#Mammifer

[lesbianrobin]

ok actually i changed my mind i'm gonna use my words i do think there's a big problem with mammification in this fandom re: athena, hen, and sometimes karen that is encouraged by the widespread woobification of buck. at the same time these characters Do have meaningful caring relationships with one another in canon. those perpetuating the mammy stereotype can fall back on that as a defense but the problem is not "black female character cares about white male character," the problem is "black female character exists to coddle white male character." you Can actually write one character caring about another without making them a simpering matron figure it's not That hard i promise.

also this is gonna sound mean but i do think a lot of the people falling into this racial stereotype are all-around bad writers who turn every character into stock stereotypes because they don't know how to write human beings which is also how we get like. grrr angry latino eddie. perpetually talking like a five-year-old chris. buck who was born with glass bones and paper skin and every morning he breaks his legs and every afternoon he breaks his arms and at night he lies awake in agony until his heart attacks put him to sleep.

so i think this is kind of a two-prong problem one prong being that some people are just not good writers and they copy the simplified stereotypical versions of these characters from Other fics without much reflection and the other prong being that people are racist. these characterizations Should incite reflection. you Should look at that and say, wait a minute, this isn't right.

anyway i have no authority to be speaking on racism but i just wanted to say that if you're feeling attacked because of how you write certain characters maybe like reflect on that. perhaps your critics have a point and you could do better. black characters should not exist solely for the purpose of supporting white characters.

[msexcelfractal]

Lucifer is traditionally translated as "light bringer" or "light bearer". Humans belong to the clade Scrotifera, meaning "scrotum bearer". In modern parlance, "scrotum-haver". So the Devil's name could translate to "light-haver". In light of the frequent controversy surrounding the use of agab terminology to refer to anatomy, and the awkwardness of terms like "penis-haver", I'd like to propose a pair of new terms: Vulvifer and Penifer.

You can then phrase poll questions nicely, for example:

Mammifers, do you prefer to wear a bra?

[alcnfr]

Case-Bearing Leaf Beetle (Bassareus mammifer) or so I am theorizing. It was sooo tiny this is the only photo that came out at all.

[pharoahkingkiller]

Idk what's up lately but I'm real tired of this trend of 'woke' yt people in the kink scene who see black femme doms as a infinite scene simulator and I'm gonna be real it's giving mammification and I'm so sick of it. It's so clear in the way that you talk to us the only thing that you want is to fetishize us. Yall hop into the gfd tags and act appalled that there's a need for mutual desire and devotion for you to even get acknowledged. Black femmes regardless of gender get so much shit on the regular stop acting surprised that in our sex lives we want to be treated like the gods yall put us on a pedestal to be while spitting in the face of our dreams. Stop fucking with black femmes or educate yourselves and fix your shit

[faetoothofficial]

Song of the Day

[my-km-me]

Fuck Seth Rogan

Of course in the new tmnt they gotta make the Black April fat. They didn't have this "body positive" inclusivity when she was white. They wouldn't do this if she was light skinned or mixed or non-Black poc. And dumbasses will defend this not understanding the is obvious mammification and white Hollywood being passive aggressive about Black representation. Make a white character non-lightskinned Black, then make them as unlikable as you could in design and/or behavior. It's tiring. "Allies" will defend this along with Black Velma and Black Shaggy, not understanding that those type of representations are humiliating reps. None of us asked for these. At all.

[myfeministresearch]

Viola Davis’s portrayal of Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder was a complex and layered performance. In the series, she played a defense attorney and law professor, a mentor to her students, and a force of nature in the courtroom. But beneath the surface, Annalise is a character who is constantly breaking (and being broken by) the impossible standards placed on her as a Black woman. Her story complicates the "strong Black woman" trope: she is resilient, but that resilience is a survival mechanism, a reaction to a world that demands she be indestructible.

Annalise’s role as a mother figure to her students underscores this complexity. She shields her students from the legal and moral consequences of their actions, but in doing so, she sacrifices her own safety, reputation, and mental health. This dynamic reflects Rachel Alicia Griffin’s (2015) critique of Olivia Pope as a modern mammy figure: a Black woman tasked with cleaning up everyone else’s mess while being denied her own peace.

However, Annalise pushes back against this role in important ways. She is not endlessly giving, nor is she always kind or selfless. Unlike the traditional mammy archetype, she is unapologetically flawed and demands recognition for her sacrifices. Her anger, grief, and vulnerability are not hidden but are integral parts of her character. These traits allow her to resist the constraints of mammification, even as she is repeatedly pulled into this narrative.

-------

Rachel Alicia Griffin: “Olivia Pope as Problematic and Paradoxical - A Black Feminist Critique of Scandal’s ‘Mammification’”(Chapter 3) in Adrienne Trier-Bieniek (ed.) Feminist Theory and Pop Culture. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. 2015, 34-48.

237 words

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Okay so this was posted in the meljay tag so I'm allowed to be a bit of a cunt about it. But I am sincere in my criticisms. So, firstly I'd just like to remind you all that it is Black History Month and generally the expectation that comes with that is to maybe not regurgitate and perputuate harmful racial stereotypes the original media in itself did not include.

I will emphasise you do not have to like meljay but if you think you're doing Mel any favours by relishing in the comedy of her being unloved by the only character in the show who was sincere with her, you are not.

Now, if you were to make a comic about her falling in love with someone else, lest or sevika or an oc, there's validity in that, but that's obviously not what this is. it is explicitly not centring Mel, provides her no agency, and is actually quite a mockery of her borderline, a mammification. Now, if you don't like Mel by herself, that's fantastic. You could also just not draw her at all. Like for real.

I say this with the hope that you guys - because there are several people who think along these lines - are considerate in your approach of characters belonging to backgrounds and bodies that are unlike yours and have a distinctive and mostly horrifying relationship with media representation.

Also, tag etiquette, this does not belong in the meljay tag if it is portraying them like that.

Happy Black History Month to Mel Medarda, I guess.

Jayce and Mel

This is part 1 of a mini comic series I'm doing about Jayce and Mel break up

[suite116]

Aaron B. Tuner (via Sumac at The Underworld: See Gripping Photos of Post-Metal Titans in U.K. | Revolver)

[womenovmetal]

Faith Coloccia

Mammifer

[mind--funeral]

Mammifer/Pyramids

[hourglassfish]

I really love your account and your thoughts on the bear!

I really struggle with this discourse around romantic, platonic and sexual love within the bear, and between Syd and Carmy. I feel like it reveals a lot of the limits we place on 'love' as a concept, but also on how we understand Black women in culture.

Cus like - let's get it out the way - would we need to keep making this point if she was a white woman? Swap her and Molly Gordon around, watch the conversation change overnight! I feel compelled to defend the sydcarmy ship, because so much of what people say is Mammification 101, and the platonic soulmate feels like the embodiment the cultural idea imposed on Black women for centuries. I have been that person. It did me so much harm. Never again! (I am bemused that people find it inconceivable that these two hot, passionate, intense people, engaged in the deeply erotic work of feeding those around them and pushing their bodies to their physical limits might want to fuck. ESPECIALLY when they are framed the way they are. It's all extremely romantic and sexual, the more I watch them together under that table the worse it gets)

But on the other hand, I believe, deeply, that western cultures, particularly the heteropatriachal white ones, do not have enough language for all the kinds of love there are, and that it impoverishes us all spiritually. Because I don't believe those acts of love can or should or are restricted to the role of wife or romantic lover. They're defo not in queer frameworks - Alok V Menon writes beautifully about romantic friendship -

'i want a world where friendship is appreciated as a form of romance. i want a world where when people ask if we are seeing anyone we can list the names of all of our best friends and no one will bat an eyelid. i want monuments and holidays and certificates and ceremonies to commemorate friendship. i want a world that doesn't require us to be in a sexual/romantic partnership to be seen as mature (let alone complete). i want a movement that fights for all forms of relationships, not just the sexual ones. i want thousands of songs and movies and poems about the intimacy between friends. i want a world where our worth isn't linked to our desireability, our security to our monogamy, our family to our biology.'

and also -

'Friendship is the most sacred form of love. Home is less a physical location, more a good conversation with a friend. Take me there: the opposite of small talk. Romantic love is fickle and prone to spontaneous combustion. Friendship, it sticks. Keeps my feet on this earth. My head held high. Reminds me why I’m here.'

Donna Haraway speaks very explicitly about the love that exists between people that build something together, how deep and absorbing that can be - and I have felt and experienced that love, built a company with someone who became a friend, held hands as we walked to meetings we were nervous about, shared beds when we couldn't afford more than one hotel room at a conference, noticed we were finishing each others sentences, dressing similarly, building a shared philosophy as we funnelled huge amounts of ourselves into this thing we were building together that meant so much to and for us. There were moments where we were possessive and jealous of one another, we knew each other's families, she saw me at my very, very worst. I think that relationship was deeply loving, deeply intimate, deeply romantic in many ways - she came over once at 3 in the morning to make me mac and cheese. Her fiancee dropped her off! When we stopped working together, it was like a break up, and I grieved it, and there was no space for that grief, because the depth of that love isn't recognised in the society. So much of heteropatriarchy runs on the notion that there is one special person that will fulfill if not all, then at least the vast majority of our needs - but I don't think this is true, I think it's a myth that actively fucks us all over. It makes life cold and terrifying when you're single, and it can trap you in bad relationships if you fear they're going to be the only source of care. I think we can tesselate with one another in limitless ways, and that the exchange can be all sorts of things. There is a version of sydcarmy where their loving exchange is one where they both help each other come to terms with the respective griefs around their mothers, where Sydney supports Carmy in learning how to be a leader with the mental health presentations he has, and he supports her in her journey to a Michelin star, where they both figure out a model more like Kasama's (open 5 days a week for lunch service, 4 days a week for dinner service, with space to have a life), where together they make this massive chunk of their lives pleasurable. It could be one of the most meaningful, transformative relationships of their respective lives - and they can have other romantic and sexual loves outside of that, and it doesn't have to be an envious either or, or an abject extraction of labour. It can be a love of it's own.

that being said.

they should fuck

😉

“platonic soulmate” sounds, to me, an awful lot like doing all the work of being someone’s wife and then not getting all the benefits - someone to hold you when you’re sad or sick or just need a cuddle, someone to do half the chores, someone who makes you feel special, makes you laugh, takes care of you, listens to you and takes your feelings seriously, who takes your side, who puts the time and effort and love in to learn to fuck you just right

i’m not sure how it’s more “feminist” and “pure” to imagine a woman getting a raw deal like that. or why another man or woman (if she’s queer) would put up with her giving all of that wife-y care and time and passion (for minimum 14-16+ hours out of 24, six days a week) and energy away to a “platonic soulmate”

how is that more feminist than a woman wanting and then getting what she wants and all the pleasures and costs that come with it? why is only paying the cost and not getting the full deal inherently purer?

anyway here’s Wonderwall Sappho (translated by Anne Carson)

because I prayed this word: I want

[hus400]

Mammification in the TV show Claws

Alicia Griffin’s analysis of the TV show Scandal and Olivia Pope’s often stereotypical portrayal made me think of other TV series I’ve watched with a black woman leading character. The one I could think of with a similar portrayal to Pope was Desna Simms, the black leading character in the American show called Claws (2017-). Similarly to Scandal, this show has black female creators as well (the writer is Janine Sherman Barrois).

According to the storyline, Desna has a Manicure Salon in Central Florida where – along with manicuring nails - she’s laundering money. She works with four other women (two white, one Latin American and one Asian American): together they are not only colleagues, but a group of best friends and supporters of each other as well. From the very beginning of the series, they are doing money laundering in the Salon for the local mafia, which has a very male-dominated structure. The mafia is making use of the Salon and the women working there, often threatening and bribing them. As the story evolves, the women act together and Desna fights for a leading position within the mafia - successfully. However, the more they got involved in the “business”, the “dirtier” it gets and Desna finds herself in a position where she has to clean up after everyone and take all the consequences alone. There is a strong resemblance here with Pope’s character, that channels the image of the black mammy, always shown as a loyal and selfless helper.

Desna is portrayed as a sexually attractive black woman, who is the main leader of their group of five, always making the final decision herself. She is usually shown as a rational thinker, who makes quick and wise choices in time of a crisis. At the same time, she is involved in romantic relationships during the first three seasons, showing her emotional side, but never prioritizing her love life. Here we can already find examples which undermine her mammification. Moreover, in the season 2 finale, her friends unite and save her life when she’s been kidnapped, making their relationship and support a mutual one.

Overall, I think there are a lot of similarities in how stereotypically Desna and Olivia are portrayed and how they’re being de-mammified as well, which might be a pattern how black women leading characters are shown in US TV series. To add a difference between the two shows, Claws is a definitely less popular one, showing a lot of diversity at the same time. I don’t only refer here to the group of women with different racial backgrounds, but Claws has several LGBTQIA characters (e.g. head of the mafia) in it and challenges taboos about mental illness as well.

[asinghsneha]

What Men Want- Mammification of Henson’s character

Rachel Alicia Griffin in her text “Olivia Pope as Problematic and Paradoxical” situates the character of Olivia Pope as both paradoxical and progressive. She explains how her character is mammified and de-mammified at the same time through portrayal of controlling imagery. Her texts hints at the contemporary representations of black women oscillate between the controlling images of superwomen and docile images of mammy with black conforming and at the same time non-conforming to either of them. Such trend can also be seen in the portray of Taraji P. Henson’s character as Ali in What Men Want, 2019 American comedy film directed by Adam Shankan. This film is sort of a rough remake of the film What Women Want which was directed by Nancy Meyers in 2000.

Henson works at an all-white male dominated environment as an executive in a sports agency. She is portrayed as a powerful superwoman, driven by a passion for her career, who works constantly to meet the demands of the all-white work environment. Her never-ending work and absence of a personal life mammifies her.

Using snarking remarks and sarcasm, she is able to survive in a toxic masculine work environment, however, she constantly makes an effort to fit in. She recognises that her talents and efforts are not been rewarded in this male-dominated environment and loses a promotion at the job because of her “inability to understand men.” Accidently, she gets a magical power to read men’s minds, which she thinks will help her understand men. Using these powers, she tried to fix her professional problems, the problems of her clients and comforts them. Her role is mammifed as she is driven by a constant desire to fix these problems, even though, the motivation to do that is advancement and recognition at work. Another site of mammification is absence of a personal life beyond her profession. She goes to far by using her boyfriend and pretending that he is her husband just so she can please her client so that he thinks she is a stable family woman.

Like Olivia Pope, Henson’s character also suffers the paradox of mammification where she is shown as a powerful, controlling Black woman but at the same time someone who works 24/7 to meet the needs of her clients.

[the-last-dillpickle]

an interesting note on the issue of Ben Sisko and mammification--based on what i’ve seen of older fic and fandom--is that this is something that’s only really come about in the last ten years or so. now tbc, the ds9 fandom has always had issues regarding race, and Ben has always been among the main cast members with fewer fics focused on him but the obsession with Sisko as the crew’s dad wasn’t really there early on. He mostly just played the stern commander/captain character

[moonsdancer]

was going through your archive searching for Mel stuff and saw you had reposted a pic of her by Firolian a few months ago. Which surprised me, because that man is really despicable. The content he draws Mel in always involves racist slave fantasies and sexual assault. Idk if you knew, so I wanted to tell you in case you were not aware. No need to respond, just wanted to make sure you knew.

Thanks for the heads up anon, once I find it, I'll delete it if it reflects this fuckery (hopefully I would have noticed that though, and refrain from posting their art in the future). I honestly had no idea about this person so I'm publishing so others know too. Yikes.

The sad reality of being a Mel lover is that I often take almost any art that comes my way unless she's whitewashed or whatever, because there is so little for her tbh. But good to know about this artist's fuckery.

I've changed my mind, ignore the above.

Having now seen the artwork in question, I actually don't know that I agree with your assessment anon.

It merely looks like kinky bdsm art. Nothing indicates it's not safe, sane and consensual. Black women can enjoy nasty, filthy, kink and sex, too. And as someone who's been sitting on a power exchange sub!Mel fic for months, this is actually quite inspiring lol. I may be looking at a different piece to what you saw but I rescind my original post gbh.

Even though the skin tone is a bit too fair, I'm actually cool with that artwork (only saw one). Better that than the aggressive mammification of Mel that this fandom enjoys. Given how fandom treats Black women in love, sex and romance, the rush to desexualise and de-romanticize them, and claim it's empowering (because Strong Black Woman Don’t Need to be allowed love or sensuality), this requires more nuance imo. Would be an interesting discussion to have tbh, I'm sure we all have different stances in this.