#decried as bad representation

[musical-chick-13]

I was thinking about making some (low-level) Content™ for Mental Health Awareness Month because it starts in a few days, and I realized just how few explicitly canon mentally ill characters-that aren’t treated with absolutely appalling disrespect-I actually know. :(

[tsukagari]

I have the tendency of make a higher/ sweet voice when I tall with elders and also do big movements when I am excited.

Also my face is quite round so I look a little childish

reblog for a bigger sample size if you feel like it

[disconnectedkat]

On Judging Older Rep By Today's Standards

This wall of text inspired by this take that bioware are pussies for not having an all-pan romance cast until Veilguard. This idea that all past representation is mediocre or bad because today's is better is very irksome. I'm irked.

To begin, a little history:

Bioware has been including queer romance in their games since the early 2000s. First in 2004, when they released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This game had a character you could recruit named Juhani. Juhani would become the first LGBTQ+ Star Wars character. She could be romanced by a female player character, though it basically amounted to a couple lines of dialogue. Why so little? Because it was 2004 and they practically had to sneak even that much in.

In 2007, Mass Effect 1 released. This game had arguably the 'safest' queer rep, an attractive woman kissing and having a fade-to-black implied sex scene with another attractive (alien) woman. A while later a mainstream media outlet (Fox News, you may have heard of them) ran a hit piece on the game. They ran the usual stuff, degenerate porn simulator, think of the children, etc. This was a big deal, as having a mainstream, large and popular (unfortunately) news channel targeting your game is not great for several reasons.

Keep in mind this was the, again, arguably the safest queer rep you could go for, and it still received that level of attack.

In 2009 Dragon Age: Origins released. Not much to say here, some time had passed and DA managed to avoid the targeted hate that Mass Effect received, despite having a bisexual man and woman as romantic options.

Mass Effect 2 is believed to have suffered the most from the Fox News debacle. Jack was originally planned as a pansexual character, and while I don't recall if the devs have stated exactly why that was cut, the obvious guess is they feared another round of attacks.

Alrighty, history recap over. Now to address the issue:

"They should've done it years ago." Well, they actually did with DA2 and it received a good amount of flak. Because that was 2010, and this is 2024. Representation is a social thing. It changes and grows as we do. In 2004 Juhani, with a minimal amount of actual content, became the first LGBT Star Wars character. You do what you can and try to push the envelope a little more each time. People struggled and fought for all that old rep you see as not good enough by today's standards.

"They bowed to the bigots because of money." Games, and all media, take money to create. They then need to make money to create more. There would be no Veilguard without the successes of previous games. And unfortunately, in the past that sometimes meant choosing your battles. Frustration is understandable, but misplaced.

None of this is to say that Bioware, (or any company or media, this post is just focusing on them) is beyond reproach as long as they're trying. There will always be things to criticise, and areas to improve, of course. But that isn't what I'm seeing here.

This to me is indicative of a common sentiment I've been seeing far too often in queer and leftist spaces recently, people judging older rep by today's standards and decrying it and it's creators without understanding the history.

[darklinaforever]

I guess with some people's logic, if I'm fatphobic just for daring to say that Rhaenyra isn't fat according to her official portraits. Remember the word OFICCIEL in there ! Approved by GRRM ! Does Rhaenyra look fat to you in these pictures ?! I imagine that with this logic, GRRM is fatphobic for daring to validate these official representations of his main character in the dance ? Seriously, what is your problem ? At no point do I say that being fat is a bad thing, those who know me know that I am absolutely the opposite. I am content here to reestablish the truth about the canonical body of Rhaenyra. Some refuse to admit that Rhaenyra is described as fat in the text due to propaganda against her, under the pretext that Aegon II and Helaena are also overweight. Except that they, unlike Rhaenyra, we don't insist on it and we don't take the opportunity to talk about it negatively and demonize her in relation to it / make fun of her. That's all the difference. What the text does in relation to Rhaenyra's weight is in fact a fatphobic treatment. And the reason behind this treatment is simple. Rhaenyra is an heiress and a wife. How dare she ?! The goal is to decriminalize it in a mysoginal way. So in addition to the text sources' treatment of Rhaenyra being fatphobic, they are mysoginous. Is that what you are defending ? Do you even know how to read ? The truth is that Rhaenyra suffered fat shaming for daring to gain weight during her 6 pregnancies. And we know, it doesn't take much in a mysoginian society to say that a woman is fat for just a few added kilos. Objectively, Rhaenyra is not a fat woman at all, and I don't see the harm in telling this simple truth ?! It's ridiculous ! We have the official portraits of Rhaenyra ! What are these people trying to deny and defend ?! Yes, Rhaenyra could have really been fat and unfortunately demonized for it. A shameful thing and one that totally could have been the case with the maeters pro greens. But the official portraits / representations prove that this is pure bullshit and that there was nothing fat about Rhaenyra, even after her 6 pregnancies. This is literally the truth. How fatphobic is that ? So these official representations of Rhaenyra are fatphobic for these people ?! They just prove that the maesters tried to portray Rhaenyra as she was not to demonize her further / decried her in yet another mysogistic way.

[soracities]

Hey! It has been on my mind lately and i just wanna ask..idk if it would make sense but i just noticed that nowadays ppl cant separate the authors and their books (ex. when author wrote a story about cheating and ppl starts bashing the author for romanticizing cheating and even to a point of cancelling the author for not setting a good/healthy example of a relationship) any thoughts about it?

I have many, many thoughts on this, so this may get a little unwieldy but I'll try to corall it together as best I can.

But honestly, I think sometimes being unable to separate the author from the work (which is interesting to me to see because some people are definitely not "separating" anything even though they think they are; they just erase the author entirely as an active agent, isolate the work, and call it "objectivity") has a lot to do with some people being unable to separate the things they read from themselves.

I'm absolutely not saying it's right, but it's an impulse I do understand. If you read a book and love it, if it transforms your life, or defines a particular period of your life, and then you find out that the author has said or done something awful--where does that leave you? Someone awful made something beautiful, something you loved: and now that this point of communion exists between you and someone whose views you'd never agree with, what does that mean for who you are? That this came from the mind of a person capable of something awful and spoke to your mind--does that mean you're like them? Could be like them?

Those are very uncomfortable questions and I think if you have a tendency to look at art or literature this way, you will inevitable fall into the mindset where only "Good" stories can be accepted because there's no distinction between where the story ends and you begin. As I said, I can see where it comes from but I also find it profoundly troubling because i think one of the worst things you can do to literature is approach it with the expectation of moral validation--this idea that everything you consume, everything you like and engage with is some fundamental insight into your very character as opposed to just a means of looking at or questioning something for its own sake is not just narrow-minded but dangerous.

Art isn't obliged to be anything--not moral, not even beautiful. And while I expend very little (and I mean very little) energy engaging with or even looking at internet / twitter discourse for obvious reasons, I do find it interesting that people (online anyway) will make the entire axis of their critique on something hinge on the fact that its bad representation or justifying / romanticizing something less than ideal, proceeding to treat art as some sort of conduit for moral guidance when it absolutely isn't. And they will also hold that this critique comes from a necessarily good and just place (positive representation, and I don't know, maybe in their minds it does) while at the same time setting themselves apart from radical conservatives who do the exact same thing, only they're doing it from the other side.

To make it abundantly clear, I'm absolutely not saying you should tolerate bigots decrying that books about the Holocaust, race, homophobia, or lgbt experiences should be banned--what I am saying, is that people who protest that a book like Maus or Persepolis is going to "corrupt children", and people who think a book exploring the emotional landscape of a deeply flawed character, who just happens to be from a traditionally marginalised group or is written by someone who is, is bad representation and therefore damaging to that community as a whole are arguments that stem from the exact same place: it's a fundamental inability, or outright refusal, to accept the interiority and alterity of other people, and the inherent validity of the experiences that follow. It's the same maniacal, consumptive, belief that there can be one view and one view only: the correct view, which is your view--your thoughts, your feelings.

There is also dangerous element of control in this. Someone with racist views does not want their child to hear anti-racist views because as far as they are concerned, this child is not a being with agency, but a direct extension of them and their legacy. That this child may disagree is a profound rupture and a threat to the cohesion of this person's entire worldview. Nothing exists in and of and for itself here: rather the multiplicity of the world and people's experiences within it are reduced to shadowy agents that are either for us or against us. It's not about protecting children's "innocence" ("think of the children", in these contexts, often just means "think of the status quo"), as much as it is about protecting yourself and the threat to your perceived place in the world.

And in all honestt I think the same holds true for the other side--if you cannot trust yourself to engage with works of art that come from a different standpoint to yours, or whose subject matter you dislike, without believing the mere fact of these works' existence will threaten something within you or society in general (which is hysterical because believe me, society is NOT that flimsy), then that is not an issue with the work itself--it's a personal issue and you need to ask yourself if it would actually be so unthinkable if your belief about something isn't as solid as you think it is, and, crucially, why you have such little faith in your own critical capacity that the only response these works ilicit from you is that no one should be able to engage with them. That's not awareness to me--it's veering very close to sticking your head in the sand, while insisting you actually aren't.

Arbitrarily adding a moral element to something that does not exist as an agent of moral rectitude but rather as an exploration of deeply human impulses, and doing so simply to justify your stance or your discomfort is not only a profoundly inadequate, but also a deeply insidious, way of papering over your insecurities and your own ignorance (i mean this in the literal sense of the word), of creating a false and dishonest certainty where certainty does not exist and then presenting this as a fact that cannot and should not be challenged and those who do are somehow perverse or should have their characters called into question for it. It's reductive and infantilising in so many ways and it also actively absolves you of any responsibility as a reader--it absolves you of taking responsibility for your own interpretation of the work in question, it absolves you of responsibility for your own feelings (and, potentially, your own biases or preconceptions), it absolves you of actual, proper, thought and engagement by laying the blame entirely on a rogue piece of literature (as if prose is something sentient) instead of acknowledging that any instance of reading is a two-way street: instead of asking why do I feel this way? what has this text rubbed up against? the assumption is that the book has imposed these feelings on you, rather than potentially illuminated what was already there.

Which brings me to something else which is that it is also, and I think this is equally dangerous, lending books and stories a mythical, almost supernatural, power that they absolutely do not have. Is story-telling one of the most human, most enduring, most important and life-altering traditions we have? Yes. But a story is also just a story. And to convince yourself that books have a dangerous transformative power above and beyond what they are actually capable of is, again, to completely erase people's agency as readers, writers' agency as writers and makers (the same as any other craft), and subsequently your own. And erasing agency is the very point of censors banning books en masse. It's not an act of stupidity or blind ignorance, but a conscious awareness of the fact that people will disagree with you, and for whatever reason you've decided that you are not going to let them.

Writers and poets are not separate entities to the rest of us: they aren't shamans or prophets, gifted and chosen beings who have some inner, profound, knowledge the rest of us aren't privy to (and should therefore know better or be better in some regard) because moral absolutism just does not exist. Every writer, no matter how affecting their work may be, is still Just Some Guy Who Made a Thing. Writing can be an incredibly intimate act, but it can also just be writing, in the same way that plumbing is plumbing and weeding is just weeding and not necessarily some transcendant cosmic endeavour in and of itself. Authors are no different, when you get down to it, from bakers or electricians; Nobel laureates are just as capable of coming out with distasteful comments about women as your annoying cousin is and the fact that they wrote a genre-defying work does not change that, or vice-versa. We imbue books with so much power and as conduits of the very best and most human traits we can imagine and hope for, but they aren't representations of the best of humanity--they're simply expressions of humanity, which includes the things we don't like.

There are some authors I love who have said and done things I completely disagree with or whose views I find abhorrent--but I'm not expecting that, just because they created something that changed my world, they are above and beyond the ordinarly, the petty, the spiteful, or cruel. That's not condoning what they have said and done in the least: but I trust myself to be able to read these works with awareness and attention, to pick out and examine and attempt to understand the things that I find questionable, to hold on to what has moved me, and to disregard what I just don't vibe with or disagree with. There are writers I've chosen not to engage with, for my own personal reasons: but I'm not going to enforce this onto someone else because I can see what others would love in them, even if what I love is not strong enough to make up for what I can't. Terrance Hayes put perfectly in my view, when he talks about this and being capable of "love without forgiveness". Writing is a profoundly human heritage and those who engage with it aren't separate from that heritage as human because they live in, and are made by, the exact same world as anyone else.

The measure of good writing for me has hardly anything to do with whatever "virtue" it's perceived to have and everything to do with sincerity. As far as I'm concerned, "positive representation" is not about 100% likeable characters who never do anything problematic or who are easily understood. Positive representation is about being afforded the full scope of human feelings, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and not having your humanity, your dignity, your right to exist in the world questioned because all of these can only be seen through the filter of race, or gender, religion, or ethicity and interpreted according to our (profoundly warped) perceptions of those categories and what they should or shouldn't represent. True recognition of someone's humanity does not lie in finding only what is held in common between you (and is therefore "acceptable", with whatever you put into that category), but in accepting everything that is radically different about them and not letting this colour the consideration you give.

Also, and it may sound harsh, but I think people forget that fictional characters are fictional. If I find a particularly fucked up relationship dynamic compelling (as I often do), or if I decide to write and explore that dynamic, that's not me saying two people who threaten to kill each other and constantly hurt each other is my ideal of romance and that this is exactly how I want to be treated: it's me trying to find out what is really happening below the surface when two people behave like this. It's me exploring something that would be traumatizing and deeply damaging in real life, in a safe and fictional setting so I can gain some kind of understanding about our darker and more destructive impulses without being literally destroyed by them, as would happen if all of this were real. But it isn't real. And this isn't a radical or complex thing to comprehend, but it becomes incomprehensible if your sole understanding of literature is that it exists to validate you or entertain you or cater to you, and if all of your interpretations of other people's intentions are laced with a persistent sense of bad faith. Just because you have not forged any identity outside of this fictional narrative doesn't mean it's the same for others.

Ursula K. le Guin made an extremely salient point about children and stories in that children know the stories you tell them--dragons, witches, ghouls, whatever--are not real, but they are true. And that sums it all up. There's a reason children learning to lie is an incredibly important developmental milestone, because it shows that they have achieved an incredibly complex, but vitally important, ability to hold two contradictory statements in their minds and still know which is true and which isn't. If you cannot delve into a work, on the terms it sets, as a fictional piece of literature, recognize its good points and note its bad points, assess what can have a real world impact or reflects a real world impact and what is just creative license, how do you possible expect to recognize when authority and propaganda lies to you? Because one thing propaganda has always utilised is a simplistic, black and white depiction of The Good (Us) and The Bad (Them). This moralistic stance regarding fiction does not make you more progressive or considerate; it simply makes it easier to manipulate your ideas and your feelings about those ideas because your assessments are entirely emotional and surface level and are fuelled by a refusal to engage with something beyond the knee-jerk reaction it causes you to have.

Books are profoundly, and I do mean profoundly, important to me-- and so much of who I am and the way I see things is probably down to the fact that stories have preoccupied me wherever I go. But I also don't see them as vital building blocks for some core facet or a pronouncement of Who I Am. They're not badges of honour or a cover letter I put out into the world for other people to judge and assess me by, and approve of me (and by extension, the things I say or feel). They're vehicles through which I explore and experience whatever it is that I'm most caught by: not a prophylactic, not a mode of virtue signalling, and certainly not a means of signalling a moral stance.

I think at the end of the day so much of this tendency to view books as an extension of yourself (and therefore of an author) is down to the whole notion of "art as a mirror", and I always come back to Fran Lebowitz saying that it "isn't a mirror, it's a door". And while I do think it's important to have that mirror (especially if you're part of a community that never sees itself represented, or represented poorly and offensively) I think some people have moved into the mindset of thinking that, in order for art to be good, it needs to be a mirror, it needs to cater to them and their experiences precisely--either that or that it can only exist as a mirror full stop, a reflection of and for the reader and the writer (which is just incredibly reductive and dismissive of both)--and if art can only exist as a mirror then anything negative that is reflected back at you must be a condemnation, not a call for exploration or an attempt at understanding.

As I said, a mirror is important but to insist on it above all else isn't always a positive thing: there are books I related to deeply because they allowed me to feel so seen (some by authors who looked nothing like me), but I have no interest in surrounding myself with those books all the time either--I know what goes on in my head which is precisely why I don't always want to live there. Being validated by a character who's "just like me" is amazing but I also want--I also need-- to know that lives and minds and events exist outside of the echo-chamber of my own mind. The mirror is comforting, yes, but if you spend too long with it, it also becomes isolating: you need doors because they lead you to ideas and views and characters you could never come up with on your own. A world made up of various Mes reflected back to me is not a world I want to be immersed in because it's a world with very little texture or discovery or room for growth and change. Your sense of self and your sense of other people cannot grow here; it just becomes mangled.

Art has always been about dialogue, always about a me and a you, a speaker and a listener, even when it is happening in the most internal of spaces: to insist that art only ever tells you what you want to hear, that it should only reflect what you know and accept is to undermine the very core of what it seeks to do in the first place, which is establish connection. Art is a lifeline, I'm not saying it isn't. But it's also not an instruction manual for how to behave in the world--it's an exploration of what being in the world looks like at all, and this is different for everyone. And you are treading into some very, very dangerous waters the moment you insist it must be otherwise.

Whatever it means to be in the world, it is anything but straightforward. In this world people cheat, people kill, they manipulate, they lie, they torture and steal--why? Sometimes we know why, but more often we don't--but we take all these questions and write (or read) our way through them hoping that, if we don't find an answer, we can at least find our way to a place where not knowing isn't as unbearable anymore (and sometimes it's not even about that; it's just about telling a story and wanting to make people laugh). It's an endless heritage of seeking with countless variations on the same statements which say over and over again I don't know what to make of this story, even as I tell it to you. So why am I telling it? Do I want to change it? Can I change it? Yes. No. Maybe. I have no certainty in any of this except that I can say it. All I can do is say it.

Writing, and art in general, are one of the very, very, few ways we can try and make sense of the apparently arbitrary chaos and absurdity of our lives--it's one of the only ways left to us by which we can impose some sense of structure or meaning, even if those things exists in the midst of forces that will constantly overwhelm those structures, and us. I write a poem to try and make sense of something (grief, love, a question about octopuses) or to just set down that I've experienced something (grief, love, an answer about octpuses). You write a poem to make sense of, resolve, register, or celebrate something else. They don't have to align. They don't have to agree. We don't even need to like each other much. But in both of these instances something is being said, some fragment of the world as its been perceived or experienced is being shared. They're separate truths that can exist at the same time. Acknowledging this is the only means we have of momentarily bridging the gaps that will always exist between ourselves and others, and it requires a profound amount of grace, consideration and forbearance. Otherwise, why are we bothering at all?

[paragonrobits]

recently found out a well known Youtuber who has been deeply critical of Steven Universe in ways that I really fucking hate has apparently now criticized Delicious In Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi's character Laios as being a sociopath for, apparently, not being emotionally demonstrative and because he is a lovable weirdo who is all about his special interests, decrying him as a sociopath

Laios reads as EXTREMELY on the autistic spectrum; if he's not canonically intended to read that way, I'll be deeply surprised, and frankly this is not at all unsurprising to hear from this specific critic, though it DID anger me so much i almost went into a hatewatching frenzy just to see what the bullshit was, but i restrained myself because pouring acid into your brain does you no good

this instead illustrates a central point i tend to have with the mentality people like this critic have: they're dicks to autistic people, particularly those who cannot or will not mask to pretend to be allistic. They are what they are, and those people like me prefer not to stress ourselves out constantly pretending to be Normal because these particular allistic people hate someone obviously different from them

and that's what it really boils down to, isn't it?

Laios isn't like the Normal person; he's loud, often off putting without meaning to be, genuinely passionate and very compassionate without expressing it in a way the allistics might consider familiar. His character arc is all about caring for his sister, doing whatever he can to save her; its very textually obvious that he's not heartless.

But because he doesn't act like what these kind of people expect Normalcy to be like, they think he's an inherently bad person, or that he's a sociopath or whatever term they feel like bringing out.

I really can't stand allistics who have this kind of instant distrust and hatred towards someone that doesn't act Normal to them. It's the logical extreme of the way these people constantly complain about things being insufficiently pure (and if they are, they complain that its boring); going from constantly taking the absolute worst interpretation of someone to seeing a character who is undeniably heroic but is cheerfully weird, deeply passionate about a thing that is not especially popular or normalized, and not like the viewer, and doesn't emote like other people, and they conclude this character MUST be evil or fundamentally incapable of morality.

In short, the way they talk about a character who reads as autistic sounds exactly like the way those people talk about actual autistic people.

EDIT: since initially composing this post i found out this person is autistic, or claims to be so and ???????? that is BAFFLING, how the fuck can you be on the spectrum and still be this hostile to people like you is baffling, but they also think that Sheldon Cooper is good autistic representation (And that Family Guy has better LGBT representation than Steven Universe) so I don't know why anyone thinks their opinion matters beyond a case study for poor media literacy.

(personally I'm inclined to think this person is not on the spectrum at all but claims it for clout purposes, which seems to be a trend with this person in particular)

[mycochaotix]

My “real”nonbinary friends and fam, please read this and tell me your thoughts!!! —r/nonbinary user commented:

“I feel that Blair White and others like her are calling out bad behavior and demanding personal accountability. We all can live our lives as we see fit, but demanding nullification of sexual orientation in relation to one's gender or having a melt down over misgender pronouns without self realization about how we present ourselves is narcissistic and provides our detectors against the lgbt+ community with reason to vilify us.

Non-binary people are not the problem, to be clear. It's people who believe being non-binary qualifies them for special victimhood status and who go on public forums to decry society's ills for not recognizing their non-binary lifestyle on sight that creates this negativity.

If you know you are emotionally mature enough to get through your day and live your truth without being angry someone isn't into you or that the days your presentation may lean one way or the other on the gender spectrum and gracefully correct and move on, you know you aren't the problem.”

- they were downvoted many times when I saw rhe comment, so I asked chatgpt why and replied to them:

“Asked ChatGPT why your comment is being downvoted, it said: “This comment appears to express a negative view towards individuals, particularly non-binary people, who assert their gender identity and seek recognition. The use of terms like "meltdown" and the implication that asserting ‘one's gender identity is narcissistic’ may be perceived as dismissive or transphobic by some. “ 🤷🏽”

- they responded to my comment with:

“I mean, if you like feel that someone crying over a stranger at a fast food restaurant calling them "Ma'am" while taking their order on Tik Tok is good representation, we're at an impasse. That's not real life and it doesn't represent real non-binary people.

Edit: More importantly, if we ourselves do not call out bad behavior in our own community and ensure that negative representation isn't the only viewable commodity, we're practically committing self harm.”

- i replied with:

“Up until this comment, I havent made a personal belief claim about your comments. Just saw you being downvoted and wanted to understand why :) hence why I asked chatgpt.

Honestly, your comment reflects that you seem to be trying to police or gatekeep what anyone gets offended by. Why does that matter. Most non binary people i know are too concerned about being hate crimed to actually get offended at a mcdonalds worker incorrectly assuming their gender… much less asserting their correct pronouns when being misgendered.

Your use of “real non binary people” is quite problematic tbh. I think you may have an insulated understanding of Queer people thats influencing your perspective in an unhelpful way. Im a real non binary person and I disagree with your perspective and characterization of non binary people. Your edit is something im not comfortable addressing specifically tbh, I process it as problematic and not worth pursuing as you seem set in your beliefs.

Your feelings, and mine, and whatever queer scapegoat you are bringing up from tiktok, all matter and are valid. You dont know the trauma history of the person who is offended at being misgendered. To be misgendered is uncomfortable, especially for trans folkx and especially for those who are aware of the insane, incessant gender norms, mores and expectations on us at all times.

Calling out bad behavior is fine, but looking at situations empathetically, and from as many perspectives as you can, is going to aid you on identifying behavior thats could be a meaningful change to call out , and behavior that you just dont like and want to stop someone from doing because of your discomfort.”

—

Queer, and specifically: Transfam, please tell me if im far off here … or what yall think!

-mcx

———

update:

[wellofdean]

Such a good article:

When I work with younger writers, I am frequently amazed by how quickly peer feedback sessions turn into a process of identifying which characters did or said insensitive things. Sometimes the writers rush to defend the character, but often they apologize shamefacedly for their own blind spot, and the discussion swerves into how to fix the morals of the piece. The suggestion that the values of a character can be neither the values of the writer, nor the entire point of the piece, seems more and more surprising — and apt to trigger discomfort. While I typically share the progressive political views of my students, I’m troubled by their concern for righteousness over complexity. They do not want to be seen representing any values they do not personally hold. The result is that, in a moment in which our world has never felt so fast-changing and bewildering, our stories are getting simpler, less nuanced and less able to engage with the realities through which we’re living.

Good stories give us moral clarity by allowing us to process complexity, not by spelling it out, and reading this really interesting article, I can't help thinking of the contrast between the operatic and somehow brain-melting nature of the romance in Supernatural, which was always clear and present, even if it was complicated, subterranean and interdicted, vs the simple, unimpeachable simplicity of something like 9-1-1, which ok, it's clear, uncomplicated queer representation and that is nice! Yes! Sure. Ok. But for me? It cannot hold a candle to the 12 years of highly charged yearning that took place on a show that some members of the fandom still decry as homophobic and accuse of queerbaiting its audience on a regular basis.

For the record, I think it did neither! It told a complex, queer story that required its audience to think, feel and empathize with its characters. It involved me in ways that something like 9-1-1 simply does not, because it ASKED something of me as a viewer.

I'd say the same of about the deep seam of misogyny that runs through Supernatural, and the way the show went from replicating it, sometimes unconsciously, to consciously depicting it as something killing that separates our beloved characters from every softer, consoling feeling, and every authentic desire they have. Is that really 'misogyny', or is it a story that has some legitmate real estate in something that is good for a world without gender hierarchy? Again, it asks me to process it and decide.

Even with the charge of racism, which is, I would say, the most legitimate criticism of Supernatural, the way race was treated carelessly and sometimes in very predictably ugly ways on Supernatural prompts us all to reflect on it -- to call it out and see how unacceptable it is. Is art that shows us our own faces in the mirror bad art, or is it useful to us? There is a difference between moral clarity and moral simplicity.

Supernatural is a genuinely interesting cultural artifact in this regard -- it grew up with us into our present, and it's still going someplace. I think it does teach us moral lessons, particularly in the way it centres non-compliance with hegemony and authentic love of all kinds as the strongest force in its world. But those are not simple things.

Anyway. Just a thought.

[jadejedi]

Romance Book Review: Red, White, and Royal Blue (Casey McQuinston)

JJ’s rating: 5/5

How feral did it make me: 4/5

My book reviews

I have been seeing a lot of negativity around this book and the movie for a while now, and that has made me want to review this book. I will say it’s been a couple of years since I’ve read it last, but I have read it multiple times. The first time I read it I literally could not put it down; I had the audiobook and the ebook so I could read wherever I was lol. 

I genuinely love this book. I think it is a great romance novel and I LOVE Alex and Henry so so much. I think a lot of the negativity is coming from a couple of places. First of all: the politics. Yes, you heard it here folks: the gay rom-com known as Red, White, and Royal Blue is not the next “Communist Manifesto”. Shocking, I know. But McQuinston was clearly not trying to write something politically revolutionary?? So, I don’t understand why that is being held against this book. From my understanding, they wrote this book after the 2016 election as a way of coping, essentially. To me, it is not at all different from something like Parks and Recreation, which is easily as much of a liberal utopia as RWRB. I said this in my review of Victoria Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor, and I’ll say it here: not every work of fiction needs to have a radical political statement. Even if it features politics. It’s okay to have a book that is just about two young men falling in love against this dramatic political backdrop. Is it a bit cringe? Maybe?? But who cares!!! What isn’t cringe these days?? God. Also, it’s not like this book paints a super pretty picture of the monarchy in particular.

Sure, it's escapism, but so what?? What's wrong with a bit of escapism?

I think the other place some of the negativity is coming from is from the crowd who kind of wants to police what is and isn’t “good queer representation”. If a work isn’t “good enough” (i.e. doesn’t resonate with them personally) they will decry it as “bad representation”. I saw this happen with Simon vs. the Homosapien’s Agenda and the movie, Love, Simon. Like those works, I have occasionally seen RWRB condemned as sort of gay fiction for straight people. As if there is only one way to be queer. As if there is only one queer story. I acknowledge our need for a wide range of experiences portrayed in the media, but to say that we as a society no longer have a need for coming out stories is a bold fucking claim to be perfectly honest. RWRB was one of the first queer romance books I read, and it really meant a lot to me at the time, and continues to do so. I think that there is value in portraying both Alex’s journey of self-discovery and Henry’s journey of realizing that he doesn’t have to be unhappy in his life, that he deserves to be able to openly love who he loves. 

So, with all of that out of the way, here’s the summary. Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of the first female president of the USA and she is about to be up for reelection. Alex is widely beloved, he’s got a bright future in politics ahead of him, and everything seems to be going his way. Except he keeps getting put in the path of his nemesis, the younger Prince of England, Prince Henry. Henry, who is so cold and uppity and standoffish and Alex is definitely not attracted to him. Nope. Not a bit. 

This book has everything you want in a romance book. Lovable characters, leads with genuine chemistry, lots of heart and emotion, a good dose of humor, and LOVE LETTERS. And HISTORICAL LOVE LETTERS. God. Even though, as I said above, this book is not a revolutionary political story, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deal with deep and interesting topics. It deals with multicultural relationships, what it means to have a legacy and how much we get to dictate what that legacy is, and some of the realities of being a queer person in the public eye. 

I love this book, and I think if you are a romance reader or just love a good queer romance with a genuinely happy ending, this is the book for you.

[shotofchinaco]

If you’ve ever wondered why it seems like every other station on your dial is Christian rock, EMF [the Educational Media Foundation] is a big part of your answer. From its headquarters in a Nashville suburb (the organization is slowly relocating from its longtime home of California), EMF plays the generic sounds of contemporary Christian music, or “CCM.” It is a genre that everyone from artists and critics to church leaders have decried as being somewhere between “the absolute worst” and “doctrinally unsound.” But the Educational Media Foundation has quietly become the country’s fastest-growing radio chain and second-largest station owner in the country, bested only by iHeartRadio. With hundreds of cookie-cutter stations branded as “K-LOVE,” as well as its smaller chain of “Air1” stations, EMF broadcasts on more than 1,000 signals across all 50 states and some U.S. territories, reaching an estimated 18 million listeners a week.  On the surface, EMF’s broadcasts are glaringly apolitical. They opt instead for their trite brand of Christian rock, all teed off by the same, small cast of nationally syndicated, Anywhere-USA DJs who smile through everything from squeaky-clean jokes about the drink sizes at Starbucks to prayers asking God to watch over those who have donated to the organization. But behind its politically neutral facade, the organization — and the CCM industry more broadly — appears to be an inherently conservative project. Many right-wing Christian culture bearers have long believed in the “Breitbart Doctrine” — the idea that, to change politics, you must first change culture — and have fought for decades to build a parallel popular culture free of sharp edges, hard questions, or representations of lives that veer from the straight and narrow.

[...] But EMF’s story isn’t just about bad music taking over the airwaves in service of a cultural vision that is overwhelmingly white, straight, and artistically regressive. It’s also the story of the near-demise of local radio — a longtime haven for new music, artistic outcasts, and political dialogue — at the hands of a tax-avoiding not-for-profit organization that appears to operate like a very-much-for-profit media mega-corporation. For decades, EMF has hidden behind a veneer of uncoolness while honing a signature technique: At big commercial stations and small, beloved community-radio stations alike, they’ve offered the owners an undeniable sum of money, wiped out the local presence, and replaced it with unmanned transmitters.

[taylortruther]

i think matty was too dismissive of people's concerns and he should really, truly apologize for all of the shitty, racist crap he said.

but at the same time, I think some of what he said is real. like all of us being so worked up online over one person is a bit ridiculous. representation matters and who we hold up in our society matters, but if we really don't like him and don't like taylor for dating him, then we as individuals should just move on, not give him/them our money, stop running our fan blogs, etc. writing pages and pages about someone online is something people do ultimately just to make themselves feel better and like they're a good person.

or, if you still want to be a taylor fan, we don't need to see your long, drawn out explanation for why that's ultimately still justifiable because x y and z. just say you are still supporting her without writing a whole explanation about why you're actually still a good person.

i generally agree with you. no comment on whether matty should have apologized better, really. i think he should've but i absolutely did NOT expect it and will not expect it in the future.

this reply got super long but it was inspired by conversations i've been having with some pals in dms and irl, and how the conversation has evolved (or not evolved) online. so i might be guilty of your last paragraph here and if i am being a holly stallcup right now, so be it!

but there are two things i personally believe about this situation:

a) matty has said and done gross things and now taylor is associating with him (to put it lightly), and people are struggling to cope with that. it's deeply unpleasant to know she wants to date this idiotic edgelord.

b) remaining a fan of taylor's music is truly not indicative of how you personally feel about the issues of racism, sexism, antisemitism, bigotry, and so on.

i think most of fandom on tumblr shares both of these feelings. however, it's a process. some people idolize taylor way and so the idea of giving her up, or changing their perspective/relationship with her, is REALLY hard. a lot of fans are just thinking out loud and processing in real-time, and i think that should be encouraged, because i believe acknowledging taylor's different political opinions or behaviors is critical to moving on to more productive political engagement. it's a good mental exercise, especially for people who are in the early stages of their social justice education.

on the other hand, i see a lot of in-fighting going on; there's been a lot of shaming of other fans, posts suggesting you are "bad fan" or "bad person" if you aren't loudly decrying taylor enough.

and the thing is, the real issue here is racism and bigotry and creating a more just society. a symptom of this issue is that matty, and men as a whole, make comments or jokes like this as a matter of course. why is that? how do we coexist with men who find violence against women, and especially women of color, joke-worthy? if, at the end of the day, we share the same larger political goal as matty, of wanting a better and more just world for everyone, then how do we make sense of his "jokes" in relation to his politics? is it possible you can have a deeply shitty view of x and y issues, and still care about justice in some form (ie, can men in the dirtbag left still add value to social justice movements)? and when we hold people accountable for those hurtful behaviors or words or beliefs, what are we expecting? is it reasonable? do we want education and forgiveness or do we want to exile people who fuck up? what level of fuck up requires exile and which require forgiveness? what are the pros and cons of each and how do those decisions get us to the overall end goal of creating a just world for everyone?

these are, imo, the real concerns. these are what we are trying to talk about when we talk about matty's racist comments. the real issue is not whether you still enjoy reblogging gifs of taylor or if you still want to go to her concert or if you still listen to her music. and unfortunately a lot of the well-meaning conversations people are having end up sounding like taylor is the biggest problem here.

[gingerylangylang1979]

Can we raise the bar for who to consider role models? I don't care if they are marginalized and rich.

Are women and POC so thirsty for role models that we have to accept any shenanigans because someone is wealthy? I find this especially irksome when their behavior is actually damaging to their identity group. How many times do we let craziness slide because, "Oh, they are a great business person." I'm tired of seeing women let themselves be hypersexualized and set crazy beauty standards but it's ok because they are girl bosses. I'm tired of seeing black men who decry racism in one breath and in the next breath they are mocking our community and disparaging black women. But it's ok because they are playing the game and make millions. I'm tired of politicians who do nothing for the communities they represent, except talk, get held up as saviors and worshipped. Like, literally portraits and statues commissioned like they are Medici's and shit when most of them are all so bought and sold they should be stamped with their brand sponsors.

I'm seeing more people call out this type of shit but really it comes down to people valuing money and clout over human dignity. And I don't care how underrepresented a group is, call people out for what they are because bad representation doesn't equal progress.

[broodwolf221]

this is apropos of nothing other than this being on my mind a lot lately and finally feeling like i have the spoons to explain my pov. it might be a little discoursey? i don't really think it is, more conversational/observational and personal than anything else, but ymmv and that's fine.

the primary metric i use to analyze any kind of media is, ig i can call it congruence. is it congruent? does it make sense internally?

and i think that's part of why i like da so much, even the painful or grim aspects. the world feels congruent. and it feels that way in part because it isn't, because in-world there are interpretations, biases, limited povs. no one is all-knowing and omniscient, and even the hardest facts are treated as questionable.

the characters, too. this is why i say - and mean - that i like all da characters. i don't like all characters from all media all the time forever; but i do almost universally like characters who make sense. they don't have to be good, or pure, or interesting, or funny; they don't have to be palatable, even.

and this also ties into why i like the heavy subjects they tackle, although i don't really have the headspace to play dao or da2 anymore bc of how heavy they are about certain things; but that's a personal mental health thing and knowing my own limits atm, not an opposition to the content they show.

because a lot of stuff is just like... it will have value for some people. i have seen people praise and decry the exact same thing too many times now. not just with da, but with anything. i do feel it's worth pointing out offensive stuff, i'm not saying otherwise, but i also think purity politics has slipped into a lot of mainstream conversations about the type of content that's permissible in media and i do not like that.

what one person sees as being needlessly grim and harmful, another will see as cathartic. neither are wrong, but making it so that such things cannot be shown or those who enjoy them are shamed isn't helpful to anyone. there's just so much nuance among people. and a lot of the time it's not some theoretical super-privileged person who just doesn't give a shit about anyone else steepling their fingers with glee over representations of heavy content, it's people who have experienced some version of that.

like, i listen to people. i stay quiet and i listen most of the time. and i have seen many people who have experienced a form of oppression or a kind of fear in their life appreciating representations of that in media. including specifically in dragon age.

so i'm always going to be a proponent of representing stuff, including stuff that's uncomfortable, heavy, grim, whatever you want to call it. how it's presented does matter, but realistically, it's not always that easy to judge a good v. bad presentation of stuff.

[sroloc--elbisivni]

not to like. have a hot take about discourse on main but i've been thinking recently about how singularly unhelpful it is to gauge 'good representation' based on personal experience. to use a real example, i'm trans, and i don't consider myself as having a deadname. i vastly prefer using a chosen name in public or a professional environment but generally, for close friends and family and paperwork reasons, i'm fine with answering to my birthname. they're both my names. notice i'm NOT saying 'and therefore anyone who anyone who writes a character who has a deadname is bad rep because it doesn't align with my experience.' and i am ALSO not saying 'therefore i should not expect to see my own experiences depicted in fiction because it is Bad Representation.' just like. there are more things in heaven and earth horatio than are dreamt of in your lived experience. 'bad representation' is kind of meaningless as a phrase to me now because of how often i see it used by someone decrying something that doesn't align with their own life.

[aprilflowers2040]

While I said in a previous post, I'd talk about my trip to Israel, I feel it's necessary to dive into issues when it comes to aspects of the Pro-Palestinian movement. So consider this as me swapping around parts 2 and 3.

While a majority of people in the movement are in it with the best of intentions, it shouldn't be ignored that there are those within it that are there for less then pure reasons. For starters, while not as prevalent as in the Pro-Israel, there have been neo-Nazis who have decided that their islamophobia and Arab-based xenophobia is secondary to their hatred of Jewish people.

I re-posted a video before talking about the subject so I will re-blog it after this is posted. In summary, it's how genuine anger towards the Likud led government of Israel is co-opted in certain circles to sneak in classic antisemitic talking points, such as Jewish people controlling the media, that the Jewish Diaspora and Israel are to be conflated with one another, by both antisemites, and extreme Zionists.

this goes into my next point, that there are those who proclaim support for Palestine, yet downplay the religious, ethnic and historical connections Jewish people have to the region in order to justify their own viewpoints, that extend to a denial of any nation-state representation. While I'm more for unity unless under certain circumstances, unfortunately, we live in a post-Balfour world, so we deal with the cards dealt. However, I digress.

Back to the matter of weaponized Pro-Palestinian elements. A trend I notice with far too much frequency in posts proclaiming Pro-Palestine is "Death to Israel" or referring to Israel as "IsNotReal" or "Israhell". This isn't even with any effort on my part, but seems to be baked into elements of the Pro-Palestine fringe. This is troubling given the above mentioned conflation of Jews and Israel. It seems downright hypocritical for people like this profess a desire to recognize Palestinian statehood, which it rightfully deserves and is now receiving, while denying Israel's own existence. While Likad propaganda isn't exactly in short supply on social media ,see the litany of porn bots on Tumblr and Twitter, there has also been enough disinformation from people who support Palestine that it should raise eyebrows. For example, footage of people in Ben Gurion Airport which was used to proclaim that people were fleeing back to places like the United States and that they were settlers, when in reality it was people returning home from Passover celebrations. However, it's not only those on the far-right that are spreading falsehoods. There are those in left-wing circles that ascribe to a "West = bad" mentality. While this isn't entirely wrong, as Western governments, including and especially the United States, have used their power for their own selfish interests, the views of Tankies are so black and white, that it borders on pure brain rot. This especially is apparent in their contrasting feelings when it comes to places like China and Russia compared to Israel. Each is currently enacting genocide, with China's CCP against the Uyghur people, Russia's Putin against the Russian queer population and the people of Ukraine, and of course Israel's Likud government on the Palestinians. However, while Tankies are quick to decry Israeli crimes, they remain slavishly loyal and excusatory about the crimes of Russia and China because they aren't "western powers" (looking at you, Hasanabi. Check out Lonerbox's videos on him and his Russian dick riding), which basically results in cutting your nose to spite your face, or in this case supporting one group of authoritarians to spite another group of authoritarians. Thus it extends to apologia towards Hamas and the actions of Palestinian groups both past and present, that used outright terrorism to get what they wanted. If these same people support Palestinian independence while preciously saying that Ukraine should kowtow to Russia's own territorial invasions, turn and run for the hills.

Which brings me to Hamas and previous Palestinian leaderships. Oh God, where do I even start. Firstly, I should clarify that I believe that armed resistance isn't an inherently bad thing. There are times where it's the only solution remaining. However, what you do with it can still be judged, and in this case, Palestinian "liberation" groups have shown a far too common trend of targeting civilian populations such as what happened on Oct.7th. It would be one thing if it was on military or government spaces, yet these actions on civilians screams of utter cowardice on the parts of Hamas. While both the IDF and Hamas have done these things, I've only noticed the IDF being called out, and although their blatant disregard for life should be decried, it's troubling how identical behavior by Hamas and other Palestinian leadership has been swept under the rug for the sake of "support". Hamas has its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood which is a very ultra-orthodox sect of Islam that has multiple bigoted aspects to it which include antisemitism, which Hamas inherited from its parent movement after separating, that wasn't "officially" removed until 2017 (I have their manifesto linked above twice just to be sure of any inconstancies given these are translations.). As for previous incidents, the Munich terrorist attack of 1972, where a combined group of the Palestinian extremist group Black September alongside West German Neo-Nazis killed eleven Israeli Olympics athletes and coaches. While it has been weaponized for darker purposes, it should be noted that while the Palestinian factions had every right to be upset by the destruction of their communities which was what led to this event, their way of dealing with it was horrifically misplaced.

For those who say that Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians, then you are correct. They don't. They were elected in 2006 before a large portion of Palestine's current population were even born, and yet here they must suffer because the leaders they never elected, chose to break a ceasefire and murder 1,200 people and kidnap 240 more, that opened the gates of Hell upon them from an equally genocidal government with a trigger happy military, and a civilian population primed by 2,000 years of exile and (understandable) generational trauma at the hands of multiple countries and empires, mixed with propaganda and exposure to only the worst of Palestinian society in the form of terrorism to explode in anger with zero consideration for the innocent. That being said, there are Israelis and Jews who support Palestinian struggles that also point out that the Likud don't represent them either, yet those of bad faith are willing to blind themselves to this fact.

This went on longer then I meant it to, if I'm being honest. I wish this was more put together, but this was something I feel I needed to talk about. Still, for those wishing to learn more, I've linked to other sources that are more articulate. For now, I leave it here. Next time, I will get to my critiques of Israel outside of its "relationship" with Palestine.

I just want this to end. I want things to heal. All we can do is take action however we can, and cling onto hope for those who are gone, and those who continue on.

[artist-issues]

I mostly agree with your points about representation, that we should be able to appreciate characters that we don’t personally relate to, and I would NEVER decry something for lack of representation, nor applaud something purely on the basis of representation. However, I certainly do think that there is a place for people saying that they want to see their life experience reflected in the media. As an autistic, Australian and young Christian woman, I rarely see any media that reflects even one of those identities in a realistic way, and when I do I get super excited, because it’s nice to occasionally hear an Aussie accent, see people acknowledge that women can be autistic too, and know that some people see Christians as real people, not just bigoted, religious fanatics. So I definitely think that while representation in and of itself is no mark of a work’s quality, I would not go so far as to say it doesn’t matter.

@mymanyfandomramblings I appreciate your thoughts and I agree with the spirit of them (don’t want to rush into discourse without establishing that.)

But I don’t think that representation is a mark of a work’s quality—OR that it matters. After all, the word “matters” is so important when we talk about this. What does representation (of life experience, specifically) matter for?

I’m worried that what we mean when we say “representation matters” is just “representation matters for the end goal of: communicating the most meaningful parts of my identity to others.”

Please don’t take this flippantly: what I’m about to say has more hope of being understood graciously between Christians than anywhere else. From one Christian to another, take it as me just trying (maybe rudely) to change the aim of the spotlights in your brain (like others have done for me:)

Why does it matter that you’re Australian? Why does it matter that you’re a female? Why does it even matter that you’re autistic? Are those the most important, fundamental things about you? So important that it’s more than just “nice” to represent them to others—it’s necessary?

Why does it feel so nice to have those things acknowledged by others? It’s not bad that it feels nice…but why does it feel so nice? So important?

The most meaningful part of your identity (which is what we talk like representation matters for) isn’t your identity at all. It’s Christ’s.

If what we believe is that “in the image of God He created them,” and as Christian, that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” then why do we get enough sense of identity and recognition out of any other traits to feel so strongly about them? To demand that, in the most public of stages and every corner of media, those traits be reflected?

If all we believe is that everything aside from our image-bearing of God is just secondary, then why are we campaigning so hard for people to recognize those secondary traits?

It’s like baking the world’s greatest cake and inviting everyone to try it, but becoming outraged if they decide to eat that cake with a spoon instead of a fork. Why in the world would you care if someone eats the cake with a spoon or a fork, if the main thing is, eat the world’s greatest cake?

What’s the main thing? What’s the most important part of our identities? What does representation matter for? Is just to make certain parts of us (but not all) that we assign value to feel nice and recognized? Why do we need people to recognize those certain parts? Why do we consider those certain parts so important to our “identities” at all? And maybe, why are we so obsessed with people seeing and thinking of us the way we want them to see and think of us?

The most important part of your identity is in Christ. Who you are is wrapped up in Him. When you keep that in the spotlight, then it’s very easy to say that representing everything off in the shadows, like skin color or nationality or even experiences, doesn’t matter.