn’t become more Troy -- he becomes more himself, giving himself permission to love and be loved, because finally there is a person who sees his truest truths and loves him for it. Through her relationship with Bonnie, Marceline does the same, sharing her emotional maturity and tremendous heart with someone who values those things for what they are. And for Troy and Bonnie, these relationships are something real in their lives that are otherwise full of pretense. With Abed, Troy can allow his real self to shine through. His real self is loving and gentle and feminine, things that Troy was always afraid to be. And Abed has nothing but love for that. And with Marcy, PB can be unladylike--she can be mean and dramatic or goofy and weird and not have to worry about the political ramifications of showing the cracks in her armor, because she knows that with Marceline, she’s completely safe.
There’s just something so loving about these two relationships. I think it’s that the love is built on a mutual understanding of absolute personal truth. Abed and Troy found that with each other very quickly, in just a few years together at community college. Marcy and Bonnie found it over the course of centuries. For all four characters, it’s a total revelation.
And it’s just unmistakably gay, too--that fear to be yourself and the utter joy when you can be authentic with someone you trust more than you’ve ever trusted anyone. These are stories about a recognizable outcast falling in love with someone who is socially accepted only because they are lying about who they are. That arc reflects the two extremes of how many gay people have lived their lives throughout history, ultimately showcasing how those two different ways of living--of surviving being unacceptable--are not actually very different at all. But when you find someone who’s like you and sees you--the Troy to your Abed or the Marcy to your Bonnibel--life looks a lot different with love.
So, with all that said, here’s that fancam again for anyone who hasn’t seen it ❤
#ableism cw#(briefly. right at the top. describing the world abed lives in)#adventure time#community#ngl im so mad that video didn't get many notes bc i worked hard on it and *I* love it so!!!!
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Some Thoughts™️ I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while... (sorry if it’s not coherent)
I’ve been on Tumblr for a while now. I’ve seen the rise and fall of many fandoms. Been a part of those rises and falls, even. And, from what I’ve seen, it’s always the same - some piece of content gets wildly popular for a few years, people (whether they consume that content or not) get annoyed, and then that content becomes - drumroll please - cringy!
And I really hope that doesn’t happen with TMA.
I’m already seeing signs of it starting - small ones, but they’re there nonetheless. The joke about “everyone became a TMA blog overnight.” The fact that TMA is trending every time a new episode comes out. People making jokes about “I’m not in the TMA fandom, but I hope they’re doing alright.”
I’ve seen this before - SuperWhoLock, Homestuck, Undertale, Steven Universe - and I’ll see it again. And sure, there are valid reasons that people don’t like content. If you’re scrolling through your dash and all you see are posts from something you have not consumed or have no desire to, it can be annoying! Sometimes content is problematic and people are too swept up in the hype/too ignorant to recognize that! Sometimes the people who like the content are just so awful/annoying/whatever that the content becomes tarnished because of its fanbase.
But please, if this does happen with TMA, don’t be so quick to “cancel” it or whatever. Remember why you love it so much - the characters, the relationships, the story, the writing. It’s probably inspired you to make art! Or to write fanfic! Or to theorize about what’s gonna happen next! Or maybe you want to create the next most amazing audio drama!
Personally, I love TMA so much because as a writer myself, I am so thrilled to hear such a well-crafted story being presented to us. THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN SHOW WAS PLANNED OUT BEFORE JONNY WROTE IT. That shit takes COMMITMENT! It takes TIME! And it’s SO CREATIVE AND FRESH in a sea of underwhelming content! (Particularly the bad rep the horror genre has, from its treatment of women, POC, and LGBT+ characters to even just those shitty horror movies you watch only to make fun of). I never thought I would like horror, and now it’s one of my favorite genres to write in, all because of TMA.
And I also know that, even though Jonny and Alex have been warning us that this show will not have a happy ending, some people are clinging onto that hope. Trust me, I want to, too. But no matter how it ends up, some people are going to be upset, and that could very well contribute to TMA becoming “cringe.” They might say it’s “Bury Your Gays” if any of the LGBT+ characters end up dying (or something similar to death... again, personally, I think death is too... simple of an ending, for lack of a better word). Depending on what kinds of trauma the characters go through, some people might say that the way the story ends up erases that trauma. I’m sure there are other potential arguments that could come up, but those are the ones I’m thinking of off the top of my head because I know those are common things that people look out for because unfortunately, they are all too common. But, like I said earlier, Jonny has had this all planned out. He’s an EXCELLENT storyteller, and I’m sure he knows enough about the fanbase to know what would be satisfying for us. I know that not everyone will be happy with how it turns out, but look at what we have so far. We have PLENTY of canon LGBT+ characters, so even if some of them end up dying, that’s not Bury Your Gays. We’ve seen how different kinds of trauma have been handled, both for better AND for worse, and the times characters have handled their traumas poorly have been written that way intentionally to show that’s not how trauma should be handled. We have had consistent characterization and development of all of the core characters from the time they’ve been introduced, so no matter what ends up happening, I have faith that it won’t be for shock value - it’ll be the completion of those characters’ arcs and what they’ve been hurtling toward since the very first episode.
TL;DR, as we approach the end of TMA (the end of wildly popular pieces of content usually being when they start to be “assigned cringe by tumblr”), PLEASE remember why you love this show and how it’s helped you emotionally and artistically. It’s genuinely one of the most well-crafted pieces of media out there today, and I would be devestated if people start to hate on it as it draws to a close.
Also, this isn’t a call for people to debate with me. I’ve tried to be as uncontroversial as I could, but I know tumblr. I know if this post is seen by a lot of people, someone’s gonna get pissed over it. I’m not making this post to spark some controversy. If you want to reblog, please do, but if you don’t have anything beneficial to add, I will not interact.
#also if the spacing shows up weird im sorry but im on mobile#tma#the magnus archives#rusty quill#tma discourse#maybe??#jonathan sims#tma spoilers#just in case#tma season 5#the magnus archives season 5#long post
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Ok, it's time for my crack Locked Tomb interpretation that I've promised... the two people I've been reading these books with. I will say first, the theory isn't itself a crack theory--in its general form I actually stand by it as a serious prediction. But some of the textual evidence I'm going to use is way out there, so don’t take this too seriously--I certainly don’t. Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth behind the cut. Sorry it’s long.
Ok, first, the theory, simply put: I think Alecto/AL is a Resurrection Beast. Personally, I found this "insight" fairly uncontroversial the moment the thought occurred to me, but one of my two friends who've been reading these books with me disagrees on the basic evidence; the other friend has embraced it wholeheartedly, though. So, ymmv, I guess.
The basic evidence starts with: well, what the hell else could she be? She's not human. The older Lyctors call her a monster. There is a missing Resurrection Beast: nine were born, five were killed, three are loose, and the narrative actually calls attention to this numeric discrepancy while glossing others (e.g. the number of Lyctors, which does eventually get explained). John presumably can't just kill Resurrection Beasts himself, or he would have (maybe?? who the hell even knows what his abilities or grand plan are at this point). There aren't really other monsters that have been presented other than revenants (of which Resurrection Beasts are the biggest) and heralds (which are spiritually part of Resurrection Beasts), and the third book of a trilogy isn't really the time to introduce them. (This, by the way, is also my argument that it wasn't aliens who destroyed the solar system in the first place--even though everyone else seems to have come to that interpretation (where by “everyone” I mean my two friends who have read this book). Being Doylist, it's kind of a cheap, lazy argument on my part, but whatever, I still stand by that as a prediction: no aliens.) And Alecto must be something much more powerful than a human because John is so much more powerful than a Lyctor. Finally, the stoma opens for John, and it only opens for Resurrection Beasts--it opens for him because he holds part of Alecto's soul and she is a Resurrection Beast.
The potential counter-evidence is the older Lyctors are confident they know her origins (but that doesn't necessarily make her not a Resurrection Beast), and the [other] Resurrection Beasts are drawn to her as much as to John according to Mercy (although in that case why haven't they attacked the Tomb? and also, again, that doesn't preclude her being a Resurrection Beast--we don't know their relationships with each other, and anyway, their attraction to her might have something to do with the Lyctorification process).
Ok, all that's fair enough. Let's delve into the crack interpretations now. I'm going to start with an irrelevant introduction, though, to explain my frame of mind when I came up with this. In the Appendices of Gideon the Ninth, Muir mentions that Isaac is named as foreshadowing for Gideon's sacrificial death, as in the Christian interpretation of the Bible, the Biblical Isaac foreshadows Jesus. My copy of the e-book did not have the Appendices, but my best friend's did, and she shared screens with me. It's slightly embarrassing that my best friend and I, reading this together, did not even guess from this, not even as a joke, that Gideon's father might be God. I mean, it's not... generally embarrassing--no one reading this should be embarrassed for themselves--it's only embarrassing if you know the two of us, know how good my best friend is at this sort of thing (she guessed the entire murder mystery in GtN a little more than halfway through, including that Dulcinea was dead and had been replaced by a Lyctor in disguise who had philosophical problems with God and was rebelling), and know what sorts of in-jokes and ridiculous speculation we tend to bandy around with each other--know just how often we, respectively and together, joke that some character or other is Jesus. And here it was right on the page, we read it out loud to each other and discussed it, and we didn't even see it. We were both completely taken in by the Gideon Episode One red[-haired] herring (as was, to be fair, Gideon himself). This speculation that I'm about to present came right on the heels of the two of us debriefing over this, because I was primed to read way the hell in too much into Biblical references.
The key line is something my best friend caught, not me. She wasn't even done with the book yet, but the line was bothering her (I'd completely glossed and then forgotten it--never let it be said that my bad grades in English Lit were undeserved). Page 327 (and I'm so glad to have an ebook so I can do word searches), Teacher is talking to Harrow in the dream bubble...........
To their silence, [Teacher] added: “I believe we are now being punished for what they did. Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck … and the disciples were scared! I cannot blame them! I was terrified! But when the work was done—when I was finished, and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price—they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm … Oh, but it is a tragedy, to be put in a box and laid to wait for the rest of time.
"Saltwater creature" stuck with my best friend. She had no idea what it meant, other than that nearly every mention of saltwater (or salt water, two words, the text is inconsistent) in Harrow the Ninth is alluding to Alecto in some capacity (we confirmed this by searching--again, I love ebooks for this kind of thing). But I was like... wait, I might know! This is my favorite Bible lore!
Muir is working from the King James Bible (based on the quotation at the end of Gideon the Ninth) which is impenetrable and also is a translation of the Latin Vulgate, which is mostly a translation of the Septuagint, which doesn’t even have an extant Hebrew version, so ugh all around. But for this purpose it’s close enough, so I guess that's what I'll use for my English version. Here is how the KJV starts:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Ok, that word there, "the deep." What it says in the Masoretic text (the Hebrew Bible used by both Jews and Protestants) is "tehom," which is not quite a hapax legomenon, but neither is it a word that shows up very often, and importantly it only shows up in very few contexts that reference each other. It is certainly not the usual Hebrew word for sea, and importantly, in the Hebrew there is no "the"; it actually says "darkness was on the face of Tehom" like it's a proper name [capitalization mine for illustration, since Hebrew doesn’t capitalize]. Notice also how on the second day basically the only thing God accomplishes is cutting this thing, this "Deep" made of water, in half, sending one half up into the sky. This is a quick retelling of the defeat of Tiamat (linguistically cognate with Tehom) in the Enuma Elish. Tiamat, the Goddess of the Saltwater Deeps, Mother of Monsters and Dragons, is justifiably angry with the other gods and sets out to kill them; Marduk, the aspiring new head of the Pantheon, cuts her in half. Half of her he leaves on Earth to create the oceans (or just the Earth itself? been a while since I read it), and half of her he throws up into the air and it becomes the sky.
There is a lot of old Jewish writing, some of it predating Christianity, that just starts to touch on this, without daring to delve too deep (...as it were) and pull on the pan-Middle Eastern polytheistic roots of Judaism. (They had enough problems with people still worshiping Asherah, who in southern Canaanite tradition was the sea-and-mother goddess who was the wife of Yahweh the storm god, and who gets mentioned in the Bible a whole lot, without also bringing Tiamat into it.) The Gnostics really latched on, though. They said that this "deep" obviously in the text there predates God's creation, and used that as the foundation of quite a lot of their theological argument: that God (who they call the Demiurge) didn't create the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing) but rather that there was a being even more powerful that came before. And they named this more powerful, older being Bythos (among other things), which means "depth" in Greek. They changed the gender, but they brought Tehom the saltwater goddess back as the most primordial and powerful of all beings.
Bringing this back to Harrow the Ninth... Insofar as it's Biblical allegory (which isn't much--less than Narnia and even Narnia doesn't strictly adhere to Biblical narrative), I think we should take the Resurrection committed by John to be the Biblical Creation not the Biblical Resurrection. First of all, John becomes God by performing the Resurrection, which is a much better parallel to Genesis than to Isaiah or Revelations or whatever. Second of all, after the Biblical Resurrection, everyone who gets to be resurrected is supposed to live in eternal peace in Eden. In contrast, in Genesis, after the creation, people start out in Eden but are quickly expelled and then bad things happen. This matches the story much better, where the expulsion from Eden is due to Lyctorhood--the Resurrection Beasts come for the Lyctors and they have to leave Eden; in this respect, I guess John is really the snake as much as he's God, lol. (Worth noting that in some parts of Christian tradition--although I can't remember about Catholicism specifically--the snake is supposed to be Satan. This also ties back to Gnosticism where the Demiurge is malevolent; John, insofar as he did not actually create the universe on his own, is a much better match for a demiurge than a true god.)
So, anyway, taking John's act of Resurrecting all those people as the initial Creation rather than the Resurrection (the fact that Augustine doesn't remember his pre-Resurrection self, is effectively a new person, also points to this being effectively an initial Creation), the Resurrection Beasts actually come before Creation. They come from the dying of the planets. They predate John becoming God. Furthermore, Alecto is a “saltwater creature,” and she keeps her body after she's Lyctorified, meaning she's split in some way between John and her old body; she is Tehom. Back to the Gnostic idea, Tehom is a more-powerful being who predates God, and the only creatures predating God in Harrow are the Resurrection Beasts who must be comparable to him in power to create such fear: Alecto, then, must be a Resurection Beast.
The problem with this theory is it's a little Jewish and it's very Gnostic but it isn't Catholic. In the Gideon and Harrow, Muir draws references in her language from practically everywhere. But as far as I can tell she only draws allusions and allegory from two mythologies: Greco-Roman and Roman Catholic. And although Jews and Gnostics are drawing on a lot of the same source text, the understanding is different, and the expansive side stories are different. Although, then again, who am I to say that Muir isn't also drawing on Gnosticism and this isn't our big clue; I've half convinced myself as I wrote this, with the whole John-as-Demiurge thing. It's a fun theory, anyway, and so I thought I'd share it.
(I'm aware that I've completely ignored any connection to Greek mythology, despite her name being Alecto.)
#locked tomb trilogy#locked tomb spoilers#harrow the ninth#harrow the ninth spoilers#harrow spoilers#hopefully that covers the important tags people might be blocking#I learned while writing this that I don't know how to spell 'resurrection'#I tend to put too many letters in#it seems like whenever I make theories about books it's always some weird religious thing#this write-up is SO much more Gnostic than what told my best friend over the phone a few weeks ago#(now that I've done more reading on it)#I knew there was bound to be at least one homestuck reference in these books but I did NOT expect it to be dream bubbles
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Michael in the Mainstream: Satellite City
So we all know Nostalgia Critic’s review of The Wall, right? I even did a foul-mouthed review of it a while ago, one that had me so legitimately angry I posted it early under the Michael in the Mainstream label. One criticism in particular I had was the nature of the sequence parodying “The Trial,” in which what I thought were a bunch of weird furry OCs made for the video began to espouse poor criticisms and opinions of the film.
As it turns out… this was not the case. Those creatures are the creations of Sam Fennah, and are the stars of his series Satellite City. This review, while reviewing something a little too off the beaten path for me to necessarily call “mainstream,” is one I wanted to approach in a respectful manner as an apology for jumping the gun and being far too harsh on these creations, though this could have been avoided entirely if Doug Walker had made it more clear what, exactly, the cameo was. Regardless, the cameo did its job, and got me interested, and I will say that the series does show a lot of promise. It’s not over, nor is the first bit of the overarching story even complete, so think of this as my initial thoughts on what has been shown so far.
The show has a simple premise – Sam Fennah plays Sullivan, a very strange man who lives in a manor in rural England that is host to a crazy cast of alien refugees called Kivouachians. Hijinks frequently ensue as they go about their daily lives, though here “hijinks” means “Lucy Lacemaker decides to decapitate someone and recline on their headless corpse.” It’s certainly not a show for those with clean senses of humor, that’s for sure. Also, I know I don’t usually do summaries anymore, but I think this show needs it due to its relative obscurity.
It’s interesting watching through the show from when it began a couple years ago to today; you can see the animation on all of the aliens improving, as well as the voice acting. I have to say a lot of the animation in the earlier episodes was a bit stiff and unpolished, though certainly not bad, with it always being remarkable work for a small nonprofit indie project like this. On the other hand, the voice acting tended to be awkward and poorly done. Lucy especially had a pretty weak voice until much later, I believe around the 2018 episodes, when Rikki Leigh Tiffurelli took over and gave her the best voice to date. In the more recent episodes, though, the voice acting is much improved in general; frankly I find it hard to give too much flak to indie internet shows for having weak voice acting early on. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series had some seriously weird delivery and voice acting for a while, with things only really kicking into high gear in the second season (in particular once Marik’s voice settled into what we all know and love). What I’m trying to say is that the series has found a nice place to settle into in terms of production quality, I feel, though of course seeing it improve would be great.
There is a bit of an overarching plot at the moment, involving the sinister Grand Voice Locket returning and some political strife among the aliens, all while Sullivan kind of just does his thing and curses up a storm. There also seems to be some interesting character stuff being built up with the genetically modified squirrel Hyzenthlay, but as of yet no character arcs have really culminated into anything yet, which is fine, no need to rush into it or anything. I think for now it’s fun to just spend time around the characters that are already here.
Which brings us to the best part of this show: the characters. Each character has a unique and creative design; hell, even if a lot of the base designs for the creatures seems to be “Dragon,” Fennah always manages to add some creative spice to them so as to not make them feel samey. And there are plenty of creative, unique designs, with Locket, Ludwig, Wexle, Fontaine, and of course Lucy standing out among the crowd. Speaking of Lucy, she is easily my favorite character, though I’m sure this is a rather uncontroversial opinion as she’s practically the face of the series at this point. She’s just so amusingly depraved and sadistic with light touches of civility and compassion here and there underneath her extremely harsh and psychotic exterior. Honestly, there’s not really a bad character that can be singled out yet, as each of them has something going on, and there’s a lot of lore detailed on the official website that fleshes things out and gives even more insight onto what the deal with these guys are.
Overall, I find myself enjoying this series so far. Most of the episodes are relatively short, with them ranging anywhere from forty seconds to twenty minutes, which is not too much of a time investment. If you like weird, offbeat, dark comedies with a focus on character development and plenty of strange sci-fi trappings, well, this is the web show for you. I’m seriously looking forward to where this show goes from here, and going forward it’s going to have my wholehearted support.
So yes. I am extremely sorry for the negative remarks I made towards Fennah’s work in my review of Doug’s review. I’ve never been happier to be wrong about a show in my life, and I really regret jumping the gun and bashing the work without context just because it was encased in a horrible review.
#Michael in the Mainstream#review#web show review#Satellite City#Sam Fennah#Lucy Lacemaker#aliens#black comedy#sci-fi#web show#YouTube
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#5yrsago Cognitive Dissonance about the FBI and NSA at 60 Minutes
60 Minutes, which has been harshly criticized for running puff pieces for the NSA and FBI recently, is at it again.
Last night, they ran two unrelated yet completely conflicting segments—one focusing on FBI Director Jim Comey, and the other on New York Times reporter James Risen—and the cognitive dissonance displayed in the back-to-back interviews was remarkable.
First up was 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley’s interview with FBI Director Jim Comey. 60 Minutes aired the first part of the interview last week, which ran 14 minutes and did not contain a single adversarial question. This time, Scott Pelley asked him at least asked a couple softballs about civil liberties, although the primary one Comey just refused to answer.
The main focus of the piece, however, was Comey supposed commitment to “the rule of law.” “That's a principle over which James Comey is willing to sacrifice his career,” Pelley explains to the audience. He then proceeded to re-tell the infamous “hospital bed” scene from 2004 during the Bush administration, where Comey, then deputy attorney general, threatened to resign unless Bush altered the original NSA warrantless surveillance program. Bush relented a bit and so Comey stayed on as deputy attorney general for more than a year afterwards.
Comey is portrayed as the hero, who stopped illegal surveillance from going forward. What Comey did was certainly admirable, but this episode happened in March 2004 and only pertained to a small portion of the NSA’s illegal activities. The NSA’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program (as the public knew it) was first exposed more than eighteen months later in December 2005.
60 Minutes explains this in the very next segment but couldn’t apparently put two and two together: Jim Comey was presumably also responsible for signing off on the illegal program the New York Times exposed after his hospital bed protest.
James Risen, of the New York Times.
During the next segment segment, 60 Minutes interviewed James Risen about the Obama administration’s war on leaks and described the scoop he is most famous for: his Pulitzer Prize-winning story exposing that same warrantless wiretapping program.
Risen explains to 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl that the NSA was not only gathering metadata without a warrant on Americans in 2005, but the content of phone conversations as well. And as Stahl herself points out—and as former NSA chief Michael Hayden basically admits in the segment—this was in direct violation of the 1978 law the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required court orders to conduct such spying.
Critically, Risen’s first story in December 2005 makes it clear the warrantless wiretapping of Americans was ongoing at the time. And we learned just last year as part of the Snowden revelations that Comey's hospital protest was over Internet metadata, not illegal eavesdropping on phone calls.
So to sum up: the government was breaking the law in December 2005. This is the program that Comey had presumably signed off on after the much-talked-about incident and while he was still deputy attorney general. Yet Comey is still uncontroversially portrayed as a man dedicated to “the rule of law.”
This information was readily available to 60 Minutes, as it’s in the most well-known recounting of the hospital bed scene done by reporter Barton Gellman for the Washington Post and in his book The Angler in 2007. As Barton Gellman reported in 2007, Comey forced some changes with his potential resignation in 2004, but “much of the operation remained in place.”
"Imagine you're doing ten things one day, and the next day you're only doing eight of them," an unnamed official told Gellman in The Angler. "That's basically what happened here."
https://boingboing.net/2014/10/14/cognitive-dissonance-about-the.html
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A few notes on a new Episode IX rumour...
Below the cut, I am going to briefly address a rumour that has emerged regarding Episode IX. I will address the following:
What the rumour states.
Where the rumour comes from, and why it is worth paying attention to.
What the implications of the rumour might be - and why no one should be panicking.
I place quite a bit of stock in this rumour, so recommend skipping this post if you’re spoiler-averse!
The rumour was posted by user Xyzsvtabc on the Star Wars Leaks subreddit on 28 November 2018. They claimed to be in marketing and to have received the information via a marketing presentation held by Disney. The post covers various Star Wars properties, but I will only be covering the section concerned with Episode IX:
Episode 9: So plot info was pretty much non-existent here. They only mentioned that it takes place about a year after TLJ. They talked about the culmination of the movie being a battle between Rey and Kylo. The did show a ton or artwork of planets and characters. The said Kylo has his helmet back and that it has been put back together with some kind of red adhesive. It looked kinda cool with the red lines going through it. They also talked about Rey's lightsaber and how it's back and has been reforged. They said the reforge is not shown on screen. There's a new droid. It's name is Dio and it's sort of a sidekick to BB8. It's little and has sort of a cone shaped head, kind of like a megaphone shape if you can picture it. Beyond that it was just a lot of artwork and toy packaging. They mentioned various new planet terrains but the only one I remember was some kind of Jungle planet.
So, this post makes several key points:
The film takes place around a year after TLJ.
There will be a climatic battle between Rey and Kylo Ren.
Kylo will wear a repaired version of his helmet, with the sections re-connected with a red substance.
Rey wields a reforged version of the Skywalker lightsaber.
BB-8 has a buddy who’s shaped a bit like a megaphone.
A jungle planet is featured in the film.
(In the comments, they also confirmed that the Knights of Ren appear in the film.)
So, what gives this rumour credence when so much BS is posted to Reddit on a weekly basis? It’s mainly to be believed for two reasons:
The leaker previously leaked costume information on Infinity War 2 that was later verified by toy packaging leaks.
Jason Ward of Making Star Wars published a report verifying that his independent sources had backed up points #2 (Kylo’s helmet) and #5 (BB-8′s buddy).
Personally, I believe the rumour - I think the user has a lot of support, and all of their claims seem plausible. Most of the claims they make about Episode IX are uncontroversial, so I want to focus on the two that will likely cause the most consternation/discussion.
There will be a climatic battle between Rey and Kylo Ren.
As far as I’m concerned, a re-match between Rey and Kylo is an absolute given and should surprise no one. Rey and Kylo end The Last Jedi separated and on opposing sides, so a confrontation between them is inevitable and dramatically necessary.
The real questions surrounding this confrontation concern 1) when it occurs; and 2) its outcome. The leaker refers to the battle between Rey and Kylo as “the culmination of the movie”, but there are several reasons to take this phrasing with a pinch of salt. My main reason for being dubious is that this information was revealed in a somewhat public forum to an assembled group of marketing personnel - there is no reason to reveal inessential plot information to marketers, who only need to know about those parts of the movie that will be highlights to spotlight in any marketing campaigns. Any fight between Rey and Kylo can be a highlight and a centrepiece of the film without coming in its final act. If the Rey vs Kylo re-match is to be highlighted in the marketing, that all but guarantees that it is not a third-act development (since, given precedent, third act setpieces have never been revealed in any pre-release marketing).
Kylo will wear a repaired version of his helmet, with the sections re-connected with a red substance.
This is perhaps the biggest source of consternation (as far as I can tell), and I totally get it - the thought of being denied the window into Kylo’s thoughts and emotions that Adam provides through his expressions is pretty painful. To ease the angst, I would like to make the following points:
It was a marketing briefing. Naturally, they are going to hype the cool visuals/aesthetics that they believe will sell the movie. There is little correspondence between the costumes used in marketing and how much those costumes are used in the film itself.
The mask could symbolise any number of things. It’s a broken mask that has been repaired - that makes it an extremely potent symbol. It could indicate his fragility, how close his facade is to crumbling. It might communicate his fractured psyche. It may be a visual shorthand for the divisions within the First Order. It may convey his ownership of his past mistakes. It might mark an attempt to convey strength and be an imposing leader to the First Order, since he knows he’s incapable of pulling it off with his own face, given how it constantly betrays him, etc., etc.
The mask could be conveying any, some or none of the above, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. (Personally, I’d be much more worried if Kylo had a completely new, pristine helmet with no history or damage visible - in the case of this design, it seems like the damage is the whole point.) I have no doubt that it will come off at some point (hopefully sooner rather than later) - Adam has been carefully cultivating his Kylo hair for a good few months, and I’m confident that his considerable acting talents won’t be wasted.
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I wanted to ask, why do you think there is a possibility for karadox? But are also scared to hope?
Sorry this took so long to answer!
The shortest and simplest answer to this question is: Because I’ve noticed some things over the past few months that seem to point towards canon Karadox, and also some other things that seem to point away from it. This has led me to believe that Karadox could be a possibility, but also makes me hesitant to fully back that belief, lest I end up disappointed.
The long answer: I’m gonna split this up into two lists (a positive “why do I think it’s possible” list, and a negative “why am I afraid to hope” list), and I probably won’t go into as much detail as I usually do in an effort to keep those lists as succinct as possible. If you want me to elaborate on any specific bullet point, feel free to send me an ask about that topic in particular and I’ll expand on it.
Why I Think Karadox is a Possibility:
Brainiac 5 is Kara’s primary love interest in the comics, and has been for decades. (@kara-querl is the expert on comics Karadox, though, not me.)
As soon as Jesse was cast as Brainy, there was a lot of buzz about him potentially being Kara’s new love interest, because, again, the two characters have a reputation as a comics-canon ship.
Brainy’s first episode on the show (3.10) was largely him-and-Kara-centric, and they were so likable together that people were already asking if we could keep Brainy after that single ep, despite the way his makeup looked at the time.
Brainy and Kara have also continued to be very likable together, and their dynamic already functions as a solid base that could be easily built up into a healthy romantic relationship. (This is one of those massive topics that I’m not going to expand on unless I’m asked about it, because we’d be here all day otherwise.)
I’m not going to point out every individual canon moment between them, but this shot in particular from 3.10, where the camera shifts focus onto Brainy just as Mon-El walks away, was interpreted as an “out with the old, in with the new” moment by a LOT of people at the time:
They gave Brainy a human disguise, thus making him acceptably “date-able” by CW standards. (This was also obviously a way to save money and time on the makeup, but still, it only helps the ship. It also helps that Jesse Rath is hot as hell under all that makeup.)
The writers have been subtly dropping hints all along that Brainy already has Feelings for Kara (I have a couple of gifsets lined up with examples of these hints, so keep an eye out for those). Even if you don’t personally see those feelings as romantic yet, it’s still undeniably canon that he cares a great deal about her and isn’t afraid to show it.
A small preview of one such hint: HE FUCKING CRIED OVER HER.
The CW has been marketing the show using Kara and Brainy (or Jesse and Melissa) together since Jesse was promoted at the end of last season. As evidenced by this leaked image from last summer, it was a planned campaign, so the fact that the promos are using the two of them in particular isn’t a coincidence or anything.
I don’t think Brainy/Nia is going to go the way most people are expecting, and as a result, I don’t think they’ll be a significant impediment to Karadox from a character standpoint. (This is my personal speculation, of course, but it’s speculation based on the things we’ve seen in canon, research that I’ve done into the comics, and what’s been said about the characters in interviews. So it’s not like I’m just pulling it out of my ass, either. Feel free to ask me for specific examples/evidence if you’re curious.)
Small note that even if Brainy/Nia proves me wrong and does happen this season, that still doesn’t necessarily mean that Karadox won’t happen at a later point.
Brainy has become a fan-favorite character who’s well-liked by most everybody, which means that pairing him with Kara would be largely uncontroversial (especially compared to her last relationship). I’m sure the showrunners would love to put Kara with someone that people aren’t going to automatically hate.
Building off of the previous point - If Brainy isn’t going to date Kara, then who will? He’s the only guy around right now that she could possibly date (and obviously she’s eventually going to date someone). The only alternative to Brainy is bringing in someone new, and personally, I think introducing a brand new character to be Kara’s next love interest - when Brainy is already right there - would NOT go over well with a lot of people.
Why I’m Afraid to Hope (aka Why I Have Doubts About Karadox Becoming Canon):
Despite the promos, Kara and Brainy have had noticeably little screentime together since 3.10, and haven’t had a single emotional moment or conversation alone since that ep. Instead, all of Brainy’s more personal scenes (such as ones where he reveals important pieces of his backstory) have been going to Nia, which in turn has stagnated his developing friendship/relationship with Kara in a concerning way that I can’t help but feel is deliberate.
We’ve seen how much Brainy cares about Kara, but the vast majority of those moments have conveniently happened when Kara is either unconscious or simply not around. So she’s still completely in the dark about how Brainy may feel about her. (And we’ve seen hardly anything about how she feels about him.)
Whether Brainy/Nia becomes canon or not, the fact that the show has been baiting people into shipping it at all creates a problem for Karadox in the future, because people are going to be less likely to support a new Brainy ship if they’re still bitter about Brainy/Nia not being together. So Brainy/Nia’s very existence is enough to make me doubt the possibility of Karadox.
When asked about the potential for Karadox in season 4 after the season 3 finale, Rovner only gave a vague, and not particularly encouraging answer. That, plus the announcement a few months later about Kara staying single for a while, tells me that they never had any real intentions of exploring Karadox in season 4.
The CW has a history of swerving on comics-canon ships, most notably Green Arrow/Black Canary. So just because Karadox is canon in the comics, doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll become canon on the show.
There’s the whole issue/inherent tragedy of Brainy being from the future, which he technically should have to return to eventually (ignoring BTS facts like Jeremy Jordan not coming back, which likely means that Jesse will stay indefinitely). I’ve discussed this before, specifically mentioning how the time period difference hasn’t stopped Karadox from getting together in the comics, but it still needs to be mentioned as a point of doubt, because I’m not sure how they’d address it on the show itself.
On a personal note, I’ve been badly (and I mean BADLY) burned by ships before, so it’s just in my nature now to temper my expectations whenever I see canon potential for a ship, because I’d much rather be pleasantly surprised than blindsided and heartbroken. So basically, until Kara and Brainy actually kiss onscreen and/or declare their feelings for each other out loud, I’ll always have doubts about Karadox happening.
But finally, because I don’t really want to end on a sour note, here’s a snippet from an interview that came out a few days ago, which I found intriguing and wanted to share:
….Now, I’m not necessarily saying that we could see hints of Karadox in the season finale as part of a setup for season 5…but I’m also not not saying it, if you know what I mean. :))
#anonymous#asks#karadox#I worked damn hard on this so yeah it's going in the tag#seriously if you want me to expand on something PLEASE send me asks bc I'd be happy to talk about it#I just couldn't possibly address everything in detail all in one post#my meta#? sorta idk#I'm pretty much just using that tag for any long ask answers I write#supergirl#brainiac 5#this isn't meant to discourage anyone; I'm just trying to be as objective as possible#obviously I personally still really want karadox to happen#but nothing is ever a guarantee
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Tokens, Lampshades, and the Trouble With Deconstruction
by Dan H
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Dan finds Glee “Problematic”~
There is nothing more infuriating than middle class white boys claiming that some event that mildly irritated them gives them a profound insight into the world of the disadvantaged. “I once blamed immigrants for my own failure, therefore I know what it's like to be discriminated against” that sort of thing.
With this warning, let me tell you about my recent epiphany about stereotypes.
Kyra and I bought the first series of NCIS in order to stop ourselves from having to watch the eye bleedingly awful Lie To Me (tip from the experts: if a woman says she was raped, but isn't acting scared, she's lying).
Anyway NCIS was going well, and largely avoiding the buckets of fail that saturated Lie to Me. And it had a cute goth forensics chick and a Big Machine That Does Science so yay. Then we got to episode four: The Immortals.
In this episode, a young seaman (it's a naval crime show) was found drowned in full dress uniform, with weights tied to his waist.
Amongst his personal effects they found a character charter from an online fantasy game.
The rest was a checklist of horrendous gamer stereotypes.
Gamers unable to distinguish between game and reality. Check.
Gamers made violent by video games. Check.
Gamers driven to murder and/or suicide as a result of online interactions. Check and check.
Use of phrase “taking the game to the next level” (seriously I have seen this in every TV show about video games ever) check.
I mention this because there is a small part of me which , every time I see a horrendously stereotyped character on TV, says “well that's probably quite offensive, but I suppose you have to remember that the stereotype wouldn't exist if there wasn't some truth in it.”
Watching stereotypical portrayals of groups to which I actually belong reminds me that no, actually a lot of stereotypes are just outright fucking lies.
None of this has much to do with anything, but we'll be coming back to it later.
The Magic of Knowledge
So anyway, Glee is a not-exactly-musical not-exactly-comedy about a High-School Glee Club (the clue is in the name) which goes from humble beginnings to be all that and a bag of chips.
The pilot follows the foundation-slash-resurrection of the Glee club, with the recruitment of its six initial members who are respectively:
Rachel, an overambitious girl with dreams of stardom (to the extent that every time she signs her name she puts a gold star next to it, which is a metaphor, for her being a star). We are told that Rachel is very talented.
Finn, a boy who the Dead Poets' Society-esque teacher behind the Glee club frames for drug possession and then blackmails into joining Glee, for his own good.
Kurt, a fabulous gay boy who the writers edited into the show because they were so utterly taken with the actor. He is, to be fair, adorable – although it might be worth pointing out that the character he plays was originally supposed to be Indian. It might also be worth pointing out that Glee has won awards for diversity.
Mercedes, a fat black girl. Astute readers may note that this is the point where the character descriptions get, shall we say, shorter. Mercedes declares early on that she “ain't no backup singer”. This rapidly proves to be wishful thinking.
Tina, an Asian girl. I genuinely do not know what to make of Tina. She dresses in this quirky, slightly gothy style and her audition piece is a rather nice, slightly raunchy rendition of I Kissed a Girl. But she never actually says or does anything. Ever. It's almost like the costume department put more thought into her personality than the writers.
Artie. Artie is in a wheelchair. Artie also seems to spend a good part of the first episode pulling what I can only describe as “disabled face” - leaving his mouth hanging open and twisting his head to the side like he's trying to chew his own ear. Artie is not played by a wheelchair-using actor.
As
one of the many reviews
that have said all of this before put it: “Mmmm, token-y”.
So yeah. Tokenistic.
But wait! It's okay because the show knows that it's being tokenistic! It is using these “tropes” to be satirical!
Years ago there was a comedy sketch show in Oxford which I didn't actually see, but one of the better exchanges in it, as reported to me by my younger brother was as follows:
“It's not racist, it's satirical!”
“What's it a satire of?”
“Black people!”
This nicely sums up the issue with the awful stereotypes in Glee. Apparently the mere fact of acknowledging them excuses them. It's not a stereotype if you know it's a stereotype, because then it's satire. You don't even have to subvert or challenge the stereotype in any way. As long as you know about it.
That's the power of knowledge.
Glee gives us a central cast consisting entirely of stereotypes, and does nothing to challenge them.
What it does challenge, however, is the idea that presenting the characters as stereotypes is in any way bad.
Apologia, Apologia, Apologia
The tokenism in Glee is irritating, but it's one of those things I can kind of let slide. It's just a fact of life: fish swim, birds fly, Peter Molyneaux writes crappy video games, and TV shows include token black characters and get given diversity awards for it.
Except.
Except, except, except.
About halfway through the first volume of the boxed set there's an episode in which Sue Sylvester (the evil cheerleading coach) decides to take a “divide and rule” approach in her private war against the Glee Club, sowing dissent amongst the ranks by spreading the completely unsubstantiated and unjustified idea that the Glee Club doesn't give equal representation to its minority members.
The whole episode (Wikipedia informs me that it was entitled Throwdown) is excruciating. Unlike some commentators, I don't have a problem with Sue Sylvester, because I think it's fairly clear we're meant to disagree with her, and that's what makes the episode so difficult. Basically they take all of the criticisms people have of the show and put them in the mouth of a raging psychopath.
So Sue Sylvester splits the glee club in two and seduces all of the minorities over to her side with honeyed words and filthy, filthy lies.
Sylvester's “false” criticisms of the Glee Club boil down to the following:
That the minority characters are margainalised. They are.
That the minority characters are made to stand at the back and act like props. They are.
Two things about this episode are particularly frustrating. The first is that real, legitimate criticisms of the show are presented as lies invented by a balls-out villain. The second is that the minority kids are kind of made to look like idiots for being taken in by the whole thing. Mercedes' unalloyed delight at being presented with Hate on Me to sing is borderline embarrassing: “all right! An R&B song!” she says, she might as well follow it up with “I like this black people music, because I am black!”
The episode ends with the black, Asian, gay and disabled students deciding that they want to go back and work with the pretty white people and that they don't want to be given “special treatment” just because they're minorities. Because apparently getting to do the things that the white kids get to do in every single episode constitutes special treatment.
This would be almost bearable except that “minorities are given special treatment” is a recurring theme in Glee. Rachel constantly uses the spectre of her “two gay dads” to threaten people with the “full force of the ACLU”, and there's an awful scene in the
by no means uncontroversial
episode Wheels where Finn gets a job in a hotel by rolling up to them in a wheelchair and saying “you have to give me a job because I'm disabled.” (I paraphrase, it's actually Rachel who does the talking and she honest-to-shit uses the word “handicapable”).
How the show can have the brass fucking bollocks to repeat the “minorities get unfair advantages” myth while at the same time devoting ninety percent of its screentime to straight, white, able-bodied characters I do not know. Still, it gives you a profound respect for the kid who plays Artie, I mean he managed to overcome the huge disadvantage of not having a physical disability to land a role in a major TV show. And think of the guts it must have taken for the producers to take such a risk – I mean by not casting a wheelchair user they were practically asking for a lawsuit. Hats off to you, Fox.
And to make matters worse, the episode ends with Mr Schuster reminding the kids that “really, they're all minorities, because they're all in Glee Club.” Because having an unpopular hobby is exactly the same as being part of a group which is subject to systematic discrimination, oh yes.
The defence that is consistently wheeled out for Glee being so ragingly tokenistic is the fact that it's doing it all knowingly to subvert the stereotypes. Ironically it's exactly this that I find so disturbing about the series. If it was just full of slightly embarrassing stereotypes I'd be more or less willing to let it slide, it'd be annoying but no more annoying than a large number of other TV shows. The problem is that Glee is aware its being offensive, but refuses to address it. Its like the producers are standing up and saying “hey, we put a black girl and a wheelchair kid in it, what more do you want?”
The Other Sort of Prejudice
The thing is, I can see where the producers are coming from. I think they're wrong, but this is very much an “I believe that you believe it” situation.
The guys behind Glee like the guys behind the Avatar movie, and the guys behind the Earthseaminiseries, really do believe that they cast every role in the series utterly fairly, without prejudice of any kind. If a black kid had been right for Finn, they would have cast a black guy. If an Asian girl had been right for Rachel, Rachel would have been Asian. It just happened not to work out that way. Funnily enough.
Except.
There's an interesting interview on the final disc of the first DVD box set in which series creator Ryan Murphy explained that he already knew Lea Michele, who plays Rachel, before casting her. He explains that the character of Rachel was very much written with Lea Michele in mind. He further explains that despite this fact she “had to audition like everybody else.”
Except no, she didn't audition like everybody else. She auditioned for a part that was specifically written for her in front of people she already knew and who I strongly suspect were all very much inclined to give her the job before she began. She might have auditioned, but she didn't audition “like everybody else”.
Just to be clear, I really like Lea Michele, I think she did really well in Glee, and the fact that the character was written with her in mind really does make her better suited to play the character. But this still gave her a specific, undeniable advantage over the other people who auditioned.
I freely confess that I don't work in casting, but I strongly suspect that if you're casting for a particular role in a show, you're going to have a decent idea of what you want a particular character to look like. And that basically means that people who don't fit your preconceptions aren't going to be as “good” in the role as other people. What seems like an entirely unbiased decision is actually one steeped in your own prejudices – even if it's something as natural and reasonable as prejudice in favour of the girl you wrote the part for in the first place.
The DVD special features were full of cute little anecdotes about the casting process. The actor who played Finn submitted a video audition in which he was drumming on cereal packets and the casting team were so blown away by his verve and passion that they ignored the fact that he didn't actually show whether or not he could sing. The actor cast as Kurt impressed the judges so much that they rewrote his character from the ground up, in order to fit him better. Again I absolutely believe that the producers believe that the extent to which they were impressed with these two actors was a pure product of their individual talent and personality, but the truth is that we react more strongly and more favourably to people we perceive as being similar to ourselves.
Put simply, while Chris Colfer (Kurt) is no doubt adorable, I really couldn't put my hand on my heart and say that he's stand-out more talented than Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina) or Amber Riley (Mercedes). What I can say is that if I was writing a TV show about a bunch of highschool kids singing showtunes, I'd have a much better idea what to do with a cute camp kid than a feisty black girl. With some of Mercedes' dialogue you can practically here the writers saying “quick, what are black people interested in? I know, R&B!”
What makes Glee difficult isn't the fact that the writers are so transparently more interested in their white, able bodied actors than the rest of the cast, it's the fact that they're so obsessed with denying it, and then patting themselves on the back about denying it. What makes it worse is that I really do believe that they believe their own apologia. Unfortunately part of what they seem to believe is that minorities are routinely given special treatment in the name of “political correctness” an that's a belief which is actually harmful (as well as being one which is flatly contradicted by their own casting decisions).
That said, I'll probably still watch the rest of the series because, y'know, showtunes.Themes:
TV & Movies
,
Minority Warrior
~
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https://me.yahoo.com/a/EA0c88lilpj2n2eytQTnMdudrtUMV2acww--#ea8e8
at 16:21 on 2010-06-30God, Glee. Hate it. Hate, hate, hate. Have you gotten to the episode where the teacher is an abusive fuckwit and then the show focuses on his angst (not about being an abusive fuckwit) and blames his wife for making her husband act like an abusive fuckwit? Terrifying.
And yeah, the bullshit about beautiful white people "just happening" to fit the major roles . . . I don't even know what to do with that.
I wish it wasn't so rage-inducing, because I have a deep, sparkly love for Jane Lynch, and am thrilled she's in a popular sow. I just wish the show was better.
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Dan H
at 17:09 on 2010-06-30Tragically, I've heard that later on Glee gets a lot better (or perhaps just gets a lot better on some issues). There's a really nice bit later on where Kurt's dad calls out Finn on using "faggy" as derogatory.
The show, it is problematic.
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Viorica
at 17:29 on 2010-06-30Yeah, they spend a lot more time ealing with Kurt's issues and the discrimination he faces than the discrimination faced by Mercedes or Artie. I suspect it's because Ryan Murphy is a gay man himself, and thus is okay with
his
issues being represented, but not the issues of a black girl or a kid in a wheelchair.
Also, there are two cheerleaders (Brittany and Santana) who are hinted at being together, but Ryan Murphy says they won't be exploring that because- and I quote- "
it's not that kind of show
." That was about the point when I actually exploded with rage.
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Dan H
at 17:34 on 2010-06-30Oh dear me.
"Oh come on, you've got the L Word! Why do you need another TV show about lesbians!"
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Viorica
at 18:00 on 2010-06-30"It's not like we deal with gay teenagers anyw- wait."
*sigh*
One of the more frusturating aspects for me is that I have friends who are huge Glee fans, and accuse me of criticising them when I point out the flaws in the show. Being subjected to "SHUT UP YOU DON'T NOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT YOU'RE JUST EMBARASSING YOURSELF" every time I mention the show's problems is a great form of aversion therapy.
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Dan H
at 18:06 on 2010-06-30
"It's not like we deal with gay teenagers anyw- wait."
In all seriousness I suspect that might be part of the problem.
One gay kid = teen show.
Three gay kids = GAY SHOW
One of the more frusturating aspects for me is that I have friends who are huge Glee fans, and accuse me of criticising them when I point out the flaws in the show.
It's difficult. What I find really tough with Glee is that some people genuinely seem to find it empowering (I believe Tiger Beatdown described it as "dismantling the Kyriarchy").
On the other hand, if your friends just don't like you complaining because ZOMG SHOWTUNES then they can ... well they're your friends, so they can Sit Down And Think About What They've Done.
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Viorica
at 18:12 on 2010-06-30
One gay kid = teen show.
Three gay kids = GAY SHOW
And the gay kid just happens to be one the creator can identify with. Of course.
My friends actually like it because they can identify with the characters that do get screentime (one's a gay guy) so they insist that criticism of the show is criticism of them, even after I repeatedly denied it, and accused disability/women's advocates of "looking for things to be offended by." I give up.
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Andy G
at 18:20 on 2010-06-30Actually, the Tiger Beatdown quote was:
"I wish I could have titled this piece “How Glee is Dissolving the Kyriarchy Through Song” or “Let’s All Go Out for Equality Slushies, Our Work Here is Done!” But I can’t. Because lately, Glee has been making me squirm. Somewhere along the way, Glee became problematic. It stopped merely depicting systemic prejudice and discrimination, and started contributing to it. And I can remember exactly when it happened."
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/06/10/wont-stop-believin-a-gleek-turns-against-the-thing-he-loves/
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Dan H
at 18:23 on 2010-06-30Ah, shows what I know.
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Jamie Johnston
at 18:29 on 2010-06-30
What I find really tough with Glee is that some people genuinely seem to find it empowering (I believe Tiger Beatdown described it as "dismantling the Kyriarchy").
Er... are you thinking of
this article
, which says:
I wish I could have titled this piece “How Glee is Dissolving the Kyriarchy Through Song” or “Let’s All Go Out for Equality Slushies, Our Work Here is Done!” But I can’t. Because lately, Glee has been making me squirm. Somewhere along the way, Glee became problematic. It stopped merely depicting systemic prejudice and discrimination, and started contributing to it.
(Admittedly the author identifies different problems from the ones you mention and seems to say that they only set in considerably later in the series.)
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Jamie Johnston
at 18:29 on 2010-06-30D'oh! Andy types faster than I.
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Arthur B
at 18:35 on 2010-06-30
My friends actually like it because they can identify with the characters that do get screentime (one's a gay guy) so they insist that criticism of the show is criticism of them, even after I repeatedly denied it, and accused disability/women's advocates of "looking for things to be offended by." I give up.
You know, over here at Straight White Able-Bodied Guy HQ we call that "divide and rule".
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Dan H
at 18:37 on 2010-06-30
D'oh! Andy types faster than I.
I shall consider myself well and truly down-smuck.
Generally though there is still positive reception of Glee out there and it does seem to polarise people. I think the issue is that it gets so much right on the one hand and so much wrong on the other.
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Sister Magpie
at 19:25 on 2010-06-30I was really surprised to hear that Kurt wasn't there from the beginning because I always assumed he was sort of the author's stand in. He's gay, he obviously has a feeling for that kind of discrimination, so that's the main discrimination that gets played with.
Though I would say regarding the scene where Kurt's dad tells Finn off, the speech in itself is great (it could perhaps be considered a fantasy speech of things you wish your dad would say in that situation) but even that ep prefers to lean more in the direction of gay being a way you present yourself instead of a sexuality. Which is a fine place to start, but I am still waiting to see if they go into the other aspects of it instead of again claiming that "we're all freaks--because we're in Glee Club!" Um, no. When the bullies call Kurt a freak they mean he's gay. They pick on him because he's gay. They threaten Finn by suggesting he is gay etc.
I remember one ep where they made a joke where people in Glee were voting on something and someone voted for "other Asian"--a background character. That's a perfect example of the show's strange attitude, occasionally lampshading the problems without just not creating the problem.
Especially in eps like Wheels where not only does Finn happily reap the alleged advantages of being a minority, but Artie winds up not even solving the problem that started the ep (that he couldn't ride with the rest of the group on the bus) by sacrificing *his* immediate desires to any disabled people who might come along later. So basically the able-bodied kids complained a lot, but raised some money, and then happily went back to their original attitude of not caring at all if Artie rode the bus with them. The guy in the wheelchair. The only guy who did anything for or cared anything about access for the disabled was the guy in the wheelchair.
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Jamie Johnston
at 22:00 on 2010-06-30Sorry, Dan, I think I must be having a stupid day because I've been turning it over in the back of my head for a couple of hours and I'm still not completely sure how the
NCIS
anecdote relates. Which means I've probably missed something important in the article as a whole. Can I impose on you (or anyone else who is having a intellect-functioning-properly day) for a 'for dummies' version?
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Dan H
at 22:09 on 2010-06-30Partially it doesn't.
Partially it was a holdover from an earlier version of the article that was going to focus more on the "lampshading" element of Glee.
Basically Glee gets a lot of mileage out of people saying "No, don't you see, all these stereotypes are *subversive* because *everybody knows they aren't true*". The thing about the NCIS episode is that for me it highlighted in a very simple, very minor way, the fact that "everybody knows it isn't true" doesn't stop a stereotype being offensive because in fact PEOPLE DON'T KNOW IT ISN'T TRUE.
Then the whole thing morphed and the anecdote was left stuck there like a shark in a roof.
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Viorica
at 22:12 on 2010-06-30
You know, over here at Straight White Able-Bodied Guy HQ we call that "divide and rule".
So it IS a conspiracy!
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http://furare.livejournal.com/
at 02:10 on 2010-07-01
Because having an unpopular hobby is exactly the same as being part of a group which is subject to systematic discrimination, oh yes.
This is probably related to the phenomenon whereby (some) geek guys think that they Understand Women, because, after all, they are discriminated against and therefore can't possibly be part of The Problem. You even get a few guys who claim that, because some things have been difficult for them, there is no systematic sexism in society. After all, they're men! And they got made to suffer for not fitting in! Women are just paranoid for seeing it as a conspiracy against them!
Getting unpopularity caused by a choice you made confused with systematic discrimination is shown quite clearly in Glee as well, when the pregnant girl tells Mercedes that now she's obviously pregnant she Understands what it's like to be black. What?
Because apparently getting to do the things that the white kids get to do in every single episode constitutes special treatment.
That's always the case, though, isn't it? If you're not seen as having the right to be treated like the pretty able-bodied white people, then being treated the same as them is presumptuous. It's special treatment in that you want to be treated *better* than Other People Like You. (Heavy sarcasm filter, needless to say.)
...accused disability/women's advocates of "looking for things to be offended by."
Oh, I hate that one. Horrible, horrible silencing tactic. But seriously, why does anyone need to *look* for things to be offended by? There's so much that is so goddamn offensive that there's no need to look further than the bookshelf in the corner. When someone says that, they're basically saying "I know better than you do what ought to offend you. I don't think this should offend you (because it doesn't offend me) and therefore you are overreacting."
As for "stereotypes aren't true", I think that the mindless spouting of stereotypes - and then defending them by saying there's probably some truth in them - is one of the most prevalent forms of discrimination in our allegedly colourblind/genderblind society. Well, at least, among the nice, "non-discriminatory" people, anyway. I think that's what Dan was saying, so maybe I should've shorted this paragraph to "what he said". But you know us women, we never shut up, right?
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Sister Magpie
at 03:28 on 2010-07-01
If you're not seen as having the right to be treated like the pretty
able-bodied white people, then being treated the same as them is presumptuous.
It's special treatment in that you want to be treated *better* than Other People
Like You. (Heavy sarcasm filter, needless to say.)
Also I think it comes down to the illusion that what the white people get to do in every ep has nothing to do with their being white. Iow, it's not that Mercedes is a backup singer because she's black, it's that Rachel has X,Y and Z about her that gives them a reason to have her on screen a lot and for us to see her story from her pov.
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Frank
at 05:47 on 2010-07-01
Getting unpopularity caused by a choice you made confused with systematic discrimination is shown quite clearly in Glee as well, when the pregnant girl tells Mercedes that now she's obviously pregnant she Understands what it's like to be black. What?
Exactly. W. T. F.
(it could perhaps be considered a fantasy speech of things you wish your dad would say in that situation)
I also think the writer's using this opportunity to speak to those in the audience who are identifying with Finn (who has the absolute right to be pissed at Kurt and call him out on his bullshit though not in such a hateful manner) and who thus may be suffering from gaymanphobia.
The season (network?) suffers from gaymanphobia. For all the talk of Rachel's two gay dads, we never see them. Gay sexuality isn't seen. And the lesbian sexuality that is suggested, is obviously for the het male audience as Santana and Brittany use it to their advantage to seduce/trick Finn.
To be fair, there's not much if any healthy het sexuality either but it is treated as normal. Finn successfully though suggestively loses his virginity to Santana (another fail, this time with racial representation because, you know, Latina's are sexual beings, so exotic.) Will the audience ever see Kurt suggestively lose his virginity (which many will assume to be giving up his butt to a dick instead of giving his dick to a butt)? No, because gayman sex is icky.
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Dan H
at 11:49 on 2010-07-01
This is probably related to the phenomenon whereby (some) geek guys think that they Understand Women, because, after all, they are discriminated against and therefore can't possibly be part of The Problem.
*nods*
Although for what it's worth, it's not just a geek male thing. Bad Things Happen To Men Too is depressingly common male reaction to the notion of privilege. Just look at the lovely "men's abortion rights" guys.
That's always the case, though, isn't it? If you're not seen as having the right to be treated like the pretty able-bodied white people, then being treated the same as them is presumptuous. It's special treatment in that you want to be treated *better* than Other People Like You. (Heavy sarcasm filter, needless to say.)
Sad, but I suspect largely true.
It's like when people complain that student unions have a women's officer but not a men's officer, or complain that everybody talks about violence against women, but nobody talks about violence against men (they do, they just tend to call it "crime" and there are entire branches of government devoted to dealing with it).
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Dan H
at 12:02 on 2010-07-01Oh, wanted to reply to this point too but somehow lost it:
Getting unpopularity caused by a choice you made confused with systematic discrimination is shown quite clearly in Glee as well, when the pregnant girl tells Mercedes that now she's obviously pregnant she Understands what it's like to be black. What?
I'm not sure that's a great example actually. Obviously playing the "I knwo what it's like to be black" card is stupid and offensive, but I think it's a bit iffy to describe Quinn's situation as being entirely down to "a choice she made". Even if we leave out the fact that she was apparently sufficiently drunk when she had sex with Puck that it raises some iffy consent issues, the way she's treated afterwards actually *is* evidence of systematic discrimination because it is, in essence, a form of slut-shaming.
Basically I'm very conscious that "well you shouldn't have got pregnant then" is something that people really do say to women, in one way or another in all sorts of situations (it's a common line taken by pro-lifers for example). There's a certain perspective from which Quinn's arc could be seen as "gets kicked out of her house for being date raped" - I don't think it's entirely fair to describe her as just having made unpopular decisions.
Of course none of that gives her the right to say she "knows what it's like to be black" - on a side note, isn't it interesting that we spend so much time in Glee hearing what it's like to be a minority (what it's like to be in a wheelchair, what it's like to be black, what it's like to be gay) but always from a third party. Mr Shu tells the kids what it's like for Artie to be in a wheelchair, Quinn tells Mercedes what it's like to be black. Kurt's dad gets a pass because he's not actually telling Finn what it's like to be gay, he's telling him what it's like to be a homophobe.
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Arthur B
at 12:14 on 2010-07-01It's like that party game where you have the name of a mystery person stuck to your forehead and the person to your left has to describe them to you.
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http://furare.livejournal.com/
at 15:27 on 2010-07-01Fair enough, Dan. That's the only episode of the show I've ever watched, so all I saw was "pregnant white girl tells black girl that teenage pregnancy is Just Like Being Black". I didn't know anything about the extenuating circumstances, just saw the racefail and reacted badly to it. Obviously, the way Quinn is treated is Not Okay either, but pretending that it's in any way equivalent is fail on the same scale as Guy With Unpopular Hobby pretending that this is the same as being a woman.
In my defence, that was the comparison I was making - there is nothing wrong with having sex or getting pregnant, anymore than there is anything wrong with having an unpopular hobby. But Quinn had (at least when I was unaware of possible consent issues) a lot more choice over getting pregnant than Mercedes ever did about being black. That doesn't make it *right* that she's treated the way she is, it just means that it's a different sort of unfair. Which kind of undermines her claim to Understand.
Of course, in the show, this exchange is presented as character development and a heartwarming moment between the two girls.
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Dan H
at 15:40 on 2010-07-01
Fair enough, Dan. That's the only episode of the show I've ever watched, so all I saw was "pregnant white girl tells black girl that teenage pregnancy is Just Like Being Black".
Yeah, I can see how it would be *even more failey* out of context.
In my defence, that was the comparison I was making - there is nothing wrong with having sex or getting pregnant, anymore than there is anything wrong with having an unpopular hobby.
Oh I don't think you've got anything to defend in particular (sorry if I went off on one - I'm afraid I get a bit language police sometimes) I think it's just that I've been spending my off-hours arguing with misogynist assholes on other sites and so was a bit oversensitive. There's a depressing number of people who really do believe that if a bad thing happens to a woman because she "chooses" to have sex then it's ALL HER FAULT. Again, not saying that's you, just being a bit oversensitive.
Also doesn't change the fact that "now I know what it's like to be black" is a failburger with failsauce and a side order of fail.
Of course, in the show, this exchange is presented as character development and a heartwarming moment between the two girls.
Hey, nothing says friendship like appropriation!
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Sister Magpie
at 15:42 on 2010-07-01
That's the only episode of the show I've ever watched, so all I saw was
"pregnant white girl tells black girl that teenage pregnancy is Just Like Being
Black". I didn't know anything about the extenuating circumstances, just saw the
racefail and reacted badly to it. Obviously, the way Quinn is treated is Not
Okay either, but pretending that it's in any way equivalent is fail on the same
scale as Guy With Unpopular Hobby pretending that this is the same as being a
woman.
Yeah, one of the biggest differences it that, of course, Quinn's condition is temporary. Sure people will probably continue to judge her for getting pregnant, but it was still another example of a line the show is very fond of, the one where the person who is in the position of social power has something happen to them or does something that suddenly makes them feel shamed. And now they "know how it feels" to be somebody who's discriminated against all the time. It's not that we can't sympathize with them as people being picked on, and there are some ways that the two situations are related, but it's not the same thing and the show really does seem to link the two a lot.
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Dan H
at 15:46 on 2010-07-01
It's not that we can't sympathize with them as people being picked on, and there are some ways that the two situations are related, but it's not the same thing and the show really does seem to link the two a lot.
*nod*
The one redeeming quality I can think of in this particular example is that at least it's Quinn's *own* experience which acts as the catalyst for her Important Learning Experience, instead of somebody else's. Unlike say in /Wheels/, where Artie gets screwed so that the other kids can learn an Important Lessson About Disability.
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Sister Magpie
at 17:33 on 2010-07-01
The one redeeming quality I can think of in this particular example is that at
least it's Quinn's *own* experience which acts as the catalyst for her Important
Learning Experience, instead of somebody else's. Unlike say in /Wheels/, where
Artie gets screwed so that the other kids can learn an Important Lessson About
Disability.
Also it's probably better that Quinn, being the cheerleader, does usually own all the privileges she has, and yet truly has had things taken away from her. Being pregnant is something other people can see and react to on sight. It's a bit deeper than suddenly being one of the kids who might get a slushy thrown at them rather than being the slushie thrower. Her dad throwing her out because she's now a slut is not only more serious but goes to the aspect of Quinn that always was a minority. In the past she just denied that.
In a way, I felt like the awkward connection of the whole thing to the experience of a black person was more something the show is always trying to do rather than something Quinn herself, based on her character, would say. She'd probably never have noticed that Mercedes was judged on her looks, much less think that she now knows how Mercedes feels.
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Dan H
at 17:50 on 2010-07-01Thinking about it, if they really wanted to have an episode in which Quinn's pregnancy experience what it's like to be Mercedes, they'd have to have an episode in which she stood in the background, didn't sing very much, and sometimes said things like "well you can count my pregnant ass in, mm-hmm" while wagging her finger sassily.
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Sister Magpie
at 18:04 on 2010-07-01
Thinking about it, if they
really wanted to have an episode in which Quinn's pregnancy experience what it's
like to be Mercedes, they'd have to have an episode in which she stood in the
background, didn't sing very much, and sometimes said things like "well you can
count my pregnant ass in, mm-hmm" while wagging her finger
sassily.
Very true. She would spend a lot of time being confused at the way her interactions with people never went anywhere and all her conversations with others were about other people whose feelings she was more interested in than her own.
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Dan H
at 18:24 on 2010-07-01
She'd probably never have noticed that Mercedes was judged on her looks, much less think that she now knows how Mercedes feels.
Sorry to keep dwelling on this but:
Also, is it framed as "being judged on her looks?" because if so ... umm ... again that's a rather nasty oversimplification of a hugely complex set of issues. I mean presumably when Quinn's father kicks her out it's not because he's worried she'll get *fat*, it's because she's a filthy dirty slutty mcslutslut. And presumably the creators realize that Mercedes' identity as a black woman has rather more to it than "is female and has dark coloured skin."
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Sister Magpie
at 18:51 on 2010-07-01
Also, is it framed as "being
judged on her looks?" because if so ... umm ... again that's a rather nasty
oversimplification of a hugely complex set of issues. I mean presumably when
Quinn's father kicks her out it's not because he's worried she'll get *fat*,
it's because she's a filthy dirty slutty mcslutslut.
Sorry, no it's not. I just worded that badly because I meant she is judged on an aspect of herself that is visible to strangers. A stranger, for instane, can look at Mercedes and identify her as black and so make judgements based on just seeing her, and so can Quinn with her pregnancy showing. The way I put it it sounded like I meant "her looks" as in whether or not she was conventionally attractive--that's not what she meant.
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Lexa
at 20:19 on 2010-07-01Oh, there are so many things I hate about this show!
First off, it really, really bugs me that they have taken the idiotic step of confusing sexuality and gender in Kurt. Yes, Kurt is gay. But the writers seem to have taken 'gay' to mean 'camp and gender-confused'. It's the easiest thing in the world to do, and frankly it disappoints me. Wouldn't it be more interesting if one of the football players was discovering he was gay? You could do amazing things with that, and explore really interesting themes - such as the fact that a lot of gay men don't conform to that stereotype. It's only making more and more people think that the stereotypical 'camp gay guy' is universal to the population.
Then there's the wheelchair thing. If you ever tried to stage 'Children Of A Lesser God' professionally with a hearing lead actress instead of a deaf one, there would be uproar. Partly, I suspect, because Equity (the actors' union) would never let them get away with it. I don't know how these things are handled in the States, but it upsets me that nobody had enough clout to solve this problem. Yes, he's good for the character, but if you can re-write for one actor, what's a few tweaks for another going to hurt?
(Oh yes, and of course having a stutter is comparable to being wheelchair-bound. It cuts you off from society in exactly the same way, didn't you know?)
Casting is a thorny issue, but I wouldn't say that colourblind casting works in every case. For instance, the writers must have had character briefs when they began auditioning.
Take the character of Quinn, for example. How different would things be if she were black? She may not have the upper-class background of the current character, she may not have been head of the chastity club (which seemed to be universally white), and there may not have been the family stigma attached to her being pregnant. All of these factors were, arguably, (and within the context of the show, with its' wonderfully divisive society) directly related to the fact that the character was white and upper-class. Even if she's still upper-class, everything changes. Suddenly the focal issues of the character change, and you have to write in the additional new environment of a mixed-race relationship between her and Finn/Mohawk Dude.
No matter how good a black actress may have been for that role, I really don't think that she would ever have been considered, because it would change a lot of things that the writers wanted for the character. And actually, maybe that's fair enough, because some characters are just that specific to their surroundings.
On the other hand, Rachel could have been black and it would have changed NOTHING. Ditto Mr Schuester.
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Sister Magpie
at 20:41 on 2010-07-01
On the other hand, Rachel could have been black and it would have changed
NOTHING. Ditto Mr Schuester.
With Rachel it's even more ironic because part of the joke with her dads was that they don't know which one actually fathered her biologically. She says this, then they show us a picture of her with her two dads, one of whom is black and one of whom is white. So they've already got the set up for her to be biracial, but she's not.
I personally don't have a problem with Kurt being campy just because I think it's dealing with a certain type of personality. Rather than being a person in hiding who's struggling with his sexuality he's out and proud. He himself has accepted he's gay, which can be nice. But it does give them a chance to sometimes act as if gay really is about loving show tunes and fashion and being considered girly, which fits into the whole "we're a bunch of misfits" thing they like to have for a lot of the Glee characters. The club's kind of split between the popular kids and the outcasts according to cliche high school hierarchy. Quinn, the other Cheerios, Finn and Puck are all cool people getting their first taste of doing something officially not cool. Rachel, Mercedes, Artie, non-stutter girl whose name I've just forgotten and Kurt are the nerdy-kids they wouldn't have spoken to before but now are getting to know.
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Jamie Johnston
at 23:04 on 2010-07-01Thanks for the clarification, Dan! Yes, I see how that works.
[Ducks out before being mistaken for someone who knows something about this programme.]
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Dan H
at 23:30 on 2010-07-01
Take the character of Quinn, for example. How different would things be if she were black? She may not have the upper-class background of the current character
I'm pretty sure you *do* get upper-class black people (if the Fresh Prince taught me nothing else, he taught me that). (Reading ahead, I notice that you mention later that she could still have been upper class, so I don't think you're implying otherwise - I'm just a bit twitchy today).
Quinn's an interesting example in fact for exactly this reason. Making her black would have changed nothing - you *absolutely* get rich, privileged kids from black backgrounds, and making their perfect alpha-teen black would have *genuinely* challenged stereotypes. But they didn't and I suspect that, as you say, the reason they didn't is because they felt that being white was part of who she was, even though I am damned sure that there are black girls who are *exactly* like Finn.
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Dan H
at 23:32 on 2010-07-01
Thanks for the clarification, Dan! Yes, I see how that works.
As an example, there's a running joke throughout the series that the other Asian student in Glee Club is referred to (by staff and students alike) as "other Asian".
You SEE. It's FUNNY because it's SUBVERSIVE because we KNOW IT'S RACIST and NOBODY REALLY ACTS LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE and certainly it's in no way HARMFUL or OFFENSIVE! Because it's GLEE!
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Viorica
at 01:39 on 2010-07-02
If you ever tried to stage 'Children Of A Lesser God' professionally with a hearing lead actress instead of a deaf one, there would be uproar.
I wouldn't be so sure. There's a production of
The Miracle Worker
running in Broadway right now with Abigail Breslin playing Helen Keller.
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Sister Magpie
at 04:30 on 2010-07-02
I wouldn't be so sure. There's
a production of The Miracle Worker running in Broadway right now with
Abigail Breslin playing Helen Keller
Has there ever been a production of The Miracle Worker, or at least one of note, that didn't have Helen played by a hearing, sighted actress? It seems like Children of a Lesser God is traditionally cast with a deaf actress.
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Lexa
at 10:02 on 2010-07-02But 'The Miracle Worker' closed early in its' run, and when the casting was announced there were huge complaints from the deaf and blind communities. (Also, I believe that it first opened in the 50s, when attitudes were very different to now) It's a huge betrayal to actors who are genuinely deaf, blind and wheelchair-bound when an actor who is none of these things gets a role like that.
And yep, Sarah in 'Children Of A Lesser God' is always played by a deaf actress - and with good reason. They even found a deaf actress for the movie, which is quite impressive when you think about it.
It genuinely upsets me that the actor playing Artie can walk. It's like they're saying "You know what, nobody in a wheelchair can act." Your agent can't find a wheelchair-bound actor? Find one. Hold open auditions, cast a complete newcomer. It's much easier to do that on television than in theatre.
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Dan H
at 10:17 on 2010-07-02Sorry to be the language police again but if we're going to take a stand against ableism can we avoid using the term "wheelchair-bound" because it
genuinely upsets people
.
I probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been reading that very blog yesterday evening.
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Wardog
at 10:58 on 2010-07-02Wow, this is a minefield. I'm scared of opening my mouth....
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Sister Magpie
at 15:05 on 2010-07-02
But 'The Miracle Worker' closed early in its' run, and when the casting was
announced there were huge complaints from the deaf and blind communities. (Also,
I believe that it first opened in the 50s, when attitudes were very different to
now)
Thanks for that info--I had no idea and I was genuinely wondering about it. Because yes, the original was in the 50s where the idea of hiring a deaf or blind young actress (much less a deaf and blind young actress) would never even have been considered. I remember when Patty Duke, the original Helen, later made a TV movie version where she played Annie Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert's Helen!
So I didn't know if there was some reason that play was not looked at the way CoaLG was, where you assume the part will be played by a deaf actress.
Now I'd really like to see MW with a deaf and blind actress. It would be a totally different performance, I'd imagine. Helen would probably relate to the world far more realistically because the actress would naturally navigate the world with the same senses. Ironically, I'll bet to a lot of people she would appear more able-bodied because of it. She'd be played less as a seeing/hearing person who's been deprived of those senses and more like an individual who uses senses other than seeing and hearing.
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Viorica
at 15:42 on 2010-07-02
Hold open auditions, cast a complete newcomer.
That's actually the argument I keep hearing- that they
did
hold open auditions, and Kevin McHale just happened to be the best actor for the role. Don't know if I believe it, though.
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Dan H
at 23:23 on 2010-07-02
That's actually the argument I keep hearing- that they did hold open auditions, and Kevin McHale just happened to be the best actor for the role. Don't know if I believe it, though.
I believe it, it's just that I believe their criteria for "best actor" were intrinsically, well, faily.
There's a lot of talk in the DVD special features about how you're looking for the "triple threat" - somebody who can act, sing and dance. Given that later on in the series there's a sequence in which Artie does, in fact, dance in a dream sequence - revealing that Kevin McHale is, in fact, a pretty damned good dancer, it seems depressingly plausible that his ability do dance was part of what landed him the role.
This role, of course, being the role of a wheelchair user whose lifetime dream of being a dancer cannot be fulfilled *because he is a wheelchair user*.
It seems nobody thought that maybe the ability to dance *in a wheelchair* might be a better quality to look for in an actor than the ability to dance *when not in a wheelchair*.
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Viorica
at 00:06 on 2010-07-03Yeah, that's what my friend tried to convince me of- that if they hadn't cast Kevin McHale, they couldn't have done the Safety Dance scene, so clearly he was a better choice than an actor who was actually in a wheelchair. The problem with this is twofold: one, it is entirely possible to dance while in a wheelchair, and two, having your disabled character constantly fantasize about not being disabled is juuuuust a bit problematic. It'd be like having Kurt fantasize about being straight. "Oh, if only I wasn't a minority!"
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Sister Magpie
at 00:54 on 2010-07-03
I believe it, it's just that I believe their criteria for "best actor" were
intrinsically, well, faily.
And how many people in wheelchairs would bother showing up at an open call, really? I mean, it seems like asking a bit much to expect differently abled actors to assume they're being considered at an open call.
Yeah, that's what my friend tried to convince me of- that if they hadn't cast
Kevin McHale, they couldn't have done the Safety Dance scene, so clearly he was
a better choice than an actor who was actually in a wheelchair.
It does underline that we're talking about a disabled person as defined by an able-bodied person, doesn't it? If they think it's important that the actor be able to convincingly dance like a person with the use of his legs, if only for dream sequences but not important that he be able to convincingly use a wheelchair like a person who doesn't regularly use his legs. He can't dance in a wheelchair the way the character should be able to do, probably doesn't even use a wheelchair as well as a regular user would.
But they either don't see those problems or assume people will suspend disbelief for them. However when it comes to a fantasy dance sequence they need it to be the actor dancing? Even though the whole fantasy sequence frame would give you plenty of freedom to be as stylized as possible. You could probably even be more creative with it. It's not like Hollywood hasn't done this in many ways over the years when they cast a non-dancer in a dancing role.
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Dan H
at 12:00 on 2010-07-03
And how many people in wheelchairs would bother showing up at an open call, really? I mean, it seems like asking a bit much to expect differently abled actors to assume they're being considered at an open call.
But that's *their* fault for being *prejudiced* and assuming that *all able bodied people are ablists*. And we shouldn't support *prejudice*.
It does underline that we're talking about a disabled person as defined by an able-bodied person, doesn't it?
It really does. I can't believe that people *actually* cite the (arguably quite offensive) dream sequence in which Artie imagines what it would be like to be a dancer as a *good and valid* reason that he "had" to be played by an able-bodied actor.
"Hey people with disabilities: we can actually represent what it is like to BE YOU better than YOU CAN"
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Lexa
at 15:17 on 2010-07-03There are hundreds of acting calls out there where they say something like: "Actor wanted. Must be male, mid-late 30s, minority ethnic background." Or words to that effect. If you need someone black for a role, that's what you do. If they had put out one stating that they needed a wheelchair user, then it would have been no different. Sometimes you need an actor to look a certain way, and there's no problem with specifying that - asking for someone in a wheelchair is just the same.
And I say again: if they can re-write one role for one actor and change it completely (Kurt), would it have been so difficult for them to change one character slightly so that a real wheelchair-user could have done it? They can't say 'he wasn't right for the role' for one guy, and then do a shedload of re-writing for another.
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Shim
at 08:46 on 2010-07-04
"Actor wanted. Must be male, mid-late 30s, minority ethnic background."
That must be awkward if everyone who turns up is the wrong minority ethnic background.
"I'm sorry, Mr... Spock, was it? We just don't see you as Othello."
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Jamie Johnston
at 11:17 on 2010-07-04"But that is illogical:
Captain Picard
has played the part, and we are of similar appearance. Is it becos I iz from TOS?"
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Dan H
at 12:47 on 2010-07-04
And I say again: if they can re-write one role for one actor and change it completely (Kurt), would it have been so difficult for them to change one character slightly so that a real wheelchair-user could have done it?
I don't think you'll get any disagreement here. We're not saying "this is why they did it, and it's legitimate" we're (or at least I'm) saying "this is probably why they did it, and it's fucking offensive".
People get so defensive about it because what we're dealing with here (like the guy in that infuriating Times article Rami just linked to) is *internalized* prejudice. The producers cast Kevin McHale because he was "best" for the role according to their preconceptions about what a "good" actor in musical theatre should be like. Funnily enough, this wound up being somebody white, male, and able-bodied.
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https://me.yahoo.com/a/weG8lOsgwf6qv3.5HfEtaiu7gZr1mw--#9e4da
at 00:48 on 2010-07-06As a person with disabilities who has
written rather extensively about Glee
(I wrote the post at Bitch discussed in Daniel's original post), I'd like to specifically rebut the claims made about the dream sequence (although this whole conversation has been very interesting).
I see the argument that Artie had to be played by a nondisabled actor to make that sequence possible all the time, by people who are apparently not aware that what wheelchair users can dance. Had they used an actual wheelchair user in that role, the dance sequence could have involved Artie going to dance camp and learning wheelchair dance, and they could have choreographed a superb dance sequence. Instead, they cast themselves into a corner by using a nondisabled actor.
Glee for some reason seems to be under the impression that people can't dance in wheelchairs. They claimed to have invented wheelchair choreography with 'Wheels' despite ample evidence to the contrary; seriously, search YouTube for 'wheelchair dancing,' and I note that they had to use a stuntman for most of Artie's moves in that episode, suggesting some awareness of the fact that there are actually wheelchair athletes that can do things that nondisabled people who are unfamiliar with a chair cannot do.
Pretty much all of the statements made about McHale's casting smell like rotten fish to me. They 'needed an actor who can sing and dance'? Well, Kevin McHale may be able to sing, but he certainly can't dance in a wheelchair, and there are plenty of wheelchair users who are accomplished singers and dancers who would have been a better fit for that role.
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Dan H
at 11:28 on 2010-07-06Hiya, welcome to Ferretbrain.
The whole dream sequence thing is just wrong on every level really isn't it?
It seems like the producers genuinely did believe the fact that Kevin McHale *isn't* a wheelchair user somehow made him uniquely qualified to play one.
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Jamie Johnston
at 19:54 on 2010-07-06Wow, I know we've had actual known writers commenting on Ferretbrain once or twice before but this is the first time it's someone I've read. Er, hello! [Star-struck.]
I'm amazed to hear they had the gumption to claim to have invented wheelchair choreography. That claim certainly wouldn't have convinced anyone in the UK, where
this wheelchair dance
was all over our televisions many times a day from 2002 to 2006 as a BBC 'ident'.*
* (I don't know whether 'ident' is a term anyone but the BBC uses. It's the little clips a TV channel shows in between programmes or during ad breaks to remind you what channel you're watching.)
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Melissa G.
at 01:10 on 2010-07-07I would just like to mention that someone I went to college with (who became paralyzed during his sophomore year due to a spinal injury) was recently on Glee. And he wrote a really interesting
blogpost/article
about his experience with the show. Just thought you all would be interested.
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Dan H
at 10:28 on 2010-07-07Obviously it's great that your friend's landed a part in the series, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with his complaining about people criticizing the show. He's entitled to his opinion of course, but so are other people.
I have absolutely no doubt that the cast, crew and writers of /Glee/ are not *consciously* ableist. I have no doubt that they will be very nice to your friend, but it *is* legitimate to criticize them for casting an able-bodied actor as Artie, just as it would be legitimate to criticize them for having a white girl black up to play Mercedes.
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Melissa G.
at 17:51 on 2010-07-07@Dan
Coming from a background where I've been on both sides of the casting table (I'm an actor and I've helped cast things as well), I can't really agree completely with how heated everyone is about Artie's casting. Yes, it would have been great if they found an actor in a wheelchair to play Artie, but for me, as long as equal consideration was given to both abled and disabled actors, I really can't get too angry about it.
Of course, I realize that my opinion comes with privilege and that, of course, as an able-bodied person, I don't have much right to say anything either way. The reason I linked Zach's article was because I thought there was more meaning to hearing his opinion than mine. But I'm certainly not going to say that anyone is wrong for being upset. It's just not something I personally agree with. And to me, the fact that Zach got a part on the show (even though he was competing against able-bodied actors during the casting session) must count for something?
As far as the dream sequence goes, I highly doubt the show had any idea they would even do that until about two weeks before the episode was shot, and from what I know of TV, it's likely that they just said, "Oh, hey, since Kevin can walk in real life, why don't we do a dream sequence where we see him dance?" Had he actually been a wheelchair-using actor, they obviously wouldn't have done the scene or would have done it a different way. But I might be misunderstanding why exactly people are angry about it.
To be honest though, I have a feeling this is an agree to disagree type of situation.
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Dan H
at 00:47 on 2010-07-08
But I might be misunderstanding why exactly people are angry about it.
I'm not really qualified to speak on behalf of People With Disabilities, but if I had to explain why I *think* people are so upset about it, it would be something like this (this may get long).
One way to view disability is that people with disabilities are just people who can't do some things that other people can do. If you follow this definition then casting able-bodied actors in disabled roles is sort of like casting bilingual people in non-bilingual roles: a complete non-issue.
The other way to view disability (as I understand it) is like race or gender: a part of somebody's identity which has physical manifestations. If you follow this definition casting an able-bodied actor in a disabled role is exactly as bad as having black roles played by white actors in blackface.
By the first definition, discrimination against people with disabilities is effectively a non-issue. Disabled people are by definition less able than nondisabled people, and if your disability prevents you from doing something well ... that's why they call it a disability. Many people (including, I suspect, many people with disabilities) are completely okay with the first definition and that is not something I feel in a position to judge. By this definition providing wheelchair access to a public building is effectively a courtesy you provide to the less fortunate.
For many people, however, it is important to recognize that people with disabilities are a social group that can be excluded by social mechanisms. While people with disabilities may do things differently to able-bodied people, they do actually do all of the same things. To these people *failing* to provide wheelchair access to a building is discrimination just as much as it would be to put a sign in the window saying "no blacks no Irish".
The reason people are so upset by the whole "wheelchair users can't dance" theme which runs through Glee is that it reinforces the notion that exclusion is a natural part of what it means to have a disability. To people who subscribe to the second model of disability "wheelchair users can't dance" is exactly as offensive a statement as "gay people can't have children" or "women can't do science".
As you say, it's an agree to disagree situation, I just thought I'd try (as best I can) to explain what I think people are disagreeing about.
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Melissa G.
at 05:34 on 2010-07-08
To people who subscribe to the second model of disability "wheelchair users can't dance" is exactly as offensive a statement as "gay people can't have children" or "women can't do science".
Okay, I see. That clears it up. And yes, wheelchair users *can* dance and it would be nice to see them let Artie do that and achieve his dream.
If you follow this definition casting an able-bodied actor in a disabled role is exactly as bad as having black roles played by white actors in blackface.
This is where it gets tricky for me. And I'm not sure I can explain this without sounding horribly insensitive, but I'll give it a go.
For me, saying that only a wheelchair using actor should play a wheelchair using character is an idea that can be taken to rather dangerous place. If you start saying that people can only play roles that they actually are, you're saying that only straight actors can play straight roles or only Jewish actors can play Jewish characters. Anyone with the right look and skills should be considered for any role. The whole point of acting is to become something or someone that you're not. And to take that to another level, I work with a disabled actor in my workshop classes, and I know for a fact that he wants to be considered for parts that are *not* written to be disabled. If we want casting directors to consider him for non-disabled parts, I feel like we need to extend that to "consider everyone who could play this character for the part". And from there, I trust that the casting people will actually pick the person who is most right for the role. And having met many casting directors, trust me, they're really very good at it.
Again, I know people will disagree with me, and they have every right to. I just wanted to add something from an acting viewpoint as well. (Please don't bite my head off....)
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Shim
at 11:37 on 2010-07-08(warning, long post)
For me, saying that only a wheelchair using actor should play a wheelchair using character is an idea that can be taken to rather dangerous place. If you start saying that people can only play roles that they actually are, you're saying that only straight actors can play straight roles or only Jewish actors can play Jewish characters. Anyone with the right look and skills should be considered for any role. The whole point of acting is to become something or someone that you're not.
I can see where you're coming from and agree to some extent, but I think there's a couple of issues involved here.
For one thing, there are several types of characteristic that might affect casting.
- There are characteristics that almost inevitably affect the character: age, gender, ethnic group, height, body type, certain physical disabilities. The actor's traits carry across to the character unless massive effort goes into disguising them.
- There are characteristics that genuinely limit what the actor can do, including some physical and mental disabilities, but also ability (singing, multilinguism, etc.). This means that actor can't do specific things, but doesn't mean the character has to be
portrayed
in that way: you can avoid showing those activities, or use stunt doubles and voice doubles.
- There are "hidden" traits that don't necessarily affect the actor's range of ability or come across to the character. These include sexuality, regional origin, social class, and some mental conditions.
The first category tend to restrict what roles people can do because many roles are designated for specific types of person. This is especially the case with historical figures, but also applies to stories in particular settings and particular types of character, or to combinations of characters. Dame Judy Dench cannot credibly play Harry Potter. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an unconvincing Gandhi. Children are often expected to be the same ethnic group as their parents. A cast of white kids just don't fit in a Chinese epic set in the Qing Dynasty. A very short cast is not a realistic basketball team, and a very fat cast is not a realistic national football team. Theatre tends to be far more generous with this sort of casting than film and TV. Taking the semi-realism of film & TV as the standard, then yes, I'd argue that Jewish actors (or at least, actors who look Jewish*) should play the characters.
The second category makes it difficult for actors to play particular roles. Stephen Hawking doesn't match up to Arnie as Conan and the work required to allow him to play the part would be astronomical (how appropriate). Similarly, if someone has an unshakeable heavy Russian accent, they just may not be suitable as Queen Elizabeth. Deafblind actors may struggle in a Jackie Chan film. However, as I said, you might be able to adapt the part or avoid or double certain activities to make them a viable choice, and of course the severity of these restrictions varies. In some circumstances, though, it seems like a reasonable decision to say a person is unsuitable.
The third category really shouldn't enter into the casting process. They might affect an actor's ability to get into character, but for a good actor, shouldn't define whether or not they can do the part. There's no reason why a straight part has to be played by a straight actor.
However: there is also the issue of equal opportunities, or more specifically fair opportunities.
While many roles could be played by anyone, they are often effectively restricted. Minority actor X might be a great fit for the grandfather role, but if the rest of the family has been cast as a different ethnic group, the directors simply can't see a way to fit X in. Or it would require a significant rewrite, whereas actor Y can slot straight in there. If the plot requires the heroine to have life-changing experiences while running marathons, an actress who can't walk or run is a big obstacle. If it's a full-blown kung fu film, a complete ignorance of kung fu is a problem.
Other roles require specific actor traits, so your Aboriginal family need to look more or less Aboriginal, Henry VIII needs to be a Caucasian bloke, and your basketball players need to be tall.
A third type of role needs someone who can portray a particular type of character, without necessarily needing that trait themselves. This ties in with the third category: traits like personality, nationality, class, education, magical powers, emotions, illness and some disabilities can be portrayed by actors without those traits.
The thing is that while the second type of roles exclude majority actors who don't fit the bill, both the first and second types tend to exclude minorities. This means a far smaller range of opportunities is open to them, which in itself reinforces the problem because it's harder to build up a reputation, experience and contacts. That being the case, I'd say it's even more important to consider them carefully for minority-specific roles, and to be
less
open to rewrites and other adaptive measures for the sake of casting non-minority actors.
Wheelchair users are actually a slightly unusual case, because you don't need to be a wheelchair user to act the part. This puts them at an even greater disadvantage than many other disabilities, because not only are they excluded from many roles not written for wheelchair users; they are also competing with able-bodied actors (who have had more opportunity to get experience and recognition) for roles as wheelchair-using characters. Thus, open casting for wheelchair users reinforces the discrimination. Hence the blackface comparison.
Obviously that doesn't mean they shouldn't be considered for non-chair-using roles, any more than all-women MP shortlists mean women shouldn't apply for other constituencies. It's not really about making casting completely open; it's about preventing passive disadvantage to minorities from the passive advantage and sheer numbers of the majority.
*I appreciate this is getting into the situation where people are concerned by ethnic minority A actors taking roles as ethnic minority B characters. I don't want to discuss that right now, I was just referring to getting a convincing cast.
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Dan H
at 12:12 on 2010-07-08
Anyone with the right look and skills should be considered for any role.
I think this is the crux of the issue (and again this might get a bit long).
For many years, to a white audience, a man in blackface had the right "look" to play a black man on stage or on film. Even after people came to realize that this was not acceptable, the film and television industry carried on doing the
exact same thing
with Asian characters because, to a white audience as long as somebody has their eyes taped back they look convincingly Asian (scanning down the wikipedia article, people still do this today). Of course to a lot of Asian people this is fantastically offensive.
To a lot of disabled people, Kevin McHale absolutely does *not* have the "right look and skills" to be considered for the role of Artie. For a start he can't dance in a wheelchair which for somebody in a show which is all about singing and dancing is a bit of a flaw. Not only that, but (I am given to understand) many people find the way McHale handles a wheelchair awkward, uncomfortable, and unconvincing. To people who actually use wheelchairs, McHale does not do a convincing job of portraying somebody who spends a large proportion of every day in one.
None of these things are immediately obvious to an able-bodied audience (or, I suspect, to able-bodied casting directors) because we define disability by inability, and think that being a wheelchair-user means "not being able to walk" instead of "being able to use a wheelchair". The reason many people find "crip drag" offensive is because they feel it should not be up to able-bodied people to decide what disabled people are supposed to look like.
I absolutely believe that Kevin McHale was chosen because he had the right look and skills to play Artie, but I also believe that what people considered to be the "right look and skills" to play Artie was based on quite a lot of harmful misconceptions about disability.
Put it this way. Look at the following picture
of the cast
. Perhaps I'm just being guided by hindsight but just looking at those pictures (which are all head-and-shoulder shots) you know *instantly* which of those characters is "wheelchair kid" - it's the pale gawky looking one because that's what able-bodied people think disabled people look like. It's even more apparent in the
DVD Cover
where he is actually pulling the "biting your own ear" face I describe in the article.
If I was a casting director, Kevin McHale is exactly the person I would cast as wheelchair kid. He looks exactly how I expect disabled people to look (pale, unhealthy, and uncomfortable) and his awkwardness in a wheelchair wouldn't even register with me, because I *expect* disabled people to move awkwardly because, well, they're disabled.
And to take that to another level, I work with a disabled actor in my workshop classes, and I know for a fact that he wants to be considered for parts that are *not* written to be disabled. If we want casting directors to consider him for non-disabled parts, I feel like we need to extend that to "consider everyone who could play this character for the part".
I think you're in danger of falling into the "reverse prejudice" trap here.
There is a big difference between disabled actors wanting to be considered for roles that are not specifically written as disabled, and non-disabled actors wanting to be considered for roles that are. Not least of those differences is the fact that while disabled actors are routinely *not* considered for roles that aren't specifically written for them, they have to be especially protective of those that are.
To come back to the race example, it's the difference between a black actor wanting to be considered for the role of Dr Who and a white actor wanting to be considered for the role of Martin Luther King Jr. One involves taking a character who habitually (and for no especially good reason) is cast as white and asking for the opportunity for equal treatment. The other involves asking people to accept that one of the most famous and significant figures in the civil rights movement can be adequately represented by a white guy.
There is a big, big difference between actors with disabilities, or actors of colour, or female actors, asking to be considered for parts in which race, disability, and gender play no significant role, and white, able-bodied male actors asking to take roles which *are* specifically written as disabled, non-white, or female. (I should add that gender isn't a great example here, because regendering roles is slightly different to merely whitewashing them).
What's offensive about blackface, and about yellowface, and about crip drag, is the notion that "white and able-bodied" is some kind of master template from which everything else can be derived. A black man is not just a white man with dirty skin. An Asian person is not just a white person with their eyes pulled back. A disabled person is not just an able-bodied person sitting down.
Should every actor who *can* play a role be considered for that role? Absolutely. But for many people an able bodied actor *can not* play the role of a wheelchair user. For many people Kevin McHale *is not* convincing as Artie, because Artie is supposed to be a wheelchair user and Kevin McHale *obviously* isn't.
And having met many casting directors, trust me, they're really very good at it.
I'm sure they are, but that does not mean they are without prejudice, or do not have privilege.
Kevin McHale was an excellent choice for Artie in the sense that he looks exactly the way the average, able-bodied audience member expects a wheelchair user to look. He was also an excellent choice for a character whose entire arc seems to be about how having a disability means having a less complete life. Insofar as Artie's function as a character is to be tragic and sympathetic, he is well cast.
The problem a lot of people seem to have with Kevin McHale is not that he did not fit the character per se, but that the character itself is a harmful jumble of stereotypes.
I hope this doesn't come across as biting your head off, just still trying to explain why I think the criticisms of McHale are legitimate.
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Sister Magpie
at 15:52 on 2010-07-08
I absolutely believe that Kevin McHale was chosen because he had the right look
and skills to play Artie, but I also believe that what people considered to be
the "right look and skills" to play Artie was based on quite a lot of harmful
misconceptions about disability.
Just wanted to say I thought this whole post summed up the issues really well, at least the way I see them at play. If we lived in a world where the majority of people used wheelchairs, McHale's awkwardness at handling one would probably be a no-brainer. That kind of unconscious thinking happens a lot with the white able-bodied template. Like as I often said w/regard to the Avatar casting, nobody ever considered making the LOTR cast there were no discussions about Middle Earth not really being Europe and therefore the entire Fellowship should be Asian--on the contrary both there and Harry Potter it was agreed right away that convincingly white and British was the starting point for everyone.
Basically, I think we're trying to work towards a comfortable balance between blind casting where the audience is expected to accept an actor whose race isn't supposed to be taken literally and specific casting where race is an issue.
I do remember once someone on lj making a horribly misguided (imo) post where she seemed to literally be arguing that whatever specific background an actor had, that was what the character had. She was arguing that it was stupid for people to talk about the Jimmy Smits character on The West Wing being the first Latino US president when Bartlett was a Latino president--because Martin Sheen is. Even though Bartlett's ethnicity was a stated part of his character. *That* I think was definitely a case of the slippery slope where things are getting silly.
Also, we shouldn't forget that the show does have an actual disabled cast member in a recurring role--the Cheerio who has Down Syndrome. Perhaps Life Goes On changed things when it came to that particular condition, or maybe it's that it's got such a distinctive physical look (distinctive enough that it's almost like a wheelchair only it's not a prop or a costume), or again maybe it's that people with Down Syndrome have proven themselves enough as a group as actors, but I would have been surprised if they'd cast that role with a person who didn't have Down Syndrome.
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Sister Magpie
at 15:58 on 2010-07-08Also while I'm blabbing on, let me go off on a tangent. But I wonder if another unconcious prejudice that can come into play is a discomfort with the disabled. Of course I can't say this was at all a factor in the Glee casting. But I think there are situations where able-bodied people are just made a little less comfortable or a little more nervous when dealing with someone who has different limitations. So that could probably also weigh in favor of preferring the able-bodied actor. Obviously not all the time, as the actor who wrote the blog is disabled and got a part--though even there if this kind of thing was an unconscious factor people would probably feel a lot more confident hiring someone for one episode than as a series regular.
Again, I don't want to make it seem like I'm accusing the Glee cast of doing this, especially not consciously. But it seems like from things I've read disabled people say, this is something they deal with.
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Melissa G.
at 17:24 on 2010-07-08I can't really argue with anything anyone is saying. And it makes more sense to me to call the character of Artie offensive or insulting than to harp on about the casting choice, in my opinion, but that's getting into semantics.
I still can't completely agree with it, but that may be because I Just Don't Get It, which I'm willing to accept and admit that maybe my opinion is a little less significant given my privilege.
But I do want to say that I appreciate everyone responding to me in a calm, non-defensive manner so we could have an actual conversation about what I think is a complicated issue. But I'm not sure I particularly have anything more insightful to say about it at this point. (Also, watch Zach's episode; he did a good job!! ^_^)
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Jamie Johnston
at 19:09 on 2010-07-08Yeah, it's been a really interesting discussion. And I think we'd probably all agree that casting is only part of the problem, and not the biggest part. (It's certainly only one of many complaints in Dan's original article.) Even if casting were never affected by prejudice in any way (which I don't think anyone here suggests), we'd still be left with far too many series that are written to either ignore the diversity of people and experiences in the world or deal with that diversity using token characters and cheap stereotypes.
And we'd also probably all agree that the workings of prejudice are much more easily seen over the broad sweep than when looking at any single creative decision. Casting Kevin McHale as a wheelchair-using character would be much less problematic than it is (however much that may be) if the show had lots of actors with disabilities, or if it didn't but there were plenty of other TV series that did, or even if there weren't that many actors with disabilities on our screens but there were enough suitable parts being written to encourage more young people with disabilities to become actors.
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Shim
at 08:42 on 2010-07-09It's always difficult when you're talking about generalities but focusing on a specific example. Quoting Dan in a vaguely web-incestuous way:
"I don't think you can look at any single work of fiction and say "that character, right there, should have been black".
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Jamie Johnston
at 12:41 on 2010-08-17The casting issue, in
Glee
and more generally, on
This ain't livin'
from a few days ago.
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Arthur B
at 12:42 on 2010-08-17A little happy news: I just started watching
Breaking Bad
, which includes a character with cerebral palsy played by an actor who actually has cerebral palsy. At last.
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http://someobsessive.livejournal.com/
at 10:06 on 2010-08-20I just wanted to let you know that I have included several quotes from your articles on my new tumblr:
http://wholesomeobsessive.tumblr.com/
if you would like to check it out.
Sister Magpie quotes are also there.
Thank you for your articles, and for directing me over to deathtocapslock. I am being very well entertained this summer.
:-)
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Robinson L
at 15:00 on 2010-12-21Still not seen
Glee
, and still probably never will, but do have a few thoughts. One of them being that Noah Antwiler of The Spoony Experiment
also took exception to The Immortals
. In detail.
And while I haven't see the show, ptolemaeus watched the first season with our cousin last year, and she had the same problems with
Throwdown
(the Sue-Sylvester-tries-divide-and-conquer-tactics episode) you bring up. Color me unsurprised.
Also, did I dream up the part where somebody (and I could've sworn it was Dan), said something about Sue Sylvester later being depicted as more sympathetic, and that this actually makes the show's problems *worse* because—if I remember the argument correctly—now it's a likable person saying and thinking all those nasty things? That struck me as a bit odd, because while I can sort of see the logic behind it, I've always viewed treating nasty characters sympathetically and not just saying “ehn, they're just evil,” as a good thing. I didn't dream all that up, did I?
Dan: Partially it was a holdover from an earlier version of the article that was going to focus more on the "lampshading" element of Glee.
Was that version also going to go more into what exactly the “Trouble With Deconstruction” is? From all I've heard, it sounds more like the trouble is that the show lampshades it's own stereotypes without really questioning or subverting (deconstructing) them.
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https://profiles.google.com/117083096049946525193
at 02:46 on 2013-07-07Oh, this has only gotten far worse as the show has hit it's fourth season.
First, Brittany and Santana did become a couple and broke up. Brittany, being bisexual, decided to date Sam (a season 2 character), but was hesitant because the lesbian blogging community was going to hurt him. I wish I was making this up. AfterEllen had a riot on that. Sorry we're upset that our representation isn't on screen anymore. And as a lesbian myself, I do have to say, it was really frustrating how for the rest of the series, except maybe two times, they completely forgot those two dated.
The biggest fail though is the transgender (mtf) black woman named Unique. First of all, it took me a while to figure out whether she was supposed to be transgender or a drag queen (because she talks in the third person regularly, and talks about Unique like a persona, not as herself). Second, SO MANY TIMES in the show, people are calling Unique Unique/Wade (the male name). Now, I know a million idiots across America are going to think this is acceptable behavior. And finally, they made her a catfish. The transgender as deceptive/predatory is a pretty common trope, and I think a damaging one, for everyone involved.
And the final Glee minority fail. Unique is also a big girl, and is basically the replacement for Mercedes. Brittany literally calls Unique Mercedes, SEVERAL TIMES. Uuuuugh. . .
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Fishing in the Mud
at 23:41 on 2013-07-07Ryan Murphy can totally make fun of lesbians and transgender people because he's gay. Isn't it great?
Yeah, no. What a fucking worthless hack.
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The rest of the quote from Jennifer Douda is: “...Or will I wish I'd never discovered how it works?”
The scenario for this episode: It’s possible now to select traits for your child.
Episode Highlights:
Charlie: Julian, is it ethical to design a baby the way you design a house?
Julian: Well, you could start by looking at dispositions to disease. So, all of us carry lots of mutations that mean that we're disposed to getting cancer or Parkinson's disease...diabetes...or Alzheimer's disease. So you could start by looking at those things which are uncontroversially bad diseases.
Annabel: But this stuff's talking about hair colour and eye colour and stuff that seems like frippery to me.
Nazeem: What about, like, just weird social things? Like, you know, like, some people stand too close. Like if you could...
[Laughter]
Nazeem: If you could just edit that out of their genetic code, why wouldn't you?
Charlie: Is it a moral imperative to remove close talkers from the gene pool?
[Laughter]
Annabel: If you could do something with the mansplainers I'd be interested.
Charlie: What? Men?
Annabel: No, just mansplaining...I'll be quiet now.
————————-
Julian: ...or more resistance to aging. I mean that's what I'd want.
Nazeem: Oh that's pretty good. So, what, you can have a gene where you live forever?
Annabel: Oh no!
Julian: There's a thing called the Methuselah Mouse. It lives twice as long as a normal mouse, so...
Nazeem: What does it eat? Is that a supplement or something? Weet-Bix?
Julian: No, no, no, it's been gene-edited. So, you could actually increase human longevity and delay ageing.And that's something I think that, you know, we should give children, and I'd want for myself.
Annabel: But that sounds so tiring though.
Nazeem: Yeah, but do we have, like, a death gene that you could just delete? Is there something in our genetic code that means you die at some point?
Julian: Well, the estimate is the maximum human life span is about 1,200 years. So if you aged at the kind of age a 10-yea-old is ageing, you could potentially live 1,200 years. I don't know complete immortality, but you could certainly live much longer than we do now.
Annabel: We're really going to need to review out aged care policy, I think...
[laughter]
Annabel: ...before we step into this.
#TV#ABC#Tomorrow Tonight#Gene Editing#Designer Babies#Nazeem Hussain#Meredith Young#Julian Savulescu#The Perfect Baby#Season#Comedy#Debate#The Future#Charlie Pickering#Fiction#Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals#Annabel Crabb#Season 1 Episode 2#S01E02#S1E2#Mansplaining#Immortality#Longevity
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what i appreciate about hercules: the legendary journeys (1995-1999) is that it’s a fairly standard 90s broadcast television adventure-fantasy series, where the protagonist is essentially ancient greek superman and it’s about as uncontroversial as you can get, and its better-remembered spin-off starring a 6-foot tall warrior woman oc and her implied lesbian sidekick is all-but-irrelevant to its original series, and handles lgbtq issues and has an admirable diversity of recurring characters considering the fact that there are only 2 actors credited in every episode, has serious tonal whiplash between episodes of complete levity and humor and epic sagas of life and death and godhood and betrayal and family and the nature of love, and is overall the more popular and iconic cult series like. that’s justice. god loves the gays more
#by god i mean nbc#nah i dont#i have no idea if this came across as coherent at all#to be fair i havent seen that much of hercules#text post#buddy holly saturday#xena
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