#the show expects the audience to treat them like people even if the characters within the show claim that they don't | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

crimsonxe · 21 days

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Because I'm particularly annoyed: To everyone within the LGBT+ and ships involving them circles, get this through your goddamn head. RWBY the "little" anime-inspired web show that:

subverts sexist and homophobic tropes from that inspiration

has a deep & mature story

respects its femme characters

that has had morons saying it was baiting for years

has a married wlw couple w/ child; 2 confirmed lesbian characters; 2 mlm characters in the novels; a bi MC (VA'd by a bi femme)/a sapphic MC (VA'd by an "on the spectrum" femme)/ and together a wlw MC pair; a trans character that isn't a joke

THAT show DELIVERED one of the most normalized via being treated no different to its hetero sibling ships, being within a non-world of gay, and not being spotlighted; well-developed; well-earned; 10 year steady slowburned; and mature CANON wlw romances around. That including having a bi character that feels bi not a lesbian character w/ a bi sticker slapped on cause not only does she have guys w/ feelings towards her as well as a former male romantic partner, but also has a femme w/ feelings towards her as well as a current femme partner in a non-world of gay. The fucking cherry on top: it has Beauty and the Beast at its core mixed with yin-yang.

Get the fuck over this notion of "oh that's just RWBY" in a head-up-ones-own-ass obnoxious manner. Before it was the goddamn "well BB isn't confirmed, its just been hinted/teased" even with the show making it fucking blatantly clear it was happening, including soft-canonizing it via a character directly bringing up the mutual romantic feelings going on between the two tying it to her own ones towards the other part of the sibling hetero pair of the show. Now after its been given one of the best most beautifully done scenes in the entire show w/ a goddamn song written by an LGBT+ artist and sung by both them & another LGBT+ femme to canonize them; its STILL being treated/view like its both bait/non-canon and/or lesser than other pairs. Its especially fucking rich when I know some people who'd sing the praises of Warrior Nun and Avatrice, which is in the same goddamn vein as RWBY and BB with both being great ships and shows. If anyone tried to pull this shit with that show & that pairing, you'd get your damn ass torn apart and you know it; but RWBY isn't given that same respect. Caitvi/Violyn (Arcane) gets more damn respect and technically speaking its not even fucking canon yet, its still in the phase that either v4-7 BB was at. Where its been heavily implied & teased to the point of me going with it as soft-canon, yet not a damn soul would scoff at it being mentioned within LGBT+ ships. But once again RWBY is different.

Those that pull this shit are:

the shit-for-brains know-nothings that either want to shit on the show because of their own hoity-toity its too below us bullshit or haven't bothered to actually watch the damn show

the bigoted incel pieces of shit that just don't support LGBT+ yet infest our spaces;

the antis that don't care what was built up, they're salty bitches that just can't stand their pair didn't happen

the entitled ass LGBT+ that think all LGBT+ should be rushed, spotlighted at the center of the story, and aimed at an LGBT+ audience instead of normalized for a general audience.

So if you're going to thumb your nose at the show and its rep, then fuck you and go fuck your damn self. You're no damn better than the incels and chuds. And don't even think to reach for any LGBT+ cards cause I've got my own one. They're canon and they're great get that through your fucking heads, that little web show fucking delivered. Don't like it? Fine, I don't really care. But don't you fucking dare thumb your damn nose at it and not expect to get dragged over the damn coals by me.

#rwby #bumbleby #LGBT+ rep #LGBT+#shipping polls but also just general concept of the show

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matt0044 · 2 months

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Why does Indie Animation lend itself to such intense discourse?

If I had to speculate from my own observations (feel free to call me out on an overgeneralizations), it would be that the harsh turn against any given indie project would be akin to a mother scolding a child with, "I expected this from your sibling but you?!"

See also the "We were rooting for you" gif often tossed around.

Indie Animation be it from a small studio or crowdfunded is seen as bypassing the hoops and hurdles of getting your foot in the door of the highly corporatized entertainment industry. With the likes of Disney or Nick or any given streaming service, creator driven projects are subject to the whims of the company who holds the IP.

And those whims are often to said IP's detriment. It'll more often than not be willfully neglected at best or treated as just something to fill a time slot or shove onto a streaming platform as "content." Enough may be allowed to flourish but their either uncerimoniously cut short at best or being dragged out as a franchise at worst.

To keep from going on about the whole Legend of Korra vs. Spongebob thing (I was there people, there was an LoK fandom believe it or not), indie animation has often been seen as small scale but also within the creator's general control since they control how long it goes or how it's written.

Many cartoons like Gravity Falls, Owl House and Amphibia have talked about trying to get their vision across while contending with a lot of Standards and Practices. Their story which had a "kids and adults alike" target audience would have the top brass insist on something more just for the former category.

While they find work arounds, often to stick their tongue out at the FCC, this can be a hard reminder of who has the final say despite it being what you want. Indie animation is seen as an answer to "What if Alex Hirsch didn't have to comprimise elements of Gravity Falls for the FCC?" or "What if Dana Terrence could just blaze her own trail with The Owl House with little to no notes?"

Especially when it comes to animation with queer characters. Animation made to be "fit for kids" have it tough enough even today but adult animation has to "play it for laughs" since comedies have been the defacto standard for that type of cartoon.

However... a show being creator driven or creative team driven comes as a double edged sword for the fandoms they form. Not all stories that play out across multiple episodes of varying lengths are going in the direction YOU might want to.

Creators might tire of a certain direction or formula and mix things up with things that come to mind almost on the spot. Even with a solid plan, the status quo will get a shake up that can and will alienate those who fell in love from episode one.

Indie Pilots spark the imagination something fierce. There's theories as to what any little detail could mean going forward and speculation on what a character's arc could be. These go wild because Fandom is all about the hypothetical, the unknown, the what could've/should've/would've been. Whole phenomenon would be dead in the water otherwise.

Thing is that not all theories will be proven right if any at all. The creators aren't mind readers and even if it isn't a legality like in corporate, they don't read fanfics if only because they don't want their vision to be totally compromised. Any good creator knows not to just give fans what they want. However... trampling over all these fanfics and theories makes it feel like any given fan had their "child" dragged into the streets to be shot.

A harsh phrasing but that's how a lot of fans act when continuing episode bump up against initial impression of this character or that storyline. It was their creation but new lore, new backstory or what have you is liable to override them. It's been an occupational hazard of being a member of fandom for ages yet it's become the center of a lot of discourse now more than ever. Say thank you to social media for creating such a combative environment everybody.

It's this... feeling of ownership that has existed in fandoms of other shows owned by corporations but amplied by the smaller scale of it, how creators seem more... approachable. And THIS is how the YouTube "critic" scene comes in to capitalize.

So... yeah.

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halcified · 4 months

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third mp100 post of the night but a theme i dont see discussed a lot online is just how fucking lonely these characters are

serizawa and reigen are easier obvious examples-- one was locked in his room for 15 years and the other is left without his middle schooler employee for a few days and is devastated socially, whereas its harder to remember that despite how fast mob collects people throughout the series, but mob started out alone

the mogami arc displays it best-- even when these characters have communities that support them, the isolation theyve dealt with (esp in regards to whatever allegory you want to apply to them, but most potently the autistic ones) stick with them. forever. they can still grow and change but its a part of them in a way that is never scoffed at or laughed away.

ritsu, shou, and teru... are never seen to have friends. acquaintances like kamuro or the awakening lab kids or each other-- but not Friends. its easy to assume they have people they hang out with that we (as the audience) never see but i think the themes of this show are so much more powerful when you consider it to Be purposeful

like, maybe the reason teru is never seen with the black vinegar gang kids or that girl he dated is less because of character development (because they couldve developed, too) but more because teru never really liked them and only wanted to appear more successful socially than he was. or the reason why shou is alone isnt because hes less involved in the narrative as everyone else but because he grew up in a violent group with kids who have only ever been treated like tools by his dad, or expected to be treated like tools by him. that maybe ritsu doesnt like tsubomi or reigen not because hes bitchy but because... hes a traumatized teenager who doesnt trust a lot of people

and obviously i could say more on each of them, but thats what makes the themes of community in this show so goddamn powerful-- theyre coming from characters who have either given up on connection or have never been given the opportunity to thrive within it. so when you see all of them celebrating together in the end, supporting each other... you believe that its possible, too

#mp100 #mp100 meta #mob psycho 100 #text #Hiiii . excuse me i have a lot of thoughts tonight

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sleepsentry · 9 months

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Hoooooooooboyyyyyyyyy...

I've spent most of my years in the gravity falls fandom as a kid/teen.

And I kinda resent seeing adult fans turn a comforting kids show about embracing your inner kid and not being ashamed of fun, into a dramatic, petty morality obsessed, soap opera...

Like- its really uncomfortable the way most of the adult characters are depicted in fanon, it doesn't feel "more realistic" it feels like the adult fans are kind of ashamed of any interpretation that isn't "acceptably mature".

______

For example: The way Stan and Ford are turned into the worst versions of Batman.

Stan and Ford are often depicted with a subtle but important edge that isn't necessarily present in canon.

Especially in fanworks wich focuse on them instead of the broader family.

As if their softer, goofier sides are just a front for the sake of the kids rather than fundamental parts of who they are as characters.

They're not.

They're just as important as their more "serious grown up moments"

Stan and Ford aren't adult characters in an adult show, they're adult characters in a kids show and their silliness is essential.

Their approachable, softer, kinder, moments, are vital, as authority figures in a show where the intended audience is expected to relate to the children they are responsible for.

Their vulnerability and screwing up is an important aspect of the show, showing kids that adults don't know everything and it's important to question them when they make mistakes.

"Adults are often just as afraid as you are and it's OK for them to express that, it's also important that they don't make it you're responsibility to deal with" is at the core of the way Stan, Ford and most adults in the show are depicted.

It's a comforting and affirming theme to have in a show about two kids on the brink of losing that childhood wonder, or at least afraid of losing it.

As Mabel says:

"They got... stupid. Promise me we won't get stupid."

______

I've seen so many adults make these characters more "adult" to appeal to them and it isn't even bad, it's just uncomfortable... it feels wrong.

Fiddleford is another adult character that I often see treated like this:

A lot of depictions of younger fidds I've seen (especially within the context of shipping him with ford) basically turn him into a conflicted love interest lady having an affair with her negligent boss in a stupid 80s movie-

I'm not getting into how fiddauthor is being used as a "safe ship" by the broader fandom and being stripped of its nature as a character dynamic and used as a tool to excuse morality based shaming and harassment by grown adults over stupid cartoon men-with cucumber shaped noses

It gives off similar vibes to certain queer peeps appealing to homophobes by throwing less "digestible" queer people under the bus and its not that serious its cartoon shipping for fucks sake

it's so uncomfortable when you remember he's a silly little hillbilly man.

His name is FIDDLEFORD.

MC. GUCKET. (•□•)

He's got depth and serious moments for days but he's also introduced screaming and jigging and slapping a sandwich out of someone's hands.

He contains multitudes withing his vegetable shaped head.

He's not Ford's frustrated underpaid secretary (as funny as that sounds)

______

Emotional depth and maturity aren't exclusively adult things.

The bloody "Goofy Movie" isn't suddenly an adult film because it has moments of quiet maturity and melancholy, along-side the expected goofyness.

That sense of quiet maturity isn't age locked in reality and I'm so tired of it feeling like it is.

It's not wrong or bad to depict more mature things with a story and characters aimed at kids.

But I think it's very disingenuous to dismiss the lighter elements in favour of the moments that "go over kids heads" they don't.

Even if the kid doesn't understand the adult joke, they can tell something is off and it's annoying how smug grown ups are about it.

I know Gravity Falls itself has that tone so I might aswell be complaining about fire burning or ice melting.

But it's taken to such extremes that it makes my inner kid feel like grown ups are twisting one of the few things I have and making it about themselves again... that's uncomfortably personal and petty I know.

But the reality is, that's been my experience for the majority of my time in this fandom.

Only in the past few years have I grown out of the "baby fan" vibe and it's going to shape my reactions to fanworks regardless.

______

For another example cartoon characters swearing isn't bad.

But it's jarring when adult behaviours (which more often than not means behaving like an ass) are superimposed onto child friendly characters, and these behaviours are taken for granted as "more realistic and natural" it's just... like no that's not true.

There are adults who don't like swearing or drinking or smoking, there are kids I knew when I was little (11 - 14) who enjoyed doing all those things for better or worse.

Seeing Teenagers complaining about 40+ year old characters being "infantilised" or "UwU-ified" as if grown ups can't be vulnerable is just saddening.

Adult female fans complaining that male characters aren't "man enough" is kinda scary to be honest, especially when those softer depictions are usually from teens and maybe even young boys/men in my case.

The problem is behaviours and perspectives are so strictly coded and enforced that even in a sub-community of a sub-community you get people enforcing arbitrary codes of conduct or depiction.

It's a kids show.

Relax.

He said to himself as much as whoever bothered to read this far.

I'm gonna go have a glass of water and some fresh air, if you've read this far I'd recommend doing so too but also, despite the tone of this wall of text, I'm not your dad.

#gravity falls #not art #rant #text post #long post #im being a killjoy again

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in-deep · 1 year

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If you could only pick one piece of Byler evidence to convince someone that Byler is endgame, what would you pick?

First off - I wrote this stream of consciousness style so please be kind aha.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question and I think it’s simply the fact that if Mike is in fact straight, then what is his character arc?

Let me explain.

A lot of the GA view Mike as a glorified side character - sidelined after S2 to fulfil the role of El’s incompetent boyfriend whilst simultaneously leaving Will (his best friend) behind and treating him like a dick. The GA also view Mike as straight. For many GA viewers, the idea that Mike is gay/bi, let alone in love with Will, seems implausible and were it to happen, it would come out of nowhere.

Which leaves the question of: what is Mike’s character arc?

From this GA perspective, he doesn’t have one. He’s destined to make up with El in S5 and support her independence, and kindly turn Will down and go on with being besties like the supportive guy they remember him being in S1/S2. If anything, his character has regressed from the early seasons into a douchebag - a mouth breather.

Not to mention that from this perspective, he has no real internal or external trauma to be unpacked. While this is obviously untrue as it has been made clear by the Duffer brothers and even within the show (Mike’s suicide attempt, Wheeler family discussion around his behaviour at school) that he is struggling with depression, that doesn’t seem to play into their predictions on his ending. If anything, many GA viewers don’t really view his character’s conclusion in S5 as something important because to them, (just to repeat my earlier point) he’s just a glorified side character.

Of course, if you watch the show carefully and focus on Mike, you’ll quickly realise that his character is dealing with a lot of the direct pressures of heteronormativity and internalised homophobia:

His family is your classic nuclear family, Nancy talks about the Wheeler family dynamic extensively in a heart-to-heart with Jonathan

S1 has a lot of homophobia - all of it is about Will, but a lot of it is targeted and directed toward Mike

There are multiple times he is visually shown to come to realisations about his feelings toward El and Will, respectively. Now I won’t analyse those in this post because technically, none of the contents of those realisations have been made clear to the audience, it’s just my own interpretations. I’m sure this will come back in S5, though.

To show Mike’s queerness in S5 is not changing his sexuality, simply just revealing what has been shown to the audience the entire time. Stranger Things is brilliant at show vs. tell. They tell us something, and then show us something entirely different or even something that directly contradicts what we were told. Much of the GA don’t pick up on this (and tbf I don’t really expect them to, it’s intended to be subtle!).

To reveal concretely that Mike is queer and in love with Will would change everything. It would be shocking! The GA would lose their minds - and many people would, at first, struggle to believe it. But upon rewatching the show, it would all make sense. It would turn what many view as an unimportant character into one of the most well thought-out and planned queer stories in media history (definitely an exaggeration but bear with me aha, I’m not normal about these boys).

What people thought to be an incompetent boyfriend and an absolute dick to his best friend for two seasons in a row would turn out to actually be a deeply traumatised boy struggling to remain on the “normal” path (quote from Finn Wolfhard on Mike), within the bounds of heteronormativity. A boy who desperately wants to play DnD and Nintendo with his best friend, but realises that what he feels for him isn’t “normal”. It would reveal so much about Mike and all the things we never got to see from his perspective.

And in terms of my predictions, I’m absolutely a believer in Mike being Vecna’d, and we’ll finally see Mike’s point of view on all of this. Just imagine Vecna taunting him about how he failed to be normal. He failed to do the “right” thing. He’s been in love with Will since before he even realised it.

So yeah. Byler is real. Byler is endgame. And I’m 10000% certain that Mike is going to become an extremely popular character once we get his insight. He’ll also absolutely need a hug once all is said and done. I will be hysterical.

But at least he’ll have his cleric <3.

A really good video on Mike's internalised homophobia that essentially sparked me to write this post in the first place, and I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet, was this one (@lesbianmindflayer) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6IOlmBEEgE&t=80s&ab_channel=LesbianMindflayer

But yeah! What would you pick as your one piece of evidence?

#byler #byler analysis #mike wheeler is gay #mike wheeler is bi #mike wheeler is queer #mike wheeler #byler is endgame #byler is real #stranger things 5 #st5 predictions #mike wheeler needs a hug #i will defend mike wheeler as long as i breathe #i love him so much #let him play dnd and nintendo with will pls #just one scene in s5 of them getting to hang out pls #duffer brothers ill do anything

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stranger-rants · 1 year

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Another reason why it’s hard for me to take certain character’s “traumas” seriously within this fandom, aside from the fact that people regularly mock Billy’s trauma which then lowers my capacity to give a shit when they get all “🥺” about their favorite characters has to do with how real and believable the trauma is… going back to the whole Steve in a Sailor suit thing, how am I supposed to believe that Steve has PTSD after being tortured by Russians in that getup when that entire plot point is absurd?

The idea that Russians are spying on us and conducting evil experiments under our malls is ludicrous. The absurdity of it might just work for an 80s nostalgia Sci-Fi show, but it’s not a real, believable trauma for most people. Furthermore, it has no real narrative consequence. It is a silly side plot full of gimmicks to distract from the more serious developments in the overall plot. So, while yes it’s fine to talk about what that trauma could realistically look like, expecting me to expend all my energy and concern on it is as absurd as the plot.

Then there are traumas that even though they’re given a supernatural backdrop, they elicit a more visceral reaction from the audience because of how they approximate very real traumas that members of the audience have gone through. Even though Billy is taken by a supernatural being, the manner in which it happens still brings to mind sexual assault. There’s also the fact that we’re shown explicit examples of Billy being abused by his father. That’s something many audience members can relate to. It makes us care more.

And I’m just using Steve being tortured by the Russians as an example here. This isn’t to say he doesn’t have any realistic traumas, but rather this is to call out the way certain fans will discredit traumas that are more relatable just because they happen to characters they don’t like and then expect or even demand that we care about things that are not believable or have no lasting impact on the characters and/or plot.

Like, why are we making false equivalences with trauma that truly only happens in fiction because of the bizarre circumstances the character are dealing with and trauma that pertains to real life that happen to be found in fiction. These are not the same things. Stop treating them like the same thing and then getting mad that no one wants to entertain your headcanons that a character is so horribly traumatized by a silly situation especially when you make jokes about a character getting hit by their parent.

I’ve been hit by a parent. I’ve never been abducted in an American shopping mall by Evil Russian Scientists who are trying to open a portal to another dimension. Excuse me for giving more of a shit about things that are more likely to traumatize people.

#text post #fandom critical #i’m feeling bitchy today

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seeingteacupsindragons · 11 months

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I’m thinking a lot right now about pacing, specifically as it applies to characters—particularly protagonists.

Yes, this definitely spawned from the fact that I watched classic 90’s anime and then one episode of the reboot, but this isn't about that. This is about the fact that the contrast in this element between them threw this thought into relief for me. I have tons of examples in this post, and those two are none of them.

I just think exploring it as a concept is good for my brain and going to be an interesting read.

For the purposes of this post, there are two potential primary tactics for characterization pacing:

Shoving all the important/relevant bits about a protagonist as soon as feasible (usually within an episode or two if it’s a show, or the first couple of chapters if it’s a novel, etc.)

Doling characterizations out in bits and drips and drabs to treat things like reveals

The first often has the advantage of making people feel like they know a character immediately. It works well for shorter works, and adaptations expecting its audience to have at least some idea of the source material—there’s not a lot of reveal in Steve Rogers being Captain America, for example, so there’s no reason to play coy with it. It shows a lot of exciting things quickly to get people hyped and invested early.

But telling a story this way can also feel like a lot of information thrown at someone at once, and the character ends up feeling shallower because there’s nothing to explore. No matter how much there is there, if it’s all upfront, it can be hard to sort through it all and see what parts of the character interact with what parts of the story. It can be hard to recognize and discern signal from noise. It can also limit emotional impact and investment in their character—if everything is shared up front, then there’s no build, tension, or emotional investment in the punch, if you’re hoping for one.

There is something very special about reacting with, “Oh God, I was so wrong, I didn’t know, I didn’t know,” about a character, about a facsimile of a person, than there is about a plot, even. The complicated feeling of realizing you didn’t understand someone and now you do, or that you actively misunderstood something, is only possible when you’ve been given time to adjust to a normal without that before learning more.

I’m not talking “sudden character flashback” when I talk about layers, either. I’m talking about things the character is fully aware of and acts on, that simply aren’t made clear to the audience immediately because the story isn’t rushing to tell you everything.

Here, let’s explore some examples that might clarify what I mean.

Consider Yuukoku no Moriarty. William has a lot going on with him. There’s lots of things we don’t know about him at first, despite the first chapter being a double feature length flashback explaining his origins, motivations, and goals. And chapter two established his current situation. Cool.

But you know what we didn’t know about him until volume 6? That he was suicidal. He knew he was suicidal. He was taking actions based on that. You can infer a little bit from some of the odd moments prior to the Reveal. It’s a necessary part of his characterization and the climax of the story wouldn’t work without that being critically ingrained in him.

And yet, the creators chose not to share it with the audience in a clear, stated way, or clearly apparent and undeniable until volume 6. He didn’t change: that was always a part of him. But the audience didn’t know it was there yet. But we had to wait a while to pick up that piece of the puzzle.

Compare to something like, Yuri!!! On ICE, which came out the same year Yuukoku no Moriarty started, so I’m not talking about changes story telling trends of over time. Yuri!!! On ICE wasn’t based on anything, so the reboot factor wasn’t in play. But it’s short, and by the end of episode two, we know Yuuri is stubborn, emotional prone to wild outbursts, obsessed with Viktor Nikiforov, obsessed with skating, and very unsure of himself. No other major character traits were ever revealed in the twelve episodes. Even the whammy of a plot twist in episode 10 was based on those traits: prone to wild outbursts, obsessed with Viktor, very emotional. He grows and becomes more sure of himself, but we never learn anything new about who he was and what situation he was always in that really matters.

And no, this isn’t limited to anime. Take this novel I just finished reading the other week that came out this year from an American writer and an American publisher set in America: the protagonist, in first person, introduced himself in the first chapter or two as a flamboyant, femme gay boy who loves talking too much and is tight with his friends and stubbornly wants to prove himself. That’s fine enough. But even if he grew or changed (a…little), there were no other important character traits that affected the story. We knew all we needed to know right away.

Meanwhile, something like Jeweler Richard, which was originally a novel series, set up that Seigi was a blackbelt in karate, that he was weird about relationships and bad at pursuing them, awkward at making his feelings clear, and even that he had a bad childhood and abusive father. But it’s not until volume 6, from a first-person narrator in the same style as the book above, that he tells us he’s terrified of being in a relationship because he knows the statistics of victims of domestic violence becoming abusers themselves. And everything slots into place. So many of his prior actions and behaviors make so much more sense.

So maybe this is a short vs. long thing? Not necessarily.

The Eden of the East anime only has 11 episodes and manages, depending on if you consider Saki or Akira the protagonist, to show different aspects of their characters toward the end of it: Saki’s connection to the Eden program comes up for the first time about halfway through the episode run, and the reveal that Akira has been changing his name over and over and over comes even later. Now, he didn’t know that, either but I can easily see a show having a flashback of some kind or having it mentioned by another character in the first episode so the audience at least would know how he got there. There are ways to get that info crammed in there if the creators wanted you to know it. We know Princess Aurora is cursed to be The Sleeping Beauty even though she doesn’t.

Meanwhile, I sat through four seasons of My Hero Academia and Deku’s character and story was pretty set pretty early. Maybe something changed later in the story, but I never saw any spaces for it to arise.

Because that’s part of what’s missing in the upfront narratives: any breathing pause for the audience to go, “Hmmm,” and think about the story for themselves and notice something a little odd. There are no questions raised to be answered, because the answers, as far as the characters are concerned, is set.

I don’t think the character necessarily has to know the thing about themselves, necessarily. I think it helps, but there’s also things like Sam’s demon blood thing in Supernatural, which wasn’t revealed until season two, even though it was obviously planned with his psychic visions well before the reveal. The audience was given something to poke at for a bit before it became clear how it fit into the character. I’m talking about things pre-established with a character that aren’t explained why or how they’re reacting the way they do.

I think one method or the other is more common in some genres and some mediums than others, although I can compare within one medium and find examples of both. It definitely depends at least a little on country and culture of origin of the story (Lord knows how much harder a time I have pulling slow examples from American media). And I especially think it depends on when it was written.

I don’t have stats for this. God knows I don’t watch and read enough media to even take a stab at it. But it’s feeling a lot more common these days to make sure everything is easily packaged and digestible up front, as much with characters as it is with plot and the rest of the story.

Maybe it’s because they want to show you their favorite interesting shiny bits as soon as they can and they get excited. Maybe because it’s easier. Maybe because they just like those kinds of stories. Maybe because they don’t want to deal with fans who have no patience or don’t understand that the layers were always there.

Each gives a story a completely different flavor, and it’s a completely difference experience of enjoying and comprehending the story. One is slowly uncovering a treasure box and the other is being given a treasure box to dig into and coo over.

I think the slower approach helps a story feel richer: it gives the impression there’s so much more that could be uncovered and the world is more expansive and the characters full of deeper lives. I think the quick and shiny approach helps a story feel flashy and dramatic, and some stories should be flashy and dramatic.

Do you want an hour-long firework show, or do you want to set off all your rockets in five minutes? You get the same amount of rockets either way. It’s up to you.

#writing #pacing #characterization

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decepti-thots · 1 year

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Ok I can only remember the bee pissing scene from bayverse, tell us about the subtext of his muteness 🎙

Those are… not unrelated, astonishingly! lmao.

It's long been noted by people watching the films that Bee, especially in the first few Bayverse films, is often treated differently to both the human characters and the other Autobot characters, in ways that become quite strange when you think about them for any real length of time. The first two Bayverse movies especially present a very particular masculine adolescent coming-of-age fantasy, and a part of that is the way they kind of blend both 'a boy and his car' and 'a boy and his dog' narratives seen in American fiction of that type. With Bumblebee being both 'the car' and 'the dog' in this situation, the way he is presented veers around a lot across the course of these films- and it tends not to be the same as the way, for example, Sam is presented. But also not how Optimus, also a robot, is. So what gives?

To take a step back, think about how a horse in the stereotypical 'horse girl' movie is framed, narratively speaking. They're usually presented in ways that are very unrealistic as compared to real life horses, of course, to the tune of making them 'more intelligent' (that is, more humanlike in their intelligence) than any real horse actually is. (Horse girl movies of a certain type often present horses as near psychically intuitive regarding human emotions, lmao.) But unlike in a film that anthropmorphizes animals in the sense of, say, Disney's Robin Hood, this doesn't render them functionally equivalent to human. It brings them more within the human characters' spheres, reduces the conceptual distance somewhat for the sake of storytelling and theme and wish fulfillment, but like. The horse in a horse girl movie is still a horse. Just a very idealized version of a horse that can better serve as an extension of something about the main human character.

People joke, but Bumblebee really kind of is the macho version of the horse in a horse girl movie, at least in the 2007 film. And that would be more a statement on how the movie sees its Autobot characters than anything- as action setpiece enablers first, a fantasy of owning a cool robot that is also (sort of) your friend second, and full characters a distant third- except then basically none of the other Autobots we meet later are framed like that. They other Autobot characters are like… very clearly framed as people. Shallow characters, sure, and people the narrative is only invested in as far as their ability to create inciting incidents for action scenes go. But Optimus Prime in the 2007 movie is not a character one can imagine in the role of Bumblebee in that same movie, serving as a car that fulfils the teenage fantasy of both 'owning a cool robot' and 'having something that acts like a friend but can't leave or disagree'.

This would be primarily interesting as a weird internal inconsistency and not inherently a negative if not for one thing: the muteness. There is a degree to which this process is facilitated in the audience's mind without immediate, overt cognitive dissonance the moment OP shows up and starts making speeches by the fact that Bee is rendered distinct from the other Autobots by that muteness. It's the most striking difference between Bee and the others, and it stands as the most obvious point of divergence in how the audience is expected to engage with these characters. Muteness, alongside other expressions of non-verbality, is often used in film in ways that present it as somehow implicitly dehumanizing. Mute characters are often depicted as less human than other characters on that basis, even if only on a subtextual level: from the degree to which it is sometimes used in horror film to suggest some creepy 'something's wrong, people should be talking' angle to examples where any character who cannot talk in a way deemed sufficiently coherent is assumed to be in some capacity 'childlike', and more besides. [Sidenote: that's not an inherent contradiction; media often uses child-ness as shorthand in dehumanizing ways.] Sometimes these are literal, such as in the way horror fiction will often present non-verbal autistic characters as 'uncanny' or 'creepy' and supernaturally endowed in ways intrinsically linked to how their autism (and non-verbality) renders them as Other, and sometimes they are more figurative. But the end result here is that rendering Bee mute is enough for the film to assume its audience will not chafe too hard mentally when he is treated a little less like a person that characters like Optimus Prime, and that, needless to say, is a troubling assumption!

Which brings us back to the uh. Pissing scene. Why is that scene there when it's so, so weird? Because it's not Bumblebee framed as a person inexplicably robot pissing all over a guy. It's Bumblebee the very-smart-but-not-quite-a-person car-dog pissing on a guy. And if you understand the movie is swinging towards that latter understanding of who Bee is to the audience in that scene, it makes way more sense.

(Sidenote: I have said Autobot and not Cybertronian here because the distinctions in how Autobots and Decepticons are presented, and how that plays into this whole thing of 'shifting degrees of personhood for the nonhuman characters', is a WHOLE thing, and a very interesting one to boot!)

#bayverse #meta

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battleangelaelita · 2 years

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The longer a fan culture goes on, the more often it gets stuck in a rut that amplifies the flaws of the original work. With Avatar, that chief flaw is the narrative framing conventions of YA and the simplification of conflict. This is why we spend so much time on here stuck on old favorites like the perfect woobified awkward turtleduck Zuko, his demon-child war criminal younger sister, his supposedly neglectful and frigid girlfriend, his perfect wise old sage.

If one judged Avatar based on its fanworks, you’d think Zuko was the main character.

I don’t think we can just fault the fans for fanning wrong. To me, there has to be something at the heart of the story that informs this attitude, even if it is detached from the original story that was told.

And rightly or wrongly, the original show does invest most of its nuance in Zuko. Aang is the protagonist, and his conflicts and goals drive the story forward, but most of Aang’s character episodes are presented in the straightforward matter one expects of a children’s show. A lot of them are parable of the week stories that can come across as really hamfisted even to children, like the episode where the Gaang meets Bato and Aang gets a pretty crude little fable about learning to trust and not lie or keep secrets from friends.

Besides its brusque framing, the conflict begins and ends within the confines of a single episode. Aang’s larger character arcs are just not as prominent when compared to Zuko’s, which does not present the character or the audience with quick and easy answers.

Because of this complexity and the amount of time the narrative invests in giving the audience reasons for why Zuko behaves the way he does, it becomes very easy to just explain away the times Zuko continues to be an asshole even after he flips to the good guys, because the audience has already become invested in his happy ending.

We learn about Zuko’s sympathetic back story way back in season 1, when he’s the show’s principle antagonist. The narrative framing invests the audience in that redemptive outcome even before it even presents it as possible. This isn’t a bad thing, I just wish as much care had been taken in trying to get people as invested in Aang’s wellbeing.

ATLA, to its credit, does give just enough material for other characters that if you are paying attention, most of its child characters are sympathetic, and even if they remain villainous to the end of the story, they are tragic figures. See, for example, just how many people have gotten emotionally invested in Azula, who had just enough people going to bat for her in the writing room even though the showrunners never intended for her to be anything but a one-note villain for Zuko to beat.

And I shouldn’t let fans entirely off the hook. Fan culture has this terrible tendency of treating content either like it’s something to binged without appreciation, like a trip to the Golden Corral buffet, or getting hyperinvested in minutia that you miss the forest for the trees.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #zuko #aang #meta

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panpanpanini · 10 days

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detco salt. moonlight sonata remake rant below

forewarning that i am a staunch funi-dub enjoyer and fell in love with this show in the first 50 episodes (and still consider the early show to be superior)

broke sequence and watched detco episode 1000/1001 yesterday, and not to be a negative nancy but jfc i think i would've been pissed if i had tuned in to watch that on premiere day.

maybe i set myself up for failure expecting anything more (especially given my very low ceiling for ridiculous anime shenanigans) but for transparency's sake i watched the tubi dub (👎) with my brother, since we grew up watching and loving the funi dub version. ooh man did we think it sucked

remaking moonlight sonata at this stage in detco is only a good idea on paper bc it's sentimental. that's literally all it has going for it though. it didn't hold a candle to the original, not even close, not in translation/writing or voice acting, not in animation or color or background or music direction. it was so so bad, the kind of bad that cuts so deep disappointment turns to insult. rigid and stilted, environments feel sterile and vacant and weirdly huge (this is a uniquely me criticism of modern detco lol, absolutely fuckin MASSIVE environments), all sense of small town superstition and tension are gone, no time is spent even acquainting with narumi and so i felt nothing when his identity and status as the killer is eventually revealed, let alone when he self-immolated. and coming off of that, conan himself barely feels like a character. the funi dub does a stellar job of cementing shinichi as the overarching narrator of the series both in writing and in the decision to dub conan's inner monologue with his "true" voice, so while the tubi dub is already at a disadvantage in that regard there's next to no framing of the situation by him otherwise and it just kind of feels like we're flies on the wall in the most boring way possible. this isn't to say the original, subbed or dubbed, is a masterpiece of high art or anything, it just knows what it wants to do and it does it well enough to get you invested in it. there's a reason it's an iconic case, right? in the remake, you just don't get the sense that conan is invested in the case or moved by any of the ominous circumstances at all. it's so fucking weird because he should be the audience surrogate for these cases and instead it's flat and the opposite of immersive. maybe it's harsh of me to say but dare i say it's incompetent. absolute night and day compared to the original, even if you remove the dub variables.

speakings of dubs. i don't know any japanese so i have no meaningful input as to whether or not the tubi dub is a more """accurate""" translation than the funi dub but i'm firmly of the opinion that 1:1 translations belong exclusively to subs. there's way more at play in a dub than just "accurate translation" and i can't fucking tell you how awful the tubi dub is all around. it's just so wooden. i'm sure the cast are capable actors and the rigid writing was more than bogging them down but every time a name was said i made a face. every time a character spoke like a wired informant i made a new one. have the writers ever heard real people converse with each other before? does whoever was in charge of voice direction know what good performances sound like? nobody talks to each other the way the people in this dub do!! christ on a stick

(as an aside, people have pegged my criticisms of anime shows as 'expecting too much realism' but in my defense [1] detco likes to treat itself as a show that--compared to its other big-name modern shonen counterparts-- exists mostly within the bounds of real-life rules and [2] people talking to each other transcends expectations of realism. the show already expects me to think of it within a certain box and i'll eat my hat if you or other people in your life normally talk to each other like they're wearing a wire, repeating everything that's said to them like someone is on the other side of the glass)

overall verdict 1/10. mid episode for the late 900s/early 1000s era piggybacking mostly off nostalgia and good intentions but horrifically executed outside of that bubble and especially in comparison to its predecessor and the legacy thereof. extremely underwhelming and upsetting thing to put out as a commemorative special. i'm not impressed, but i'm not mad either - i'm just really, really sad

#salt #dcmk

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mikuyuuss · 1 year

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I just got home from the Kny premiere❤️ I got these free merch, and sadly we had to choose between Mui and Mitsuri shirts, so me and my friend both chose Mitsuri for each of us.

The only size that was available is extra large, and is way too big for me. I hope I can still pull it off with a baggy look with my matching green socks or something. Anyways, I need to gather my thoughts because, man I didn't expect to be as speechless as I am now after finishing it lol.

First of all WOW, I somehow didn't expect the infinity fortress to be so big I don't know why I somehow visualize it as just some really big maze of hallways, but the movie showed a whole ass city, and apparently with houses too as Douma said.

And speaking of Douma, Mamoru Miyano did such an amazing job with him! I don't remember him being this cute in the manga, but in the anime HE WAS JUST SO ADORABLE. I almost felt bad with how Akaza and Kokushibo were treating him lol. I just cannot get over how amazing all the vas are, especially Koku with Byakuyas voice!!

And speaking of Swordsmith Village. Ngl, Swordsmith wasn't exactly my favorite arc in the manga, (as much as I adore Mui, Mitsuri and Genya there.) but seeing it in anime and just seeing the environment in general, with the swordsmiths, the blade forging and the world building, made me appreciate it so much more. My friend however, said how he wished the village looked bigger. Our guess is it might be a lot bigger than it looks with more houses that are simply hidden.

Tanjiro's introduction to Genya is just h i l a r i o u s, sometimes I just forget how weird their first interaction is lol. Just from the the way it was animated and how it went manga panel style just as soon as Tanjiro is gonna jump. It's all just perfect.👌

And of course there's the infamous Mitsuri bath scene. I remember saying before about how I was worried that they might exaggerate the fan service scenes, but thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I know there were some people who wished to omit the bath scene altogether, and I'M SO GLAD THEY DIDN'T, let her enjoy her bath smh 😤 Prior to this, I heard stories about how someone moaned in the theaters during that scene. There wasn't anything like that in my own experience. 🤣 But the audience did gasp, mostly heard comments like "She's so pretty!" something like that.

Also gotta give it to Mitsuri's va Kana Hanazawa! I mentioned before how she also voiced some of my favorite female characters like Akane Tsunemori. I felt that she's a bit underrated within the va community, probably bc they think that she's limited to shy and cutesy roles (she isn't) but the thing is, Kanahana REALLY SHINES when she plays characters like Mitsuri, and it shows. I LOVE the Mitsuri and Nezuko scenes. It was just WAY TOO CUTE AND WHOLESOME (I can't believe I haven't drawn these two together yet ;_;) and I even heard the collective "Awwwwwwws" of the audience during that scene. It was just that cute.

(But that said, I'm a little disappointed they didn't include the part where Mitsuri was singing to Nezuko, it was such a missed opportunity, I wonder if it's too late to add them to the episode once the season is fully released... 🤔)

But overall, It was all really really good, and I was getting so excited to also see Muichiro and then suddenly it ended abruptly, and then I remembered that this was just a teaser of sorts and not the full movie. So I don't know how to end this post except to say that me and my friend are both shoocked.

#kny #demon slayer #me speaks #mitsuri kanroji #tanjiro kamado #nezuko kamado #swordsmith village arc #mamoru miyano #kana hanazawa #kanahana

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fizzigigsimmer · 10 months

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I might sound like a hater but i think neither Tommy and Carol did anything wrong by hating Nancy and calling her a slut. They were just warning Steve about her being a serial cheating priss and not only he ditched them he didn't listen and look at where it got him...

I understand this feeling. To be fair slut shaming someone so publicly, especially within the context of a small town in the 80s, isn’t cool. Even if Nancy had cheated on Steve it’s hard to quantify the ramifications that would have resulted from having those words painted where the entire town could see. That’s one more thing that really frustrates me about this scene and how the Duffers play it.

These are not just some hurtful words that Tommy scrawled in a bathroom stall, he wrote them on the movie sign where the entire town could see it. And we know it was up there for at least a day. In reality this would have changed Nancy’s entire high school experience. Her mother would have been asked about it at the grocery store. Her father would have been asked about it at work. Everyone at school would be talking about it and they would know that she had cheated on Steve (Because Tommy or Carol would have told them) and that mark of slut would have followed her everywhere she went in Hawkins until the day she left town.

And that’s awful and not something I would wish on anyone in reality. Because while I don’t like how Nancy treated Steve, I don’t expect teenage girls to have it all together. And for this character in particular, I can definitely empathize with the extreme trauma she’s been through. The fact that Nancy made mistakes while figuring out her complicated romantic feelings is not my issue with the character or the show.

My issue is with the shallow writing. It’s just EVERYWHERE but particularly when it comes to the character of Nancy. Tommy calls Nancy out as a “slut” in front of the whole town basically, but other than some initial hurt and embarrassment Nancy doesn’t face any consequences from it. Cause the moment isn’t about Nancy at all. The Duffers don’t care enough about women for that lol. Calling Nancy a slut is abouy Steve, so we can watch Steve litterally clean up his act. Get it? And while Nancy is out there “girl bossing it” and emotionally cheating on the boyfriend she settled for with the guy she’s waiting on to step up, Steve is the only one we see facing consequences.

We’re told that Steve loses his popularity and the figurative “crown” because everyone in school knows that he caught Nancy and Jonathan having a moment in her bedroom and they presume (correctly) that she’s stringing them both along. But they don’t even take the time to fully develop that or do anything interesting with it. They’re too interested in getting to the part where they can humiliate him and beat him up to do much more than tell us, oh yeah people think he “turned bitch” for sticking with Nancy. But Nancy herself is never called out for her behavior. She doesn’t suffer any social consequences that the audience can see. Why would they do that when it would get in the way of her being a Girl Boss? The narrative goes so far out of its way to excuse her actions and frame her romance with Jonathan as romantic and inevitable when really everything she’s doing is juvenile and selfish. But to the Duffers this is just how you write a Boss Babe.

The narrative disconnect between Steve as the Reformed Asshole who must suffer a thousand hits if he’s allowed to live, and Nancy as a Boss Babe who can do no wrong, is actually kind of hilarious. It’s so bad. 😆

And that’s honestly why I don’t like Nancy as a character very much. She was a really shitty girlfriend, and I want better for my faves even if the D-bags don’t lol. In a perfect world Steve would have talked things out with Tommy & Carol, and when Nancy broke his heart Billy would have been there to kiss it better 😉

#steve harrington #Nancy wheeler #meta #just personal opinions #character thoughts

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soul-dwelling · 1 year

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Do you think tumblr's nonchalant way of talking and attributing neurodivergiant diagnosises to charachters or traits/behaviours is in an ironic way ableist too by turning it into a trendy chic catchphrase or zodiac-like joke? Like I imagine the people who are margenalized because of these labels feel weird seeing Crona wearing a "autism-meme" tshirt, but maybe I'm wrong

I don’t think I can speak well to this. I don’t identify as neurodivergent, I haven’t gone in for formal diagnosis--and just about any time I have been referred to as neurodivergent, it has been to insult me (for example, “I should have expected this response that I don’t appreciate from someone like you--Asperger boy!”).

This is a wordy way of saying, I’m going to get a lot wrong below, so I welcome feedback.

As far as I can say as someone who identifies as neurotypical, I usually assume such remarks as being said by people who are neurodivergent who are self-identifying by the content they encounter and how they want to present themselves, so I hesitate to interject with what I see or read: if it’s a for-us by-us situation, I don’t think I’m in a position to criticize, unless it becomes particularly egregious.

In response to more specific examples that you are giving:

Again, when it’s nonchalant, I usually anticipate the person speaking is neurodivergent themselves.

I think attributing neurodivergent diagnosis is mostly harmless, although it still runs the risk of getting wrong traits to conditions, romanticizing those traits in the characters and by extension the risk of attempting an amateur diagnosis on real-life people and therefore romanticizing what real-life people are going through.

The reason I think it’s mostly harmless is that it is trying to figure out those aspects of these conditions by interpreting literature and writing your own stories--to see how the aspects of characterization fit together leading to an understanding about this character and maybe about the condition itself. But even if the intentions are mostly good, if the results are perpetuating stereotypes, or misdiagnosing, or impeding on a real person’s privacy and diagnosing them, then the intentions don’t matter, the results were bad.

I don’t think anyone who is neurodivergent is using neurodivergent attributions of fictional characters to be trendy. I do see some irony in it--again, a for-us by-us approach that those within a community appreciating themselves and being self-effacing as a way to respond to what it is like being neurodivergent. And it’s a way to identify, whether to see yourself in something you’re familiar with, to have it make sense for yourself, or to show someone else, “Hey, this is what it’s like for me.”

All of this said, again, as someone who identifies as neurotypical but has had people derisively refer to me as neurodivergent as a way to insult me, I can see some remarks that I think, “Um, I’m not sure that’s cool to make that kind of a remark, regardless who the person making the remark identifies.” You can’t control who is in your audience--but you better know who is in your audience to minimize the risk that some jackass misunderstands your point and weaponizes it to further their disablist agenda. A creator can’t anticipate every last thing a bad-faith audience member will do to with their content, but they should take every precaution they can to minimize that chance of weaponization to harm. Again, you run the risk of romanticizing, or making people thinking they can make those kinds of jokes when they aren’t in the community. It’s a case by case basis.

Generally, I try to be optimistic that most people finding neurodivergency in characters are helping normalize neurodivergency, to treat this as who this character, this person, is, jus as they would accept such qualities in the people around them in their lives.

#long post #cw: disablism

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mejomonster · 2 years

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THE ECLIPSE IS SO FREAKING GOOD

please check it out if you liked the gifted or blacklist (or even not me if you liked the political aspect of it) and wanted that with queer leads

Khaotung and first are So good, khaotung is always next level when given even a marginally meaty script and this one works for himmm. First gives nuance as expected, then other faves I've already seen in shows before are also getting a bit more room to do more nuance and layered stuff (rather than only being bl background comedy)

You do need to actually enjoy the missing person/curse thriller aspect, and politicial aspect, to enjoy this. Which for me is a plus. It's not all romance, it's also solidly another genre which for me raises the tension (I'm just usually not real attention caught by romance alone). Khaotung in particular is doing phenomenal at really heightening the romantic flirty scenes into both extremely tense flirt wise and emotionally, and also tense because u know both Ayan and Akk have additional goals in the scenes. Akk is SO into Ayan already (hook line and sinker this boy is gay for the cute boy ayan who keeps flirting with him), but akk also really suspects Ayans up to trouble and a rule defier which are things akk is used to being against so that tension is nonstop. Meanwhile Ayan flirts to the max but its Clear earlier on its all just to get under akks skin and get him to back off so Ayan can continue investigating. So as Ayan starts genuinely liking Akk more, the tension of Ayan both doing it just to mess with akk/protect his own goals will push more against him just genuinely liking akk. The puppy scene was both cute and a sliver of their future i imagine (them getting along as people and liking that - I predict we are headed to an eventual pangwave the gifted situation where "enemies" come to understand each other and team up against a bigger threat to all the students).

I am so happy with the casting. The side actors are doing so good, I've missed them since other shows. I can tell the script has room to grow and get more intense as time goes on. I'm guessing maybe the show isn't landing quite yet to some ppl cause it's not cutesy romcom bl in school setting (which is different than the norm based on this shows setup), and while it's political/thriller like the Gifted and Blacklist it is also WAY more overtly queer which makes it too bl looking maybe for some audiences to assume it'll be like those shows. (And I love how overtly queer it is, it feels like how 5515 Never Too Late handled the queer characters - much more like a queer story than a bl within the box). Thua is clearly gay and bullied to some degree for it, his eventual love interest seems to be aware of queer people (making it distinctly Not like ur typical bl in that it's doing neither of the usual "these ppl are only gay for each other" or "gay is normal already and Not facing real world issues it does in reality"). And his love interest seems to purposely be both flaunting liking girls and also defending Thua and stopping bullies, which just on its own is a nuanced realistic feeling teen (a teen who knows queer ppl are normal and should be treated like everyone, but maybe isn't ready to face the fact they may also be queer and what that means They'll have to personally face). There's Akk, who either knows he likes men or certainly realized it when Ayan came to the school - and is so wrapped up in his duties he barely faces his own emotional situation (which broadly may get addressed more as he becomes more aware of his own feelings versus what he's always just blindly followed). There's Ayan, who is aware he's into men and Reads as into men and uses it to his advantage, who doesn't hide or act like a straight guy, who reads on screen as an overtly queer character (khaotung doing amazing and like in 5515 showing off that he can do realistic characters that feel like people who just exist in the world). Ayan is just our queer protagonist trying to investigate the missing person he cared about, and stop bad stuff from happening - he's our Pang! I love him. There's also the students protesting at the school, and although we haven't heard anything of their dating lives (and I dunno if their behavior reads the same in Thailand) we do know they talk a bit femininely which reads a bit queer. Also kind of making this divide where Akks prefect boys seem to be "straight" and like girls and follow the traditions and Enforce them, versus the protesting students who want traditions to stop for traditions sake and value freedom and human rights (with Ayan not a part of their group but definitely in spirit having similar goals and reading as the most overtly gay person in the cast of characters). It's interesting, and I wonder if the divide will get used more for themes as the story unfolds more.

We are only on ep 2 and I'm already !!!! I am. Loving this show so much.

#the eclipse #lb #its so so good i like it a LOT and if #its anything like the gifted pacing wise then its gonna ramp up a LOT more as we get further in

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tess-eh · 4 months

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Blog Post #1 Af-Amer 112A

African American Studies 112A

Professor Due

01/18/2024

Blog Post #1

In all of the works, Get Out, The Comet, and Wake had a powerful and unfortunately accurate representation of blacks in regards to their black history, which as we learned in class can be considered as ‘black horror’. At the roots of black horror is racism, and these films and stories showcase that message. In Wake, we see messages of black magic/black voodoo when Ruth kills her father and his corpse's soil to create a husband. I have always associated voodoo with African Americans, specifically in the South in cities like New Orleans. Voodoo is part of the black culture in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the fact that we see a black woman using voodoo/black magic enhances her character’s black history.

The Comet shows a more depressing side of black horror, a truly scary side that is painful to revisit, but is necessary as we still see discrimination in our country every day. In The Comet, there is a black man, Jim, and a white woman, Julia, who for a moment believes that they are the last people alive after surviving a Comet strike in NYC. In this moment, Julia sets her racial prejudices aside and treats Jim as if he is a man. She even thinks to herself that it is odd he is acting like a man when he doesn’t look like one because of his skin, in terms of acting like a civil gentleman. To me, this was the most powerful line in the short story by DuBois, because it shows how horrified white people are of black people for no reason at all. In fact, if Jim wasn’t the last man alive, to Julia’s knowledge, she would not have even talked to him in reality and made this realization. It is tragic, which black horror as a genre shows, that people have a preconceived notion to discriminate and stereotype black people. At the end of the story when all seems to be back to ‘normal’, Julia’s father first asks if Jim raped Julia. He of course didn’t, and Julia ends up defending this agreeing that Jim did not rape her, but it is so disturbing that the first thought when he sees her daughter after a Comet strike is to assume that a black man, who protected her, had raped her, after giving off zero signals that he might have aside from him being a black person.

In Get Out, right from the beginning, we see that there are some underlying roots of racism within the family of Rose, who is Chris’s girlfriend. We also see a theme that is not so common outside of The Comet and Get Out, where the white woman is dating, or communicating, with a black man. Black men have this horribly misunderstood stereotype that they are more dangerous or sexually assault more women, so they should be handled with more caution. This film beats that stereotype and actually shows how white people are the enemy in this race fight. Rose’s father defends himself when Chris points out that all of their workers are black, which has already set the tone of the film. I really liked in this film how Chris handles himself because although he has the right to overreact, he doesn’t give them that option or that pleasure. I was on the edge of my seat watching this film, which is also an accomplishment for Jordan Peele, to keep the audience not only engaged, but thrilled at the images on the screen. His goal was to relate to everybody in the audience, and while I am not African American, I am a woman of color, and in that sense I felt like through our country’s history, and my knowledge of that, I could also relate to the film in a different way than the black audiences would.

Before this class, I knew nothing of black horror, and I did not know that black horror was directly related to black history. I also hated horror films, and after the second week of this course, I am starting to get more comfortable with horror films and fascinated by the history of black horror in these specific films. This course is different, in a good way, from what I was expecting– I did not expect this many films to watch, but I love watching movies in my free time so this has been very enjoyable homework thus far and I look forward to the future films we are assigned to watch.

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