the thing about romcoms is just- it's never meant to be 'is it believable?' but instead 'do you believe it?' do you believe these two characters are actually falling in love with each other??? do you believe their chemistry??? do you believe whatever obstacle is thrown in their way is legitimately something that might keep them apart for a time and not something that could be solved with one conversation?? do you believe that they believe they need to fake date for this very specific reason??? do you believe the reason why they're 'enemies' at the start, no matter how silly a misunderstanding it may be??? do you believe the grand romantic gesture fits the characters and is actually how one character would show their love to the other?? like!!!! it's about empathy and authenticity and feeling what the characters feel so strongly that even if it's a trope or a cliché it doesn't matter because you believe it

imo when ppl crusade against “fanfic style writing” they just don’t know that genre fiction is a real thing and it’s totally separate from literary fiction. fanfiction (and all its tropes) derives from genre fiction (romance novels, mystery novels, YA, etc). literary fiction is an entirely different animal with different style conventions & sensibilities. the two don’t compete with one another. ppl who act like fanfic is taking something away from culture need to take a breath lol

like the casey mcquiston book…it was just a romance novel lol. i feel like a lot of ppl got up in arms about it signifying The Death Of Art but it was really and truly JUST a normal romance novel, and it happened to sell very well. no one was comparing it to ocean vuong. they are simply different things and that is okay

(I assume it's you who sent this second ask also)

yeahhhhhh I am so good at knowing these concepts when it comes to other people's writing lol and so bad at knowing this when it comes to myself. To be fair I don't read a lot of regular old romance books so I don't know the staples of the genre... But yeah it's true, genre fic exists. Genre fic can be pretty good, too!

I did see excerpts of both of Casey McQuiston's books that looked terrible, but since I'm not really interested in the plots of either, I'll never really have context for those excerpts, so maybe people are just cherry-picking shitty excerpts and blowing it out of proportion. also one shitty writer doesn't = all writers bad. like Naomi Novik is a big fanfic writer and I adored Uprooted and Spinning Silver, which are both genre books rife with enemies-to-lovers shit, but exceptionally well-written. So. (don't start with me about her new books, I haven't read them, I don't know what the deal is)

anyway yeah idk and trash also is allowed to exist. I'm allowed to make my little trash garbage and stuff. I do need to calm the fuck down and tamp down the gremlin in my brain who dances around sprinkling its self-hatred confetti (and has REALLY latched onto "fanfic = cringe = bad" recently, for obvious reasons)

thanks for the dose of reality, anon, yeah

Glass: The Superhero Movie About Comic Books

     When I went to go see Split in the theaters, I never imagined that just two short years later I would see a shredded and shirtless James McAvoy flying-tackle Bruce Willis’ character from one of my all-time favorite movies, and yet here we are.  Needless to say, it was quite a sight to behold.  If you were to ask someone what superhero movie they were most looking forward to in 2018, I think you would be surprised if the answer you received were Glass, and yet I do believe that M. Night Shyamalan’s latest work will indeed become a classic among fans of his work and fans of comic books in general.  It succeeds for several reasons, but most importantly because what the film recognizes is that at the heart of comic books lies the innate desire to believe in the extraordinary: to believe that the world is a much more fantastic and interesting place than we might otherwise think.  For over a decade now Hollywood has been cashing in on this desire in force to sell incredible worlds and characters to mass audiences in the form of superhero movies based on comic book characters, from the most well known to the most obscure (e.g. Superman and The Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively).  Inevitably, along the way several examples of “deconstructionist” comic book movies have emerged to poke fun at and highlight the peculiarities of the genre, and many have succeeded by framing it in a comedic light (think Deadpool).  However, the ultimate goal of parody is not simply to lampoon source material, but to draw attention to its strengths and weaknesses–to give the audience a fresh perspective on a familiar concept.  Glass delivers exactly that, operating as a sort of dramatic parody that deconstructs the conventions of comic book storytelling in order to celebrate the medium for all of its triumphs and appreciate it through even its most tired tropes.

     Before delving into that I wanted to point out some interesting easter eggs in the film.  There is a scene in which the character Casey, the sole survivor of The Beast, visits a comic shop, and at the checkout counter she asks the cashier “When were the first comics published?”  In reply he makes reference to a few early strips from periodicals and newspapers, but then says that comics really began with the publication of Action Comics #1 in 1938 and the introduction of the man in the “big red cape and blue tights”.  This comic issue becomes a motif throughout the film, coming up later when Casey, during an argument with a doctor over the validity of comics as historical records, makes mention of the fact that the first incarnation of Superman couldn’t actually fly.  The final and most striking recurrence of the Action Comics #1 motif, however, comes in the very last frame of the film, in which a news broadcast plays footage of The Beast lifting a car partially off the ground and holding it above his head.  This action echoes the exact pose that Superman is depicted in on the cover of Action Comics #1, as shown:

The decision to have The Beast mirror Superman’s pose from the cover of the very first issue of a Superman comic reflects more than just the desire to make a clever reference to a classic comic; it implies a connection between the events of the film and the significance of Action Comics #1.  As the cashier at the comic shop said, everything changed with the introduction of Superman–Superman was our first step as a reading public into the universe of superheroes–which is precisely what the events of Glass serve as to the people of its story world.  Elijah states during the film that “this isn’t a Limited Edition; it’s an origin story”, and when taken together with the homage to the very first Superman comic, it becomes clear that he isn’t talking about himself, The Beast, or even David: he’s talking about superheroes at large.  Elijah’s ultimate goal is to put David and The Beast on display for the world to see in the hopes that more people will be inspired to become real-life superheroes, and as such Glass isn’t an origin story for any of its characters but for the people in its story world who decide to become superheroes after the credits roll.  Glass is, ultimately, the story of how a world came to know of the existence of superheroes through the master-plot of an evil genius; it is, like Action Comics was to the real world, “our introduction to the universe”, as Elijah’s mother says in the film’s final moments.

     Now, onto the main argument.  Glass is the third installment in the Eastrail 177 trilogy, after Unbreakable and Split, and as a conclusion to a trilogy it operates much more as a direct sequel to Unbreakable than to Split–most importantly, it both thematically and formally draws on Unbreakable’s decision to frame its story through the lens of a comic book.  One way this is accomplished in Unbreakable is that the character Elijah convinces David that he is a real-life superhero through a series of parallels between David’s life and the conventions of superhero stories: David’s fear of water echoes the convention of the hero having one pronounced weakness, the almost paranormal sense he possesses for identifying wrongdoers becomes the x-ray vision or ESP of superheroes, Elijah’s instructions guide a hero’s journey to develop his powers.  In addition, the film employs several comic tropes to tell its story, and in most instances where it does one character or another will typically call attention to it directly in dialogue.  Some examples include the ally to the hero who is later revealed to be a villain, the distinction between a “soldier” villain and the brainiac arch-nemesis, and the villain who was bullied as a child or “different” from all the other kids.  

--- A brief side note of interest with regards to style and connections between Unbreakable and Glass: In Unbreakable, Elijah’s mother tells David while they’re at Elijah’s gallery that in comics villains’ eyes are often depicted as larger than lifesize, representing a skewed perception of the world, and in time we come to understand that this was a reference to Elijah’s ideas about comic books and reality.  In one specific scene in Glass in which Dr. Staple talks to all three main characters, Shyamalan reinforces Elijah’s “skewed perception” by giving us a look inside Elijah’s mind in the form of a POV shot with canted framing, literally putting the world on a skew. ---

     Glass takes the idea of playing up comic tropes and runs with it.  At the opening of the film we find that both David and “Kevin” have embraced their identities as superhumans and have begun acting in patterns consistent with those of superheroes and supervillains in comics: David operates as a vigilante protector of the innocent and The Horde continues to abduct young “impure” girls and sacrifice them to The Beast.  Overt references to comics are littered throughout the movie; I could choose from an almost endless list of examples…  As mentioned before, Casey visits a comic shop at one point, and there she finds a comic depicting a half-man half-beast performing feats identical to those we saw The Beast perform in Split.  Elijah constantly draws parallels between comics and the events occuring in the story: such as speaking to Kevin about man-beast creatures in comics, orchestrating a “public forum” (a convention of the limited edition comic) between David and The Beast to expose them and their abilities to the world, referring to his mother, Casey, Joseph, and The Beast as a “collection of main characters”, and declaring to his mom with his final breath that “this was never a limited edition, it was an origin story”.  At the end of the film, Dr. Staple realizes what Elijah’s real masterplan was only after overhearing a conversation at a comic shop about how the mastermind villain always has a ‘real plan’ that’s revealed at the end, after the hero has been distracted by an intentional misdirect.  In her monologue at the climax (itself a comic trope), Dr. Staple uses the phrase “gods amongst us” to describe the existence of superbeings, a reference to the popular DC Comics video game and comic book series Injustice: Gods Among Us.  Joseph bursts onto the scene during the confrontation between his dad and The Beast in an attempt to turn The Beast against Mister Glass by revealing Kevin’s parentage, shouting: “the key to understanding any comic book character is their parents!”  By working extensive comic jargon and references into the film, and by describing comic conventions explicitly in dialogue at the same moment that he himself employs them in the narrative, Shyamalan establishes that this story is inextricably tied to that of the comic book medium, and communicates to us as the audience that we should be interpreting the events of the film from the perspective of how they might relate to comics.  That said, it is my opinion that the journey of self-discovery of the characters in the film and the themes of the film as a whole should be read as an allegory for the role played by the comic book medium in modern society at large and throughout history.

     The plot of the film takes a turn as both David and The Horde are captured by a psychiatrist/psychologist specializing in delusions of grandeur (Dr. Staple) hoping to convince them both that their abilities are natural, not supernatural, and that they are simply willing themselves to be superheroes because of mental and emotional trauma, as a sort of coping mechanism.  Therefore, from the earliest introduction of the character we understand that her goal, in an abstract sense, is to render the extraordinary trite and dismiss the fantastic as a trick or a fraud.  This character trait is reinforced time and time again throughout the film, and by the conclusion it is revealed that she is a member of a secret organization whose sole mission is to locate superhumans and to eliminate their “specialness”: either by convincing them of their normalness or by eliminating them from the public eye (detention or execution).  Whether you agree with her philosophies or not–can superheroes exist without supervillains, or vice versa, and if not should both be eliminated?  Can humanity live with its banal normality in the face of living “gods amongst us”?–Shyamalan clearly structures the film so as to frame her as the central villain, not Mister Glass.  We are made to root against her and her efforts to suppress the awesome power of these three characters, because we realize that it is precisely their fantastic abilities that make them such attractive and engaging characters.  We don’t want David or The Beast or even Mister Glass to be ‘just another ordinary person’, because we understand that even if their extraordinary feats can be, as Elijah puts it, “explained away”, they are still nonetheless extraordinary, and represent the ultimate achievement of the human will.  The film recognizes that comics are often at their very best when they are at their most incredible, and the prevalence of fantastic or seemingly supernatural elements doesn’t make comics “less than” as a medium: it frees them to amaze, to astonish, and to inspire readers to find the incredible in themselves.  Just like was the case for Elijah in Unbreakable, comics and their extraordinary characters give kids the courage to believe in their own abilities and specialness, and like Elijah and his gallery ‘Limited Edition’, when those kids grow up they can enjoy with a mature appreciation the literary comics that demonstrate the medium’s power as a sophisticated and nuanced art form. 

     In her conversation with Joseph, Casey, and Elijah’s mother, Dr. Staple refutes Casey’s arguments regarding the validity of comic books as historical documents by drawing their attention to what she believes is the “true” nature of comics.  She says: “Comics are an obsession.  Have you ever been to a comic convention?  They’re selling teen TV shows; they’re selling something, that’s all they’re doing”.  M. Night here is using Dr. Staple to present the common criticisms of comic books: that they’re commercialized muck only useful for providing mindless entertainment to children, and that the adults who read them are just obsessed nobodies who use them to escape real life.  Shyamalan, an avid comics fan himself (as is probably evident), appreciates comics for the diverse medium they are and for the important stories they can tell.  To him (and, indeed, to any comics fan in the audience) hearing someone levy those blind judgements against an entire narrative art form is precisely like Dr. Staple telling a man who can walk up walls that he is nothing more than an ordinary man.  We are meant to be indignant at the destruction and denial of the extraordinary that takes place in Glass, and this applies explicitly to the three main characters and their abilities and implicitly to comic books as a whole. Glass is M. Night Shyamalan’s love letter to comics: his attempt to embrace and defend them in the form of a story about a world that tried to kill the extraordinary in its people.

Congratulations, You Played Yourself

OR Why we shouldn’t be having this conversation about Adam

I’ve seen a lot written in the past few days about Voltron not deserving the hype it got for revealing that Shiro is queer, both on this platform and Twitter, and on geek news/opinion sites. Most arguments revolve around Shiro’s ex-boyfriend, Adam--both Adam’s brief screentime and his death--or the conversation between Shiro and Adam in the flashback in 7x01, and it not being explicit enough.

I am of the opinion that the conversation between Shiro and Adam was explicit confirmation of Shiro’s sexuality, and I treat it as such in this meta. I also won’t deal with the widely circulating idea that because Adam and Shiro don’t reconcile, the representation is bad. This just reinforces the idea that queer people are defined by their relationships (and sexual activity), rather than all of the other parts of their personality. As a queer person, seeing these criticisms is very frustrating.

So, I’m not going to focus on those things, because I think that they are more subjective. Instead, I am going to talk about the major complaints I’ve seen regarding Adam’s brief appearances in the show, as well as Adam’s role in the wider story Voltron is telling. 

The major complaints I’ve seen are that Adam is an example of queerbaiting, and/or the Bury Your Gays trope (see #VoltronLegendaryQueerbait on Twitter, for example). These complaints seem to stem from an expectation that after 7x01, Adam would play a larger role in the story, and even might be the endgame romantic partner for Shiro. Then, when that expectation was not met (because Adam barely appears in the season), the complaints of bad representation began.

In this meta, I discuss queerbaiting and the Bury Your Gays trope, and show that Adam is not a good example of either of these issues, through examining his character and his role in the story. Also, this is my take (after long conversations with @messier51) as a bisexual woman and as someone who thinks a lot about how stories are structured/executed.

What is ‘queerbaiting’?

Queerbaiting, as I’ve always understood it, is the practice of ‘promising’ LGBT+ content, but not following through on that promise. The ‘promising’ part is usually nods and winks from the show, but then the characters end up in relationships with members of the opposite gender, etc. The important assumption behind the idea of queerbaiting is that showrunners and production companies want to cash in on LGBT viewership, but don’t want to alienate the majority straight audience. Therefore, the showrunners get as close as possible to a same gender relationship, but never intend to follow through.

I’ve always been skeptical of the whole notion of queerbaiting, to be honest. I think in order to make an argument about queerbaiting, you have to know the motivations and intentions by the showrunners/writers/directors/cast. You also have to assume bad faith; the showrunners are thinking more about ‘tricking’ their fanbase, than trying to tell a coherent story. (sidenote: I think the bigger issue at hand is that queerness is still not normalized in fiction, and consequently, characters are straight until proven otherwise. Therefore, close same gender relationships that never become romantic are more of an issue of lack of imagination, than an willing attempt to hurt people.)

So, let’s think logically for a moment: If queerbaiting is hinting at a relationship between same gender characters, but never intending to follow through, Voltron does not qualify as queerbaiting. If the showrunners of Voltron intended to queerbait, they would not have fought for the dialogue between Shiro and Adam that makes their romantic relationship explicit. Similarly, Bex Taylor-Klaus, a queer person themself, championed explicit, in-text confirmation that Shiro was in said relationship, and then was proud of the fact that that confirmation was included.  Are those things not the opposite of queerbaiting?

Voltron promised, metatexually (i.e. showrunners in interviews, at conventions, etc.), to include LGBT+ representation. In 7x01, Shiro was revealed to be mlm, and had a mlm boyfriend. Therefore, Voltron is not an example of queerbaiting.

What about ‘Bury Your Gays’?

Bury Your Gays is a trope in fiction where queer characters are not allowed to have happy endings. Historically, this trope has referred to the practice of killing of wlw (which is why it was called Dean Lesbian Syndrome before Bury Your Gays gained prominence) going back to pulp wlw novels in the mid-twentieth century. Bury Your Gays was a staple of stories about queer people because homosexuality was (and still is by some) considered to be immoral; characters cannot be rewarded with a happy ending, because in doing so, queerness is being rewarded.

This trope has been in the zeitgeist in recent years, following the death of the wlw character Lexa on the show The 100. The anger and frustration in 2016 stemmed from the deaths of queer female characters. GLAAD notes in its annual Where We Are on TV Report:

“Since the beginning of 2016, more than 25 queer female characters have died on scripted television and streaming series. Most of these deaths served no other purpose than to further the narrative of a more central (and often straight, cisgender) character.”

This is not to say that the death of queer male character can’t be an example of Bury Your Gays, but that this trope historically refers to dead wlw in books and film, and in recent years, outrage with the this trope has concerned dead wlw on television. 

So, where does Adam from Voltron fit in? Well, he is a dead queer character, but whether or not he qualifies as an example of Bury Your Gays is questionable. He didn’t die to further the narrative of a more central cis, straight character. He also wasn’t a well-established character, and he died in a scene where many other characters also died. For these reasons, I’m hesitant to claim that Adam is an instance of Bury Your Gays.

Just because a queer character dies does not mean that it is an example of Bury Your Gays. In an article from SYFYwire, the author argues that: “as the criticism moves forward, consistently reducing our stories into binary tallies of whether we live or die does a complete disservice to the potential for three-dimensional, nuanced characters within genre storytelling that we yearn to see more of ourselves in. “

I understand that the death of any queer character on TV is upsetting to some fans, because there are so few queer characters overall. However, as we get more queer characters (and GLAAD has shown increasing numbers of queer characters in the past few years--up to 6.4% of regular characters in 2017), it’s important to question whether good representation is just a matter of a living or dead character, and if the death of an LGBT+ character is just that character’s demise, or part of a bigger trend (see 2016 and wlw deaths). 

Therefore, I think we have to evaluate whether or not the trope is in effect depends on the context of the death. I think to really decide whether or not a death of a queer character is Bury Your Gays or not, it’s important to answer the following questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

In the next section, I will discuss Adam’s role in the story, and try to answer these questions.

Adam, the character?

Before addressing these questions, I think it’s important to discuss who Adam is as a character, and his role in the overall story.

All told, Adam appears in two short scenes, totaling no more than a few minutes of screentime. While on screen, we learn that a) he was Shiro’s boyfriend, b) he broke up with Shiro due to a culmination of issues in their relationship, c) he was a pilot, and d) he died in a Galra attack. As far as characterizations go, it’s pretty skimpy, but ultimately who he was as a character is unimportant. Adam does not exist on the show to explore any big ideas about gender and sexuality; Adam is a plot device, and he serves two purposes:

Adam confirms that Shiro is mlm. By showing Adam and Shiro’s breakup in a flashback, the show is telling us that Shiro is mlm, without having Shiro say “I am gay.” (sidenote: This is called good storytelling, by the way. Shiro’s story is not a coming out story, so if everyone in canon knows that he’s gay, why would Shiro tell anyone his orientation? Since we have no reason to think that other characters don’t know he’s gay, introducing Adam does the work of confirming Shiro’s sexuality to the audience in lieu of Shiro stating his orientation in dialogue.)

Adam puts a face on the casualties of war during the first attack by the Galra. By killing off Adam in this scene, the stakes have been raised. Volton (both the show and the robot) kills faceless, nameless characters in space battles. I know that the paladins mow down robots all the time, but when Voltron destroys a Galra cruiser or the like, I find it hard to believe that there are only robots on board. But since we, the audience, and they, the paladins of Voltron, don’t know who those people are on board those ships, it’s hard to get emotionally attached to their deaths. The same is true when we see the Galra attack Earth: there is no emotional attachment when the Galra raze major cities, but there is narrative weight to Adam’s death. Now, it’s not just the case that the Galra have killed humans, but that they have specifically killed a human that was important to one of the main characters. The same effect is achieved with Hunk’s family in the work camp.

Ok, so back to those questions: What is the purpose of this character’s death? What are the genre conventions? Are there other queer characters and what happens to them? Are queer characters dying on other shows in large numbers?

To answer the first question: Adam’s death is representative of the end of an era. Adam represents the past: both Shiro’s past with the end of a relationship, and the Garrison’s past with his death as the result of old Garrison defense tactics. His death marks the end of that time in Shiro’s life, and for Earth pre-Galra attack. As mentioned above, Adam’s death also raises the stakes of the Galra attack. Once a character the audience knows dies, that signals that other characters could die too. After Veronica doesn’t get back on the train, the audience genuinely thinks she died. This doesn’t work if the only characters who have died so far are faces on a screen or in background explosions.

To address the second question: Voltron’s genre is part action-adventure comedy, and part war story. The second half of this season feels more like a war story than any part of the previous seasons, despite the fact that Voltron (and the Coalition) has been at war against the Galra since the first episode. In a war story, anyone can die, so it’s not terribly surprising that characters we know end up dying. For example, the Blades of Marmora have had four named characters die (before the timeskip): Ulaz, Thace, Antok, and Regris.

As for the third question: Adam was not the only queer character on Voltron. In explicit text, we have Shiro, one of the main characters, is an Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities. In less explicit text, we have Pidge, who at the very least could be considered gender non-conforming, and Zethrid and Ezor, who’s relationship appeared to lean romantic.

And the fourth question: LGBT+ representation is really making strides in shows aimed at children and teens. However, there is definitely still a place for questioning whether TV more broadly has a Bury Your Gays problem. In this respect alone--that deaths of queer characters is a trend--could Adam’s death be considered problematic. It’s unfortunate that a queer character was killed in a general media landscape full of dead queer characters, but in the next section, I discuss why I am not so upset by his death.

So what?

What conclusions can be drawn from the context of Adam’s role and his death? Adam is a emotional connection to the toll of the war, both for the audience, and for our mlm main character, Shiro. I do not consider Adam’s death an example of Bury Your Gays, and I don’t think we’d be having this conversation if a heterosexual character had filled Adam’s role in the story. Ultimately, Adam is not the LGBT+ representation fans have been clamoring for, and the showrunners promised to provide--Shiro is.

So, why doesn’t Adam get a happy ending? Because it does not matter if he gets a happy ending or not; it has no impact on main characters or overall storyline. The showrunners could have introduced a different character from the Garrison that we (the audience) cared about, and then kill them in that first battle, but using Adam streamlines this process.

I know a lot of people wanted Adam and Shiro to reunite, and they’d be each other’s happy ending, but this would be Bad Storytelling. Shiro and Adam’s break up is at least 2 years in the past for Shiro. During those years, he has not pined for Adam, regretted his decision, etc. that would indicate that their relationship is not 100% over. In the lead up to season 7, Lauren Montgomery said: “until Shiro made the unfortunate decision [to leave], and they drifted apart and that was the end … for their relationship.”

As I mentioned before, Adam represents the past for Shiro. Shiro has been through so much since their break up, and we have no idea how Adam would have even reacted to the Shiro that makes it back to Earth. If Shiro does get a happy ending in the form of a romantic relationship, it does not make any narrative sense that he would go back to his old boyfriend. Shiro has grown and changed and matured, so a satisfying end to that arc is not going back to where he came from, but forging ahead with a partner who has witnessed that growth and change (if Shiro does get a love interest).

At the end of the show, it will matter if Shiro lives or dies, and whether his ending is happy or not, because he is our explicit LGBT+ representation, the one that was promised to us. But I honestly have complete faith in Voltron. Time and time again, the showrunners, writers, directors, VAs, etc. have shown their commitment to a diverse cast of characters, and representing diverse experiences. There has never been any indication of bad faith on the part of TPTB; they want to make the best possible show for us, and give us representation not found in other television shows.

So, Who Should We be Talking About?

Shiro.

I do think it is important to discuss how harmful tropes manifest in media and why queer characters keep ending up dead. However, I don’t think the solution to this problem is immortal, flawless gay characters who get happy endings just because they’re gay. The best thing we can do is normalize queer characters, and normalizing means creating characters who show the full gamut human experiences. Queer characters can be good and bad people, and have good and bad relationships, so (as long as we don’t get one version of queer people), I think there’s room for a wide variety of queer characters, who have a wide variety of ends to their stories.

So, then there’s Shiro, a heroic leading character the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Shiro is a main character on a non-queer-focused show Asian mlm with mental and physical disabilities, and his presence is normalizing queer characters for a whole new generation of fans.

Shiro is groundbreaking representation, and not just on a show aimed at younger audiences. As GLAAD notes in their report:

“The LGBTQ characters who make it to TV screens tend to be white gay men, who outnumber all other parts of our community in representation on screen ... It’s long past time for television to introduce more diverse LGBTQ characters on multiple levels: more queer people of color (who have long been and remain underrepresented), characters living with disabilities, stories of lesbians and bisexual women, trans characters, characters of various religious backgrounds, and characters who are shaped by existing at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities.”

Shiro is that intersection of multiple marginalized identities, and a main character. By showing experiences of queerness and disability and the intersection of the two, and not relegating him to a supporting role, Voltron is telling Shiro’s story, not someone else’s story with Shiro along for the ride. 

We should be asking of our media “whose stories get to be told?” On most shows, the answer is white cis-men and women, and maybe a token minority, if you’re lucky. Voltron is telling the stories of people who usually don’t get their stories told--women of all kinds, people of different ethnic backgrounds, queer characters, and intersections of these categories. Voltron has not settled for tokenization, but rather given us multi-faceted representation, crossing these intersecting issues.

(A table of contents is available. It will be kept up-to-date as new posts are added. Disclaimer: If you are planning on basing your own fictional magic system off an existing magic belief, please do extensive research into anthropology and discussions from people of that belief. Avoid direct appropriation and be respectful!)

Part Nineteen: Practitioner Tropes :: Magical Girls

Magical Girls as a trope and/or genre concept, specifically, hasn’t been around terribly long. While the roots for the basic ideas have all been present in the past, the first stories to be called Magical Girl stories stemmed from Japan in the mid- to late 1960s. Since Sailor Moon’s release into American wilds, the series has dominated to the point of becoming the definition of the genre. The show, of course, is only one example of the Magical Girl trope, more specifically, the one that centers around a group of magical warriors. In truth, Magical Girl stories can take a variety of forms, and the vagueness of the definition is only one proof:

A story in which a girl has magical powers that they use to better their lives, all the while persevering through the difficulties their powers cause.

These stories usually feature young protagonists--though some older Magical Girl characters have made appearances--and the story lines tend to focus on coming of age structures, where the easing into adulthood is softened by their powers giving them agency, fashion, and in some cases granting them an older alter ego.

As a part of that coming of age, the Girl is usually faced with difficulties that stem from their powers, or within the world their powers give them access to. (For instance, the Magical Idol Singer is one of the variations on Magical Girls aside from the warrior trope that so many are built off of, and they may face difficulties in their singing careers, which they wouldn’t experience if they were not Magical Girls who become idol singers when they transform. Or Magical Girl Warriors fight forces that they wouldn’t likely have to deal with if they weren’t these warriors. Or the witch versions of Magical Girls dealing with problems that stem from the world they’re able to access because of being a witch.) The Magical Girl may work alone or in a group, but regardless of whether their friends are also Magical Girls or work with them, the stories draw an enormous amount of power and emotion from friendship and love.

Because of the recent advent of Magical Girls as a story convention, there haven’t been huge advances branching out into a variety of settings. For the most part, they take place anytime in the past 30 years or so, and generally in Tokyo.

Hallmarks of Power::

The obvious and defining feature of a Magical Girl narrative is that magic exists. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all brand of magic that defines the genre, but brightly-colored and sparkly are fairly common place. It’s not important what kind of magic a Magical Girl commands, but rather that they do, and that the magic is defined/internally consistent throughout the narrative. You must know what the magic of your Girls is, how they acquired it, and what they can do with it. Maybe it comes from an item, maybe they’re born with it, or maybe they’re a Chosen One to whom it was given. Whatever the source, you’ve got to know it.

A Magical Girl’s “tool” may be any number of things in accordance to what type of Magical Girl they are. Warriors often have ridiculous weapons or wands, often portrayed as over-the-top, and frequently brightly colored. Idol Singers may have their microphone as their signature; and the Witch variety often have the pointed hat that’s become such a staple to witch imagery, and their standard “witchy” tools might have a fun, cute twist to them.

The costume of a Magical Girl may be one of the most important aspects. A Magical Girl undergoes a transformation in order to wield their powers, and as part of that, usually go through a costume change. They are bright, cheerful, and usually decked out in bows, ribbons, gems, and some kind of theme between group members. What that theme is doesn’t matter--it could literally be anything--but the design of the outfits on that theme must be in someway cute or beautiful. Practicality is rarely a consideration.

An animal or fairy companion is standard for most Magical Girls from Luna and Artemis in Sailor Moon to Kero in Cloudcaptor Sakura. Fun catch-phrases before battle, and calling out the names of attacks as their made are also staples of the trope.

Writing Now::

One important thing to keep in mind with Magical Girl stories is that it’s called Magical Girl for a reason. The stories are a celebration and empowerment of femininity, reveling in what women are capable of achieving. It exists for a reason as it is, and Magical Boy is not a black-and-white flip-flop to a boy who transforms to show how excellent manly things are. After all, the visual medium that Magical Girl stories are most prevalent in is chock full of action stories and male power trips. A Magical Boy story would most likely still feature many of the same tropes and conventions while favoring themes of gender equality with a heavy tilt still toward feminine power and the power of love and friendship. Steven Universe is one example of how a Magical Boy narrative wouldn’t be the exact opposite of a Magical Girl narrative.

Characterization is of tantamount importance for Magical Girl stories. Yes, there’s plot going on, but the characters’ journeys are the most important part. It’s about their growth and their relationships. Whatever is happening in the world is secondary to those developments. Magical Girl characters should be interesting on their own, even when you remove the layer of magic. Without the characters to back it up, the story becomes a typical fantasy: characters with magic fighting to save the world. What makes Magical Girls unique is their empowerment and the characters’ growth as they come to terms with themselves and their powers.

Magical Girl stories have, for the most part, been told in a visual medium, with anime and manga BY FAR the most popular presentation for them. It makes sense, since most of the tropes associated with them are based somewhat in looks and aesthetics. The lists of literature that qualify as Magical Girl are small--like, less than 10 listed on TVTropes, and I’ve not read any of them. I imagine that they could translate to literature just fine, though there are suggestions to leave the costuming to anime and manga. I’m not convinced it couldn’t work in a narrative format, too, but I suspect that would have to do with the style of it.

Magical Girl from TVTropes Magical Girl Fantasy from BestFantasyBooks History of Magical Girls (A Celebration of 50 Years of Magical Girl Anime) Magical Girls and Their Historical Origins from ReelRundown Top 9 Magical Girls of Anime and Manga from geek.com

Across the Niger: Authenticity and Internationality

West African film is not defined as a particular genre, like perhaps the Western or Film Noir is as considered by critics. These genre’s have particular notable aesthetics that are consistently reused as an act of fidelity to the artistic goals of the movement itself. West African film can be understood more simply as National Cinema. With this understanding in mind, it is much more difficult to discern whether a film ascribes to a particular aesthetic, and if this maintaining this aesthetic is even necessary to define a film as West African. This essay will discuss the elements of Ojukwu’s Across the Niger (2004) that are distinctly and intentionally part of the West-African aesthetic, the aspects that diverge from Nigerian culture to be globally appealing, and resolve that Nollywood films are capable of being both authentic and international. Across the Niger can be used as an example of Nollywood’s flourishing film industry that is capable of success beyond Nigeria’s boarders, while also maintaining an aesthetic that is culturally specific to Nollywood.

The lack of funds available for production heavily influences Nollywood film’s aesthetic elements. This lack subsequently results in unintentional affects such as outdoor lighting and realistic settings. However, there are many aesthetics of Nollywood films that appear unintentional but have been critically and thoughtfully planned. In her work “Storytelling in Contemporary African Fiction Film and Video”, Dovey navigates through these aesthetics to determine which are formed unintentionally and which are developed through artistic thought. It is discussed in Dovey’s argument that the long takes, which are a signature of Nollywood editing, is an unintentional element. Many takes are elongated to ensure that the film lasts the length of a bus journey, or to delay the narrative in order to create sequels (Dovey 97). Although this editing staple may be unintentional, it has come to create a recognizable Nollywood aesthetic. Conversely, The themes of the films are intentionally focussed on themes of relatable social issues like legacy and inheritance, husband snatching, prejudice, and child abandonment, all set within a local context. Across the Niger demonstrates many of the “local aesthetics” that have come to define West African Cinema. This film diverges from Western standards of what should be presented in West African film; the film does not center around colonialism, though effects of colonialism are inevitably present, and does not feature the same issues that European financed Nollywood films do, such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, discrimination, or children on the street. (Okome 31). In the case of Across the Niger, the social issues and themes of Habiba and Dudems’s relationship are told through a journey that is set in the specific context of the Nigerian civil war between 1967-1970.  Critics of Nollywood will often downplay the artistry of films, reducing them to amateur and overly dramatic works. However, Dovey contends that this dramatism is much more intentional than it appears. When thinking about film’s relation to Nigerian oral storytelling,  “a particular kind of adaptation and visualization of oral and spoken narratives is thus at work in the video films” (Dovey 96). Nollywood films must not only be read in relation to “reality”, but  must be acknowledged as a cultural transformation of story telling. Thus, the blatant dialogue and dramatic acting can be seen as a result of this transformation of West African oral storytelling into the film medium, and not merely as a cinema lacking in artistic thought. The editing is also more thoughtful than it may seem to those viewers accustomed to Hollywood films. Nollywood gives preference to wide and long rather than close ups, unless during a particularly emotional scene.  The film’s use of editing is consistent with the majority of Nollywood films; most scenes are a compilation of long shots, with the exception of highly emotional scenes. When Habiba expresses emotional depth, close ups of her crying face fill the screen. This occurs twice - first when she tells Dudem to let her leave his village, and again during the film’s climax after Dudem is shot and she expresses that her love is “full like a river”. Nollywood also favours minimal editing and scenes that enhance the emotion through visual and aural effects. These techniques are thoughtfully used to tell the story in the most emotive way. Across the Niger exemplifies this style of storytelling through Habiba, Dubem, and Nneke’s complicated relationship. The drama and obviousness of the narrative can be seen in the scene in which Nneke attempts to seduce Dubem. In an alternative Hollywood rendition of this scene, Nneke’s motives might be more ambiguous. Yet in the film, Nneke’s motives are made clear by King Igwe’s advisor, who repeatedly tells her she must make Dubem fall in love with her by sleeping with him. This allows for the audience to understand the story without any confusion or ambiguity, much like the way traditional oral stories are narrated.  

Across the Niger tells an authentic story through Nollywood techniques, while also subtly catering to a foreign audience. Ojukwu’s decision to film in the English language can be read as a small choice directors can make which allows their film to be potentially internationally successful. In his writing “Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics”, Adesokan states, “most of the Nollywood films that circulate globally are in English and rely on standard  generic conventions, even though, as the UNESCO figures show, more than half (56%) of Nollywood releases  are in Nigeria’s three major local languages” (Adesokan 83). It is clear by this statistic that films that choose to use English, like Across the Niger, are allowing their film to be appreciated globally at the risk of being less culturally authentic. It could be argued that this film is less Nigerian due to its English language, and relinquishes its cultural specificity in order to cater to a global audience. However, the use of the English language does not affect the films local popularity, as “English language Nollywood films resemble television soap operas in Formal Terms, and travel better among Africans” (84). What may affect Across the Niger’s cultural authenticity is its apparent lack of African spiritual beliefs within the tribes culture. Andrew Rice notes the importance of these beliefs, “Nollywood movies, both old and new, often play on traditional African beliefs about magic and spirits” (Rice 1). Conversely, Across the Niger does not focus on spirituality, rather it replaces spirituality by focussing heavily on tradition and politics between tribes and families. The reason for this omittance could perhaps be explained by the desire for this film to be accepted by a foreign audience who may hold different beliefs. The stories in “Nigerian films with strong doses of the occult (or ‘black magic’) have had a particular hold on the popular imagination. These occult forces are banished in the narratives of many of the films via the Pentecostal Christian practices in scenes that are often a source of amusement for secularized, Western audiences...it is harnessed to a project of a Westernized system of commodity consumption” (Dovey 93). The lack of spiritual theme’s in Ojukwu’s film is not a commonality among Nollywood films, and reveals the desire to appeal to foreign audiences and also project a representation of modernizing Nigeria.

Across the Niger utilizes the aesthetic principles that have come to create the formula for as successful Nollywood film,  yet the film is still understandable to a foreign audience. Many specific elements of the nation’s history and culture may loose their significant to a foreign viewer, but the human elements of romance, prejudice, love and sacrifice can be equally relatable to any viewer. The film is definitively West African and adheres to a very specific local aesthetic. However, the film is also able to reach beyond its Nigerian boarders and be relevant globally. Nollywood films are successful in St. Lucia, and trade to the Middle East, Hong Kong, United States and South Africa and the United Kingdom (Dovey 102). Unfortunately, the aesthetic elements of Nollywood are perceived as “awful, marred by slapdash production, melodramatic acting and ludicrous plots” (Rice 1). Okome notes that Nollywood is constantly criticized for “lacking depth, artistic and technical quality” (Okome 33). However, despite its lack of technical success, I found the films narrative and particularly Habiba’s struggle with love and discrimination to be particularly moving. In this sense, the film is full of narrative depth, and one cannot denounce its artistic elements. Despite the low budget effects, unrealistic battle and melodramatic acting, the film is still capable of evoking a high degree of emotion in a non-Nigerian viewer.

In conclusion, through the analysis of Across the Niger, it can be seen that Nollywood cinema has a specific framework of aesthetic principals that are intentional in their effects. It can also be seen through this film that subtle choices are made in order to cater to an international audience. Although the film is able to appeal to foreign audiences and strays from some of the typical tropes of Nollywood films, it  is distinctively representative of West Africa and only West Africa, proving that a film need not reject all foreign influence in order to be authentically national.

The Chinoiserie Genre, Revisited

(What follows is a repost from April 2017, updated to include the chinoiserie explosion of the past three years.)

Readers familiar with the Pulp Revolution have certainly by now heard that with the death of the pulps, many genres fell out of favor. Hero pulps, sword and sorcery, and planetary romance have all declined from the heyday of the 1930s, often replaced entirely by other expressions of fantasy and science fiction. Yet as we return to reading the pulps instead of what people say about the pulps, whispers of other genres appear. For instance, hidden among the three proud pillars of weird fiction – horror, science fiction, and fantasy – is a fourth genre, one as exotic as its name: chinoiserie.

Chinoiserie first started in the 18th century in the visual arts. European artists impressed by Chinese artistry began to imitate the Eastern designs, incorporating them into pottery, furniture, decor, gardening, and even music. The appetite for chinoiserie grew with the perception of China as a highly civilized culture, even beyond the European norms. The artistic movement continues to the present day, with many works of chinoiserie available online. As with many artistic movements, this fascination with exotic cultures made a jump into literature.

Literary chinoiserie began as an exploration of unfamiliar Oriental cultures as perceived by Western writers.  While the visual arts quickly distinguished between Chinese-influenced chinoiserie and Japanese-influenced japonisme, no such distinction was made in the literary world, with chinoiserie describing Persian, Byzantine, Japanese, Tibetan, and Chinese stories. (Despite convention, I will be using chinoiserie and japonisme to differentiate the two flavors of literary chinoiserie.) However, the term quickly narrowed to Pacific Asian cultures, with the Chinese association dominating. Literary chinoiserie expresses itself in three major forms; the exploration of Chinese lands, the exploration of Western ideas of Chinese culture in both its homeland and its diaspora settlements, and the exploration of an idealized China that never was. Occasionally, Western culture would dress up in chinoiserie robes for the purpose of satire, as in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. But common to all expressions is the idea of the outsider looking into another culture not his own, and not always understanding what is seen. One does not write chinoiserie of their own culture. The Chinese author of the Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, writes Chinese science fiction, while Peter Grant writes chinoiserie science fiction dealing with Chinese triads in space in his Maxwell Saga.

Perhaps the most sensationalized version of chinoiserie, yellow peril is the tendency of pulp writers to use Chinese as villains, as popularized by the Lord of Strange Deaths himself, Fu Manchu. Hidden in every shadow were copycat secret societies led by cunning occult mentalists and sensuous deceitful dragon ladies. This was primarily a staple of weird menace, a sensationalist genre of lurid stories where a dreadful and mysterious terror, usually occult or supernatural, threatens to overtake the hero unless he acts. This Chinese threat was not the only staple of the genre, as fantastic, mythological, and scientific terrors would also loom in the pulps, however the trope was common enough to have its subversions and aversions, with the honorable and heroic detective Charlie Chan as the most famous antithesis to yellow peril villains.

Chinoiserie’s fascination with exotic China found a home in the pulps. The Shadow’s first adventure, The Living Shadow, found the Knight of Darkness playing master of disguise in Chinatown to root out a hidden killer. Counter to convention, this killer, Diamond Bert, only posed as a Chinese mastermind. Among the imitators of the Shadow, the Green Lama featured an American student of the Tibetan Lamas using Eastern secrets to defeat Western criminals. Sidney Herschel Small wrote adventures of Asia and American Chinatowns. E. Hoffman Price led the parade of writers of Weird Tales who would use chinoserie, many of which would claim that their stories had been discovered in the markets of China and Istanbul. Clark Aston Smith wrote a prose poem describing two lovers separated by centuries in his “Chinoiserie.” Manly Wade Wellman’s occult investigator, John Thunstone, would test his metal and that of a holy blade against a cursed Gurka honor sword in “The Dai Sword.”

As the pulp age faded, so did literary chinoiserie. But the fascination with China lived on. Robert van Gulik found a copy of The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee in a second-hand store and translated the fictional account of Tang dynasty judge Di Renjie into English. Van Gulik then wrote an entire series of new adventures for Judge Dee, starting with The Chinese Maze Murders. The adventures of the Sinanju master assassin Chuin and his worthless assistant Remo Williams filled book after book of the men’s adventure series The Destroyer. Andre Norton brought a taste of China to gothic romance in The White Jade Fox, where an antebellum governess must keep her charge’s Chinese treasures safe from her stepmother. E. Hoffman Price would return to chinoiserie in The Devil Wives of Li Fong with the tale of the serpent Mei Ling as she protects her family from Taoist magic. Finally, in perhaps the brightest gem of the chinoiserie crown, Barry Hughart’s Bridge of Birds chronicles the adventures of the sage Master Li and the villager Number Ten Ox as they face off against crooked peddlers, rabbity tax assessors, exalted lords, and the machinations of the gods themselves in search of a cure for the kuu poison affecting their village’s children.

Inspired by Bruce Lee’s fame and Hong Kong cinema, movies such as John Carpenter’s cult-classic Chinatown misadventure Big Trouble in Little China and Disney’s Mulan took the torch of chinoiserie from literature, created beloved classics of the silver screen in the process. Chinoiserie also moved to video games with the gory martial-arts fighting series Mortal Kombat and Bioware’s  Jade Empire, an RPG homage to the Shaw Brothers‘ kung-fu movies, while the short-lived Firefly television series added a Chinese voice to the strange conversation between Japanese samurai films, American westerns, and science fiction as a whole. More recently, the martial arts cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender explored a fantasy version of China, mixing Western alchemical elements with Chinese martial arts. The tradition continues into this decade, with Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA starring in The Man with the Iron Fists, a loving tribute to the grindhouse days of blacksploitation and the Shaw Brothers’ cinema.

As China moved from the written page into the theaters and small screens, Japan took over the written word. James Clavell’s Shogun and Jessica Amanda Salmonson’s fantasy adventures of female samurai Tomoe Gozen are among the first novels reflecting the shift from chinoiserie to japonisme. As Japan rose again to become an economic power and a media giant in the 1980s, American fascination with the Land of the Rising Sun grew, spilling over into its stories. Perceptions of present day Japan are explored in thrillers like Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun, lost-in-translation misadventures like Isaac Adamson’s Tokyo Suckerpunch, and lost to reality gamer webcomics such as Megatokyo. Continuing the tradition created by Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan, the folklore and mythology of Japan are explored in novels such as Kij Johnson’s The Fox Woman and Lian Hearn’s Tale of Shikanoko series. Japanese history from the Heian court to the Warring States forms the backdrop for I. J. Parker’s Akitada mysteries, the Yamada Monogatari series of Richard Parks, and the classic Tales of the Otori. Japanese elements flavor John Wright’s Daughter of Danger, Neil Gaiman‘s Sandman and American Gods, and indie works such as Rawle Nyanzi’s Sword & Flower and countless others. And the thirst for all things Japanese (and japonisme) has yet to be quenched.

Perhaps the reason why chinoiserie and japonisme do not get the recognition that other genres do is because they combine so well with other genres. Chinoiserie rarely stands alone in a story, but crosses with action, with detective mystery, with noir, with fantasy, and even with science fiction to bring a exotic flavor to those genres. It has been easy to lose sight of the influence of chinoiserie as this weird fiction genre has drifted into the historical fiction and literature shelves. However, the influence of the East upon weird fiction is unmistakable, and chinoiserie is as much a founding genre as fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

Since this article was first penned in April 2017, the fashions of publishing, both traditional and independent, have brought easy access to original works from Asian countries, including web novels, light novels, literary RPGs, wuxia martial arts epics, and xianxia chi cultivation epics. As the number of Chinese, Korean,  and Japanese novels in English increased, and even Russian copies of the same genres, they inspired a similar boom in chinoiserie.

Some Western writers penned their own adventures in a mysterious East that never was, but should have been. See M. L Wang’s The Sword of Kaigen, Tao Wong’s A Thousand Li series, and M. H. Johnson’s Silver Fox and Western Hero series. Others wrote Western versions of favorite Eastern genres, including the entirety of the current litRPG/GameLit scene, an early boom in kaiju monsters, and the regrettable prevalence of harem sexual comedies. Brandon Varnell has distinguished himself as the front runner in original English light novels. And a giant robot scene continues to simmer beneath the science fiction waves of space marines and stormtroopers, led by Chaney and Taggert’s The Messenger series and Brian Niemeier’s Combat Frame XSeed. Finally, a few writers, like Dakota Krout in his Divine Dungeon series, have melted Eastern and Western ideas and influences into Matrix-like newness. And for each author mentioned, there are five others awaiting discovery.

Readers’ thirsts for chinoiserie and japonisme have yet to be quenched, and those with that taste may soon find themselves in a silver age of Eastern-flavored adventures.

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