#forever hilarious to me that u decided to follow this blog despite not knowing what im talking about

[natsmagi]

hap birth!!! forever my only window into enstars fandom and i wouldn't have it any other way

HELPEHRSJHFK THANK YOU !!!! let me serve as a warning sign to never get into enstars

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

5 YEARS WITH BTS (aka bangtan sonyeondan aka beyond the scene aka bangtan boys and bulletproof boy scouts aka b- let’s... let’s just call them bts lol) - A WAY TOO LONG POST ABOUT 1 GIRL’S LOVE FOR 7 DORKS

So I’m just gonna begin this by saying how proud of everything BTS has achieved, not just in the past year or so but in all 5 years they’ve been blessing us with their music...

Second thing I wanna say is that this post is LONG so.... I’m inserting a read more encase anyone aside from me from the future wants to read my rambles about a group of 7 dorks who stole my heart lol...

I discovered them roughly in the early to middle part of 2014, Boy in Luv being the first song I heard of theirs (Ithink... my memory’s kinda hazy lol) & I remember really liking the song (wasn’t as keen on the mv but yeah...)

(I also listened to Bulletproof pt 2 & No More Dream at some point & I really liked them... idk when that was but... yeah... I also vividly remember laughing at the No More Dream mv where RM’s introducing the members and he says Jungkook’s name really quickly at the end? As if he’d run out of space in the intro to fit his name in lol... like ‘shit i only have a second to fit Jungkook in quick gotta say his name real fast’ lol... maybe I’m the only one that finds that funny idk ANyWAy back to the story)...

Fast forward to August 2014 when Danger & the Dark and Wild album were realised, and lemme tell you how that Blew. My. Mind.

Danger was really unlike anything I’d heard in k-pop at the time... I loooooved the grungy/rock vibes mixed with hip hop, which perfectly matched the dark mv & aggressive but sharp dance moves... I just remember thinking ‘wow, these guys are really gonna go far if they keep this up’ (or something like that, guys it was 4 years ago I can barely remember what I was thinking 4 seconds ago let alone anything else lol)

Also, at that point in time I’d heard a lot of great k-pop albums (XOXO by EXO, Crush by 2NE1, Overdose (mini album) by EXO, Red Light by f(x), Mama (mini album) by EXO, etc etc) but genuinely, I was so impressed by this album, & immediately downloaded it despite knowing little to nothing about the group (only things I knew were that one of the members was called V, which i found hilarious lol) just because the music and the entire layout of the album was so brilliantly done!

(would like to mention at this point that my favourite tracks from Dark & Wild were Look Here, Rain and Let Me Know... 3 songs that are still some of my fav BTS songs tbh)

Fast forward again to 2015, maybe near the beginning? where I still didn’t know the members names (well, I knew Rap Mon (who could forget), V and I think I knew Suga... I was following a few blogs who were armies & they’d often use the members actual names so I was constantly like ‘WHO IS THIS YOONGI YOU SPEAK OF WHAT IS A YOONGI’ lol)... tbh idk when that changed, but at some point in 2015 I decided to sell my soul to BTS & officially became an army...

(i was technically a fan of them before, but I hadn’t dedicated much of my life to them at that point u know? there’s a fine line between ‘moderately like a thing’ and ‘SUDDENLY MY REASON TO BREATHE IS THIS THING’... & that line took about a year to cross in this case lol)

Fast forward (we’re fast forwarding to the interesting bits, since most of the rest of my actual life was really boring or really depressing lol...) to about August 2015 & we have my first artwork of BTS &, surprise surprise it’s of Jimin... (based on the Dope teaser pictures cos red haired jimin will always be legendary lbr)...

Anyway, you always know you’re gone for a group or artist when you start doing fanart, so through 2015 I probably did another 2? fanarts of Jimin & one of Taehyung (I also think I tried to draw Jungkook at one point but failed lol...)... The real Problem(tm) started in 2016.

I started the year with a Jimin fanart, and then went on to start a BTS series based on my fav songs by them... and then proceeded to not finish said series lol (story of my life)... BUT, in April of 2016 I did manage to finish a BTS series, based on the Young Forever mv (& the whole concept of that era) which I’m actually still proud of tbh...

Anyway, so 2016 was when I realised that I really like drawing Jimin... like...a lot.... & then 2017 I just continued that up until now (currently 12 of June 2018) I have drawn him 63 times, not counting traditional drawings or random sketches I’ve done..... I have a serious problem I know

Throughout that time I also made about 5 other BTS series (2 of which are based on the Wings solo tracks because they are the GREATEST tbh), as well as countless solo member (or duo member) artworks... so far I’m at about 140, but to be honest that will never be enough to express how much I love these guys... Unfortunately, as a fanartist, my art is really all I can do to express that love so... Cheers to another 140 eh?

So... what’s my point in writing this? Other than the fact I’m really bored & just felt like it?

Well, to be honest, I’m not gonna say that I’d be a shell of a person without them in my life or anything... I think I probably could’ve had an alright life if I had never decided to make my life’s work to draw Jimin at least 200 times before I die... In fact, maybe I’d be a more productive person? Maybe I’d socialise more or maybe I’d stop procrastinating revision so much idk... 

Regardless of those facts, BTS have given me so much inspiration, not just in my art exploits, but also in my own far off, completely unattainable dreams of becoming some kind of musician in the future... 

Music has always been an important part of my life (I actually gave up learning music academically because it clashed with German lessons... I gave up music for culture... now look at me... Ich bin sehr doof, ja?) but I never considered I’d be able to pursue it as more than just a part time hobby... Enter BTS, with their wide eyed determination and optimism, with their talk of dreams and working hard to achieve what you want in life... 

A group of crazy boys, with equally crazy personalities, with a mish-mash bag of talents, who came together in a small company, in a time when k-pop was becoming more and more competitive... And they just came out and did what they loved, they were unashamed to sing and rap about the issues they’d gone through, issues in their own culture and society, they sang about their passions and their loves, they sang about their regrets and the times when they felt hopeless... They’re completely honest, they make mistakes, they have flaws, but they’re proof that people can change and become better people when they’re educated about certain things! 

They’re not perfect, but that’s the point... 

They’re just us, a group of ordinary people who had a couple dreams, and tried their god damn hardest to reach those dreams.... And if I can live my life with even half of that level of enthusiasm and dedication, I know I’ll go far...

Thank you so so much BTS for making me consider new paths that my life may go, for not just settling with the comfortable or the mundane, for striving for something more, for something actually exciting... 

You’ll never know what you mean to me, or to any of army, but I will forever be grateful for the impact you unknowingly made on my life... 

[wendynerdwrites]

Im glad that u also like archer. Ive been rewatching it (im on s2) and i feel guilty as a feminist for liking it so much :( i know a lot of the jokes are supposed to be ironic but i still feel bad for laughing, and my bf has made comments abt "how can u laugh at that as a feminist" (he isnt one, hes using it as a gotcha). How do u feel about this? Any advice for separating myself from toxic fandom to just be able to enjoy something problematic? Love ur blog btw happy friday 💋💋

Thanks, and don’t worry, anon: You’re not a bad feminist. 

It’s funny you ask this, but I used to have an entire essay series on this exact topic, and on Archer, particularly!

My philosophy is: don’t ignore the problematic, examine it. Use it as a springboard for analysis so you can learn more about the issue conveyed. Use your problematic responsibly! Because, let’s be honest, there ARE no unproblematic pieces of media. So just use it to educate yourself instead. For instance: my love of West Side Story (starring Natalie Wood as the Puerto Rican Maria) got me to learn more about the issues of white-washing.

Being a feminist is not about being perfect, it’s about learning and being open to examination and learning. Use your fandom for good!

Laughter is the balm for the soul. And listening to your boyfriend telling you how to be a feminist… less so. Kind of the opposite. 

My old articles are lost, for the most part, but under the cut, I’ve pasted them for reference and included a great video on satire that also very easily applies to this discussion (just substitute feminism with the Holocaust)

Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)

Nothing and no one is perfect, so isnt it about time we learn how to call out the things we love?

We are all familiar with guilty pleasures: those things we like in spite of ourselves, that we are ashamed to admit we enjoy. Usually the term is applied to something we enjoy despite a perceived “lameness”, or because we’re not the right demographic for something. For instance, I still have a deep, abiding affection for Sailor Moon: that colorful, stock-footage-laced Japanese phenomenon that still gets me shouting “MOON PRISM POWER!” when I’m in the right mood. Yes, childhood is over, and yes, the show’s American dub did give me incest panic as a child, but I can’t help but love it.

But then there is the more difficult brand of guilty pleasures guilty pleasures that involve actual guilt instead of “mild embarrassment”. I’m talking about problematic faves the stuff that we love despite it containing clearly objectionable material.

willing18

(Image copyright Vertigo Comics)

…This is a panel from Bill Willingham’s Fables. The character there is Bigby Wolf, one of the main (anti) heroes of the story and the character the writer identifies with most. The person Bigby is waxing poetically on pro-Zionism to is someone literally called “The Adversary”.

Fables also happens to be one of my favorite comic book series on the planet.

Safe to say the issues surrounding Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East are a bit more complicated than that. And my own feelings on the matter are far more complicated. But this glorification of Israeli military policy is… um… in very tame terms… uncomfortable. After reading this, I resolved to only check Fables out of the library: a way for me to enjoy these comics in a legal way without financially supporting these ideas, however indirectly.

There are other problems with Fables: a lack of ethnic diversity, some murky racial and class commentary, and instances of some objectionable tropes, but there is a lot to recommend of these books as well. The stories are fantastic, the art brilliant, the characters well-fleshed out, and there is a definite progressive take on issues like gender and sexuality. But as much as I love this series, there is no getting around the fact that these stories have issues.

No excuses.

But it’s not just Fables that has disappointed me in the past. I am now and forever a Trekker, yet despite how horribly sexist episodes like “The Turnabout Intruder” are, or the very troubling anti-Semitic coding of the Ferengi. The Star Wars prequels famously had racist caricatures with the Trade Federation and the infamous Jar Jar Binks.

In the world of media, there’s no shortage of problematic content. From the novels of Robert Heinlein containing pro-fascist commentary, to HBO’s Game of Thrones misogynistic adaptation decisions, there’s nothing that is quite free of some messed up messages, subtle and blatant alike.

Now, when we talk about such media, we don’t merely mean triggering factors (i.e. the presentation, portrayal, or discussion of potentially traumatizing issues like domestic abuse, racism, hate crimes, substance abuse, or sexual assault), but rather how these matters are portrayed. A piece of media, such as Marvel and Netflix’s excellent Jessica Jones series, can portray certain issues (such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and mental illness) in a respectful, progressive, and sensitive light. Thus, while the content of the show can be triggering, the skill with which they portray these matters keeps it from being problematic.

In contrast, something like Game of Thrones, which portrays sexual assault in a thoroughly insensitive, exploitative, and misogynistic manner, is highly problematic.

Unfortunately, progress has been a slow-moving process, with many issues such as race, gender, sexual identity, mental illness, substance abuse, and violence only being examined in a more nuanced way fairly recently. As a result, almost all media is problematic in one way or another. Especially since even today, the majority of executives crafting, publishing, and greenlighting books, shows, comics, movies, and other forms of media are in fact cisgendered, heterosexual white men.

So what do we do?

Good news: here at Fandom Following, we don’t believe in dropping something you like just because it’s problematic. Why?

Because knowing, examining, and yes, even appreciating problematic content can be incredibly important. While certain content can be damaging, it can also teach us a great deal. Not only about current issues, but also about how to go about discussing these matters, and constructing narratives in general.

The racial issues in things like Star Wars and Star Trek can teach us much about how coding works, and how to avoid reinforcing stereotypes. The exploitation of women and rape on Game of Thrones can open up a dialogue of how to portray these things properly and improperly.

There are three tricks to enjoying problematic media: 1) Recognizing that there is an issue, 2) Being ready for a dialogue, and 3) Not ignoring or silencing the complaints about said issues.

Well, we here at Fandom Following have decided to tackle this issue head on with a series called “Our Faves Are Problematic (And So Can You!)”, where we will be exploring specific media franchises, creators, and works and, specifically, the problematic content they contain. In this series, we’ll be examining the issues, talking about why they’re important, discussing what this piece of media did wrong, how to approach the issue in a more progressive way, and the best ways to go about discussing the issue itself. Various writers will be contributing to this project, and we’re excited to present this feature to you!

So let’s get down and dirty, people. We all have our problematic faves. Let’s talk about them.

My Face is Problematic: Archer

Honestly, doing a post like this on Archer, a show which is deliberate in its dark humor, is a bit hard for me. Not because I like the show, but because I think there’s true validity in the argument that humor and narratives about really messed up, problematic stuff has its place. The show exists to be as outlandish and absurd as possible. The extremes and the awfulness of the characters’ personalities and their actions is the point.

I VUZ BORN IN DUSSELDORF AND THAT IS VY THEY CALL ME ROLF!

Joking about awful things, awful circumstances, and awful people is hardly new ground for comedy to cover, nor does it send a poor message, necessarily. Mel Brooks wrote a movie in which one of the characters was a Nazi, who wrote an overblown pro-Nazi musical produced by men deliberately trying to make a flop. Springtime For Hitler, as it exists in our universe, is not problematic. The Nazis are the butt of the joke, in which any pro-Nazi sentiment can only function if it is wildly fabricated and over-the-top, and even then, it will still be taken for satire. Because Nazis are utterly terrible, they built their movement on total bullshit that they dressed up in shiny boots and Hugo Boss uniforms and German exceptionalism and “glory”. This song-and-dance number about “Don’t be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party” only ever deserves to be a joke, as the Jew who wrote it can tell you. Nazis fucking suck and it’s hilarious that anyone would ever suggest otherwise.

There’s justice in reducing Nazis to self-parody, and doubling down on that by making a joke about them being reduced to self-parody. Especially when said self-parody and depiction of it is crafted by the very people Hitler tried to destroy. No one enjoys or masters mocking Nazis like the Jews. Plain and simple.

Joking about awful things and how terrible they are can be a good way to process things and not allow them to hurt you anymore. Comedy, at its core, is a defense mechanism against horror and pain. There’s a reason slapstick is a classic subgenre of comedy that people have built entire careers around. Laugh at terror and pain to make it go away. Unfortunately, some of the things we manage to find humor in can really make you wonder if were all just terrible and have no limits.

Angela’s Ashes is a memoir by Frank McCourt about his impoverished, abusive, dangerous childhood in Ireland. In it, he chronicles his own starvation, life-threatening illness, abuse, and suffering at the hands of alcoholism and brutality from adult authority figures. He was a child laborer who went days without food while his father drank away the family’s money and abused the rest of the family, who often came down with horrifying illnesses as a result of the terrible conditions he lived in, and spent his formative years suffering along with all the people he loved. Three of his infant siblings die within the space of a chapter. We get a glimpse of the time when his father, overjoyed at the birth of his daughter, finds the will to stop drinking, stop mistreating his family, go to work, provide for his family, and just generally be a better person so that his children don’t have to suffer. For a short period, the McCourts have food, heat, and happiness. Then the baby promptly dies and Frank’s father is back in the pubs, once again squandering any pay he manages to acquire on alcohol and returning home at three am to scream at and beat his wife while his remaining children try to cover their ears and sleep on the cold ground.

Along with being praised for it being a both an unflinchingly brutal depiction of poverty and a testament to the triumph of the human spirit, the book is also praised for its humor.

Remember: Angela’s Ashes is a true story written by the very man who suffered through all of these horrible things. And it’s considered a pretty funny book. And the author who, once again, is the person who actually suffered all of these horrible things, actually did intentionally try to make people laugh as they read about that time he was in the hospital with Typhoid Fever and enjoyed it because it was the first time he’d been in a place where he was fed regularly and got to sleep in a warm bed.

Hilarious.

That being said, there’s satire and dark humor, and there’s just gratuitous, shock-jock bullshit. There are jokes that are terrible simply because of what they’re about and how they’re handled. George Carlin said that anything can be made funny, even rape, if you imagine Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig.

If we can build entire films and musicals about how any pro-Hitler sentiment can only ever be taken as satire, isn’t that proof that you can joke about anything?

Yes, you can, but that doesn’t mean you should try, that the joke is funny, or that it’s alright, necessarily. Maybe Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, and Springtime for Hitler prove that anything can be made funny and that’s okay. But if that’s true (and no, I’m not saying that it is), that still doesn’t mean every attempt at making something funny is either acceptable or funny.

Springtime for Hitler is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for any attempt to make a terrible subject the object of humor. Standards need to exist.

Unfortunately, the line between good or acceptable dark humor and simply gratuitous, insensitive, inherently problematic jokes can blur. The excuse of humor can only go so far. Yes, make light of Nazis. But there’s still a point where “humor” is used an excuse for people to act like assholes. And it’s an excuse that is used all too often. Radio Shock Jocks have been using that excuse to help reinforce racism and rape culture for quite a while. Whether certain dudebros like it or not, there’s a point where it stops being gross-out and just starts being gross.

Which brings me to Archer, the animated spy comedy on FX that premiered in 2011. Like many comedy series like Seinfeld or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a major part of the premise is that certain characters are, quite simply, terrible people. These characters and their abhorrent behavior is the joke. And, as the show is about spies, these terrible people are often put into highly dangerous, outlandish, and traumatizing situations.

So, the main characters, by virtue of their profession, spend a lot of time killing people in cold blood. Or trying to seduce or manipulate enemies. Or engaging in clandestine operations of sabotage that harm a lot of people. Horrible, violent things are going to happen, things violent enough to serve as narratives on their own. But most of the characters are as awful as the situations they encounter, so the horror is amplified. And it’s a comedy.

Indeed, in the first episode of the fifth season, we get the whole main ensemble recounting all of their actions and experiences working for the spy agency ISIS that we’d witnessed over the course of the show’s run at that point. Drag racing with the Yakuza, knee-capping the Irish mob, encountering human traffickers, 30 year affairs with the head of the KGB that only ended when the guy was blown up because one of the ISIS members had choke sex with the victim’s cyborg replacement, actual piracy, paying homeless people to fight for spectators, defling a corpse, defiling a different corpse, sexual assault, kidnapping the pope, blowing up oil pipelines, “smuggling Mexicans”

Yeah.

There are comedic arcs about cancer, illegal immigration, kinky S&M bondage murders, cocaine addiction… a lot of stuff, basically.

Now, take those situations, and add in characters who get aroused by things like homeless people, being choked, sex with food, and the thought of their mother dying. Who spend their weekends starting fires, making hybrid pig-people, rubbing sand into the eyes of their employees, competing in underground Chinese Fighting Fish tournaments, and calling in bomb threats so that they can get a table at a fancy restaurant. You get the idea.

And it’s all totally awesome and hilarious and god damn it I kind of love these characters.

This show has a season-long sub-arc about one of the main characters getting so aggressively addicted to cocaine that she not only consumes (literally) half a ton of it in the space of a few months, but almost gets her head chopped off for buying amphetamines from the Yakuza with counterfeit money. It’s one of the most incredible things the show has done.

Pictured: An absurdly self-centered man feeling genuine dismay and concern over his friend risking her life to achieve an unrealistic standard of beauty.

The title character has a butler named Woodhouse who practically raised him. One of the first interactions we witness between them is Archer not only threatening to rub sand into Woodhouse’s “dead little eyes”, but making him go out and buy the sand himself and check if they grade it, because he wants the sand to be coarse. He’s also done things like make the man eat a bowl of spiderwebs and deliberately keep him in the dark about his brother’s death and funeral.

Another character is a mad scientist and possible clone of Adolf Hitler who kills a young intern by giving him a drug designed to turn him gay. That’s one of the less disturbing things Dr. Krieger has done.

Frequent gags on this show include one guy repeatedly getting shot, another character repeatedly getting paralyzed (it’s complicated), people trying to remember the inappropriate puns that they wanted say as one-liners, the horrific abuse and neglect Sterling Archer has received from his mother his entire life, and basically everyone being a sex-maniac.

There are plots revolving around mind-control, drugging people, and hypnotism. You can imagine the paths some of those episodes go down. Yes, there is a character that has tried to sexually assault one of her sleeping co-workers. And later deposited two unconscious, naked coworkers in a bathroom stall with an octopus, in an episode that has already made tentacle hentai jokes. Yes, the openly gay character on the show is often the target of jokes about him being gay or a woman from his coworkers. Yes, the female lead, a black woman, is referred to as a “quadroon” at one point by one of the characters.

Yes, the following exchange of dialogue does take place in an early episode:

“Oh my god, you killed a hooker!”

“Call-girl!”

“No, Cyril, when they’re dead, they’re just hookers!”

And yet… Oh my god. How it manages to play around with stuff in an amazing fashion. For one thing, it is amazing how often this show skewers micro-aggressions and fucks around with stereotypes. And, despite how unabashedly messed up it is, the writing in it actually manages to be oddly pro-social progress in ways that most modern media doesn’t even seem to be aware of.

I take pride in my sex work and I will not put up with your bullshit!

For instance the “hooker” referred to in that exchange? (spoiler alert: she wasn’t really dead) She’s Trinette, and she an unbelievably refreshing and strangely progressive depiction of a sex worker. While she’s a minor character, every time she shows up, it’s awesome. Trinette is a sex worker who is unashamed of her job, a woman who truly does take pride in and enjoy her work, who does not put up with poor behavior from her clients, and is just generally awesome. She call people out and makes them pay for any mistreatment she receives, from calling out micro-aggressions by insisting on her preferred terminology for her profession (“Call-girl, you puke!”), shaming men for their sexual misdeeds (“How can you cheat on Lana bare-back?!”), demanding restitution for any injuries or threats she’s suffered (Threatening Archer into giving her his car after he fakes her death and stuffs her in a rug to fool Cyril into thinking he killed her), and determining her work and clients (“What about Trinette? She said that? Damn it!”). When she has a baby, she gives it her last name along with his father’s (“Magoon-Archer”) and she unapologetically proud of her Irish heritage. She’s easily one of the most functional characters in the show, and every one of her appearances on the show manage to defy at least one whore-phobic trope a minute. She’s the best.

Then there’s the show’s handling of race, which is mixed. While arguably the most important female character in the series (the show, despite its name, is very, very much an ensemble, especially as the series progresses. But in the early episodes when they focussed on fewer characters, she was the one who got the most screentime) is Lana Kane, a highly-competent (for ISIS) African American woman who is really, really well-developed, there is also the fact that she’s the only POC in the main cast. Granted, part of that IS the point. One of the earliest episodes is “Diversity Hire”, where, aside from Lana, the spy agency is so overwhelmingly white that they hire a “diversity double-whammy!” Conway Stern, a black Jew.

“Sammy Gay-vis Junior!”

Now, granted, that doesn’t sound great the way I describe it, but there are so many great moments in this episode alone. For instance, when Mallory Archer, terrible woman and owner of the spy agency mentions their lack of diversity, Cyril, the tragically white accountant and “nice guy” puts his hands on Lana’s shoulder and says he thinks they’re pretty diverse, a statement Lana finds hilarious. Cue Sterling Archer, other horrible person, telling Lana she’s “black-ish”, then responding to her offense at this with “Well, you freaked out when I said quadroon!”. The framing of this entire discourse is that Cyril and Archer are fucking idiots and Lana is of course taking offense because, duh, she should. The episode proceeds with a lot of references and discussion about racism, highlighting casual racism in a nuanced, funny, and organic way. For instance, Archer’s relief that Conway didn’t sleep with his mother. While Archer freaks out about anyone sleeping with his mother, regardless of race, Conway believes it’s racism on Archer’s fault. And in no way does the narrative act like he’s overly-sensitive or irrational for thinking that. Because the stereotype about black men seducing white women and fear from white men about this is still a very real, pervasive thing that has somehow managed to survive in our “enlightened” times. Of course Conway encountering a guy who displays a downright violent fixation on whether or not his new black coworker is sleeping with his mother will assume it’s a race thing. Because why would anyone be so preoccupied with such an idea? In that situation, it’s almost certainly based on the long-standing paranoia white men have about black men’s sexuality “conquering their women.” It’s one of the most common varieties of anti-blackness in existence.

Of course, since it’s Archer, who has kidnapped a LOT of people under the suspicion that they were having sex with his mom, we know this is the one case that it isn’t racism. It’s Archer’s disturbing, Oedipal relationship with his mother. He even kidnapped and threatened his role model, Burt Reynolds, for dating his mother. When he says “Not in a racist way” to Conway in this episode, it’s actually true. He’s just honestly that screwed up where his mother is concerned.

Conway’s conclusions on this, regardless, are still framed as a totally understandable. To the point where the episodes suggests that it would make no sense for Conway to think otherwise. Part of the joke is that no, Archer isn’t a horrible racist at all. He’s way too screwed up for his actions to be motivated by racism.

And before anyone asks, no, this wasn’t the “episode that acknowledges that racism is a thing.” You know the ones… The episodes that talk about race and why racism is bad to prove to the audience that they’re not racist, then proceed with the rest of the show, which never acknowledges race and racism again. There are frequent instances of highlighting racism, from violent outright bigotry to common micro-aggressions to clueless white people demanding how the thing they just did/said could POSSIBLY be considered racist! They’re not racist! How is THAT racist?! Cue Lana face-palming.

I just really, really like this. It doesn’t just end there, either. Racism is called out pretty frequently on this show, and not in a cliche, strawman way. Nor is it treated like something that only exists in the form of aggressively bigoted bad people shouting slurs and holding cross burnings. Nope. The “heroes” of this show just say shit that you could easily imagine someone saying in real life, shortly before getting defensive about any racism on their part. It’s treated as a common, pervasive thing that Lana and other PoC have to deal with every day, and the offense they take at it is treated as nothing short of sympathetic or justified (even in the cases of misunderstandings, like with Conway). This includes Mallory telling Lana to “put [the race card] back in the deck!” as reminder of how much of an unapologetic douche Mallory is.

It’s made clear: people say and do some super racist shit on a regular basis with realizing it or meaning to, and regardless, it’s still uncool and people have every right to get upset and call you out on it. See: Ray’s bionic hand at the end of season six.

Lana’s reactions and how they’re framed is usually pretty awesome. Mostly they come in the form of small, reasonable confrontations, which are never framed as an overreaction on her part. The fact that she “freaked out” when Archer called her a quadroon is framed as “well, duh, of course, she should.” Then there are instances like when she, Archer, and their child visit a high-end nursery school where they encounter a pretty obvious racist. The guy ignores and dismisses Lana at first, then expresses surprise at the fact that she’s the mother of the child (despite the baby being black), remarking about the “times we live in” and telling Lana “good for you!” when she informs him that yes, she is the mother, not the nanny or the maid.

Not all of the racism stuff stems from Lana being back, either. They skewer bigotry against Latinos on a pretty regular basis. When an Irish mobster rants about Latinos (he doesn’t refer to them by that name) “taking American jobs!”, Archer immediately calls bullshit, recalling actual history of the Irish being accused of that exact same thing during the mass immigration of the Irish to America during the potato famine, and it’s just as shitty and bigoted to say such things about immigrants now as it was in 1842. He is extremely irate about a mission ISIS is assigned to do on behalf of border patrol to  arrest people who just want to get a job, and he ends up siding with and befriending the Mexican illegal immigrants he encounters. All of this while aspects of certain Latinx cultures are often highlighted, often very favorably (“Ramone is Latino, so he’s not afraid to express affection.”)

That being said, there are still a lot of issues in the show. The lack of diversity is definitely an albatross around this show’s neck. Especially so many seasons after the “Diversity Hire” episode. While I do praise Archer for not treating racism as a thing that is rare and only needs to be addressed in one twenty-minute block of time, it is telling that the lack of diversity at ISIS is never addressed again.

Then there’s the approach to sexuality. The show loves gross-out sex humor, especially regarding Krieger. And the depiction of sexuality is actually pretty mixed. On one hand, the openly gay character in the show adheres to a lot of stereotypes about gay men: he mocks Lana about her “knock-off Fiacci drawers”, his go-to alias is “Carl Channing”, his free time is spent at raves, and he loves to make effeminate poses. He’s also a frequent target of homophobic jokes and remarks. His outrage at this is treated as being every bit as valid as Lana’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that their main gay character is basically ALL of the stereotypes, as are a number of the other gay characters.

“Alright! Were off to get our scrotums waxed!”

Then there is the sexual assault. Which, once again, is called out for being what it is, in defiance of many common biases (such as the idea that female-on-male sexual assault isn’t a thing). But this show is way too flippant about this.

While I consider Archer to be very sex-positive, allowing every character, regardless of sex, age, or orientation, to be comfortable and expressive about their sexuality without judgment (a lot of jokes, yes, but not any that come off as particularly shaming). Almost every character, male or female spends a fair amount of time naked or scantily clad. We see Archer stripped down just as often as Lana. And the fan service isn’t relegated to just women who adhere to the typical youth and weight obsessed eurocentric standards we all know and hate.

Pam, who is a big woman (and often the target of fat jokes, which the show always treats as nothing short of detestable) is a total sex goddess who grows to be utterly confident in herself as a woman to the point where she’s giving Mallory (one of the most desired women on the show) advice. When she reveals that she keep ingesting cocaine because it’s made her thin with big boobs, Archer is utterly dismayed, telling her she was way better off the way she was, acting horrified that she’d risk her life to be “hot”, and just generally freaking out about Pam’s desire to be thin. It manages to avoid being cliche or empty given that Archer considered Pam the best sex he ever had before she got thin, to the point of blowing off assignments just to have sex with her, because she’s just that awesome. After she gains the weight back in season six, she’s still sexy, making Archer’s jaw drop in the episode “Edie’s Wedding.” She’s also unapologetically pansexual, which is awesome.

Mallory, meanwhile, is still actively sexual and treated as desirable. While sex and sexuality are always sources of gags and jokes on Archer, never do the jokes about Mallory’s sexuality ever come across as ageist. Sure, some characters make ageist comments on the show, but it’s never treated as valid. Mallory is still treated as being extremely sexy and confident about it. While Mallory is generally a horrible person, her enthusiastic sexual agency is never once treated as a flaw or something disturbing or gross. What’s disturbing, gross, and worthy of ridicule is her son being so preoccupied  and reactionary about his mother having a sex life. It’s clear: if you have a problem with Mallory having a lot of sex and enjoying it, you’re the one with issues.

Even the one young, thin, white woman in the main cast gets to be unapologetic about her kinks. It’s really only a problem when her desire for choke-sex motivates her to lead a KGB cyborg to the ISIS safehouse. Or when she coerces Cyril into sex. And generally acts like a violent, awful person.

Essentially, there’s no tolerance for shaming women for being sexual. All of it, regardless of preference, age, size, or race, is nothing but fun and should be enthusiastically represented. “Can’t talk, got a pussy to break!”

Being a predator is shameful. Having belly rolls is not.

Who on Earth finds this funny?

But, then there’s the flippancy about sexual assault. There ARE gags about Pam and Ray dropping their pants when encountering an unconscious Cyril. And sorry, but the framing of it is all manner of screwed up. There’s tons of sexual coersion as well. Another one of the most problematic instances comes in an episode of season two, where Archer is repeatedly sexually assaulted by a sixteen-year-old German socialite. The show goes out of its way to make it clear that Archer explicitly refuses consent, that he’s being violated, yet the show treats this as funny.

While I get that this is a comedy show and that in-depth exploration of the trauma of sexual abuse isn’t going to be something they can spend a lot of time on, the option they should have gone with is, you know, not base an episode around a german schoolgirl raping the main character. It’s not funny, guys. It’s not necessary. It’s actually just uncomfortable and off-putting.

The show mentions things like alternative gender identities, emotional triggers, and sexual exploration in ways that treat these things as totally valid, which is good. It also frequently portrays poor people as jokes in and of themselves, which is a lot less good. While materialism is lampooned frequently, it’s not treated as a joke in and of itself the way poverty is.

The way the show often portray legitimate abuse for laughs also often goes overboard. While the show does a good job of exploring and following through on all the ways Mallory’s abuse screwed up Archer, there’s a point where the volume of “abuse humor” gets to just be downright gross. Dark humor is one thing, not being able to go an episode without a “Haha, ten-year-old archer was abandoned in a train station at Christmas!” joke is, uh… Not great.

Archer is an awesome, immensely watchable show. But it’s not one I always feel clean watching. It’s a show that celebrates extremes, yes, but there’s a point where certain lines are crossed and it’s just problematic rather than gallows humor.

Archer is one of those series that really makes me struggle to distinguish the gallows humor from the simple tastelessness. To give pause to the idea of problematic content being the “point.”

The line blurs with Archer. A lot. It often manages to distinguish itself with the things it gets right, especially since they often do well on things that most shows, movies, and books are often terrible at. And that’s enough to buy it some goodwill for when they screw up.

But seriously, guys, please stop treating sexual coercion and child abuse as bottomless gag wells. I would have really preferred to have Pam and her awesome sexuality without her sexually assaulting Cyril and Ray. It’s not funny or clever or edgy. It’s just gross.

[fyodor-dostoyevsky]

That one ice skating anime that took over the world. (And my thoughts on it, because I had to let them out.)

Ajdkhgkh it took me forever to get to here, honestly. I forgot when the last ep of Yuri on Ice even aired? Was it two or three weeks ago? Well, it isn‘t as important, I suppose. Before I delve into my thoughts, I just want to say one thing, though: this is my blog, and this is my opinion. You are allowed to agree or disagree with it, but I ask one thing of you - please be respectful when/if you state your opinion. I won‘t go flaming or bitching over anyone here, and I‘d like to expect the same courtesy back. Thank you!

This has been a trip. At first I‘ve thought I‘d never go through watching this anime at all because the toxicity and negative opinions of a few members of fanbase that I had on my previous blog‘s dash completely turned me off; it got seriously out of control. I literally had no idea how it turned into YOI hate place, and... quite frankly, I hated it; I didn‘t need it, I didn‘t ask for it, neither did I sign up for it. It got far enough for me to block the whole tag altogether for a little while and stop thinking about anime altogether. Which is sad. Because, despite how many flaws the anime does have and I will not deny them/will touch upon them shortly, there is still a sweet and beautiful story hidden within it. There‘re a few aspects of it that could definitely be executed differently, and better, but... I grew to like it, despite its flaws thanks to a few wonderful people on my new dash that raised my interest back and made me love it all over again. I thank you for that, guys! I‘m glad I gave it another chance.

The first couple of episodes definitely hook you up; Yuuri, despite being quite a typical anime protagonist, with his upbeat voice and slightly hilarious personality grows to your heart rather quickly. It‘s really easy to feel for him in these eps, and it‘s really easy to sympathise with him, and how he feels in regards of his skating career, Viktor, and himself. However, I will not ever deny that I did not like Yuuri one bit for a little long after those first couple of eps passed. I do not know if it was because how quick-paced the anime got all of a sudden - his fears, his emotions, his mind process couldn‘t get through and to me no matter what. And I did try to like him, I did try to sympathise, I did try to see what the authors wanted to portray. But I just couldn‘t.

There are many flaws in this anime (with portrayal of Yuuri‘s fears in next ep or two being one of them), but this one was particularly apparent to me - the pace. Everything, every single episode after the third one was just too quick for me to follow; too many characters introduced at once, and I couldn‘t, for the love of anything, get to know them as much as I wanted to or should have. It all took quite a bit of time to settle down, and quite a bit of thought collecting to understand. But despite all that? I still grew to love the anime all the same. Especially because I did grow used to the pace although I did wish for a slower one, and perhaps a filler ep or two of showing what happened between these tournaments so I could feel with these characters more, and sympathise with them more.

Now, you‘re probably wondering why am I bringing up all the negative points if I still loved it so much - my answer to that is simple. I‘m bringing them up because I know they‘re there. I know it isn‘t perfect, and in a lot of ways it didn‘t meet my expectations or made me understand where the whole hype train for it came from. I‘m not going to say this anime‘s the best of the best, because it‘s not. But what I‘ll say is that‘s definitely a very enjoyable and sweet, if you‘re ready to look past its flaws. And I am, and I was.

Anyways, on the matter of Yuuri - I was quite concerned about how this will go through, and if I‘ll even be able to like him after again. My SO, who watched the anime with me, kept me up to date on where should I be careful, and might find him slightly irritating, if I may say so. It was quite amusing, though, because where they‘d told me I‘ll be the most annoyed with him, I actually liked him the most - it was the scene on that (underground?) parking lot, where Victor tells him he‘s going to quit being his coach if he doesn‘t perform up to standards. I‘m not sure which ep that was, I‘m sorry guys! That‘s where the authors, in my opinion, hit the right buttons for me. Up until then, I didn‘t feel Yuuri‘s anxiety and fears, and well as concerns at all, let alone his performances as skater. But after that? It‘s plain as day for me; his performances defnitely shifted around. And all I could think was FINALLY, I‘m able to love this boy (again). Perhaps I was just always a little too harsh on him altogether, expected too much, - but it was really good to see him finally open up and share his fears with the one he‘s supposed to trust the most. Ever since then? He was way easier to watch, and way easier to understand. And now I can proudly say I love him quite a lot. He‘s matured afterwards; it‘s a slow process, but it‘s definitely there.  

I‘ll touch upon russian Yuri second, because I have quite a bit of baggage to drop for Victor, but only a few words for this boy. He‘s been my favorite since very beginning, and it stayed so until last. It was beyond beautiful to see him grow into what he was at the end of the series; I love how he kept his grump. It‘s what makes him, him. And I just, love him a lot haha. (BUT SERIOUSLY, WHAT‘S WITH THAT ROMANTIC RANDOM SCENE WITH OTABEK HAHA. It was so cute, don‘t get me wrong. But def a smart shipbait! I mean, I love those two together all the same anyway.~)

Now my dear Victor... I honestly, and truly won‘t ever understand where did all the hate for him come from. Just like any other character in the series, he‘s just a man. With quite a personality, but he‘s h-u-m-a-n, and I‘ll stress that out to everyone. I can understand some may not like him for that, though, I suppose. It‘s really hard to read people who‘re generally desplayed as mysterious, upbeat and cheerful and just outright hilarious (if you ask me, though, part of this was made for a sole purpose of him being somewhat like a comic relief, but there‘s definitely a layer or two besides that).

But like, through each and every ep, I could see him genuinely care for Yuuri (in his own way, but it was there)? He gave him advice (because he knew Yuuri more than anyone else) and Yuuri decided to diss them outright, he dragged him away when he was feeling stressed, he slept on him so he couldn‘t get up and get some rest, he covered his ears so he wouldn‘t listen and rise his anxiety up further - I remember reading a lot of shit thrown at him after he threw an ultimatum at Yuuri about how he wanted to quit being his coach -- but honestly, if you watched closely, if you observed every scene before that one, you could see that was the only thing he could do or think of that he did not do already.

You must understand he is not a professional counsellor, and he did not sign up to be one. He signed up to be a professional ice skating coach, and he had standards to uphold. Besides that, if we just see him as Yuuri‘s boyfriend, he‘s human. He tried everything, and nothing got through Yuuri. So the last thing he thought about is shattering that little that was left (perhaps a wall Yuuri built around himself) -- and guess what, despite some may call it ‚manipulative‘ or ‚abusive‘, it worked on Yuuri. He opened up. He cried. He finally let out everything that worried him. That‘s the most important thing that happened there, more important than how his words came across to some of the watchers (it‘s still all individual‘s interpretation), more important than nitpicking them. He opened up to him. He told him exactly what he wants. And did Victor give him anything else? No. He gave him what was asked of him. It may not have been the perfect confrontation, it may have hurt as hell, but in my opinion, it had to be done. Again, a lot of this would be better and clearer if the series actually showed how much they trained together and everything Victor gave out for Yuuri in that training. But a lot of that was skipped out in favor to progress the series faster, so I can understand how some people could not see the development that happened between.

A lot of hate discussions I happened to read back then were also based on his broken promise to Yuri. If you ask me, he never forgot about it. In my opinion, he‘s too smart to forget about something like that. He may not have been next to Yuri as he said he would be, he may not have watched his every step, but the way I‘ve seen it was that he knew Yuri could do just fine without him/would do even better if he wasn‘t there, next to him. He knew he was strong enough; capable enough. And he knew his debut would be great and it was in the end. He was able to pull it off. Perhaps that‘s just my view on this, and I may as well be wrong - but I‘m absolutely certain he did not just forget about him out there. Episode 10 shows fairly well how much he knows all the skaters - I‘m sure he knew Yuri quite well, as well. I also would like to touch upon the scene that did, indeed, shake me up a little bit (and has again gained Victor lots of hate again, haha). I‘ll say I do not agree with it (though Yuri did kick Victor a few times quite hard himself); the reaction could‘ve as weel been very different; Victor could‘ve taken another route. But in my opinion, this one lays on the writers themselves. It was exectured very poorly, indeed. However, I think what they wanted to represent with it way one of the Victor‘s flaws/the way he can be if someone pisses him off very much. Again, could‘ve been executed a lot better, and maybe they should‘ve taken a different route for this one. But I won‘t defend Victor on this action - I believe, as an adult, he should‘ve taken another route. (We can‘t always get what we want though, and sometimes must accept what we get instead. Will this scene make me love Victor less, though? Likely not. I wanna clarify though, again. I do not support force as an educational action. However, we all know it‘s there; sometimes it can be inevitable. And with that I mean when somebody really messes up - or, I dunno. Perhaps this is just Eastern outlook, though. As someone who comes from one of the Slavic countries and was raised on a few principles that could indeed be questionable elsewhere, I can say I can partly understand Victor here. But then none of the series is truly based on the real world so?? That probably shouldn‘t be an excuse to make for him here.)    

Holy cow, this is getting long, but I suppose I have a lot to say here, though I do think I‘ve covered most of the main points here. Perhaps I could stop by the Victuuri as a ship, and if their relationship is toxic and unhealthy or not. I honestly didn‘t see it as unhealthy (again, my opinion here). More than that, I‘ve probably seen it as a little unrealistic - but beautiful nevertheless. I MEAN, IT‘S FICTION IN THE END. I do not think Yuuri was the one who was dependant on Victor (maybe he was, but only at the begginig) - I think it was actually the other way around, mainly because I believe Victor ran away from all the pressure, from all the expectations he got from all over the world, from everything he had to get through by his own self through all these years to find the love for skating he once had. Yuuri was his solace, his safe haven. And I think I‘m allowed to find that beautiful. Meanwhile, he was a good influence on Yuuri - he gave him that strength he lacked and faith in himself and his abilities, he helped him grow; helped him (partly) overcome his anxiety at least. In the end it wasn‘t just some kind of an unhealthy obsession - if he had to, I strongly believe he‘d do just fine without Victor at this point (but he doesn‘t have to). They both have their strengths and weaknesses, and they balance each other out. And what I love the most out of it all? There‘s no OMFG I‘M GAY WHAT IF HE HATES ME FOR THAT; OMFG HE’D NEVER LOOK AT ME THAT WAY AHHH; OMFG WHAT IF WORLD HATES ME FOR IT stuff that‘s overused in BL content/fetishised in a lot of writing I see around. And man, that‘s refreshing as hell.