#CEF shut the fuck up challange

[pagesofangels]

I think that tag came from PBA, who is black. Either way, still a mean thing to say and still a shit, divisive mindset to have. 🙄

Post by phandombigotryarchive reblogged by @cefantomeenhabitnoir / @trans-flint / @transphandom with endorsing tags. 

Knowing that a number of Pharoga writers, artists, and fans are not white shines a different light on this post, doesn’t it? This remark of “complicity” being “in their blood” sounds messed up to me. Non-white Phantom of the Opera fans were harshly targeted by both PBA and the Asian Phan Collective - created specifically to antagonize Asian phans that did not agree with PBA or @trans-flint. Not only were they called racist, they were accused of being “white-aligned” for not falling in line with PBA’s rhetoric. Check out the tags on this PBA post: 

Neither PBA nor @trans-flnt are from Iran, or Asia, or can claim a lived experience of Orientalism. But many of the writers and artists they targeted with their harassment and call-outs and accusations of racism and Orientalism were not white. Who were they trying to “educate”? Who were they trying to “protect”?

PBA and @trans-flint seemed to operate with the assumption that the entire PotO fandom is made up of white cishet women. For full disclosure, I fit that description myself. But it is clear from the outpouring of stories shared last week about harassment within PotO, that this is a diverse fandom with people from all over the world, of various perspectives. Attacking all Pharoga writers and artists inherently attacks Asian creators too. And neither PBA nor @trans-flint are in the position to call the work of Asian creators “Orientalist”. 

Numerous testimonies of the ways PBA and @trans-flint have hurt non-white PotO writers, artists, and fans can be found in the notes and tags of this post and this post.

Is there racism in phandom? Yes, definitely. Should we do everything we can to fight against it? Absolutely. Should we let these two be the moral authority of what is and isn’t racism and Orientalism? No. 

Should we let them scare off any more writers and artists from our fandom? Fuck no. 

[pagesofangels]

This is the best post I've seen on the subject, and a lovely final word on the matter. Couldn't have said it better myself!

So, I still have a few more things to say. And then I think I might be done with this topic. I write this for the record.

One of the strangest things about @phandombigotryarchive /@wjsnsfriend is how she turned on so many people who once supported her fics. She has since changed usernames on ao3 and made her Pharoga fics anonymous – but they’re still there. And you can see all the people who left kudos and nice comments who were eventually harassed and driven out by PBA/@wjsnsfriend and @trans-flint.

The only interaction I had with PBA/@wjsnsfriend before February 2021 was when I left a nice comment on her fic Tristeza não tem fim. I was excited to see that title and to read in the notes that she had been inspired by the 1959 film Orfeu Negro. The interaction we had in her comments is probably why she mistakenly thinks I am Brazilian. Because she assumes things without knowing anything.

I’ve written two posts about this complicated film here and here. It is both one of my favorite films and also a deeply problematic piece of art. So problematic that Barack Obama wrote about his negative experience watching it in his book Dreams of My Father. In other words, it needs to be viewed with nuance. Nuance PBA did not lend Madame Faust’s work.

While Orfeu Negro is a Portuguese-language film, made in Brazil with an all Black cast, it was directed by a white French man, Marcel Camus. He was married to the lead actress, the Black American Marpessa Dawn, at the time of filming.

Among many issues with the film is a really awful and racist scene involving watermelon. I mention this scene in this post. [Photo after the cut]

I don’t criticize the quality of PBA’s fic or her use of Orfeu Negro as inspiration. I think the film is important enough to transcend the racism inherent in most films made at that time. But I find it extremely hypocritical that she would excoriate another author for addressing themes of slavery and racism in fanfiction while uncritically enjoying a film made by a white French man as problematic as this one. 

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