#accents are shorthand for class

[aberrantabby]

I feel like I have the normal American accent... BUT I can and have been known to slip into a New York or possibly Italian American New York accent from time to time, and I don't notice but it's usually only when I'm talking about where I grew up, and I think that's neat.

It's weird to me because it really does feel like there's a standard American accent.

rb this and tell me what ur accent is. this has no purpose except the fact i just realized i could have like... mutuals with cockney accents or newfoundland accents or something and thats just wild

[vinelark]

as a kansan i really appreciate you bringing up the possibility of kon having a midwestern accent. i’m not really sure where this idea i see in superfam fics sometimes of kansans talking like southerners comes from, but no one i know in real life talks like that, even in the most rural parts of the state. i do know people with conditional country accents, but they’re generally from rural missouri (which despite being at the same latitude is actually a lot more culturally southern than kansas!) and only talk that way when they’re IN rural missouri, surrounded by other rural missourians. us kansans consider ourselves midwesterners! i say “ope” on a daily basis and i think kon should too!

Let Kon Say Ope 2k24! [re: this previous post]

this was really interesting to read, thank you! re: talking like southerners, i was kicking this around in my mind and i wonder if sometimes there’s a rural/southern conflation happening. i grew up in a rural area of the US that was not southern (nor midwestern) but there were definitely a lot of...southern aesthetics going on? like even in our non-southern region, sometimes "southern" was almost a shorthand for "rural"--specifically a white, working-class idea of southern living that shows up like a motif on the country radio station, in movies, etc. as a contrast to Big City Living. (the “sweet home alabama” vibe, if you will.) as in, it felt like most of the cultural touchstones for rural living were markedly southern. no idea if this shorthand is replicated in other regions (though i’ve def noticed the association in some friends who grew up coastal/in cities) and i can’t speak intelligently about this beyond my own half-baked observation, but i might guess that some people see “farm” / “small rural town” and auto-populate sweet home alabama.

or i’m overthinking it and it’s just a case of failed geography lessons 😅

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

do u have a reccomendation for what form of shorthand to learn first. deeply interested-- i saw ur reply on that one post and then u seem cool so i just followed u and figured i would ask here

hello !!! thank you for asking !!!!!!!!!! and im so sorry this is so long lol

If you want my biased personal recommendation, I would suggest Pitman New Era. That's what I use, and I think its the best balance of efficiency vs difficulty to learn, and I like that the learning curve is such that, as you learn, you apply more rules that simplify the writing process more (meaning that earlier practice is still legible, if far less efficient). This compared to other forms (like Gregg) where, as you learn, youre just kind of generally suffering and trying to get your brain to memorise things and differentiate very similar looking strokes. I find Pitman also lends itself well to using in conjunction with other "standard" writing styles so you can take notes that are enough in "standard" writing to be skimmable while using enough shorthand to be much faster to write, basically maninmising writeing AND reading speed. [example below]

You can skip to the end for resources for Pitman and shorthand in general if this answer is sufficient :)

If you want a horrifically long, massively autistic answer that breaks down the three most popular/common styles, then thats what the rest of the post is !! It is so fucking long I am so sorry

Horrifically Long Answer:

I'm answering on the assumption that you would be learning for use with english. If you want to learn shorthand for another language there are a variety of options however I am less versed in them :( I'm also assuming you're asking out of personal interest rather than vocational, since certain jobs will recommend or require you learn certain styles of shorthand and it would be best to defer to that.

The most popular methods are Gregg, the various forms of Pitman (this is what I use), and Teeline. Gregg and Pitman are phonemic while Teeline is alphabetical. There are also a huge number of other, less popular forms of shorthand (as well as shorthand systems which are popular in/made for other languages). If you're interested in learning about these, check out the subreddit listed at the end of this post under "resources".

Teeline:

I know much less about Teeline, so I'll go into it less, but basically it is a "spelling-based" shorthand system -- that is, it is based off the standard spelling of words. It replaces latin letters which different forms that are faster to write and can be connected more efficiently, while removing extraneous letters from words. It is simpler to learn, in part because it is spelling-based, and also because it has fewer rules which further consolidate and shorten word forms. Due to this, it is ultimately much slower to write than the other two systems mentioned here (although you can still get up to good speeds !!). Like the other shorthand systems, you can learn to a more basic extent, or learn more advanced theory to maximise its capability and speed. Teeline is very standard for journalism and overall quite popular for professional use, however it is still in copyright and so there are far fewer resources available online. If you are interested in taking classes, however, I would assume those are available.

Teeline TL;DR: alphabetical, simplest to learn but less efficient, popular, still in copyright so fewer resources.

examples of Teeline:

[images sourced from wiki]

Pitman and Gregg: Phonemic Systems and Regional Accents:

As mentioned, Gregg and Pitman are phonemic. If you dont have any practice with phonemic writing systems, you might have luck starting out with shavian just to practice. also because shavian is fun :) (its one of the writing systems in my header !) Im saying this partly because I want more people to learn shavian and partly because I learned Shavian long before I learned Pitman and found that having that practice was helpful. In particular, if you have any accent other than RP, its helpful for figuring out either which vowel sounds and phonetic spellings are relevant to your accent and your pronunciation, or, should you choose to go a "standard" (RP) route, how certain words should be spelled despite how you may pronounce them. Using a "standard" RP approach can be helpful if you want people to more easily be able to read your writing or want to "match" the dictionary, but someone well versed in shorthand should be able to figure it out no matter what, and if its just for your personal use I'd suggest just going by your own regional pronunciations.

Pitman:

Pitman was an early shorthand system developed in the early to mid 1800s. It used to be the most popular shorthand system, however nowadays has been eclipsed in popularity by Teeline and/or Gregg, depending on the country and occupational context. However, it remains popular among enthusiasts and there are significant amount of resources available for learners and practitioners.

The main thing to know with Pitman is that words are built using different strokes for each consonant sound, and symbols attached to these consonants to mark vowels. These consonant sounds are differentiated by shape as well as line thickness. Voiced and unvoiced pairs of consonants (eg., T and D, C and G, S and Z, etc.) are designated using the same strokes, with the voiced consonant of the pair being thicker than the other. This line variation is something which is normally achieved with a pencil, though I mostly use fountain pens to write and so I use flex nibs to achieve the same effect.

Vowels are marked with certain dots or dashes placed along corresponding consonant markings, For increased writing speed, most vowel markings can also be left off in Pitman, and instead where on the line the first stroke begins serves to signal the first vowel.

Pitman uses short forms (also called "logograms" or "grammalogues," depending on the version and book you use) which are abbreviated forms of commonly used words (see picture below for a few examples). Different versions of Pitman have different numbers of grammalogues.

With Pitman, efficiency is increased through a combination of memorising various short forms and implementing rules which simplify strokes. (Examples of these can be seen in the picture below. probably need to click to be able to actually see anything rip) This allows you to have certain "levels" of complexity, where as you learn more complex rules you increase in efficiency, but you can also eschew some of those rules if they are too complex for you without sacrificing legibility to you or proficient practitioners. Probably someone somewhere on reddit has something to say about that but tbh who gives a fuck. You can do whatever you want forever. Its known to be very common for people to come up with their own personal shortcuts and variations in whatever shorthand system they use, and imo sometimes that just means looking at a rule and going "well thats stupid👍" and ignoring it. Pitman can seem really intimidating, however just remember that you can ignore rules for as long as you want until they are less intimidating to learn and apply.

There are 3 "main" versions of Pitman: the original system, Pitman New Era, and Pitman 2000. New Era has the most complex system of rules and abbreviations, while 2000 simplified many of these and got rid of most of the abbreviations. I personally use New Era, in part because I was able to access more resources for this, but largely because I found the increased number of rules and abbreviations to be better in the long run. If you are willing to invest more time and effort into learning a more complicated system, with the tradeoff that it will be faster and easier once you are proficient, you should learn New Era. The main benefit of 2000 is that the rules are simplified. I would say, however, that the downsizing of the list of abbreviations is not a benefit. While it in theory requires you to memorise more individual symbols, in practice these abbreviations are commonly used enough that they can become automatic with very little practice. If you decide to learn 2000, I would suggest taking he time to go through the list of abbreviations from New Era and, if not learning all of them, picking out the ones you think you are likely to use with semi-regularity. If you compile them into a cheat sheet and hand it next to your desk, they should be easy to practice using and become memorised really quickly. I myself dont have every abbreviation memorised, but instead focused on ones i use regularly, and often go through the list again to pick out new ones to learn and add to my lexicon as I think they may be used.

Pitman TL;DR: phonemic, differentiates strokes through line thickness, rules can be applied or discarded as best suits your practice without sacrificing readability. Increased speed and efficiency is achieved through extra short forms for commonly used words, and rules which simplify strokes.

examples of Pitman:

[first image mine, other two images sourced from Long Live Pitman's (website, linked below), and wiki]

Gregg:

Gregg is a very popular form of shorthand which utilises round, smooth strokes with the intent of increasing writing efficiency and legibility.

Where Pitman uses variation in line thickness to differentiate between strokes, Gregg uses line length. Both consonants and vowels are marked with designated strokes (compared to Teeline, which has vowel strokes but tends to omit them where possible, and Pitman, which adds vowel marking to consonant strokes or signals vowels through figure placement), and vowels are largely kept in-line. With Gregg, efficiency is achieved through the use of short forms, prefixes, and suffixes; "phrasing", (wherein certain phrases, such as "I may be," "one of the most," "by the," etc. are combined into a single stroke); as well as through the more efficient way in which strokes are joined together into words.

Left-handed people sometimes write Gregg from right to left.

Like Pitman, there are a number of different versions of Gregg, however Gregg seems to have significantly more versions and significantly less consensus around which version is best or why. I am not the best person to give advice on which one is best or information on the different types, so if you decide to go with Gregg I'd suggest checking out the subreddit or some of the other resources linked below for information on that.

examples of Gregg:

[Images sourced from wiki and gregg-shorthand.com]

Comparisons:

I would say that one of the main things to consider if choosing between Gregg and Pitman is which you think is more intuitive to read and write for you. Which sounds obvious lol but like. as an example. I struggle with spatial awareness and stuff like estimating lengths so for me Gregg is not a good option since it differentiates certain consonants through their length and I would have a hard time writing those consistently or easily reading them. Pitman is easier for me in that regard, as well as since it is more "choppy" (for lack of better word) which makes it much easier for me to recognise certain words without having to break them down, as well as making it easier for me to break them down to read them should I need to. On the other hand, some people find Gregg to be easier since its much "smoother" and flowier to write, which can be much faster and more intuitive for some.

Compared to Pitman, Gregg has significantly fewer rules to learn, making it in theory simpler, however, due to the way it is written, it requires significantly more practice to be able to consistently properly write and tell apart certain letters, words, and phrases. Once you are proficient in this, it is by far more efficient, however Gregg is very difficult to use while you are still figuring it out. Pitman, on the other hand, has significantly more rules, however you can continue to easily use it as you learn these rules and add them into your practice. The downside of this is that once you are fully proficient, it is less efficient than full proficiency Gregg. Essentially, the main difficulty with learning Gregg is telling apart different strokes and writing them so that they can be differentiated, while the main difficulty with Pitman is in learning the rules.

I havent talked much about Teeline because honestly I know far less about it, because it is so much harder to find resources on, and honestly because I'm a bit of an old man and personally prefer the older styles lol. Its popular for a reason, though !

I know it probably sounds like I'm shilling a lot for Pitman, however thats just because its what I use and know the most about, as well as because it is what works best for my unique considerations. Most people would probably be more likely to recommend Gregg (for a number of very good reasons !), however when I was first deciding which shorthand system to learn I saw very few people making the points that were most relevant to me (eg, that pitman can be used AS you learn, whereas Gregg is more of a "its useless until you actually have it down" situation, that Gregg is really difficult if you struggle with differentiating lengths, etc) so I feel the need to mention them

TL;DR: Everything:

Ultimately you should use whatever you think is best for you :) I'd say Teeline is your best bet if you are in journalism, or want something easier. Gregg is best if you want something popular, smoother to write, and extremely fast, and are willing and able to put in significant amounts of consistent work and practice to master it. Pitman is best if you want something you can use as you learn, and that's somewhere in between Teeline and Gregg in terms of difficulty and efficiency. If you wanted, you could probably learn Teeline as well as either Pitman or Gregg, but learning both Pitman and Gregg would be much more difficult.

Other:

I take all my notes by hand, generally using a mix of palmer method cursive and pitman shorthand to do so, however, I also have to write a lot of papers, and when I do, I get frustrated at having to type out whole words I normally write in shorthand. This is kind of the curse of shorthand, you get really annoyed having to type out "because". To deal with this, while typing in a word processor, I use an alphabetic shorthand I've come up with over time. I basically input a bunch of auto-replacements into my spellcheck, so that I can have shortcuts for commonly used words set up. so basically i can write: "here, . cnstrctn ` ntnl idntty served to lgtmse the ntn stte" and it will autocorrect to "here, the construction of national identity served to legitimise the nation state". Highly recommend this if you do a lot of writing, especially if a lot of the same topics and words come up a lot. Use whatever shortened versions feel intuitive for you, instead of something you've consciously + intentionally constructed, otherwise youre more likely to forget them or have them get mixed up.

Resources:

stenophile.com has a huge number of shorthand resources linked, particularly for Gregg and Pitman. If you end up choosing either of these I'd suggest starting here to find instruction books.

this website can transliterate into Pitman and Gregg, DEK and Stolze-Schrey (two German shorthand systems), and Sütterlinschrift (a historical German script)(also in my header !)

r/fastwriting is run by a very nice very dedicated man who posts a huge amount of content and resources on various shorthand methods, including lesser known ones. If you decide you want to learn/learn about a different shorthand system, he's the guy to talk to. This subreddit differs from r/shorthand or system-specific subreddits like r/greggshorthand, as those are more discussion-based for learners and practitioners, while r/fastwriting is better for research and being autistic. R/shorthand does have a number of resources listed for more popular shorthand systems, and is a good place to go for advice while learning.

Teeline:

blog with a few free resources

Pitman:

Pitman New Era Instructor and Dictionary. These are what I largely used to learn.

Long Live Pitman's: a website dedicated to Pitman, full of good information for beginning learners.

if you learn Pitman, as mentioned the line variation can be accomplished with a pencil, however if you want to get a bit fancy with it while staying on a budget, Fountain Pen Revolution carries a number of cheap yet reliable fountain pens with flex nibs, such as the FPR Indus or Himalaya. I'd suggest the steel flex rather than the ultra-flex for shorthand unless you have a lighter hand or have practiced with a flex pen before. I've also heard good things about the Noodler's Ahab pen but honestly find its very temperamental, needs tweaking (not ideal if youre a fp beginner) and just not as good. Both FPR and Noodler's pens are made of bioresin and must be kept away from solvents like isopropyl alcohol !!!

Gregg:

Gregg Phrasebook. Short guide to phraseology for Gregg

Gregg-shorthand.com: seems like a good place to start for learning Gregg. Answers some beginner's questions, and provides learning aids and reading material (transliterated into Gregg)

r/greggshorthand

greggshorthand.gibhub.io: a more in depth website with a number of book pdfs and lessons for various forms of Gregg.

[shallowrambles]

wait are you pro-ship or aren't you

I'm live and let live. Ultimately, I don't view female-predominant fandom spaces as much of a threat. If at all.

But, contrary to popular option, I don't actually think ideas and fantasies are harmless, and deep down, even with our lip serve to "killing the cop inside," we all know this.

Ideas matter, and ideas affect real life. We're almost always in the process of judging how dangerous an idea is, how much we think that idea attenuates actual behavior, and to what degree we allow them to exist and spread. Much of that involves observing the context of where and how the idea appears.

It's why I will always love the movie Quills. It's a bit of an unanswerable ethical question, really. Sociological behavior is multi-factorial. These things are notoriously hard to study. Average folks muddle our way through best we can.

Part of it too is, "do I feel like the spread of this idea affect attitudes that in turn affect behavior that in turn affects my real life in a meaningful way?"

That's just life. We're all doing it to some degree.

Lotsa folks are anti-censorship until they perceive the other side as spreading "dangerous propaganda and brainwashing." Lotsa people are "pro-free will" until the other side starts supporting the Wrong Things (TM).

It's why people are good with shutting down MAGA shit and Blood-and-Soil crap on campuses. We call the censorship the "consequences of free speech," "oh, it's just the majority rising up in dissent" etc etc. But the reality is, we have judged the idea to be harmful. Contagious. And even when people are freely choosing the trap of these ideas, we think the harms to society outweigh the benefits of the unfiltered freedom on a megaphone.

So, yeah. I'm "proship," but because I think the degree of harm is very small, not because I think some written ideas are magically harmless and insulated from having an effect on real-life behavior. That's just not what history shows. I don't find it to be based in reality.

For the record, I actually view the gleeful fetishization of incest and low-class stereotyping as actually affecting the lives of the very poor. I think it perpetuates attitudes that have immediate effects on our medical but also indirect ones on our access to jobs, education, etc. And people don't care, because the aesthetic and the belief systems of the region are too shitty to deserve respect, and there's this idea that Those People Deserve the Jokes, or Can't Help it if it's True...they're so "hateful that they deserve it." (Meanwhile, want shorthand for incest? Give 'em a hick aesthetic. Flannel! Want shorthand for stupidity, give 'em a hick accent.)

The fact is, ppl would rather bask in low-country incest jokes and toothless jokes than extend meaningful help...or even lobby for increased dental care or access to education. "Those people do it to themselves," we say. We can look at other regions in the world and see the chokehold of propaganda, zealous nationalism, and lack of resources/education, but we sometimes can't see it in our own backyard.

But THAT SAID, I don't think being proship is harmful to most people or society at large, not in the the way that structural pollution is to low-income areas, and inequitable funding for education is. Rich bitches beating off in the privacy of their own homes to the fetishization of the results of poverty and the neuroses of the downtrodden in is a dime a dozen. To them, it represents a sexy, "forbidden" release from the horror of their boring, mundane lives.

For me, it boils down to this; it annoys me, so don't put it in my inbox. In the end, that's all that really matters. My opinion is separate to my boundary.

[dykepuffs]

Late to the ball on this but - Izzy Hands' voice felt like something important in its own right. A man who was taken deadly seriously, who had a high voice, and not like a pure-clean-boy-soprano, not a voice that was usually soft but that turned into a big bassy booming roar when raised, but just an "unattractive" voice by normal standards.

I feel like there's not much out there, for sort of vocal positivity? Like, having a reedy voice, a voice that doesn't carry well, a crackly or breathy or otherwise roopy voice, and especially a high voice, on a man is usually seen as a joke or as disgusting, a sign of moral badness, or immaturity, or of just not being worth taking seriously. Especially in conjunction with having a "tough" northern accent, it's something that shows will often use as a shorthand for comedy (as in "haha, this guy talks like a hard man, but is so squeaky" even though your regional accent is just the thing you grew up with, not all Geordies are actually football hooligans, not every Cockney is a Kray, etc) so it was nice to have that not being a running gag.

(Obv, Con O'Neil in reality is a singer and an actor so it's not like that is the only voice he can do, but I liked that this was the one he chose)

(Also, gosh, once again the straight people writing a queer story didn't fully understand the implications of the tropes they were leaning into, the abled people didn't understand what they were doing with a story about being crippled, the class structure goes unaddressed, te merav)

[mxtxfanatic]

from the perspective of a hillbilly (lol), i understand why translations do this, I mean it does effectively communicate to English speakers that a character/characters are uneducated or lower class or whatever. I don’t think that it necessarily makes a value judgment so it doesn’t bother me and I don’t think it would bother other people where I’m from. we’re pretty notorious for making fun of ourselves and not taking it too seriously when people associate our accent with lack of education.

I mean, but that’s exactly what it does: if a person uses “hillbillies” specifically to mean “savage cannibals,” that’s a value judgment they want and expect their audience to understand. They are using it purposely to call upon that value judgment. I’m not from Appalachia but I’m from the South, and it’s the same exact issue I have with people using the Southern accent to show that the characters using it are “low-class” or “stupid.” Creators using certain identities as shorthand for saying that characters belong to a particular population of “undesirables” are doing so for the purpose of getting their audience to actively support the way the narrative marks them as unworthy of humane treatment, concern, or thought, and this is both borne from and feeds into how these populations are caricatured outside of the fiction that replicates it.

Having an in-group laugh at the stereotypes that the mainstream makes about your particular marginalization does not make the stereotypes that reinforce the marginalization harmless.

[snafu-paladin]

Also this side of the pond: for the love of fuck stop using working class accents as a shorthand for bigotry. Just saying.

yall have got to be more normal about Southern people and I'm not kidding. enough of the Sweet Home Alabama incest jokes, enough of the idea that all Southerners are bigots and rednecks, and enough of the idea that the South has bad food. shut up about "trailer trash" and our accents and our hobbies!

do yall know how fucking nauseating it is to hear people only bring up my state to make jokes about people in poverty and incestuous relationships? how much shame I feel that I wasn't born up north like the Good Queers and Good Leftists with all the Civilised Folk with actual houses instead of small cramped trailers that have paper thin walls that I know won't protect me in a bad enough storm?

do yall know how frustrating it is to be trans in a place that wants to kill you and whenever you bring it up to people they say "well just move out" instead of sympathizing with you or offering help?

do yall understand how alienating it is to see huge masterposts of queer and mental health resources but none of them are in your state because theyre all up north? and nobody seems to want to fix this glaring issue because "they're all hicks anyways"

Southern people deserve better. we deserve to be taken seriously and given a voice in the queer community and the mental health space and leftist talks in general.

[stenoclasses]

Pitman English Shorthand Training Institute

In our fast-paced digital age, the ability to quickly and accurately capture spoken words is invaluable. Pitman Shorthand, a system developed in the 19th century by Sir Isaac Pitman, remains one of the most efficient methods of shorthand writing. The Steno Classes offer comprehensive training in Pitman Shorthand, equipping students with a timeless skill that enhances productivity and career opportunities.

The Significance of Pitman Shorthand

Pitman Shorthand is a phonetic system that uses simple, streamlined symbols to represent sounds, making it possible to write at the speed of speech. This system is particularly useful in professions that require fast and accurate transcription, such as journalism, court reporting, and secretarial work. Unlike other methods, Pitman Shorthand emphasizes the representation of sounds rather than letters, allowing for greater speed and efficiency.

Structure of The Steno Classes

The Steno Classes are meticulously designed to cater to both beginners and those seeking to refine their shorthand skills. The curriculum is divided into several stages, each focusing on different aspects of Pitman Shorthand:

1. Introduction to Pitman Shorthand**: The course begins with an overview of the Pitman system, explaining its phonetic principles and the importance of stroke thickness and position. Students learn the basic symbols that represent consonants and vowels.

2. Basic Techniques**: Beginners are introduced to common words and phrases, learning how to write them using shorthand symbols. Emphasis is placed on developing speed and accuracy through repetitive practice.

3. Advanced Practices**: Advanced students focus on more complex transcription tasks, including the use of abbreviations and phrases. They practice transcribing longer passages and are trained to handle various accents and speaking speeds.

4. Real-time Reporting**: This stage trains students in real-time transcription, a crucial skill for court reporters and live captioners. Students learn to keep up with fast-paced speech and to accurately capture every word spoken.

5. Integration with Technology**: Modern stenography often involves digital tools. The Steno Classes include training on stenotype machines and software, enabling students to combine traditional shorthand techniques with contemporary technology.

Benefits of Learning Pitman Shorthand

Learning Pitman Shorthand through The Steno Classes offers numerous benefits. Firstly, it greatly enhances productivity by enabling the rapid transcription of speech. Professionals can save hours of work, allowing them to focus on more important tasks. Additionally, shorthand sharpens listening skills and attention to detail, as practitioners must accurately capture every spoken word.

Furthermore, Pitman Shorthand is a valuable asset in the job market. Stenographers and court reporters are in high demand, with competitive salaries and job stability. The skill also opens doors to freelance opportunities, providing flexibility and additional income streams.

Success Stories

Graduates of The Steno Classes have achieved remarkable success in their careers. For example, Maria, a former student, now excels as a court reporter, attributing her career advancement to the comprehensive training she received. Similarly, James, who mastered Pitman Shorthand, has become a sought-after journalist, capturing interviews and speeches with unmatched precision.

Conclusion

The Steno Classes provide a comprehensive pathway to mastering Pitman Shorthand, offering an invaluable skill that enhances both professional efficiency and career prospects. Whether you are a beginner eager to learn the basics or an experienced professional looking to refine your skills, these classes offer a structured and supportive environment for mastering shorthand. By investing in Pitman Shorthand, individuals not only improve their productivity but also gain a competitive edge in the job market. In a world where time is of the essence, mastering Pitman Shorthand is a step towards greater efficiency and success.

[womensharpoon]

More autobiography

...I've rambled here about my art series. I haven't written much more about my life, but there is so much more, so here I go again. I left off in my teens, circa 1965, wandering New York, sneaking off from my suburban New Jersey home to explore and wonder and wander. Finally I graduated high school. My mother scored me a job in Monticello, NJ, at Swinging Bridge Lodge. It was a fabulous summer, I had my first sex, my first love, my days were filled with waiting tables and learning how to water ski from beautiful boys who wanted into my pants, my nights bartending (I was only 17 but everyone ignored that). My hair pulled up, a fake braid down my back, strumming my guitar, sitting behind the bar, cigarette dangling from my lips, wailing out Buffy St Marie and Joan Baez, life was sweet. It was then, one glowing evening sitting on the back porch of the Marina Restaurant, listening to Phil and Fanny Hype, the owners, chatter from the kitchen, gazing out across the lake, I visualized myself in my 80's, looking back at a life filled with adventures, telling my tales, and I knew between now and then I had to fulfill that self-prophecy...live my life to its fullest; grab every token, follow every path that presented itself, never let an opportunity go by. That was the real beginning, the intent to life my life to its fullest.

The summer passed. I returned to my NJ suburban home. I already had sculptures and drawings in a gallery in Englewood, the only artist showing, but Sharon Cohen, the owner, was so supportive she had somehow convinced my parents to let me pursue my studies at the University of Hartford Art School. It was a disaster. I didn't know how to be a student, I didn't follow the rules, I didn't understand or even know the rules and my fuck-it-all attitude annoyed the professors. The following summer, counselling at some Jewish sleep-away camp in upstate New York, teaching little people how to water ski, I met a girl who talked me into quitting school and getting a job at Columbia U. I just did it. The next day I was driving back home, I shucked the camp, college, and other people's ideas of what I should be doing with my life and slid out of it like an old, ratty, worn-out coat. I started commuting to my job at Low Library at Columbia on 116th St in NY, renovated my brother's unused bedroom into an art studio, got a bunch of drawings accepted at the Marissa del Rey Gallery on Madison Avenue, and my new life was underway.

Life slid into perfection. The 60's in New York was filled with civil disobedience, marches and sit-ins against the Vietnam war spilled out from Low Library onto the campus. I started seeing a boy who edited an underground newspaper filled with anarchy and insurrection, his tiny apartment in the Village smelled of Brussel Sprouts and cat litter and pot. Coming home at 2am stinking of Mary J, stoned out of my mind, sitting at the piano, composing and flying high. Commuting daily to my mindless job, weekends painting, drawing, exploring art, showings at my 2 galleries.

Mom decided I was drifting. Hear this voice, slightly Jewish NY accent, saying "Hally, you need something to fall back on. I signed you up for Katherine Gibbs. Go, you need a real job." Mothers. Can't live with them, can't be born without them. What could I do? I didn't have an alternative, the ultimate was given. My brother was living in Englewood with his friend, Dan Hennessey (yeah, he wasn't born in Toronto, he was born in Demarest, NJ -- Hi Dan, give me a call sometime) but he wouldn't let me move in, so I was trapped.

So I learned typing and shorthand. I hated every minute of it until I met Cheryl Vernon. Kindred spirit, gorgeous face with a marring split lip, we wore huge hats (hats were a must have at Katie Gibbs), white kid gloves that turned black from subway soot, heals under 2", skirts below your knees. It's 1968. Beatles, Donovan, folk rock. At the end of class every day we put our shoes and hats in our lockers, we rolled up the waists of our skirts to show our thighs, we put on our hip-high white patent leather boots that were definitely meant for walking, see-through shirts, chocolate Nat Sherman's delicately held to our glossy painted lips, we sauntered down Fifth Avenue with the rest of the girlie brigade.

[maxwell-grant]

where does the mustache-twirling silent film villain comes from? And who was the first ?

Well, here's the thing about that specific archetype of villain so near and dear to our hearts: They don't actually come from silent films. They are pretty specifically a product of stage and vaudeville shows playing up parodies of classic villains, and then these parodies made their way to film and cartoons through characters like Professor Fate and Snidely Whiplash.

But if you want the history lesson as well as the reasons why these characters are such an effective visual shorthand for villainy, you can trace this pretty directly back to Edward Hyde.

Right from the start, the common image of Mr Hyde was that of a twisted ogre dressed in gentlemen's clothing, the kind that people actually wore at the time of Victorian England. And there's been much said over the years in regards to how Hyde taps, intentionally or not, into social prejudice, into a fear of the lower classes and their integration with people from higher social standing, of Hyde as a stand-in for poverty and crime and vice and etc. There's been a lot of reinterpretations of the book that took a specific angle with Hyde, mainly a sexual one, others that focus heavily on the battle between good vs evil (which really misses the fact that Jekyll wasn't much of a good person in the book to begin with), and so on, there's of course much room for reinterpretation.

But these usually miss what else was happening in England, after Mr Hyde became a household name. You might have heard of it.

Through a stroke of fate, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde debuted just two years before the Jack the Ripper murders took England by storm. In fact, newspapers regularly referred to the murderer as Mr Hyde because of the story, and there's a particularly famous story of actor Richard Mansfield being publicly accused of being the Ripper because of his scarily-convincing performance as the character.

And from that point onwards, the image of Mr Hyde, of the sinister criminal dressing up as a gentleman, became not just the public image attached to depictions of Jack the Ripper, but the image of villainy itself.

Go ahead, picture the most basic silhouette for a villain in your head. Here, let me make it easier for you:

I googled this on incognito mode just now, and as you see, even before Star Wars and Disney, there you see the sinister figure in top hat and cloak, knife or cane optional. The universal shorthand for villain, partially because of Mr Hyde.

I mentioned earlier when talking about Count Fosco that the reason he was made an Italian is because at the time (1860s), Wilkie Collins assumed his crime to be "too heinous" for an English villain. Which is funny now, considering that English fashion AND accents have become the go-to signifiers of ultimate evil since forever now.

Before Mr Hyde and the changing paradigms of fiction that followed him, the most common idea most people had of "evil", of an evil person, mainly took the form of either a poorly dressed street criminal, or a foreigner. In fact, the term "villain" in the first place has the following origin:

"base or low-born rustic," from Anglo-French and Old French vilain "peasant, farmer, commoner, churl, yokel" (12c.), from Medieval Latin villanus "farmhand," from Latin villa "country house, farm"

The most important phases of the sense development of this word may be summed up as follows: 'inhabitant of a farm; peasant; churl, boor; clown; miser; knave, scoundrel.' Today both Fr. vilain and Eng. villain are used only in a pejorative sense.

Which is maybe the most obvious fact to consider anytime the discussion of "why are villains so popular" takes place.

Hyde was obviously not the first villain to dress up in respectable clothing, even in popular Victorian icons Sweeney Todd predates him by a few decades. And obviously this didn't change overnight, mind you, but you can see the pattern: Mr Hyde debuts and his arrival crashes the cultural paradigm in waves. Not just in the idea of man as a creature of duality with the extraordinary beast lurking inside, which as I've argued before in writing about Tarzan, is in the bedrock of the very concept of the superhero and also the ultimate connection between hero and monster in fiction, but also in the terror of knowing that the most hideous crimes against humanity can, and are, being committed by those who sit at the highest points of respectability, the doctor and scholar and gentleman, who wears the same clothes he uses to heal and lecture and help, to trample children and assault and murder people (which is obviously not even remotely as unthinkable now as it might have been to Victorian audiences at the time)

Two years later, a string of savage murders committed by someone with medical expertise shakes up Britain to it's very core, and suddenly the story doesn't seem quite so much like fantasy, and suddenly, villains all over the place in fiction are showing up dressed in gentleman's clothing, because now writers and artists are tapping into the fear felt by Dr Jekyll's high society friends: the realization that the monster is one of them, that gentleman and villain are one and the same.

It wouldn't be long afterwards that the likes of Dracula and Dorian Grey would further popularize evil aristocrats and gentlemen and murderers in evening wear as not only enduring, but omnipresent villainous archetypes, particularly on stage, which is where we are gonna find the other major figure responsible for popularizing the specific villainous archetype you mentioned: Tod Slaughter

If Mr Hyde's omnipresent popularity was instrumental in defining the look of the stage villain, then it would be Tod Slaughter who would be responsible for popularizing the comically over-the-top gentleman villain in the stage, to be cemented as a vaudeville staple and later a staple of pop culture itself. And he's never gotten even 1/10th of the credit he deserved for it, certainly not after his death.

Born with the name Norman Carter Slaughter and performing initially under the name N. Carter Slaughter (I wonder where we've heard a name like that before), he initially performed conventional leading men roles, until after his service in the war, when he was reviving "blood and thunder" melodramas, including Sweeney Todd, and bringing barnstorming to the stage.

And it's those kinds of melodramas that also led to the creation of "grinning villain in evening wear" as a staple of the stage, even before Slaugher made a career out of those, and it was bringing barnstorm acting to the stage that cemented his particular brand of villainy. The earliest cartoon example of such a villain I can find, Oil-Can Harry from Mighty Mouse, debuted in 1933 in a show specifically called "mellerdrama", as a parody of the kind of show Tod Slaughter had helped revive and play.

He renamed himself Tod Slaughter in the mid-1920s, and in the 1931, he rebranded himself "Mr Murder" and started really going full in on villains from the 1930s all the way to his death. He's played Sweeney Tood 2.000 times on stage, he's played Mr Hyde, Jack the Ripper, Spring-Heeled Jack, Long John Silver, and many other roles in stage and film. He was never popular among critics, but he was a household name, one of Britain's biggest stars in the early 20th century, and really I think those of you who follow me are already quite familiar with household names extremely popular in their times still fading into complete obscurity.

Slaughter’s body of work – no matter how poor it may seem by today’s standards – was a bridge between the Victorian blood and thunder melodramas and the gore and flash of Hammer Studios in the early fifties.

The film work was censored as often there would be cutaway edits or fade to black during the more harrowing moments. The ‘X certificate’ for audience restriction had not yet been created.

Tod Slaughter pointed the way to gore, and this in turn became taboo subjects in horror.

He was the first to use gimmicks, such as having doctors and nurses in the theatre during performances in case someone fainted. They were called upon, too.

Tod would often go to the theatre bar during the interval in full make up with bloody apron (as in the case of Sweeney Todd) and sit muttering and ordering drinks. Not a soul would go near him and a showman’s mystique was created.

Tod Slaughter passed away of a coronary thrombosis in Derby in 1956, which was also the year Bela Lugosi died. His work slipped in to obscurity. - Article by spookyisles

Seriously, just look at him, look at him acting. Don't get me wrong, he took his work incredibly seriously and it showed, he wasn't intentionally out to create a parody archetype, but this guy had such an energy to him that really made his characters stand out in a way unmatched, and it was his specific style of performance that was ultimately carried over from stage to film and then, to pop culture long past his lifespan. It's an utter shame that somehow we didn't immortalize this guy in pop culture along with the other horror greats.

Oil Can Harry, Professor Fate, Snidely Whiplash, Dick Dastardly, Dan Backslide, Hedley Lamarr, Robbie Rotten, Seymour Ghastly, Waluigi, Dr Robotnik, all of these and others owe at least some tribute to the original. He is the Grandad of Mustache Twirling and in October we should all grow one and twirl it mischievously to honor his contributions to the finer arts of villainy.

Like Hammer Films, or Carry On, or practically any other low brow populist entertainment of yesteryear, Slaughter was not popular even with the genre critics – if you saw anything about his work in the horror books and magazines of the 1970s or early 1980s, it was invariably dismissive. The official word was that Slaughter was a bad actor who could not leave behind his theatrical performances in his films, and the movies themselves were creaky rubbish.

Yet even as we read this, we were starting to see Slaughter’s films on TV – late night or mid-afternoon broadcasts on the fledgeling Channel 4, for instance – and the films were magnificent. Glorious, unrestrained melodrama, fast-paced and deliciously gothic, all anchored by the central performance of Slaughter, who was less theatrical, more gleeful as he tore up the screen with a level of cheerful villainy that has never been seen before or since.

Slaughter was of his time, perhaps, but that somehow made these films all the more enthralling – you just didn’t see acting like this, or faces like this, anymore. Perhaps he was rare, even in the 1930s, and that’s why he was so popular with audiences back then.

Slaughter’s films had an authenticity about them, a lack of pretension that I imagine also marked his stage shows. He was never going to appeal to the chin-strokers and the academics. Slaughter was too real for that.

He was the people’s villain - Article by reprobatepress

[niniane17]

I caught up with Dracula Daily, and there are some things I want to remark:

1. Jonathan's role is very interesting. In many ways, he functions as the novel's first "damsel in distress", locked in a castle with a madman. His story echoes fairy tales such as Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast, complete with forbidden locked doors, invisible or absent servants and secret undead wives. At some point he even compares himself to Sheherazade, another famous heroine. In hindsight, it's clear why Hollywood didn't make a faithful adaptation for so many years. A movie tends to focus on a single protagonist, and Jonathan surely isn't the all powerful hero Hollywood prefers.

2. On a more "serious" note: the book is slightly more self aware than I remembered. John's cluelessness is supposed to be on purpose, in a mixture of naiveté and prejudice, and the Count exploits it for his own purposes (see when he tells him "we're in Transylvania, things are SO DIFFERENT than England" yeah, nothing suspicious here). My favorite part so far is John realizing what the locals truly meant and promising himself to keep the crucifix. That's character development!

As for Dracula, he thoroughly discusses his future status as a foreigner and how that would put him at disadvantage, and his accent is not phonetically transcribed, so there's no mental barrier between the reader and him. Also I think one of the implications was that it was remarkable of him to learn English on a very high level, since at the time the lingua franca among Western European higher classes was French.

It's not MUCH, but it's a bit more nuanced than the usual caricature we often see.

3. Dracula's monologue about his family and his country's past is awesome. Even Jonathan stopped being afraid long enough to write it down.

4. Also Dracula climbing down the tower like a lizard -head first- scared the shit out of me when I was fifteen, and it still scares me now.

5. Mina learning how to write in shorthand and how to typewrite is underrated. We often forget that these activities used to be men's jobs, as was the position of secretary. Mina is breaking some barriers, even if it's just for her husband's (and the plot's) sake.

6. Lucy is a treasure, but everyone knows that already.

[relative-dimension]

“A Change of Identity”

Season 1, episode 39 - 22nd August, 1964

[id: The Doctor, in an ostentatious outfit resembling that of a Regional Officer of the Provinces, listens as the jailer, with a bloody bandage around his head, says “I am most conscientious, but when you’re assisted by idiots...” /end id]

This serial is finally developing into the espionage drama that it is, and I love it, even if I can’t really tell the French dudes apart that well so half the betrayals are somewhat lost on me.

Is it an entertaining watch: 4/5, the scenes of Dr Who bluffing the Jailer are some of the most fun in the entire series, Dennis Spooner is one of my favourite writers in this era of the show for a reason.

Does the production hold up: 3/5, some of the action is a bit weak, but on the whole it looks good.

Does it use its time well: 4/5, the plot develops at a much better pace than last episode, and the switching between the three plotlines is more linked than just having a few minutes of “oh yeah Dr Who is also attempting to form a union” whenever they’re tired of having Susan and Barbara being miserable in a cell.

Are the characters consistent and well-used: 5/5, like I just said, the split between the three storylines is absolutely fantastically handled in this episode. Ian’s escape is fantastically directed, Dr Who gets some really fun scenes, and Susan and Barbara get involved in what will become the main plot for the second half, and despite Susan’s slightly inexplicable and exaggerated illness, she gets to be properly involved and everything.

Is there anything actually going on under the surface: 2/5, eh, not much. Stuff about the nature of the revolution is introduced, but only really gets explored more later on, when we get to see more actual historical figures.

Does it avoid being a bit dodge with its politics: 3/5, the Jailer’s depiction, actually the depiction of a lot of the revolutionaries, is a bit weird in terms of class stuff, and the use of British regional accents as shorthand for the easily manipulated working class is somewhat suspect.

Overall Score - 21/30

[britcision]

Fun fact, despite the size difference, England alone has 40 different accent categories and almost every county has a distinct dialect

You can get drastically different accents and slangs between neighbouring cities

America does have the advantage of having some more distinct accents than Canada but to a kid from central England with family in the south, north, and Welsh border y’all barely have accents at all

(The Ontario Canadians INSIST they have midwestern accents but they don’t, Newfoundland has an accent, the prairies have Newfie Lite, Quebec has an accent, the rest of y’all are just homogenous with mild regional slang)

And do you know why this is? Because there is a reason!

The ease of travel and communication between towns and cities as North America was colonized. The more isolated a community is, the more they build up their regional dialects and slang, and the more they develop a distinct accent

When people couldn’t easily travel between cities in less than a week, let alone another county, certain regional slangs and habits became more and more entrenched and evolved along their own lines, still related to the overall language but following local patterns

The more you communicate with people over a wider area, the slower these kinds of patterns evolve, and the less likely they are to break from the main flow; the “dominant” dialect has to be understood by everyone you’re talking to day to day

As communication and transportation technologies exploded, suddenly people were talking to each other across countries and continents every single day; there’s no point developing a regional dialect for a single city when your neighbouring state is an hour’s drive away - you’re not only talking to people in your city, so you’d have to keep stopping to translate

This is why Europe and Asia have a lot of areas with highly regionalized dialects and accents; we’re still speaking to the same cultures in the same languages that were used before the telephone, internal combustion engine, and train were developed

(I’m less versed with The Entire Rest Of The World and obviously there’s a couple other factors around developing accents, like colonization, cultural identity, class, and socioeconomic shenanigans, but basically language evolves in much the same way animals do

Small, isolated groups are much more adaptable and change much quicker, developing highly specific shorthand

Large, connected groups have access to more resources and less need for instant adaptation, but you gotta be able to understand each other)

Sadly, this does mean that as we get more and more connected, we’re going to see less divergence in regional accents and dialects

Regardless of the truth, the “American accent” outside of America usually means one of three, total: Hollywood, New York, or Southern (honourable mention to Boston, decidedly less common)

Comparatively, listen to an American idea of the “English accent” (exaggerated RP, primarily southern upperclass) and then browse youtube for the Scouse or Cockney

it is literally almost 2am and im sitting here being scared of the united states like what the fuck there are so many people there!!!!! and they're all just speaking with their american accent like hello??? how do you not just laugh all the time. americans wake up and go to their american jobs and american schools that's so fucking weird. i imagine it as a fake place because it's where everywhere on tv is.

[techmomma]

Something you will find in pretty much any dialect though is how the culture associates particular variations, accents of regions and classes, with stupidity and intellect. 

Almost universally, lower class, or country accents, or working class accents will, in media, become a shorthand for “this person is stupid.” In America, the classic go-to for “this is a stupid character” is what we call hill-billy, which is generally a southern accent, usually Appalachian but can be from almost anywhere in the south, but it is always associated with how farmers, backwoods, and poor people speak. You see this occasionally with the typical new york accent (working class characters will be given the Noo Yawk accent, while the aristocracy have something more general without the broad tones and considered more “grammatically correct”), the boston accent, and in recent years, the California Surfer accent (associated with vagrants, homeless surfers, layabouts, and otherwise poor persons). The classic New York and Boston variants especially for the historical connection to manual laborers and dock workers and otherwise lower class jobs in those two cities.

Conversely, the dialects associated with the upper class often become the shorthand for “this character is intelligent.” In old Hollywood, this was the Transatlantic Accent, sort of this posh north-easten accent, so from somewhere like Maine or Connecticut or Rhode Island or Vermont, that had the lilts of British English. This is much less prominent these days, but you’ll see hints of it when intelligent characters are given an accent that’s hard to place, but one can usually assume the character came from some place in the Northeast, someplace close enough to send them to a prestigious (rich people) university like Harvard or Yale. 

This is all an example of classism and how it has affected cultures for centuries, and is something we have to be aware of when depicting characters, either from your own culture or another. How they may be perceived based on the way they talk, historical stereotypes regarding their regional variant, and how those can influence the character themselves; what kind of hardships or problems (or advantages) have arisen from a character being perceived as stupid for having a working class accent, or perceived as intelligent for having an upper class accent, so on and so forth.

[docholligay]

A lot of times when we talk about media, and representation of ideas in media: for example, cities, or jobs, or you know, that sort of broad thing, we’re talking more about the EMOTIONAL SHORTHAND of what it is. So, when something takes place in New York City, to use a place that has a lot of emotions and ideas attached to it, we’re not actually concerned with the parking situation or where you can buy a salad or anything, it’s the emotional shorthand of fast-paced, high-powered, multi-cultural, it’s a great place to set a story because anything can happen there. 

So, when we talk about police in media, we’re not talking about the REAL police, right? I know it’s pretty de rigueur to dismiss anything that has a cop protagonist in it as copaganda--and as a correction to years of picking them as an ‘easy’ hero, and a frustration, to put it mildly, with the real life police, I get it--but I think that’s reductive, because we’re not talking about the REAL police anymore than we’re ever talking about the REAL New York, or here’s a great example, in American media, especially when I was growing up, if they needed an educated, classy character type, what were they always: British*. 

What we’re talking about here is archetype, more than a real job. “Police officer/federal agent/whatever the fuck he is” is actually about being a fucking, I don’t know, paladin or cleric or whatever the fuck of those nerd wizard-knights has to follow rules or they lose their power. It’s about being confined and controlled by this system, but you’re actively trying to do the right thing, which means you sometimes have to behave in the wrong way. The conflict between law and morality is fucking EVERGREEN in literature and media. 

So when we see this scene (which I watched all the way through to the end, sorry, but that does bode well for my enjoyment of the show) what we’re seeing is this story set up its central conflict, where Raylan has to work within this system, but he has a more than small vigilante streak within him. Doc, you may say, wow is this an old fuckin story. True, but it is one I like, so I’ve got my biases here. It’s pretty prominent in a lot of Westerns, this conflict between law and right, though I will say more than a vigilante I tend to prefer characters that tend toward “lawful good” and really TRY to strike that balance wherein they ARE the law, and the law WILL be fucking followed, and so YOU WILL HANG UNDER THE LAW but admittedly that’s a harder character to write. 

*There’s actually a great scene in the Nanny, believe it or not, when they’re working on Fran’s voice to make her seem “refined”, and it actually takes a swipe at how non-rhoticity** is seen as ‘upper-class’ on a British person, but we jump the pond and all of sudden it’s gutter trash? 

**when an accent tends not to pronounce the “r” letter in certain word placements. 

[lancrewizzard]

I'm glad someone who actually is Chinese addressed this, because as a white Brit bits of the Haan family story felt Uncomfortable but I didn't want to white knight for or talk over people who are actually Asian. With Killing Floor, I took it as a standard depiction of the unfortunate realities of being working class in industrial areas; the unthinking racism that's ingrained in the white working class to distract from their own exploitation, the unfortunate truth of immigrants with limited English being exploited and trapped in the nastier physically demanding jobs that society has to offer, and so on. Then Takeaway happened.

There's just one thing I would like to give an alternate perspective on just because most TMA fans on tumblr are American and won't fully get the nuances of UK accents. A clear, clipped RP accent has been used a few times in TMA to denote something is wrong or creepy about a character, and I think the why kind of gets lost in cultural translation.

No one actually speaks in RP. Even most of the rich fancy tory bastards don't speak perfect RP. It's something very artificial that's put on by certain people in certain situations, and sort of what you'd describe as "cultivated" as opposed to a naturally evolved accent or dialect. So when a Brit hears RP, we tend to think of stuff like the very stilted 50's newsreaders or similar. It's unnatural, is what I'm trying to say. RP works as very good shorthand for something Wrong that's making an obvious effort to appear Correct and Normal and failing.

So is it racist that it's mostly POC who get noted as having unexpected RP accents? yeah. But to the average British listener, perfect RP from a white character is equally weird and creepy.

On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has…Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like…it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general. 

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”? 

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese? 

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that. 

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here. 

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it. 

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post