#i deserve to see black lesbians in popular media.

[luvtonique]

I just woke up and I chose violence let's go.

Look all I'm sayin' is

If you're gonna attack AI generative art

You should, for the same reason, attack Toby Fox.

The reason I've seen the most for people not liking AI is that it's not "Real art" and that it "Takes jobs from artists" and that it "Steals from other artists"

Well, then, let's talk about how Hopes and Dreams by Toby Fox uses fake Violins to mimic a symphony orchestra. Toby could have hired a real orchestra but he used a fake one and y'all came in your drawers over it.

Why'd nobody ever lift a finger to cover social media in how Toby Fox doesn't deserve to make money because his song "Undertale" uses a fake guitar that sounds just like a real one? He could have hired a musician to play guitar but he didn't! That cost a REAL guitar player a job, didn't it?

And how come when it was found out that Toby Fox stole entire lietmotifs from other games like Kirby n shit, y'all had like 600,000,000 excuses to defend him?

I don't dislike Toby I think he's amazing, like 100/10, one'a the brightest examples of a success story of all time and one of the nicest most pure-hearted people on earth who made two of my favorite games of all time and a ton of my favorite music. Spider Dance has been my ring tone for like 8 years.

I'm just saying, the literal same reasons I see people attacking AI gen art is shit that Toby does, all of it, and y'all worship Toby for it but attack artists.

And neither here nor there, but hear me out?

Y'all will say you're in defense of artists keeping their jobs and their livelihoods which is so very noble of you, but if an artist draws shortstacks that are just a little too short, or if an artist utilizes AI, or if an artist draws Rose Quartz skinny, or if an artist draws Sans and Frisk getting a little too Frisky, or if an artist votes for Trump, or if an artist says a dirty word you don't like, or if an artist draws a black person that looks just a little bit too stereotypical, or if an artist draws a lesbian character getting fucked, or if an artist doesn't believe in gender identities, or if an artist doesn't put trans characters in their graphic novel, or if an artist makes a sexy character with butt-jiggle the protagonist of their video game; Y'ALL ARE COMPLETELY OKAY WITH SAYING THAT ARTIST SHOULDN'T BE MAKING MONEY, AND BANDWAGONING A HATEMONGERING BRIGADE AGAINST THEM.

Or in the Sans and Frisk case: PUT SEWING NEEDLES INSIDE OF COOKIES AND GIVE THEM TO THE ARTIST WHO DREW IT, PUTTING THEM IN THE HOSPITAL.

Listen

Spare me this "We hate AI because we care about the jobs of artists" shit, you lying scoundrels. You don't care about my job! You've tried to cancel me like 500 goddamn times, got my Patreon frozen twice, got my PayPal frozen over 100 times even right in the middle of conventions, flooded my stream chat and spammed the N-word in chat trying to get my Twitch banned, flooded my Discord multiple times with links to CP trying to get my Discord banned, and you have entire Discord servers literally called things like "Jay is an asshole" and "The We Hate Jay Society" (YEAH I KNOW YOU FUCKERS EXIST, HI, HAVE FUN SCREENCAPPING THIS).

My artistic career has been under fire for the past 12 years because I draw things y'all disagree with, have opinions you don't like, and have family members who vote for politicians you think are the boogeyman that's the cause of all your problems (and haven't disowned those family members). With all due respect, when I hear "We hate AI because we believe in fair wages for artists and want to protect the jobs of artists" I just wanna strangle your lying ass.

You hate AI because it's popular to hate AI.

AI is like a prosthetic robot arm that helps you carry the groceries, and disabled people like myself (rheumatoid arthritis) benefit from its uses greatly (such as being able to draw backgrounds much easier which has greatly improved my art and INCREASED MY COMMISSION REVENUE DUE TO MY ART QUALITY IMPROVING [But y'all don't care that AI helps artists earn more money, you hate AI because you claim it's hurting artists' ability to earn money]), but you're so hung up on people using the robot arm instead of their real arms that you think you're some crusader against injustice.

You aren't.

You're just looking for reasons to attack people, it's what you do. I've been dealing with y'all looking for any goddamn reason to attack someone that you can muster for the last 12 years, hell even before that I dealt with you types. You just want to hate, you want to be prejudiced so fucking bad that you look for literally any reason you can possibly find to make some vaguepost about how much you hate an artist and post it to Reddit, and then when you get called out, get so surprised that I found your bitch ass that you start pretending you didn't mean any ill will, and start pretending that you're someone else in the most pathetic attempt to dodge blame I've ever seen.

[Context: The OP of this post accidentally revealed who they are on Tumblr, and then when I called them out on Tumblr, they pretended they were someone else because they were scared I was gonna out them on Tumblr and they tried pathetically to cover their ass, and even politely said "I never wanted to garner hate against you" when they literally posted "I hate the way he draws women" on r/mendrawingwomen and flooded the comment section (mostly now deleted) with how "disgusting of a person" I am, while I was in the comments politely giving context to the shit he was saying about me, and he started getting furious when other people were liking my art and agreeing with me instead of him. I have like 600 screencaps of all the cringe this guy spewed, but I'm not gonna post it all because it's tangential anyway. Case in point? This guy's blog is absolutely covered with how much he hates artists for drawing things he doesn't like, and he regularly posts about how AI is taking jobs from artists. Not gonna out his blog, but that's who he is. A shining example of exactly what I'm talking about. "I hate AI because it takes jobs from artists!" "THIS MAN-THING DRAWS WOMEN IN A WAY I DON'T LIKE AND HE'S A DISGUSTING PERSON, EVERYONE JOIN ME IN HATING HIM AND TRYING TO RUIN HIS REPUTATION AND THEN WE CAN CELEBRATE WHEN HE LOSES HIS JOB!!!"]

Like, y'all can sit there and act like you're defending me and artists like me all you want, you're liars. You're boldfaced fucking liars. You are disgusting. It's completely pathetic watching you attack a tool that can be used to improve our art, and claim it's in defense of the authenticity of our art and the continued financial stability of our artistic careers. Fucking give me a break.

You're looking for people who say positive things about AI art so you can attack them and feel justified because it's popular to attack them.

All while sitting there and gladly swallowing the cum of any musician who makes amazing music with synths, fake symphony instruments and autotune.

"We care about the jobs of artists."

Yeah.

Long as those artists fall in line with your opinions and only draw things that agree with said opinions, right?

Wouldn't wanna care about the jobs of "problematic" artists who draw "offensive" stuff or vote for politicians you don't like.

Final note: This isn't even an attack against any political opinions or activism or anything like that, but I'm being realistic here because these are the people I see brigading against AI art. It's not me saying those people are dumb for having their opinions or political standpoints or being activists for their beliefs, it's me saying those people are the ones who are constantly attacking AI art in "defense of artists," while in the same breath attacking artists for not sharing their political standpoints or also being activists for the same causes. If you truly, truly cared about the livelihood of artists, you'd stop attacking artists' livelihood for disagreeing with you. Or for that matter: Any reason. Stop attacking artists' livelihood, or stop pretending you care about it. Be consistent, at least.

[bookishfeylin]

I read something you said and you put into words what I've been struggling to verbalize for a while. I'm a bi brown woman, and always happy for representation. But it bothered me that Fandom insists black and brown women are always gay to push them out of the way for a white ship, or white authors (in this case SJM), lazily slapping on queer on a woc (Emerie) for brownie points. I'm not saying men loving us validates us, or that we need them to, but it is weird that a lot of media refuses to put woc into loving relationships with men. You saying that it says "woc aren't deserving of love from men" was finally what I was looking for to describe it. So thank you.

Hi nonny! I think you're talking about either this or this post? But either way, you're very welcome, though before I fully answer this ask, I want to add the disclaimer here that I'm straight and cis, though I've also seen many LGBTQ+ POC complain about this phenomenon too, like @positively--speculative.

Firstly: Of course LGBTQ+ POC need representation, and deserve it. I don't want anyone who reads this to think otherwise. Representation matters. But this is a nuanced conversation that needs to happen.

The problem is that many white authors and their fandoms want to seem "woke" and "diverse" without actually caring about their diverse characters. So they'll make the POC the token gay and sideline them so they can focus on the white (usually cishet) ship. They won't develop the character or give them a personality beyond their race and sexuality, half of the time don't even bother to give them a love interest or even a relevant love story with screen time***, and mainly use them as little more than a background prop for the story of the white ship. @positively--speculative has discussed how white fandom did this with Valkyrie after Thor Ragnarok came out: white fandom claimed Thorkyrie couldn't be shipped because it "ruined" Val's bisexuality. Never mind that there's no other woman in Thor Ragnarok that Valkyrie can be reasonably shipped with, apparently we just don't deserve to see Val in love at all! (I recommend checking out all her posts tagged Thorkyrie if you want more of her--a Black bisexual woman's--perspective, on the matter). And Sarah J Maas is a big offender for doing the same to her WOC.

As you and I both said, a large part of it is people being uncomfortable with WOC being the romantic interest of men (this is especially true of ships that involve Black women. A lot of the time fandom considers the Black woman to be an "independent lesbian" who doesn't need romantic love from a man, so her male love interest should be with [insert popular white character here]). What it ultimately boils down to is racism, and us not being seen as viable love interests worthy of romance (from men).

But many people simply don't want to admit that, and merely switch to the 'this woc is a lesbian' game. And it sucks, doing a disservice to all the marginalized people involved.

***or they're fetishized.

[prisonpodcast]

Hello! Happy June! It's Pride and I have another question (4/30)

Today we are talking about queer representation in media. In 1894 "The Dickson Experimental Sound Film" is released, becoming the first "gay film". It was also known as "The Gay Brothers", it feature two men dancing together and it reportedly "shocked audiences with its subversion of conventional male behaviour". Unfortunately, in 1934 the USA introduced the Hays Code, which, while it didn't explicitly ban queerness, banned queerness in effect. This resulted in three decades of queer-coded villains, such as Joel Cairo in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and Jack Favell in "Rebecca" (1940).

The Hays Code was lifted in 1968, and the queer cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was released in 1975, and gave a much-needed positive and FUN representation of queer people and queerness. Unfortunately, this was short-lived, as the rising AIDs crisis worsened the stigma around the gay community. This didn't stop everyone though, and in 1985 "Desert Hearts" was released; regarded as the first mainstream lesbian film with a happy ending.

Further on, the first gay kiss on TV in the UK was on "EastEnders" in 1989, "Ellen" became the first American tv show with an openly gay lead in 1997, and other show such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" started to add recurring LGBTQ+ characters. An important show in the UK was "Queer as Folk" (1999) which was one of the first shows to depict the queer community as vibrant and alive.

Even further forward, and "Moonlight" (2017) became the first LGBTQ+ film (and the first all-black cast) to win Best Picture at the Oscars. GLAAD publishes an annual report showing how representation is changing. 2005-2006 1.4% of regular characters vs 2020-2021 the figure is at 9.1%. So, there is still a long way to go obviously, especially because media is often the main or only place that young people have an insight into the community at all.

Because of this, I want to ask you for a recommendation: What is a piece of queer media that you think more people should see? (it can be literally anything, big/small, funny/sad, smart/stupid <- just anything you think deserves to be watched!:))

(I'll go first: "Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho" (or "I Don't Want to Go Back Alone) is a really really cute Brazillian short film available on Youtube! (if you enjoy it, there is also a full-length film version called "Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho" (or "The Way He Looks"))

Happy Pride 🌈 🎉

Well it’s pretty popular but Legend of Korra :D

[holyhexes]

the lack of lizmj content... heartbreaking.

[nona-gay-simus-main]

7 Tropes That Make Me Uncomfy

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, calm down. Also, I'm white and do not speak for BIPOC communities

1. The Black Cop

Look, cops are racist af, we all know this. So what is this obsession with cops in media being Black? Is it to make them seem more palatable to liberal/leftist audiences? (That's rhetorical, we know it' is.)

Here's a wild idea: instead of making cops Black, stop writing stories about cops. Even if you want your protagonist or one of your main characters to be an investigator: private detectives exist. Defense lawyers, investigative journalists, there are literally so many options that don't have to include cops.

2. The Supernatural Police Procedural

This one I just don't understand. So you have zombies in your show, or the devil, or whatever, and you made it a police procedural? Really? There were no other, more interesting options out there?

I guess the supernatural element adds a bit of an original twist to the genre, but at the end of the day they're still cops investigating a murder. I think there might be more fun ways to use your supernatural characters than copaganda.

3. Rape as Karma

I think get the appeal of good, old schadenfreude. I too love when a bad guy gets a taste of their own medicine, it feels very satisfying & ironic. And irony is great!

But when it comes to rape, I just feel like it's one of those things that shouldn't really happen to anyone, even if they themselves are a rapist. It just feeds into the toxic mindset that some people are acceptable victims or that they 'deserved it' and I don't see how that's any better than what we have now.

4. The B word

No, I'm not talking about bitch - weirdly, that's one most media has no issue with. (I wonder why...) I mean 'bisexual'.

Why does media treat the word bisexual like it's a slur? I've seen shows that go to extreme lengths just to avoid mentioning it., "ex lesbian", "lower on the kinsey scale" and the always popular, "i like people, not gender." Oh my god, just say bisexual! Or pansexual! Or whatever you actually mean and stop this beating around the bush. Please, I beg of you! And ofc this isn't to say that some people don't use labels and that's also a valid experience, but why is it that the unlabeled characters are ALWAYS the ones attracted to multiple genders??

And stop treating bi characters as gay or straight based on the relationship they're currently in. Newsflash, but most bisexuals date men and women (and non-binary people) at different stages of their life and their sexuality doesn't actually change based on their partner's gender.

5. Queer In Name Only

You know that queer character, that's queer, but they also don't speak, act, think, dress, or even the same sense of humor as any real life queer person you know? Usually, it's a traditionally attractive, feminine, white cis woman - once in a while, the same, but a guy.

Now, obviously, there is no one way to be queer. That's not what I'm saying, nor am I advocating to bring back two-dimensional stereotypes. I'm just saying that it feels incredibly disingenuous that most of the 'representation' we have in mainstream media feels completely divorced from real-life queer culture.

6. Rampant Misogyny in Fantasy

This applies to any sort of bigotry, but misogyny is the most common one, because there is plenty of fantasy with no PoC or queer people, but there's almost no fantasy with no women.

And they are always there to be oppressed, be sexually harassed and assaulted (or at least attempted to be assaulted), and saved by the hero if they are lucky. Maybe there's one woman that has power, but she's usually evil or she dies. And if there is a stronger, warrior type woman, she has to be Not Like Other Girls and detest anything féminine from dresses to kindness.

I get that for most of human history women have had a pretty rough deal (and still do in most places) and I know that fantasy is often inspired by history, but it's still made up. You're allowed to create your own rules. So why do they always have to be sexist?

7. The Strong Female Character

I like a good, well-rounded female character, but what I'm talking about the Not Like Other GIrls, Strong Female Character who has to be stripped of any softness and compassion, and any femininity (besides maybe a surface level-one like love for dresses and nail-polish, if that) to be a true #GirlBoss.

Can we maybe stop doing that? Believe it or not, you can be 'emotional' and be a good leader. You can have healthy relationships with other women (platonic or sexual). You can even be a smart and dedicated person rather than a fighter.

I'm just tired that every female character has to fit this 90s femininism mold now. Where are the complex, broken women? The ugly women? The women who use compassion, intution, and vulnerability as their strongest qualities, rather than just a literal weapons? God, just give me more than this please.

[nostalgicatsea]

Common questions about and excuses for racism in fandom

I noticed that the same excuses, justifications, and questions that have come up in response to racism in fandom over the years appear in the notes for my post, so here’s a FAQ of sorts to address them. Hopefully, this will help people understand why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and have something to refer to in lieu of writing a new reply every time someone says these things. 

Due to the length of this post, I made a Google doc for easier reading. Please note that several points are specific to the Marvel fandom and to the post linked above and are often M/M-focused (I explain why in that post), but generally speaking, the following can be applied to any fandom and various relationships. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

Shipping isn’t activism. 

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned? 

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

The rest of the post is under the cut.

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

As explicitly stated several times in my post, I agree that you can ship whatever you want. I’m not targeting a specific ship. I’m not telling you to stop shipping what you ship. All I’m asking is for everyone, including myself and other POC, to regularly examine ourselves for any implicit biases. If you’re a multishipper, are all of your ships in the fandom white? If you only have one ship and it’s white, are most or all of your ships in your other/previous fandoms white? Is the only media you consume predominantly or all white? 

Shipping isn’t activism. 

No, it isn’t and in many cases, shouldn’t be seen or treated as the same thing. However, by responding this way to POC who want to see themselves represented in fanworks more and not be ignored or written stereotypically, you’re telling us that our mere existence is a “political issue.” 

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

It should be fun for us POC too, and it’s not when we’re consistently misrepresented or we don’t exist in this fandom. By using this as an excuse to exclude POC from your works, you’re saying that only some people are allowed to have fun or that having fun is conditional. Also, no one is forcing you as an individual to do or not do anything. See two paragraphs above.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

Just like you do research for those groups, you can easily do research on POC. Also, please be aware that this statement is similar to the “I’m not racist because I have a ___ friend/have a ___ person in my works” argument that many people use to prove they’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. We aren’t interchangeable with other groups. 

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

Something like BDSM is a lifestyle and preference. It is a choice. Being a POC isn’t. We can’t take off our identity every time we leave the house, the way you might keep it secret at work that you’re in the BDSM scene. 

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

We do. Also, all of us fanwork creators make works with characters who are different from us all the time. Fandom is largely composed of people who aren’t straight cis men, yet the bulk of works on AO3 features characters who are canonically or implied to be straight cis men even if we end up changing that in our works. Most of us aren’t billionaires, but we don’t have a problem writing Tony. We don’t know what it’s like to be a WWII-soldier-turned-brainwashed-assassin who was kept in cryo for decades except when deployed on missions, but we don’t have a problem writing Bucky. The list goes on.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

Your concern isn’t harmful. Reducing us to our trauma is, and you’re doing that if the reason you’re not comfortable with writing POC is that you don’t know how to write our struggles. We’re not only our pain. We’re more than that.

Not every fic has to be about the trauma of being a POC. We deserve to have fun, silly fics in addition to serious, plotty drama. We’re not thinking about our suffering 24/7 even if we do think about or are affected by it a lot. It’s not like if you write a Sam/Bucky fic, Sam is going to randomly lecture Bucky about the history of Black people in the U.S. and modern enslavement through the prison industrial complex while Bucky is trailing kisses down his neck in bed. We don’t need everyone being racist to MJ in a Pride and Prejudice AU. If you do want to include their struggles because that informs the way the characters think or act in your story, you can do so in ways that feel organic. 

Additionally, this is an excuse that we hear often; you may have heard it as people in Hollywood have used it to explain why they don’t have any, or at least any major, characters from marginalized groups in their works. If we allowed this excuse, an overwhelming majority of who we see in the media would be straight, cis white men considering who has power in the film and TV industry—and we would have to say that’s okay. We would have to say that the only people allowed to write about a certain group are members of that group, e.g., only women can write women. That’s not acceptable especially considering the gatekeeping, oppression, and high barriers to entry and success that make it difficult for marginalized people to even be in the room let alone make a name for themselves.

Fandom is no different. You’re saying that you can’t relate to POC because you’re white, but none of us POC have any problems making fanworks with white characters even though we don’t know what it’s like to be white. There are straight women who write fics about gay men and don’t feel uncomfortable doing so when they don’t know a single thing about being a gay man and the struggles of gay men (M/M can include bi or pan men, fics about gay men by straight women can sometimes include problematic portrayals, and straight men, queer women, and non-binary people write M/M too, but this is just an example).

You should be more careful when writing a POC if you're not a POC. The same goes for men writing women, cis people writing trans people, straight people writing queer people, able-bodied people writing disabled people, etc. However, there ARE ways to go about it, and while I understand the fear of messing up, the truth is everyone is racist, sexist, etc. Everyone including people in marginalized groups. Being a white lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Being an Asian man doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist. You can see that within groups themselves. POC are not exempt from racism against other POC or from internalized racism against themselves or their own group. Women aren't free from internalized misogyny. The best we can do is to not make that prevent us from making inclusive works; if you make a mistake, which may happen, all we can ask is that you try your best to be open to feedback and grow. 

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

No one is telling you to. Choose characters who make sense for the story. Don’t choose them just so you have a POC in your work. We don’t want them to be tokenized. 

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

This argument is identical to the “not all _____” rebuttal (“not all men,” “not all white people,” etc.) which places the blame on a few lone individuals and shifts the conversation away from an existing widespread problem. When there’s a consistent pattern and there are many examples of it both within the fandom and in other fandoms, it no longer is about individual preference. 

I urge you to consider the following:

If most people say they don’t write about or include a POC in their work because it’s too difficult or they’re afraid of making that character inauthentic, but they don’t seem to have an issue with writing other characters from groups they’re not in (e.g., if you’re a straight woman who writes a lot of M/M fics despite not knowing what it’s like to be a bi, pan, or gay man), doesn’t that say something?

If most people have the same reasons you do about not being interested in POC (e.g., “they’re not fleshed out enough” while being interested in or fleshing out minor white characters who get the same or even less development as those characters) or ships with POC (e.g., saying “they’re like brothers” while being interested in a white ship with similar dynamics and tropes or seeing why other people might ship it if you don’t), doesn’t that say something?

If most people give characters of color the same roles in their works even if that makes them OOC and/or the role reduces them to a (frequently stereotypical) trope, especially if they’re never fleshed out beyond that trope (e.g., the funny sidekick, wise friend who always helps or gives advice/free therapy, or responsible, mature, and sometimes stern friend who “parents” the protagonist), isn’t that saying something?

If race truly isn’t a factor for you when it comes to liking characters and ships, then this isn’t about you and you don’t have to distract people from the conversation by announcing that. That said, we should all look at characters and ships we like anyway instead of assuming that’s the case as that’s good practice. How much of your list is white? If it’s mostly or entirely white, why is that the case and why do you feel differently about ships of color?

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

What characters and actors do you find attractive or interesting? Are they all or mostly white? If they aren’t, are you drawn to any ships that include those POC? Refer to the section above.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Part of this is preference as it comes down to perceived chemistry and relationship dynamics. However, POC are often not seen as romantic leads both in fanworks and the media and are just friends or “brothers/sisters” (this is why Crazy Rich Asians was a big deal). Sometimes, people even argue against POC being or having love interests in the name of diversity. You see this a lot with WOC in the media where the explanation against a love interest is “she’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man”; yes, they don’t and sometimes the story doesn’t need a romance, but WOC deserve love too and it’s strange that while white women can get the guy and be independent, WOC can’t and it somehow belittles or reduces them if they do. 

The way you can gauge whether it’s just preference at play or biases you may not have been aware of is to see how many relationships featuring a character of color fall under the “just friends/siblings” category for you, what you need to ship something, and how you feel about white ships with the same type of relationship or same lack of chemistry. For instance, you may say that there needs to be enough interaction for you to ship something and that’s why you don’t care much for Rhodey/Sam. Do you feel the same way about Clint/Coulson then, which has much less interaction (actually much less than Rhodey/Sam in this case)? If it’s about chemistry, are Steve and Sam just “brothers,” but Bruce and Thor aren’t or, if you don’t ship Bruce/Thor, you still “see it” and get why other people might be into it?

What do you ship, or what ships do you understand even if they’re not for you, and how is that different from ships that follow the same beats? Why are Steve and Bucky not brothers, but Rhodey and Tony are (there are many parallels between the two relationships—and one can argue the latter is more nuanced—than appears at first glance, and Rhodey/Tony can be just as sweet or angsty)? If you like the rivals/enemies-to-lovers or meet-ugly aspect to Steve/Tony, Sam/Bucky, Scott/Jimmy Woo, and M’Baku/T’Challa have that dynamic. You like that superior/subordinate-to-lovers dynamic that Clint/Coulson has? Coulson/Fury. Flirty meet-cutes or love/trust-at-first-sight? Steve/Sam.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

I explained why I focused on the MCU here and that most of the fics that feature an MCU character and comics ’verse character tend to be heavily or entirely MCU-influenced here.

Also, characters of color exist in the comics, cartoons, and games too. By this logic, Steve/Sam and Rhodey/Tony should be juggernauts in the MCU fandom considering the depth and history of the characters and relationships. Ask yourself why people are happy to ship MCU Spideypool, to draw on the comics for that relationship and even bring a non-MCU character into the MCU and write him based on his comics history and characterization. Ask yourself why people are unhappy with MCU Clint’s terrible writing and lack of characterization and decide to give him his 616 (usually Fraction-era) characterization. And then ask yourself why people don’t do that for characters of color and then use “___ is a minor character/doesn’t have much development” as an excuse for why they’re uninteresting or not shippable with others.

There are many strong and interesting relationships in the comics, but only a few make it to the MCU fandom and almost all, if not all, of them are white.

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

It’s more important to see how many fanworks there are for ships of color in a fandom than how many ships of color there are in that fandom. See how few works there are for POC ships other than MJ/Peter in the MCU Spider-Man fandom despite the diversity of the cast. See how the most popular ships are white and three of them involve white characters from the Iron Man fandom (explain to me how Harley/Peter has over 1,000 works, but Ned/Peter has 436). 

And sure, you can say almost all of the Black Panther ships feature a character of color so there’s “more” diversity, but see how few works there are for them and how works with a white character fare compare to POC-only ships (almost all have 100-200 or fewer fics, with many having so few that I didn’t include them in the post, while BP ships with a white character have more works despite little to no interaction between the characters). 

Both of these, by the way, are critical and box office hits with characters who are clearly supposed to be the faces of the MCU now that the OG6 are gone. Black Panther is an award-winning critical and box office hit, and it is, more than any other film in MCU history, a huge cultural phenomenon with tremendous impact. It broke so many records and milestones, and it’s STILL breaking and making them. It has the most nuanced and balanced ensemble cast with side characters just as three-dimensional as the lead, a rarity in MCU films. Yet, its tag only has 3,966 works, fewer in total for the whole fandom than some of the white M/M ships on this list. Even if you account for BP fanworks that may have been tagged as MCU instead of BP, the number is paltry as you can see in this post. People simply do not want to make fanworks for characters of color (in this case, specifically Black characters) and don’t. It’s not about how diverse or successful a film is.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Yes, that’s true, but fandom has no problem catapulting white ships with minor characters into extreme popularity. See Clint/Coulson. See fics prioritizing Happy and having him show up more than Rhodey in Steve/Tony fics. 

It’s not about chronology. Many ships of color came before white ships as a whole and before white ships with the same white character they have. See Bucky/Clint vs. Bucky/Sam. 

Lastly, please don’t tell me how certain white M/M ships came to be to explain how they’re exempt or how I’m failing to consider other factors for their popularity. I’ve been in the fandom since 2012, and I’ve seen almost all of the white ships in the fandom be born or boom into popularity. Don’t try to explain, for instance, that Clint/Coulson is big because Coulson has his own show and his fans followed him from the show (this logic falls flat when you look at something like Luke Cage); that ship became huge way before that happened and way before Agents of Shield became “big.” Also, see the section above regarding screen time, development, and fame. 

Is it racist to racebend a character? 

People’s opinions differ on racebending—and often that comes from personal background and on the situation—so I can’t speak on anyone’s behalf. However, I think everyone can agree on the following:

Racebending a white character is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC. For example, making Tony Stark Indian vs. turning T’Challa white or as canonical examples, making Fury black in Ultimates and the MCU vs. making the Ancient One or the Maximoffs white. The latter (whitewashing T’Challa, the Ancient One, and the Maximoff twins) is racist for various reasons. There’s a long history of POC being erased and white people taking roles from POC, a huge imbalance in representation between white people and POC, the unfortunate perception by the public and media that “white = neutral/standard” (Bruce’s whiteness doesn’t define his characterization and development), and the way race plays a role in influencing the way POC feel, act, and are treated.

Racebending a POC from one ethnicity or racial group to another is also problematic as we’re not interchangeable. Hollywood often does this and goes, “But they’re still a POC! We’re being diverse!” 

In general, people who racebend white characters to POC want to see more POC in canon and in the media! These aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes people racebend because they’re not represented at all in their works. (This happens with other marginalized groups too; for instance, some people make cis characters trans in their fanworks as there are few to no trans characters in the canonical source.) For example, there are, as of now, no Latinx superheroes in the MCU films. Even if people wanted to, they can’t make works with an MCU Latinx superhero unless they bring one from the comics or the one Latinx superhero from Agents of Shield (if they know the comics or AoS), make a minor Latinx film character like Luis a superhero, or racebend their favorite white character and put a fresh spin on the character, drawing from their personal experience and background.

There’s a massive difference between fans racebending a character and a creator taking credit by pretending they viewed a character as non-white or didn’t see race all along when it’s clear that the character is canonically white (this is different from a creator saying they support anyone, POC or white, playing that character onscreen or onstage). 

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

We don’t have to pick our battles. Both are important! I focused on fandom representation as it’s much more quantifiable and easy to find and analyze data for than racist language on a fandom-wide scale on my own without any tools. You’re right that the latter is a problem as is racist representation in fanworks, though. 

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

If the story is about a relationship (examining that relationship and the feelings of the characters in it) and there isn’t much of a plot outside of that, then that makes sense. However, even in situations like this, consider how much time you dedicate to characters of color vs. white characters. If the story is about a ship featuring a POC, do you spend more time on the white character of that relationship? Their white friends and how they feel about that relationship? If it’s about a white ship, do white side characters appear more than side characters of color even if the latter have a closer relationship with the protagonists? For example, does Wanda show up more than Sam or play a bigger role than him in a Steve/Bucky fic? Do you have Pepper show up all the time (or even Happy), but Rhodey is chronically absent? Do only the white characters get to be more than the tropes you’re using, if you’re using any, while the POC don’t get to be nuanced? Are there any stereotypes that you’re reducing the POC to?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

See “It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.” Include the character(s) who make sense for the story, perspective you’re writing/drawing from if applicable, and central group or ship if this is a ship-specific work. For example, if you’re drawing the Avengers and you include the newer Avengers, Rhodey and Sam should appear too, not just Wanda, Scott, Bucky, and/or Carol (this happens a lot). If you’re writing a Tony POV fic that includes other characters, depending on the story, it may make sense that Sam doesn’t appear much as he and Tony aren’t close whereas he would in a Steve POV fic.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

You can’t ensure anything as POC aren’t a monolith, but you can try to be as informed as possible and avoid common pitfalls while writing. You can do research, just the way you might research anything you’re not familiar with. You can ask if anyone is willing to do a sensitivity read while you write or before you post. You can look for betas. There are a lot of resources out there, but these are good places to start if you’re looking for more information and help:

Writing with Color - resources

Writing with Color - Stereotypes and Tropes page

Reference for Writers - POC tag

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

We should all take stock of:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic, who we prioritize in our works, and how much they’re prioritized

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content for white ships because sometimes every white character in the MCU shows up as a side character, but characters of color don’t or all of the white characters play bigger roles than the POC despite how close they are to the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? A figurative or literal therapist for white friends? The bro who only cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being ridiculous about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already? Does the character of color talk in the way you perceive everyone of that race to talk rather than the way they personally do (e.g., does Luis randomly and awkwardly switch into Spanish when he talks just because he’s Latinx despite never speaking Spanish with Scott? Does Sam use AAVE with Steve, Bucky, and Natasha when he doesn’t do that with them?)? 

Also, here’s a Google doc with more anti-racist resources.

Even well-meaning people can slip up or not be as proactive as they hoped they would be so it’s just good practice to check in with ourselves every once in a while and see if there’s anything we missed or didn’t notice.

[goldemas1244]

Heyyyy I have a question :3

Do you have any headcanon/s for these character : Scraptrap, Scrap Baby, Lady Dimistrecu, the three daughter of Lady D, Heisenberg and/or Molten Freddy ? :3

You don't have to do all the proposition, you can choose what character you want to do :3

Have a good day/evening and stay safe ! :3

*Cracks knuckles* \(^v^)/

You already know I'm doing all of them! Thank you for the ask! Headcanons under the cut!

FNaF6

Scraptrap

He loves rice and would do anything to get his paws on it. Fortunately, the pizzeria is quite close to a Chinese restaurant so rice is easy to get.

He orders a rice-based menu at least three times a week, so the owners aren't at all that surprised to see a tuxedo-clad zombie-rabbit come in and ask for their signature fried rice with buttered lobster on the side.

Since he like to dine-in there, he usually asks Michael to give him a bath in exchange for pizzeria improvements. Michael usually shrugs and gives him a well-deserved bubble bath and his tuxedo.

He likes it when Michael gives him head pats and rubs. It makes him feel loved and appreciated.

He has a pet pigeon named Fernando Buschmann. It's German and likes to listen to the violin.

He likes ASMR and memes. ASMR makes him go feral with murderous intent while memes make him question the modern generation.

He has social media accounts, all named "Willton-Moldover". He usually posts cosplays and furry art on them and has 93 followers on his Reddit profile, 1.5 million followers on his Instagram, 550 followers on his Tumblr, 35 on his Snapchat, and 3.95 million on his TikTok.

He also has a YouTube channel with 10.784 million subscribers called "Willton-Gameover". He plays videogames one-handed and roasts popular YouTubers and famous people. He would never roast Keanu Reeves though, because Keanu Reeves is precious bean.

Due to his popularity he gets a lot of hate mail and private pics. He doesn't like them at all so he blackmails the people who post them. And if the media and police are involved? Well, he has a strong fanbase that's not going down as well as a good alibi so that works out well for him.

Yes, his fanbase also knows of the Fazbear Murders, and he admits to it but frankly, he's shown them the approving ghost kids (who've bonded and gamed with him) so that's no big deal. Only Cassidy hates him, but it's usually constipated anger.

He's bisexual and has an ENORMOUS crush on one of his favourite game characters, Karl Heisenberg. Something about that man reminds him of himself and Henry, although he's not sure what. Still, don't let that distract you from the fact that he owns a nude Karl Heisenberg body pillow, CAPCOM official.

Scrap Baby

Her favourite Monster High doll is Draculaura. She doesn't understand how pink goes well with black but oh boy, pink goes so well with black.

She knows how to skateboard like a pro. Despite her weight, her trusty skateboard still stands and, if she falls, she's always got her skates to spare. She likes to impress the boys at the skatepark with her ability to perform even the most difficult of moves with ease.

She's subscribed to fifteen different tabloid subscriptions. She likes to read them and criticize the stupidity of the human race, like her father. Hey, it's hereditary.

The lights in her boobies glow in the dark. They also glow whenever she gets tired.

She likes reading furniture and gardening catalogues. She's judgy of the prices though and usually becomes a full-on critic with Lefty listening.

She owns a crab named Mr. Tootie. No I will not elaborate on the name. I'll only tell you that it's taken a liking to kazoos and party favours.

She's listed as the No. 1 Best Fan of her father's social media accounts. Michael's in nineteenth place but don't worry, he's as emotionless as a mushroom.

She likes to make origami lotuses. She's such a pro at it that she's even got a mini-stall at the pizzeria: 1 lotus for 50 cents. It's a lucrative business, and it's still growing. Oh, and she switches to other origami works of art every week such as origami guns and origami nine-tailed foxes.

She's the Restaurant Rescue manager. Usually she saves kids from trouble. For this reason, yes, she's commonly seen in the pizzeria itself. Kids love her though the claw worries the more irksome parents.

She's a professional Karen dealer. Karen comes to see the manager? She's hypnotically talented in weaving her words through the toughest of craniums so don't be surprised if a Karen walks out with a new viewpoint of life.

She performs on stage on the occasion, which usually gets her a lot of fan love. She cherishes everything good they give but ignores the problematic everythings. Problematic stuff? Oh, she's good friends with the police chief.

Molten Freddy

He loves noodles. Give him a bowl of ramen and he'll shut up for the entire night. Enter him in a noodle-eating competition and his high metabolism rate means absolutely non-stop spaghetti.

He misses Bon-Bon very much. To the point where he's even tried to make a scrap version of him. Sadly, it doesn't work. He cried that day.

He dies inside whenever he finds out there's a spaghetti shortage in Utah. Poor Molten.

He's a bit wonky, but if he tries to play with you or get into your personal space, don't get mad at him! He's just lonely and wants someone to talk to and play with.

He likes to play Exploding Kittens. It's the only card game he's good at. It's also the only card game he owns.

He sees Helpy as a little brother and boops his nose on a daily basis. He also likes to reenact The Lion King with him (It's the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiife~). Hopefully Helpy doesn't mind.

He knows a lot of jokes in a lot of languages. So German-speaking Molten Freddy wouldn't be too far away from expectation. His favourite jokes are in French though; the wordplay is just immaculate.

He's good in French, English, German, Russian, and Malay. He's currently learning Japanese because he's a mega weeb.

His favourite cartoon is Charlie and Lola. He just likes to see the sibling shenanigans as it somehow reminds him of the good old days.

His favourite shows would be prankster shows. He especially loves the ones that give him new and creative ideas. He doesn't like the scary ones though. They make him feel unsafe and give him anxiety.

Surprisingly, he has a distinct taste for opera. He can modulate the remnants of his voice box to perfectly sing I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General. This both pisses off and impresses Henry to an extent.

Resident Evil 8

Lady Dimitrescu

She might act like the opposite but she really loves Heisenberg as her little brother. His determination, strength, speed, dexterity, and workaholic nature impresses her, who can't even fit through a doorway. She sometimes wishes she's as short as him too.

She's an avid collector of glass, porcelain, and anything fragile. It's a good reason to always be careful where you tread in her lair. She'll make you swallow every last shard if you don't.

She's an avid romance fanatic and is very loving towards the romance novels she owns. All those books you see in the in-game library? They're her collection of lesbian romances that she's collected over the past decades.

She doesn't like hats and prefers to stick to the one she wears in-game. She DOES have a collection of hats though. Last anyone counted, there were over fifty, one or two for each decade she's lived through.

She files her nails on a constant basis and owns an ornately decorated nail-clipper. Hygeine is of the utmost importance. She doesn't want to be compared to that filthy Heisenberg.

Despite her size and carefulness she keeps losing her stuff. Over the course of a week she could misplace three wine glasses, two reading glasses, and fifteen bottles of wine.

She's an expert at dodgeball and golf and even owns a lifetime access to the most prolific Country Club in Romania. With permission from Mother Miranda she goes there every year for the yearly party. It's one of the times she gets to see modernity (and Ed Sheeran) at its finest.

She loves bands from the 1920s and 1940s. However, she gets bored of them occasionally and switches them to something more modern, like Ed Sheeran. Seriously though, what is up with mums and Ed?

She's into executions and torture methods. So it's no surprise that she's a HUGE fan of Horrible Histories; even if she can't watch the show, she'll binge-read the books over and over again. She's even had the chance to encounter (and receive an autograph from) Terry Deary. They have sworn a bond not to tell anybody about this.

She loves exotic animals like anacondas and jaguars. She may or may not have owned a 10ft long Saltwater Crocodile (which was also about 5ft wide).

She's an incredible physicist and mathematician. She's also created many original formulae but unsurprisingly, she doesn't tell anyone about them, for fear that either more people may know of her, or that she may be wrong.

Dimitrescu Babes

They can devour an entire human being in mere seconds as flies. It's sort of like the scarab beetles in The Mummy movies. However, unlike the beetles, they are able to strip the bones as well. They leave nothing behind.

They all know how to play the piano with varying levels of success. Daniela can already play professionally while Bela is still stuck on Grade 5.

They love to listen to their mother when she tells them stories. Gotta hand it to 'em, when you're a fly, you know how to enjoy life in its most simple of moments.

They all love being around the hunky Soldats of Uncle Karl. Fortunately, they don't know of the rebellious plan to conquer Miranda.

Bela is bisexual, Cassandra is asexual and pansexual, and Daniela is demisexual.

It gets hard when you're a fly during the summer. If it's not the lizards, spiders, and other predators, it's the heat. Because of this, despite the material waste, they have invented the world's first blood-powered air conditioner.

The three girls have never ever ever touched a stove or oven in their life. They HAVE touched the hot end of an iron though. A good reason to not touch a bloody oven. Alcina has though, but doesn't tell them that.

They love puppies! Uncle Karl brought them a baby labrador. For the rest of the week Alcina had lost quite a bit of favour from them. Not that they minded of course. IT'S A PUPPY.

They don't like snow one bit. Not just because it's cold, but because it's too white. Too bright. Too shiny. They just can't focus on their prey!

They like to go over to Auntie Donna to play with Angie. Well, you know what they say, crazies attract the crazies, and the crazy has attracted the crazies.

They also like to go to Uncle Moreau's because he's the only one in the village with a PS4. Usually they'd spend about three-quarters of a day playing his games and eating his cheese.

Karl Heisenberg

He owns a dark blue armchair named Junkyard. Despite the name, he loves it dearly because it was a gift from Alcina for his twenty-first birthday. It became part of his final transformation too. Right under the hat.

He's a little blind in the right eye, much to his annoyance. It was a minor accident with Sturm; another reason for him to hate the uncontrollable wretch. He'll never live that day down.

Somehow, he sees better in the dark, which is why he wears such tinted glasses. He also wears them to hide his expressions, since, more often than not, he tends to end up wearing his heart on his sleeve, and his emotions in his eyes.

He's under a lot of pressure so it's no surprise that he breaks down in his factory when he knows he's alone. And by break down I mean crumple into an exhausted heap on the floor. Not even his Soldat Jet squad can wake him up until he's had a reasonable eight hours of rest.

He bathes once a day, every evening, but only three times a week. Perfume, tobacco, and cologne keep care of the rest.

He's the only Lord with a daily contact with the outside world due to his electrical abilities. Don't tell Miranda, but he can electrically CONNECT TO GOOGLE AND THE ENTIRE INTERNET IN GENERAL. He likes to play funny YouTube cat videos in his head when Miranda's having a boring meeting. It's also how he finds out that Chris is a boulder-punching asshole.

He does stimming! He likes to tap his fingers on his desk and the metal rails in his factory. He also buys stim toys from the Duke and keeps them in a well-kept box. His favourite is a non-ripping squishable toy duck. He also sings to chill out.

He's absolutely in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, and may have once believed in the pizzeria's existence. Come on, he's a mutated Overlord with magical magnet powers. Children souls stuck inside animatronics isn't too far-fetched of an idea. His favourite characters are the Funtimes and the Scraps, mainly because of the blueprint complexity. He HAS tried to replicate the animatronics in his spare time, but he's usually too busy with his Soldats so the project gets scrapped. He loves The Living Tombstone's songs and remixes though.

He doesn't like William Afton at all (though he marvels at his survivability). William's nature and habits remind him of Mother Miranda. He DOES however enjoy Michael Afton and often thinks how it would be absolutely amazing to have that resilient being in his Soldat army.

He's scared of what lurks below the watery depths and fire. Ironic because his brother is a literal fish and he works in one of the most hazardous fire-conducting environments. He's also scared of heights, though he doesn't get airsick.

He once died due to a killing electric shock whilst working on Sturm. It's the only time he's felt that sort of pulsing agony and also the first time he's had the confirmation that yes, Hell is real and yes, he'll end up in quite a dark pit in it. Or it could've been an electric dream, who knows? Anyways his soul apparently ran towards the opposite direction of the flames and he woke up alive after the passing of FIVE ENTIRE WEEKS. Oh boy did Alcina get worried when she couldn't find him.

Thank you for the ask! I hope you enjoy!

[omgkalyppso]

you don't have to post this if you don't want because this is gonna be kinda negative but!!!

i see SO OFTEN people calling hilda ships toxic when her partner is a man. it's like people only accept hilmari or some wildass wlw ship that makes 0 sense like edelhilda (like seriously?? she can't even be recruited in cf???). meanwhile you never see f!byleth / hilda which actually makes sense.

but hilda/claude??? TOXIC caspar/hilda?? TOXIC 🙄 and you never even see hilorenz like you said but it's so nice i love it. (maybe it's a good thing it's not popular because people would probably call it toxic too)

sorry for the rant i saw your post and poor hilda deserves better 😤 let her be bi in peace!!!

TvT yeah...

This ask is a minefield, but I'm trying to come up with a socially acceptable rant.

[I'D PUT READ MORE HERE BUT TUMBLR WON'T LET ME] I've seen people talk about "straightwashing"* if you ship Hilda with women and had people tell me With Pride that they interpret her friendship to Claude as shallow. I know Hilda says some clumsy things in her supports with Cyril but people who try to bear down on her as a racist character are generally people who ship [redacted] and I'm like - hello!?!? shADDGHAJS

I Do Not Mind lgbtqa+ people saying Hilda is a lesbian or having any other queer headcanons. There's so few lesbians in media. That does not align with my bi headcanons but then that's on us to decide whether or not we support each other.

Unrelated to Hilda, I wish people other than bisexuals more often headcanoned characters as bisexual even if they weren't flirtatious (like Sylvain). Now I'm going to sound a little off the rails but I strongly think that your observation about hilclaude and hilspar relates to people not wanting to headcanon these men as bisexual. People like dimiclaude, m!claudeleth, claurenz, and people like casphardt - and they'll headcanon these men as gay to the exclusion of even Linhardt's canon bisexuality.** And they say the rudest shit about bi men (like Sylvain), about them being abusive or promiscuous or actually wanting to be in a relationship with a man.

.

Anyway, Hilda! I love her and I love her shipping her with Claude and Lorenz. Please send Hilda x Femme Byleth content my way, I'm starving. asdjfadkjs

.

*This is NOTHING. If you think it is, go away and unfollow me. Shoo! In fact, please look up whitewashing and take a minute to sit on why this term should be used exclusively for erasing characters and people of color (especially black people).

**Again. I actually want to support lgbtqa+ creators and their lgbt headcanons of characters. But this is my little soapbox, and I'm just bitching, that it would be nice to feel supported. I love bisexuals and I love being bisexual and I want to see people creating content of bisexuals being supported and not always treating attraction to a gender other than that of their current partner as a sin or a sign of promiscuity or something to grow out of.

[experiment-000]

My Top 10 Ships of 2020

It's been a weird year but I've seen other people doing this. Plus this year I've been way more into gen fics (love a bit of found family especially in clone wars and marvel) than anything shippy. So I genuinely don't know what imma put on here aside from two ships for sure. Sorry this post is super long idk how to do the below the cut thing and I've had this app for 5 years...

10) Viktor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki - Yuri!!! On Ice

It was a real toss up between this, supercorp, kanera and wolfstar cos they're all very integral ships to my fan heart but this son because of the Yuri on Ice fandom's rebirth this year. I've never stopped shipping this, never stopped reading fanfic of them for any extended period of time, they're still my most bookmarked ship on ao3 (although I think now star wars - all media types may have overtaken them for fandom). They were one of the first things I watched where the queer ship I loved became canon and I can't wait for the film (and hopefully someday a season 2). Heck I even made my mum watch Yuri on Ice with me so I think that says it all.

9) Edelgard Von Hresvelg and female Byleth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first fire emblem game was fates when I was like 14 (and finally gay awake lol). I was so disappointed that I had to be with a guy character because the only female option was kinda creepy and also I wouldn't get the character of kana. So when three houses came out I was so happy because finally there were beautiful incredible female characters my female byleth could romance (I'm so sorry mlm you deserved so much more than you got). I got the game as soon as it came out (had to search a lot of shops let me tell you) and started on black eagles. I was actually kinda disappointed back in 2019. I didn't like the explore the monastery bit (still find it kinda tedious) and the battle mechanics weren't quite the same as fates (no pairing up?! Aka my main battle technique for protecting the weaker units). So I got like 20 hours in and put it down. Came back to it in lockdown and finally finished it! I'm so proud of myself I virtually never finish games. And I fully fell in love with the useless lesbian edelgard in the process. When I started back playing in 2020 I was like eh I wish I'd picked a different character to romance (like shes an emperor that's morally very shady) but then the romance stuff started with edelgard and I fell the heck in love.

8) Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (and Topanga Lawrence) - Boy Meets World

Disney+ was released in the UK this year and I finally got the opportunity to watch boy meets world in its best quality (aka not on YouTube). I watched it back when I was like 12 or 13 and it's such a nostalgic show for me. Watching it again I still absolutely adore it (and my bi ass was low-key crushing on Shawn especially in chick like me - I'm 18 btw and I got so scared for a sec but rider strong was 18 when chick like me came out so it's fine woah). And of course now I see the possibilities of the beautiful Cory and Shawn relationship like they were so bromance it was basically romance and throw in topanga it's the perfect ot3 (but I'm also fine with just Cory and Shawn or just Cory and Topanga). Read some good fanfic for them this year. My favourite was one about Shawn stealing makeup and stuff and exploring gender (need more fics like this I'm biiii).

7) Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes - Marvel Cinematic Universe

I rewatched all the MCU films this year too. And got really into Peter parker whump and irondad. Plus my eternal obsession with identity and relationship reveals of course led me from Spiderman identity reveals (and found family cuteness) to stucky coming out. Especially when it involves the internet and social media. Not my favourite ship but it's been significant to my year due to the sheer amount of marvel stuff I've read.

6) Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I rewatched clone wars in prep for season 7 and wow Satine's death was sad and sudden. She first appeared in S2 E13 I think and just the sheer sexual tension of their bickering. "The sarcasm of a soldier. The delusion of a dreamer." Just ugnnhhh my bi ass can't take much more of this. And Anakin just sipping his wine in the background grinning. And I fully believe korkie is a Kenobi.

5) Commander Cody and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I am very much an Obi wan multishipper. I don't really have a favourite but I fully believe he was with satine and Quinlan in his life. I don't think be would've actually done anything with Cody because of the whole superior officer thing. And this probably isn't even my favourite Obi wan ship - that honour probably goes to quinobi or obitine. However the most popular ships in the fandom are codywan, quiobi and obikin. No offence to anyone who ships these they're just personally not to my taste, but I can't stand quiobi, and obikin I find only slightly more tolerable and I think that's just because there's so much obikin content so if I like the concept of a fic that happens to be obikin I'll read it. I'm just not a fan of the mentor/student relationships. So I generally favoured the codywan fics when there was shipping involved meaning I read a lot of them this year. Needed that nice fix it content post season 7.

4) Zuko and Katara - Avatar: the Last Airbender

Again I am a multishipper I have nothing against zukka it's cute. But I'm a zutara shipper first and foremost because when I first watched avatar I was like 13 and denying my gayness and gayness in general so I shipped the straight things and the straight things only. Most of these ships I stopped shipping - dramione, spuffy, some my little pony ones which we don't talk about. Zutara stayed. (I have nothing against any of the things I used to ship I just stopped shipping them so much/shipped new things more). I've continuously shipped zutara since I first watched avatar even if I didn't necessarily spend that much time on it it has always been here as one of my favourite ships. It has such good fanfic I swear including my favourite ever fanfic from any fandom - love thy enemy. Plus like the black games (reread this for the millionth time this year), a delicate subterfuge (which I read for the first time this year and damn it's so good) and so many more. With the avatar resurgence this year I haven't actually rewatched avatar aside from my normal random episode every now and then when I feel like it. But there's been a lot of avatar on my dash from people I follow getting into it and people I followed for avatar returning so naturally I returned to the fandom and read quite a lot of fanfic. I also read just a lot of avatar gen fics which were great at the whole found family thing I've been so obsessed with this year.

3) Catra and Adora - She Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catradora is canon! They kissed! What more is there to say. Arguably they should've been top but I never shipped them that much since I was always very much a multishipper when it came to she ra so yes I was very happy it became canon because we actually won for once but also I've never read much fanfic for them etc. But they are very much a dynamic I love and watching she ra all again in prep for season 5 I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship. The other two only go above because Buffy is my favourite show ever and damn there's some good fuffy fanfic and Aphra and Tolvan is both fresh in my mind and star wars owns me. Would love some catradora fic recs btw if anyone has them tho.

2) Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't realise it was last year that I got super into them but according to my ao3 bookmarks it was lol. 2020 I swear it's lasted an eternity. I got into them about a month before lockdown (which feels like another lifetime). I've loved Buffy since I first watched it when I was 13. It's arguably still my favourite TV show. I've been through a lot of ships for Buffy - bangel to spuffy and now fuffy. I still think angel and her were a beautiful ship back in season 2 and especially in the angel episode I will remember you. But faith and Buffy had so much chemistry in season 3 - she would've been a fresh start for Buffy and the amount of fix it fics I read I swear. My favourite has to be one where they met in LA during Anne and how that changed everything feat Buffy's internal homophobia.

1) Cheili Lona Aphra and Magna Tolvan - Star Wars

I read Darth Vader (2015) and Doctor Aphra (2016) for the first time at the end of 2020 (got a comic subscription which has served me very well already I've nearly finished the star wars canon comics). Just to see canon queer ladies in star wars was so magical for me as a queer lady. I didn't think star wars would be so overt yet as to have a queer kiss in canon (even if it's in the comics) and especially not with the main character of arguably their main comic series. Now we just gotta hope that we'll get it in live action someday soon. They weren't the ship I consumed the most content of in 2020 but they were the highlight of my 2020 because star wars did that and I finally found out about it

Honourable mentions: Vivian and Elle - Legally Blonde, Candace and Vanessa - Phineas and Ferb, Stevie and Alex - Wizards of Waverly Place, Xander and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually don't ship this but damn some authors are good - this was the ship that made me realise I don't need to like a ship if the author is good enough to write it well), Eli Vanto and Mitth'raw'nuruodo - Star Wars (started reading the books last year but finished this year and only started with fanfic this year), Villanelle and Eve - Killing Eve, Kanan and Hera - Star Wars, Barriss and Ahsoka - Star Wars, Remus and Sirius - Harry Potter, Kara and Lena - Supergirl (let's hope this becomes canon next year!) (Those last four are ones I've shipped forever some of my og ships but nothing particularly big has happened for me this year with them so)

I got Disney+ this year so rewatched a fair few things from my youth and though hey my obsession with that character may have been a little gay.

[yurimother]

Top 34 Yuri Anime

From mid-February to mid-March Akiba held a poll asking viewers what their favorite anime series were. Over 50,000 votes were counted and in the end, they organized the 34 entries by votes to declare which series was the most popular. While not including every yuri series, these titles do vary wildly from pulse-pounding action to salacious dramas and subtext filled slice of life shows. Of course, the eternal problem with popularity polls is that they only show what is, well... popular. So I have decided to organize the same 34 series into my own list, based on a mixture person preference, influence, and historical importance to the genre. Note that this list is not exhaustive, as there are more than just these 34 Here we go!

34. Kuttsukiboshi – No surprise here. While impressive from a technical standpoint, as this two episode series was written, directed, and animated by one may, Nayoya Ishikawa, this impressive feat does nothing to sate the deep loathing I have for Kuttsukiboshi. I found it not only nonsensical but disgusting and offensive at almost every turn.

33. Maria Holic – Ok this one has some funny moments and a solid opening theme but mostly it is about a cross-dressing sadist abusing the hell out of one of the cringiest characters ever written.

32. Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid – ew

31. Seraphim Call – Certainly not the worst but age really took a toll on this anime. It is entirely lost to history, only obtaining 12 votes in the original poll.

30. Love To-LIE-Angle - FANTASTIC TITLE, gross series that was forgotten before it even finished

29. Kurau: Phantom Memory – whut

28. Hidamari Sketch – How did this below average series get as many anime adaptations as it did?

27. Candy Boy – 2007 - 2009 was weird. I actually like parts of this one, as it is really cute, but you have to turn your brain off because full out incest. I have not heard about this one since 2009 and that seems to be cool with everyone involved.

26. The Girl in Twilight – I had never heard of this before doing this piece, which says a lot about this anime’s cultural importance. But it is a good watch.

25. El Cazador de la Bruja – worth one good watch and that’s about it.

24. My-HiME – Raise your hand if you have heard of this one. That is what I thought, and yet it is #13 on the original list.

23. Pandora in the Crimson Shell: Ghost Urn – There is no real place to put this one and that says more about it than I ever could.

22. Blue Drop – Weird show, you should watch it, but not memorable

21. Simoun – This one is actually a sort of hidden gem but it is lost to history for most people.

20. Destiny of the Shrine Maiden – It baffles me how this mostly mediocre mecha series was so popular. That being said, the ending of episode 11 is some of my favorite directing ever.

19. Saki – Ya know, you never hear about this one but it is actually one of the most popular, and was #6 in the poll. It is basically a mahjong sports style anime so I have no idea how it is so popular but hey, lots of people swear by it. The ultimate you “love it or hate it” show for a lot of people strangely as well.

18. Netsuzou Trap -NTR – I held off as long as I could. While really popular I cannot stand this anime, my loathing of it is rivaled only by Kuttsukiboshi.

17. Sasameki Koto – A pretty well-known yuri series. The books are FAR better, but still an enjoyable watch beloved by many yuri fans.

16. Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san – It pains me to not be able to place this one higher, as it is one of my favorites and so hilarious, but overall there are other series that just deserve to be above it.

15. Konohana Kitan – Adorable, just adorable.

14. Black Rock Shooter – It's astonishing that an (admittedly awesome) character design can spawn multiple anime adaptations, a hit song, and its own franchise. The anime adaptation packs some good old-fashion emotional suffering and cool fights but nothing really beyond that.

13. Strike Witches – Far more popular and influential than it has any right to be. One of the most salacious shows on this list I always feel uncomfortable watching it but I do love the characters.

12. Yuri Kuma Arashi – The creators behind this were clearly not sober and probably could have used a cold shower for other reasons as well, but it is an INCREDIBLE anime with some of the best, although extraordinarily odd, writing.

11. Liz and the Blue Bird – Things are starting to get a bit difficult now, this one is actually hard to place. Being only a year old we are not sure of the impact it has but the movie is beautiful and stunning with some really bad pacing.

10. Sakura Trick – Full of fluffy fanservice, and pretty popular. This is one that almost every yuri fan will enjoy.

9. Maria Watches Over Us – The show that revived the sister-love story, a lot of the most popular yuri would not exist if not for this gentle diamond.

8. Yuruyuri – A yuri somehow becomes one of the best slice of life series of all time. Its fame is well deserved, as the memorable characters and dynamics can be enjoyed for many, many viewings.

7. Bloom Into You – What started as a run of the mill yuri series became one of the most well-loved. One of the biggest anime of last year and a darn good yuri to boot. I wonder how we will look back on this one a decade later.

6. Citrus – DEAR GOD. I know how controversial this series is for many people and that some of you want to grab pitchforks right about now in response to me placing this high on the list but hear me out. Whatever your feelings about Citrus, and there is plenty of valid criticism to make, it is a very influential and popular anime. It scored the top spot on Akiba’s list by over 5000 votes. For me, it holds a special spot as the first real review I ever wrote (thank you, Erica, for the opportunity).

5. Sweet Blue Flowers – We are in the top five now, yet I still feel that I have placed this series far too low. It is one of the most grounded yuri series and ten years later its impact on the genre is still clear.

4. Strawberry Panic! – This was my first yuri and will always be special to me for this. But, there is no doubt that this series is actually worse than a lot of the ones lower than it on this list. I can almost feel the seething rage directed towards me for placing what can realistically be described as an aging, parodied, melodrama so high.Yet, as I gaze through my strawberry colored glasses, I see that Strawberry Panic has a magic to it. For so many in the American community, it holds a special place and I have heard my story with it reflected so often that I just started writing it on a speech bubble on the inside of the glasses I wear at conventions so that I know what people are saying to me when my mind wanders off. There is a reason it is nicknamed the gateway of yuri.

3. Kase-san and Morning Glories – A simply stunning, beautiful, and realistic story, this OVA movie is unlike any yuri before it. It holds nothing back in its yuri in its realistic depiction of a lesbian relationship. Kase-san is the best anime to come from twenty-gay-teen it just might change the genre forever.

2. Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Speaking of changing a genre, PMMM, my favorite anime of all time, did something truly incredible. Not since sailor moon as such a social phenomenon sprung from a magical girl series. The perfect writing, postmodern use of tropes, philosophy, and just pure awe-inspiring nature of the show has not been forgotten years later. The legacy of such a widely celebrated series is nothing short of god-like.

1. Revolutionary Girl Utena – Was there ever really any doubt? This series defined what yuri is for a generation. It is one of the defining works of LGBT and feminist media and possibly one of the most important pieces to come out of 90′s anime. Yuri, as we know it may not exist, were it not for this legendary series.

Well, that was fun but exhausting. Of course, this list is not perfect and I am sure that you more than disagree with me in a few places and I would love to hear them. Send me an ask, post a reply, tag me on twitter @HolyYuriMother for the love of the great yuri goddess! I want to know what you think, what series do you love? What anime do you hate? What nonsense thing did I say that just deserves to be torn apart? I want to know!

You can check out the original list on Akiba.

Help create yuri and LGBTQ+ news, reviews, and content by supporting YuriMother on Patreon

[wildeoaths]

LGBTQ Book & Film Recommendations

Hello! As someone who tries to read widely, it can sometimes be frustrating to find good (well-written, well-made) LGBTQ+ works of literature and film, and mainstream recommendations only go so far. This is my shortlist. 

Some caveats: 1) I have only watched/seen some of these, though they have all been well-received.

2) The literature list is primarily focused on adult literary and genre fiction, since that is what I mostly read, and I feel like it’s easier to find queer YA fiction. Cece over at ProblemsOfABookNerd (YT) covers a lot of newer releases and has a YA focus, so you can check her out for more recommendations.

3) There are a ton of good films and good books that either reference or discuss queer theory, LGBTQ history and literary theory. These tend to be more esoteric and academic, and I’m not too familiar with queer theory, so they’ve largely been left off the list. I do agree that they’re important, and reading into LGBTQ-coding is a major practice, but they’re less accessible and I don’t want to make the list too intimidating.

4) I linked to Goodreads and Letterboxd because that’s what I use and I happen to really enjoy the reviews.

Any works that are bolded are popular, or they’re acclaimed and I think they deserve some attention. I’ve done my best to flag potential objections and triggers, but you should definitely do a search of the reviews. DoesTheDogDie is also a good resource. Not all of these will be suitable for younger teenagers; please use your common sense and judgement.

Please feel free to chime in in the replies (not the reblogs) with your recommendations, and I’ll eventually do a reblog with the additions!

BOOKS

> YOUNG ADULT

Don’t @ me asking why your favourite YA novel isn’t on this list. These just happen to be the picks I felt might also appeal to older teens/twentysomethings.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - poetry.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender - trans male teen protagonist. 

Red, White & Royal Blue

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue

The Raven Boys (and Raven Cycle)

> LITERATURE: GENERAL

This list does skew M/M; more NB, trans and WLW recommendations are welcomed!

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. One of the most acclaimed contemporary LGBTQ novels and you’ve probably heard of it. Will probably make you cry.

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood. Portrait of a middle-aged gay man.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. M/M affair, British student high society; definitely nostalgic for the aristocracy so be aware of the context.

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman. It’s somewhat controversial, it’s gay, everyone knows the film at least.

Cronus’ Children / Le Jardin d'Acclimation by Yves Navarre. Winner of the Goncourt prize.

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran. A young man in the 1970s NYC gay scene. Warning for drugs and sexual references.

Dorian, An Imitation by Will Self. Adaptation of Orscar Wilde’s novel. Warning for sexual content.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg. Two wlw in the 1980s. Also made into a film; see below.

Gemini by Michel Tournier. The link will tell you more; seems like a very complex read. TW for troubling twin dynamics.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Another iconic M/M work.

Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey. A queer punk reimagining of Peter Pan. Probably one of the more accessible works on this list!

Lie With Me by Philippe Besson. Two teenage boys in 1980s France.

Maurice by E. M. Forster. Landmark work written in 1914. Also made into a film; see below.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. An expansive (and long) novel about the story of Cal, a hermaphrodite, by the author of The Virgin Suicides.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Plays with gender, time and space. Virginia Woolf’s ode to her lover Vita Sackville-West. What more do you want? (also a great film; see below).

Oscar Wilde’s works - The Picture of Dorian Gray would be the place to start. Another member of the classical literary canon.

Saga, vol.1 by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Graphic novel; warning for sexual content.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg. An acclaimed work looking at working-class lesbian life and gender identity in pre-Stonewall America.

The Holy Innocents by Gilbert Adair. The basis for Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003). I am hesitant to recommend this because I have not read this, though I have watched the film; the M/M dynamic and LGBTQ themes do not seem to be the primary focus. Warning for sexual content and incestuous dynamics between the twins.

The Animals At Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey. Plays with gothic elements, set during WW2, F/F elements.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. References Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Probably a good idea to read Virginia Woolf first.

The Immoralist by André Gide. Translated from French.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline MIller. Drawing from the Iliad, focusing on Achilles and Patroclus. Contemporary fantasy that would be a good pick for younger readers.

The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. Gay life pre-AIDS crisis. Apparently contains a fair amount of sexual content.

What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell. A gay man’s coming of age in the American South.

> LITERATURE: WORLD LITERATURE

American and Western experiences are more prominent in LGBTQ works, just due to the way history and the community have developed, and the difficulties of translation. These are English and translated works that specifically foreground the experiences of non-White people living in (often) non-Western societies. I’m not white or American myself and recommendations in this area are especially welcomed.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. The memoirs and essays of a queer black activist, exploring themes of black LGBTQ experiences and masculinity.

A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian. Female communities and queer female characters in a Bangalore slum. A very new release but already very well received.

Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. Coming-of-age in post-WW1 Japan. This one’s interesting, because it’s definitely at least somewhat autobiographical. Mishima can be a tough writer, and you should definitely look into his personality and his life when reading his work.

Disoriental by Négar Djavadi. A family saga told against the backdrop of Iranian history by a queer Iranian woman. Would recommend going into this knowing at least some of the political and historical context.

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones. A coming-of-age story and memoir from a gay, black man in the American South.

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Another acclaimed contemporary work about the dynamics of abuse in LGBTQ relationships. Memoir.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Contemporary black British experience, told from the perspectives of 12 diverse narrators.

> POETRY

Crush by Richard Siken. Tumblr loves Richard Siken, worth a read.

Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich.

He’s So Masc by Chris Tse.

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson. The best presentation of Sappho we’re likely to get.

Lord Byron’s works - Selected Poems may be a good starting point. One of the Romantics and part of the classical literary canon.

Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire. The explicitly lesbian poems are apparently in the les fleurs du mal section.

> MEMOIR & NONFICTION

And The Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. An expansive, comprehensive history and exposure of the failures of media and the Reagan administration, written by an investigative journalist. Will probably make you rightfully angry.

How to Survive A Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France. A reminder of the power of community and everyday activism, written by a gay reporter living in NYC during the epidemic.

Indecent Advances: The Hidden History of Murder and Masculinity Before Stonewall by James Polchin. True crime fans, this one’s for you. Sociocultural history constructed from readings of the news and media.

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker. It’s illustrated, it’s written by an academic, it’s an easier introduction to queer theory. I still need to pick up a copy, but it seems like a great jumping-off point with an overview of the academic context.

Real Queer America by Samantha Allen. The stories of LGBTQ people and LGBTQ narratives in the conservative parts of America. A very well received contemporary read.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. Gender, pregnancy and queer partnership. I’m not familiar with this but it is quite popular.

When Brooklyn Was Queer by Hugh Ryan. LGBTQ history of Brooklyn from the nineteenth century to pre-Stonewall.

FILMS

With films it’s difficult because characters are often queercoded and we’re only now seeing films with better rep. This is a shortlist of better-rated films with fairly explicit LGBTQ coding, LGBTQ characters, or made by LGBTQ persons. Bolded films are ones that I think are likely to be more accessible or with wider appeal.

A Single Man (2009) - Colin Firth plays a middle-aged widower.

Blue Is The Warmest Colour (2013) - A controversial one. Sexual content.

Booksmart (2019) - A pretty well made film about female friendship and being an LGBTQ teen.

Boy Erased (2018) - Warning for conversion therapy.

BPM (Beats Per Minute) (2017) - Young AIDS activists in France.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) - Cowboy gays. This film is pretty famous, do you need more summary? Might make a good triple bill with Idaho and God’s Own Country.

Cabaret (1972) - Liza Minelli. Obvious plug to also look into Vincent Minelli.

Calamity Jane (1953) - There’s a lot that could be said about queer coding in Hollywood golden era studio films, but this is apparently a fun wlw-cowboy westerns-vibes watch. Read the reviews on this one!

Call Me By Your Name (2017) - Please don't debate this film in the notes.

Caravaggio (1986) - Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton are in it. Rather explicit.

Carol (2015) - Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara are lesbians in 1950s America.

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) - Hard to summarise, but one review calls it “lesbian birdman” and it has both Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in it, so consider watching it.

Colette (2018) - About the bi/queer female writer Colette during the belle epoque era. This had Keira Knightley so by all rights Tumblr should love it.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - Lesbian love in 1920s/80s? America.

God’s Own Country (2017) - Gay and British.

Happy Together (1997) - By Wong Kar Wai. No further explanation needed.

Heartbeats (2010) - Bi comedy.

Heartstone (2016) - It’s a story about rural Icelandic teenagers.

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party (2015) -  Queer teens and religious themes.

Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974) - Early Chantal Akerman. Warning for sexual scenes.

Kill Your Darlings (2013) - Ginsberg, Kerouac and the Beat poets.

Love, Simon (2018)

Lovesong (2016) - Lesbian and very soft. Korean-American characters.

Love Songs (2007) - French trio relationship. Louis Garrel continues to give off non-straight vibes.

Mädchen In Uniform (1931) - One of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality. A piece of LGBTQ cinematic history.

Maurice (1987) - Adaptation of the novel.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) - Heavy gay coding.

Milk (2008) - Biopic of Harvey Milk, openly gay politician. By the same director who made My Own Private Idaho.

Moonlight (2016) - It won the awards for a reason.

My Own Private Idaho (1991) - Another iconic LGBTQ film. River Phoenix.

Mysterious Skin (2004) - Go into this film aware, please. Young actors, themes of prostitution, child ab*se, r***, and a lot of trauma.

Orlando (1992) - An excellent adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, and in my opinion far more accessible. Watch it for the queer sensibilities and fantastic period pieces.

Pariah (2011) - Excellent coming-of-age film about a black lesbian girl in Brooklyn.

Paris is Burning (1990) - LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY piece of LGBTQ history, documenting the African-American and Latine drag and ballroom roots of the NYC queer community.

Persona (1966) - It’s an Ingmar Bergman film so I would recommend knowing what you’re about to get into, but also I can’t describe it because it’s an Ingmar Bergman film.

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) - Cult classic queercoded boarding school girls.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) - By Celine Sciamma, who’s rapidly establishing herself in the mainstream as a LGBTQ film director. This is a wlw relationship and the queer themes are reflected in the cinematic techniques used. A crowd pleaser.

Pride (2014) - Pride parades with a British sensibility.

Rebel Without A Cause (1955) - Crowd-pleaser with bi coding and James Dean. The OG version of “you’re tearing me apart!”.

Rocketman (2019) - It’s Elton John.

Rent (2005) - Adaptation of the stage musical. Not the best film from a technical standpoint. I recommend the professionally recorded 2008 closing night performance instead.

Rope (1948) - Hitchcock film.

Sorry Angel (2018) - Loving portraits of gay French men.

Talk To Her (2002) - By Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar.

Tangerine (2015) - About trans sex workers. The actors apparently had a lot of input in the film, which was somehow shot on an iPhone by the same guy who went on to do The Florida Project. 

The Duke of Burgundy (2014) - Lesbians in an S&M relationship that’s going stale, sexual content obviously.

The Gay Deceivers (1969) - The reviews are better than me explaining.

The Handmaiden (2016) - Park Chan-wook makes a film about Korean lesbians and is criminally snubbed at the Oscars. Warning for sexual themes and kink.

The Favourite (2018) - Period movie, and lesbian.

Thelma And Louise (1991) - An iconic part of LGBTQ cinematic history. That is all.

The Celluloid Closet (1995) - A look into LGBTQ cinematic history, and the historical contexts we operated in when we’ve snuck our narratives into film.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018) - Adaptation of the YA novel.

The Neon Demon (2016) - Apparently based on Elizabeth Bathory, the blood-drinking countess. Very polarising film and rated R.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower (2012) - Book adaptation. It has Ezra Miller in it I guess.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - No explanation needed, queer and transgressive vibes all the way.

They (2017) - Gender identity, teenagers.

Those People (2015) - They’re gay and they’re artists in New York.

Tomboy (2011) - One of the few films I’ve seen dealing with gender identity in children (10 y/o). Celine Sciamma developing her directorial voice.

Tropical Malady (2004) - By Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His is a very particular style so don’t sweat it if you don’t enjoy it.

Vita and Virginia (2018) - Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West biopic

Water Lilies (2007) - Celine Sciamma again! Teenage lesbian coming-of-age. 

When Marnie Was There (2014) - A Studio Ghibli film exploring youth, gender and sexuality.

Weekend (2011) - An indie film about young gay love.

Wilde (1997) - It’s a film about Oscar Wilde.

XXY (2007) - About an intersex teenager. Reviews on this are mixed.

Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) - Wonder what Diego Luna was doing before Rogue One? This is one of the things. Warning for sexual content.

[deadlyanddelicate]

tbh i get queer fans being mad/sad about kavinsky being killed off in that yeah, bury your guys can always be upsetting no matter the character. but it's weird to me when people go the 'he didn't DESERVE it blah blah' route because like, that has nothing to do with the trope. like i agree with queer characters always getting killed off being exhausting, but i don't get people going hard for this particular character lmao

hmm i… sort of agree. i guess i can understand fans being sad about kavinsky being killed off if they empathise with him, even though personally i just… can’t imagine relating to a character like that. but i honestly, genuinely don’t believe he’s an example of Bury Your Gays. it would be BYG if kavinsky was the only queer rep in the books, or even he killed himself specifically for being gay… which, no matter what people argue, he didn’t. but rather than give my opinion on it, i’m gonna take this chance to go through the trope systematically and explain why the shoe doesn’t fit. it’s meta time!

Why Kavinsky Dying is Not “Bury Your Gays”

[All quotes are taken directly from TvTropes, though the emphasis is mine.]

The Bury Your Gays trope in media, including all its variants, is a homophobic cliché. It is the presentation of deaths of LGBT characters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances. In aggregate, queer characters are more likely to die than straight characters. Indeed, it may be because they seem to have less purpose compared to straight characters, or that the supposed natural conclusion of their story is an early death.

Kavinsky is never viewed as “more expendable than his heteronormative counterparts”. If you see Kavinsky as simply Ronan’s foil, then the reasoning doesn’t apply, because Ronan is gay himself, so he can’t be a “heteronormative counterpart”. However, Kavinsky apologists like to latch on to Gansey’s “We matter” quote to prove Kavinsky is treated as unimportant – but that’s a fallacy for several reasons. First, you’re taking Gansey to speak for the author, or for objective truth, when Gansey is one of the most unreliable narrators in the book, and his world view is extremely biased. Secondly, Gansey isn’t Kavinsky’s counterpart. Kavinsky is an antagonist, so you have to look at what happens to the other antagonists – his actual heteronormative counterparts. And, well: they pretty much ALL get killed off. Not just that, but they often get killed off in a way that does not have the emotional/narrative impact implied in Kavinsky’s death. By that reckoning, he gets the better shake. Additionally, we get 4 heteronormative villains killed off - Whelk, Neeve, Colin, and Piper. So in the series, queer characters are not more likely to die than straight characters (even among the protagonists, Gansey and Noah are the ones who “die”, where Ronan and Adam do not).

The reasons for this trope have evolved somewhat over the years. For a good while, it was because the Depraved Homosexual trope and its ilk pretty much limited portrayals of explicitly gay characters to villainous characters, or at least characters who weren’t given much respect by the narrative. This, conversely, meant that most of them would either die or be punished by the end. 

This is not applicable to TRC, as portrayals of explicitly queer characters are not limited to villainous characters; Adam and Ronan are both explicitly queer and they are treated with huge amounts of respect by the narrative. So Kavinsky isn’t being killed for being the odd one out/the Token Evil Queer; plus, there are other reasons why he doesn’t fit the Depraved Homosexual trope (while sexual molestation is a part of this trope, TVTropes encourages you to “think of whether he’d be any different if he wasn’t gay” – and Kavinsky wouldn’t. Not only because DHs are usually extremely camp while Kavinsky’s mannerisms aren’t particularly queer-coded, but also because he is not shown to have any more respect for women than he does for men, and his abuse would look the same if he was straight).

However, as sensitivity to gay people became more mainstream, this evolved into a sort of Rule-Abiding Rebel “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude. You could have sympathetic queer characters, but they would still usually be “punished” for their queerness in some way so as to not anger more homophobic audiences, similar to how one might write a sympathetic drug addict but still show their addiction in a poor light. 

Again: Neither Ronan nor Adam – the two sympathetic queer characters – are punished for being queer, hence subverting this form of the trope.

This then transitioned into the Too Good for This Sinful Earth narrative, where stories would tackle the subject of homophobia and then depict LGBT characters as suffering victims who die tragic deaths from an uncaring world. The AIDS crisis also contributed to this narrative, as the Tragic AIDS Story became its own archetype, popularized by films like Philadelphia. 

Okay, this is DEFINITELY not Kavinsky’s case. Kavinsky’s death isn’t specifically connected to being gay (e.g.: a hate crime or an STD), and he’s never depicted as some innocent suffering victim. As for the “uncaring world”… eh. Kavinsky may not have a valid support system, but that’s just as much by choice as by chance - and when Ronan extends a helping hand and tries to save him, Kavinsky rejects it. Too Good For This Sinful Earth is definitely not in play. 

The only trope that kind of fits the bill is Gayngst-Induced Suicide… but only on the surface. As TVTrope puts it, Gayngst-Induced Suicide is “when LGBT characters are Driven to Suicide because of their sexuality, either because of internalized homophobia (hating themselves) or experiencing a miserable life because of their “deviant” gender or sexuality: having to hide who they are, not finding a stable relationship, homophobia from other parties, etc.”. Kavinsky certainly has quite a bit of internalized homophobia, but he is absolutely not experiencing a miserable life because of his sexuality – i.e. he’s not being bullied or taunted or subejcted to hate crimes. He doesn’t have to hide who he is: his parents are effectively out of the picture, his cronies worship him, and he constantly makes gay jokes to Ronan and Gansey. As for “not finding a stable relationship”… well that’s not exactly the problem, is it. He’s not looking for a stable relationship – he’s pursuing Ronan specifically, obsessively, through stalking and abuse. So even this trope is not applicable. 

And then there are the cases of But Not Too Gay or the Bait-and-Switch Lesbians, where creators manage to get the romance going but quickly avoid showing it in detail by killing off one of the relevant characters. 

Once again this is not the case with Kavinsky, as 1) there was no romance going between him and Ronan, and 2) he is not killed off before the nature of his obsession with Ronan is revealed – he gets the chance to both admit (sort of) he wants Ronan, and to confront Ronan about his sexuality, to which Ronan admits that yes, he is gay, but he is not interested in Kavinsky. So, there is no But Not Too Gay nor any Bait-and-Switch here. 

Also known as Dead Lesbian Syndrome, though that name has largely fallen out of use post-2015 and the media riots about overuse of the trope. And, as this public outcry restated, the problem isn’t merely that gay characters are killed off: the problem is the tendency that gay characters are killed off in a story full of mostly straight characters, or when the characters are killed off because they are gay.

This is a very good definition of the trope and why it doesn’t apply to Kavinsky: he’s not killed off because he’s gay, and he’s not killed off in a story full of mostly straight characters; TRC is definitely not overwhelmingly diverse, but 2 of the 4 protagonists are queer, giving us a solid 50% ratio (I’m not counting Noah because his “character” status is vague, and I’m not counting Henry because he came in so late, and also because his sexuality is the matter of much speculation).

For a comparison that will make it even clearer: take a show like Supernatural. Supernatural’s range of characters is almost entirely presented as straight white cis men (as of canon – despite much of the fandom’s hopes and speculation). They’ve had problems with diversity in general, with a lot of black characters dying immediately, and a lot of women getting fridged for plot advancement or male angst (a different problematic trope altogether). Now, apart from minor inconsequential cameos, Supernatural had ONE recurring gay character: Charlie Bradbury. And they killed her off for no discernible reason other than plot advancement and male angst, in a context that had elements of Too Good For This Sinful Earth (Charlie being a fan-favourite, ~pure cinnamon roll~, being killed by actual nazis, who historically targeted gay people). See, THAT was Bury Your Gays, AND Dead Lesbian Syndrome, AND Fridging…

However, sometimes gay characters die in fiction because, well, sometimes people die. There are many Anyone Can Die stories: barring explicit differences in the treatments of the gay and straight deaths in these, it’s not odd that the gay characters are dying. The occasional death of one in a Cast Full of Gay is unlikely to be notable, either.

…But that is not the case with TRC. As I’ve said above, there are no explicit differences in the treatments of the gay and straight villain deaths. Kavinsky’s death is not Bury Your Gays; it’s Anyone Can Die – even a protagonist’s foil who has magic powers and is present for most of the book.

Believe me, I would not be cavalier about this. As you rightly said, queer characters always getting killed off is exhausting, and as a bi woman myself, I am deeply affected by instances of Bury Your Gays. When Supernatural killed off Charlie, I wrote a novel-length fix-it fic and basically stopped watching the show – a show I had been following, flaws and all, for 10 years. I don’t take it lightly. But Kavinsky’s death isn’t Bury Your Gays, nor is it homophobia. Sometimes, a character death is just a character death.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Why Is It So Hard for Democrats to Act Like They Actually Won?

By

Rebecca Solnit

November 19, 2020

When Trump won the 2016 election—while losing the popular vote—the New York Times seemed obsessed with running features about what Trump voters were feeling and thinking. These pieces treated them as both an exotic species and people it was our job to understand, understand being that word that means both to comprehend and to grant some sort of indulgence to. Now that Trump has lost the 2020 election, the Los Angeles Times has given their editorial page over to letters from Trump voters, who had exactly the sort of predictable things to say we have been hearing for far more than four years, thanks to the New York Times and what came to seem like about 11,000 other news outlets hanging on the every word of every white supremacist they could convince to go on the record.

The letters editor headed this section with, “In my decade editing this page, there has never been a period when quarreling readers have seemed so implacably at odds with each other, as if they get their facts and values from different universes. As one small attempt to bridge the divide, we are providing today a page full of letters from Trump supporters.” The implication is the usual one: we—urban multiethnic liberal-to-radical only-partly-Christian America—need to spend more time understanding MAGA America. The demands do not go the other way. Fox and Ted Cruz and the Federalist have not chastised their audiences, I feel pretty confident, with urgings to enter into discourse with, say, Black Lives Matter activists, rabbis, imams, abortion providers, undocumented valedictorians, or tenured lesbians. When only half the divide is being tasked with making the peace, there is no peace to be made, but there is a unilateral surrender on offer. We are told to consider this bipartisanship, but the very word means both sides abandon their partisanship, and Mitch McConnell and company have absolutely no interest in doing that.

Paul Waldman wrote a valuable column in the Washington Post a few years ago, in which he pointed out that this discord is valuable fuel to right-wing operatives: “The assumption is that if Democrats simply choose to deploy this powerful tool of respect, then minds will be changed and votes will follow. This belief, widespread though it may be, is stunningly naive.” He notes that the sense of being disrespected “doesn’t come from the policies advocated by the Democratic Party, and it doesn’t come from the things Democratic politicians say. Where does it come from? An entire industry that’s devoted to convincing white people that liberal elitists look down on them. The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity.”

There’s also often a devil’s bargain buried in all this, that you flatter and, yeah, respect these white people who think this country is theirs by throwing other people under the bus—by disrespecting immigrants and queer people and feminists and their rights and views. And you reinforce that constituency’s sense that they matter more than other people when you pander like this, and pretty much all the problems we’ve faced over the past four years, to say nothing of the last five hundred, come from this sense of white people being more important than nonwhites, Christians than non-Christians, native-born than immigrant, male than female, straight than queer, cis-gender than trans.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just complained that “you can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Now it’s considered bigotry.” This is a standard complaint of the right: the real victim is the racist who has been called a racist, not the victim of his racism, the real oppression is to be impeded in your freedom to oppress. And of course Alito is disingenuous; you can say that stuff against marriage equality (and he did). Then other people can call you a bigot, because they get to have opinions too, but in his scheme such dissent is intolerable, which is fun coming from a member of the party whose devotees wore “fuck your feelings” shirts at its rallies and popularized the term “snowflake.”

Nevertheless, we get this hopelessly naïve version of centrism, of the idea that if we’re nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists’ “everyone’s feelings are valid” applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

I think our side, if you’ll forgive my ongoing shorthand and binary logic, has something to offer everyone and we can and must win in the long run by offering it, and offering it via better stories and better means to make those stories reach everyone. We actually want to see everyone have a living wage, access to healthcare, and lives unburdened by medical, student, and housing debt. We want this to be a thriving planet when the babies born this year turn 80 in 2100. But the recommended compromise means abandoning and diluting our stories, not fortifying and improving them (and finding ways for them to actually reach the rest of America, rather than having them warped or shut out altogether). I’ve spent much of my adult life watching politicians like Bill Clinton and, at times, Barack Obama sell out their own side to placate the other, with dismal results, and I pray that times have changed enough that Joe Biden will not do it all over again.

Among the other problems with the LA Times’s editor’s statement is that one side has a lot of things that do not deserve to be called facts, and their values are too often advocacy for harming many of us on the other side. Not to pick on one news outlet: Sunday, the Washington Post ran a front-page sub-head about the #millionMAGAmarch that read “On stark display in the nation’s capital were two irreconcilable versions of America, each refusing to accept what the other considered to be undeniable fact.” Except that one side did have actual facts, notably that Donald J. Trump lost the election, and the other had hot and steamy delusions.

I can comprehend, and do, that lots of people don’t believe climate change is real, but is there some great benefit in me listening, again, to those who refuse to listen to the global community of scientists and see the evidence before our eyes? A lot of why the right doesn’t “understand” climate change is that climate change tells us everything is connected, everything we do has far-reaching repercussions, and we’re responsible for the whole, a message at odds with their idealization of a version of freedom that smells a lot like disconnection and irresponsibility. But also climate denial is the result of fossil fuel companies and the politicians they bought spreading propaganda and lies for profit, and I understand that better than the people who believe it. If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat. Those of us who know it’s round will not recruit them through compromise. We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction.

The editor spoke of facts, and he spoke of values. In the past four years too many members of the right have been emboldened to carry out those values as violence. One of the t-shirts at the #millionMAGAmarch this weekend: “Pinochet did nothing wrong.” Except stage a coup, torture and disappear tens of thousands of Chileans, and violate laws and rights. A right-wing conspiracy to overthrow the Michigan government and kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer was recently uncovered, racists shot some Black Lives Matter protestors and plowed their cars into a lot of protests this summer. The El Paso anti-immigrant massacre was only a year ago; the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre two years ago, the Charlottesville white-supremacist rally in which Heather Heyer was killed three years ago (and of course there have been innumerable smaller incidents all along). Do we need to bridge the divide between Nazis and non-Nazis? Because part of the problem is that we have an appeasement economy, a system that is supposed to be greased by being nice to the other side.

Appeasement didn’t work in the 1930s and it won’t work now. That doesn’t mean that people have to be angry or hate back or hostile, but it does mean they have to stand on principle and defend what’s under attack. There are situations in which there is no common ground worth standing on, let alone hiking over to. If Nazis wanted to reach out and find common ground and understand us, they probably would not have had that tiki-torch parade full of white men bellowing “Jews will not replace us” and, also, they would not be Nazis. Being Nazis, white supremacists, misogynists, transphobes is all part of a project of refusing to understand as part of refusing to respect. It is a minority position but by granting it deference we give it, over and over, the power of a majority position.

In fact the whole Republican Party, since long before Trump, has committed itself to the antidemocratic project of trying to create a narrower electorate rather than win a wider vote. They have invested in voter suppression as a key tactic to win, and the votes they try to suppress are those of Black voters and other voters of color. That is a brutally corrupt refusal to allow those citizens the rights guaranteed to them by law. Having failed to prevent enough Black people from voting in the recent election, they are striving mightily to discard their votes after the fact. What do you do with people who think they matter more than other people? Catering to them reinforces that belief, that they are central to the nation’s life, they are more important, and their views must prevail. Deference to intolerance feeds intolerance.

Years ago the linguist George Lakoff wrote that Democrats operate as kindly nurturance-oriented mothers to the citizenry, Republicans as stern discipline-oriented fathers. But the relationship between the two parties is a marriage, between an overly deferential wife and an overbearing and often abusive husband (think of how we got our last two Supreme Court justices and failed to get Merrick Garland). The Hill just ran a headline that declared “GOP Senators say that a Warren nomination would divide Republicans.” I am pretty sure they didn’t run headlines that said, “Democratic Senators say a Pompeo (or Bolton or Perdue or Sessions) nomination would divide Democrats.” I grew up in an era where wives who were beaten were expected to do more to soothe their husbands and not challenge them, and this carries on as the degrading politics of our abusive national marriage.

Some of us don’t know how to win. Others can’t believe they ever lost or will lose or should, and their intransigence constitutes a kind of threat. That’s why the victors of the recent election are being told in countless ways to go grovel before the losers. This unilateral surrender is how misogyny and racism are baked into a lot of liberal and centrist as well as right-wing positions, this idea that some people need to be flattered and buffered even when they are harming the people who are supposed to do the flattering and buffering, even when they are the minority, even when they’re breaking the law or lost the election. Lakoff didn’t quite get to the point of saying that this nation lives in a household full of what domestic abuse advocates call coercive control, in which one partner’s threats, intimidations, devaluations, and general shouting down control the other.

This is what marriages were before feminism, with the abused wife urged to placate and soothe the furious husband. Feminism is good for everything, and it’s a good model for seeing that this is both outrageous and a recipe for failure. It didn’t work in marriages, and it never was the abused partner’s job to prevent the abuse by surrendering ground and rights and voice. It is not working as national policy either. Now is an excellent time to stand on principle and defend what we value, and I believe it’s a winning strategy too, or at least brings us closer to winning than surrender does. Also, it’s worth repeating, we won, and being gracious in victory is still being victorious.

[Rebecca Solnit’s first media job was in fact-checking and her last book is the memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence. She’s sent a lot of mail to her nieces and nephews during the pandemic.]

[dappercritter]

ATOM Vol.1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us! An Honest Review

I have long waited for the chance to read William Cope’s (AKA @tyrantisterror​) giant monster mash passion project, and as of last Christmas I finally had my chance. The first volume of The Atomic Time of Monsters (AKA A.T.O.M.), Tyrantis Walks Among Us! is every bit the big fun love letter to classic giant monster movies from across both sides of the Pacific that the author has touted on his blog many times. However, although there is a lot of love that evidently went into this story, and plenty of fun to be read, I would not say it’s the best kaiju story I have ever seen, in print or otherwise. Of course, to expect perfection from anything is unfair, but it’s not perfection I’m looking for: it’s consistency. Consistency, particularly of ideas and presentation, has been one of the kaiju (the ever popular Japanese name for “strange/giant monster”) genre’s biggest problems since it first began—be it keeping worldbuilding consistent with themes, or keeping the quality of one shot of the giant juxtaposed monsters consistent with another. Sadly, readers will find that Tyrantis Walks Among Us, for all it’s charms and bravado, suffers from similar inconsistencies.

 The premise of the first entry in the A.T.O.M. series follows many well-worn tropes from the standard giant-size creature: set in an offshoot of postwar 50’s world, a mysterious earthquake linked to nuclear testing has revealed a subterranean lost world filled with mysterious radioactive crystals and (what else) giant monsters to the world. As the menagerie of prehistoric creatures make their way across the surface, gobbling up and/or stomping on the unlucky extras in their path, the government scrambles to gain control of the unprecedented situation, sending in scientists, men in black, and the military. The heroes of the story are the sole scientist smart enough to understand the gravity of the situation, their intrepid band of friends, and the good giant monsters who befriend the humans while fighting off the bad monsters to protect their world. Opposing them are crooked government men who refuse to listen to reason and more menacing monsters driven by hunger or simple malevolence. What follows is a mash-up of almost everything giant monster movies prior are made of: giant monster fights, quirky humans bouncing off each other while trying to stop corrupt governments from worsening the situation, discovering strange lost worlds and encountering the creatures that inhabit them, and even encounters with alien and robot monsters.

 What makes the seemingly formulaic Tyrantis Walks Among Us! stand out is it’s personality. The first volume of ATOM is an affectionate homage, but it’s also a something of a send-up and evolution of the giant monster movie. Not only is every giant monster trope treated with a mix of earnest excitement and tongue-in-cheek wit, embracing both the inherent impressiveness and absurdity of the subgenre in the same breadth (including more than a few references to a selection of giant monster films past, some more subtle than others), with a heaping helping of satirical edge in it’s depiction on atomic era America. Elevating this satirical edge is the colourful human cast, whose personalities, talents, and backstories make them some of the most memorable civilians you’ll ever see in a kaiju series while also giving the story its political punch. Dr. Mina Lerna, the human protagonist and paleontologist turned local giant monster expert, who grapples with sexism and ignorance in her quest to make her voice heard—a voice which is telling everyone to stop trying to kill every monster they see and listen to reason—and come out of her shell; Henry Robertson, an African-American reporter for the United Nations News Organization (a cheeky homage to the oft-maligned American cut of the original King Kong vs. Godzilla) who, with Dr. Lerna’s help fights back against the racial bias trying to keep him quiet to offer current and true coverage of the protagonist’s quest to unlock the mysterious of the kaiju; as well as Gwen Valentine, a spunky homage to activist actresses such as Marylin Monroe in her prime, who after being rescued from certain death in a monster-inhabited cavern, offers some much-needed close friendship, good publicity, and funds to Dr. Lerna and their cause. The more villainous humans opposing them also present some amusement and self-awarness, such as the mysterious vindictive government agent J.C. Clark who prioritizes secret government agendas over transparency and honesty, or “Doctor Brick Rockwell,” a machismo meathead straight out of a camp American monster movie who barely passes for a scientist hired as a talking head to perpetuate willful ignorance—as well as sexism—for the government amidst the monster situation.

Of course, this IS a giant monster story and the kaiju side of the cast deserves special mention as well. Despite being deriving from the all-too familiar archetypes you could expect from giant monsters (i.e. dinosaurs, insects, spiders, and reptiles on a giant scale), the monsters A.T.O.M. stand out from the crowd thanks to their colourful characteristics. The majority of which are “Retrosaurs”: alternate history based dinosaurs that evolved from Loricata, a group of ancient reptiles that included the first crocodylians, as opposed to birds and more or less resemble the terrible lizards as they were depicted in older illustrations such as those created by Charles R. Knight. Chief among them is the star monster, Tyrantis, a standard giant green fire-breathing dinosaur but with an out-and-out heroic complex and a goofy side, showing compassion for his fellow monster and human companions, as well as having a tendency to greet new friends and foes by boisterously charging into battle. Joining him are Tyrantra, a even more impressive red-hued female of Tyrantis’s genus, the tyrannopyrodon (i.e. the fire-breath-enabled Retrosaur equivalent to tyrannosaurs); Gorgolisk, a gigantic frilled serpentine creature who serves as the steadfast guardian of the Earth and the mysterious inhabitants of its hollow earth; and Bobo, a big pink and blue quasi-arachnid with a soft heart and a surprisingly playful disposition. The monsters opposing them are no slouches either, such as Ahuul, a ravenous pterosaur-like Retrosaur who takes sadistic delight in swooping down on smaller prey; Myrmidants, a swarm of gigantic fire ants who fight for their colony with equal parts duty and ferocity; and The Terror, a blue-tinted rival Retro  Tyrant who—without giving anything away—only becomes more of a monster as the story continues. Special mention also goes to a giant scorpion, a giant mothman-themed invader, a deadly duo of a giant wasp and mantis, and an entire island of Retrosaurs of almost every species.

 However, as previously stated, for all it’s charming characters and progressive political statements, the first volume of A.T.O.M., like its forebearers, sadly falls prey to the issue of inconsistencies. Everything from the writing itself to the logic of this world suffers from occasional dips in quality to outright plot holes. The first and most noticeable is the abundance of grammatical errors, and while the majority of the novel is tightly written in very sense of the word, I couldn’t help but notice that every few pages there was incorrect punctuation or a misspelled word, which gave a somewhat rushed impression. Another oddity is the sexuality of Dr. Lerna who develops an affectionate attraction to Ms. Valentine, despite the author confirming in a post on the author’s blog made several years before the novels completion, claiming Lerna was aro-ace (found here)—this is more of a metatextual nitpick and if the author made her an asexual lesbian, it’s still quite a progressive choice in that it offers that minority some representation shows ace folk can still pursue romantic relationships—however, it still can’t help but think think it would have been just as valuable to give aro-ace people some representation as well, rather than seemingly backpedalling on a prior statement on a character’s sexuality. Another distraction is how the story seems to be at odds with itself over anthropomorphizing the monsters, where in some scenes they are written with fairly animalistic traits in mind, wherein others they treated as if they were almost cartoon characters. (e.g. Tyrantis breaks into caveman speak in a postscript picture to advertise some more other novels—relatively harmless but jarring nonetheless.) But the most bothersome inconsistencies by far are concerned with the science of the novel. Specifically, despite possessing a narrative that pushes for embracing science and learning, throughout the novel there are numerous instances where outdated biological and paleontological theories are treated as scientific truths, such as when Bobo’s inability to swim is chalked up to the old misconception that spiders breath through their skin and would drown when but in water. But the most damning example would have to be the Retrosaurs, who despite originating from a completely different evolutionary line, largely resemble past media depictions of dinosaurs more than anything else, inaccuracies at all. It could have been fascinating to explore how familiar species such as ornithopods and sauropods would appear if they were derived from ancient archosaurs (i.e. the grand group from which crocodilians originate). This discrepancies between artistic license and science makes it hard to tell just how much of the author’s intent for the origins of these alternative dinosaurs was driven more by a desire to replicate the aesthetic of prior depictions of prehistoric creatures and movie monsters than a wholly original exploration in speculative biology.

 As critical as may be, I do not want to completely discount the author’s efforts. I enjoyed the first entry in the adventures of the mighty Tyrantis and the impeccable Dr. Lerna from start to finish. As a wholly affectionate parody of the great giant monster subgenre, it’s almost everything I could have wanted it to be! What’s more, I would like to see the ATOM series reach its full potential. However, due the author’s attitudes towards modern science and tendency towards error, I don’t know if this series will ever reach that potential. Tyrantis Walks Among Us! is good as a creative comical take on the classic kaiju story with a progressive sociopolitical punch, but as a scientifically conscious evolution of the genre that birthed it, it falls as flat as the tail of a Retrosaur, and it seems it will stay that way—sticking close to the ground and only occasionally swinging upwards.

[lilibetts]

The E(X) Files

S1E01: Descent Into Eldervair

“Welcome to Eldervair Court, please enter your code now,” the pleasant, computerized female voice prompted. Betty groaned, because of course she had stopped the white Toyota Highlander too far away to reach the keypad. In her defense, this car was given to her by the Bureau as a part of her cover and she'd only been driving it since this afternoon. The thought of the mountains of paperwork she'd have to fill out if she so much as scratched its paint filled her with dread.

“Please enter your code now,” the recording prompted again. Was it her imagination or did the recording sound exasperated? Betty cracked the driver's side door open a fraction and leaned through the window to punch in the numbers she had memorized the night before.

“Please enter your co-- Welcome home, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing that, do you, Snookums?” The sardonic male voice piped up from the passenger seat.  

Betty breathed through her nose, silently counting down from ten before she turned to glare at her pretend husband for the next few weeks. Agent Forsythe Pendleton Jones (“the third, unless you have a daddy or necrophilia kink”), aka Jughead, was partially slouched in the seat.  He no longer sported his ever-present crown beanie, though Betty wouldn't put it past him to have it stashed in a box somewhere. For someone who had his head covered most of the time, his hair looked criminally good.

And Betty had a right to complain- the humidity had made her hair wavy and frizzy. Inherit her mother's 'great hair' genes, she did not.

“Speak for yourself, Buttercup.”

Jughead wasn't Betty's usual partner, but Kevin was taking a well-deserved vacation. (His reaction, when he found out Jughead and Betty would be partners? “Oh dear god, there'll be no self-restraint there. None.”). Jughead didn't have a usual partner; he'd been heading up the X-Files division on his own in his tiny basement office.

She wasn't sure if she'd been partnered with Jughead because she was one of the few agents who didn't make fun of him, either behind his back or right to his face, or because her superiors were tired of her go-getter personality and quick close rate on cases.  Or they had decided 'who better to pretend to be husband and wife than two agents who used to be married to one other?'

Barely sparing a glance at her ex-husband fidgeting in his seat, Betty moved the gearshift back into 'Drive' and steered the vehicle through the now open gates.

Eldervair Court was a massive, walled community in upstate New York— built into a partially cleared section of Fox Forest. As they began to make their way down the winding drive, the multitude of trees gave attractive cover, but nearly blocked out the sky entirely. Given that the weather that day was overcast with gray skies, Betty was immediately unsettled by how isolated she already felt from the world beyond the walls.

The trees faded away just enough to reveal rather enormous but attractive red-brick houses, each on top of a sloping grass hill, with stone steps and pathway leading to the front door. Georgian architecture, Betty thought. Maybe revival, maybe original. Just how old was this community? They hadn't been able to figure out when Eldervair Court was incepted.

The houses were all completely identical; the lawns perfectly manicured with attractive rows of rose bushes. Not a single speck of what might be termed 'character' could be found. They looked, for lack of a better word, perfect.

It gave Betty war flashbacks to her own childhood.

“These aren't houses,” Jughead muttered, right leg jiggling anxiously as he stared out the window. “These are mini-mansions.”

Betty frowned, the surrealism getting to her. “Yeah, I wouldn't say it's all very Stepford Wives, but...”

“More David Lynch's Blue Velvet meets Tim Burton?”

“Something like that.”

As she turned into the driveway, Betty spotted an expertly coiffed redhead in a black sleeveless blouse and red palazzo trousers standing up on the porch with a ruby-red grin on her face. Clearly she was the welcoming committee.

“Showtime,” Betty muttered as she plastered on the smile she'd learned from Alice Smith Cooper.

“It's almost like meeting your mother all over again,” Jughead groused under his breath, eyes trained on the woman on their new porch. Betty didn't even dignify that with a glare.

As they exited the SUV, the moving truck with two other agents backed up into the space next to them. The weather here was still warm for late September, so Betty had dressed semi-casually according to a popular Fall Fashion Pinterest board and Jughead wore a nice pair of new black trousers and a blue sweater that did fantastic things for his eyes.

(She'd given him that sweater several Christmases ago.)

The redhead sauntered up to them on towering red stilettos. “Bonsoir, Fletchers!” She trilled. Now that they were closer, Betty could make out the shape of the woman's broach— it was a spider.

"'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the Spider to the Fly.

She was met at the top of the driveway by a petite pink-haired woman, this one dressed in all black and floral platform ankle boots. Once she struck the perfect couples pose, the redhead addressed Betty and Jughead: “Welcome to Eldervair Court, we're the Topaz-Blossoms and yes, we're domesticated lesbians.”

“Cheryl,” the pink-haired woman scolded lightly, the soft smile on her face telling Betty she was used to her wife's dramatics.

“Sorry TT, I didn't mean to engage in bisexual erasure. 'Domesticated lesbians' just has a better ring to it. Forgive me, mon amour?” Their noses rubbed together in an Eskimo kiss before Cheryl remembered her new neighbors existed. “As you can see, EC is a progressive, open-minded community, as long as you keep your lawn up to regulations!”

Sensing that Jughead was about to make a sarcastic comment, Betty beat him to the punch. “That's wonderful! I'm Juliet and this is my husband, Holden,” she introduced them, patting a hand on Jughead's chest to warn him to watch his mouth.

And also sell that they were definitely a married couple, not a pair of divorced FBI Agents. Nothing to see here, let's move on.

“I'm Toni,” Pink Hair said with a small wave. “Cheryl and I live two doors down, next to the Andrews'.”

Cheryl clapped her hands. “Now that we've dispensed with the niceties, since you two took your sweet time arriving, we're going to have to hurry if you're going to make the six o'clock cutoff.”

“Cutoff?” Jughead frowned. Glancing down at her phone, Betty saw it was 4:51.

“The six o'clock cutoff? All move-ins must be completed by 6 PM. It's in the R&Rs.” Cheryl intoned, as if that ought to have been obvious.

Toni at least had the grace to look regretful. “Yeah, you're really going to need to brush up on the Rules & Regulations. They're the price we pay to keep this community successful.”

“We'll definitely read it through carefully,” Betty promised. “It's just been so busy lately, what with the move and all...”

Cheryl had already whipped out her phone and her thumbs flew over the screen. “I've conscripted some of your new neighbors into helping with the unload. With my superior delegating skills, we'll have you moved in in no time at all!” With a flip of her hair over one shoulder, she was off, barking out orders at the people crossing the street towards them; Toni made a beeline for the moving van.

Betty and Jughead shared a look before they made their way to the front door. In front of the columns on either side of the porch sat two statues, their grotesque features seeming to leer at her. Gargoyles. They were gargoyles. A shiver made its way down her spine.  Keep it together, Betty, she told herself as she slid the key they'd been sent into the lock.

From the entryway, the view of the home was magnificent, there was no other word for it: high ceilings, paneled walling, and tall windows that let in plenty of light. There was a sweeping staircase and the hardwood floors looked to be dark maple and wide planked.  Jughead curled a proprietary arm around her back, resting his hand on her hip.

“Now, Lambchop, what do you think? Is this the place for us or what?”

They'd lived in a tiny two-bedroom in Queens, a paradise before Jughead's undercover gang assignment destroyed them from afar.

“It's right out of a dream, Bugaboo.”

Tap-tap-tap-tap. Shaking off her sudden melancholy, Betty turned at the sound of heels on hardwood on to face Cheryl's approach. “This place is downright immaculate,” she pretended to gush. “I would love to send the previous owners a Thank You note.”

Cheryl made a disinterested noise. “Whatever suits your sensibilities, Juliet dear. You can give it to me and I'll send it on to them,” she said with eyes downcast, pretending to study a scuff mark on the floor.

No, you certainly won't, Betty thought with a vicious stab of satisfaction at catching someone in a clear lie. Because Dilton Doiley was dead and his wife, Ethel, had gone missing.

A steady stream of people with boxes started coming through the open door. In the distance, Betty could see their undercover movers unloading the first of their carefully selected furniture. Now, there was a job: join the FBI and use your interior design degree to stage undercover agents' homes to help sell their cover.

“So,” Cheryl carefully enunciated. “What is it that you do?”

“Oh, I'm the social media manager for an event planning company in the city and Hols here is working on his third novel.” Betty beamed with pride at her pretend husband's achievements. Thanks to Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, it was disturbingly easy to backstop Holden Fletcher's novelist career in such a way that it was believable that the couple could afford to live in Eldervair Court.

The Bureau hired out-of-work English Majors and MFA degree-holders to do things like this, too.

Cheryl made another noise, clearly not impressed by what it is that they do.

That's when it got a bit weird. A redheaded man, who had been introduced to them as 'Archiekins' by his immaculate wife in pearls and a dark plum sheath dress, shouted out the time.

“5:40!”

The stream of neighbors turned into frenzied rapids. Before they knew it, all the boxes were inside, as well as the furniture, if not in the exact room they belonged. By 5:58, everyone was exiting the house with words of welcome and half-formed plans to have dinner tomorrow night.

“We'll leave you to it. Toodles, Neighbors!” And with that, Cheryl closed the door with a flourish behind her.

“Dear god,” Betty groaned, shoulders slumping.

“Yeah, nothing weird going on here at all,” muttered Jughead before he turned away from the front door. “Hold on, you didn't let me carry you over the threshold—“

Betty simply rolled her eyes and made her way toward the kitchen. They'd brought two coolers full of food to last them until they could go grocery shopping tomorrow. The Bureau had only intended to give them one, but Betty had renegotiated the second, knowing what kind of appetite Jughead had. She wanted to get the perishables into the fridge before it was too late.

She stopped short when she caught sight of the two items on the granite countertop. “Ju-” she caught herself in time. “Sweetie, come see what our neighbors left us!” she called out.

In less than two seconds she felt the heat of him at her back. “Well, wasn't that nice of them?”

Next to the enormous, spiral-bound binder that proclaimed 'Eldervair Court: Rules and Regulations' on the cover, was an ivory box with two detailed black-and-white creatures stenciled onto it. Inside the ornate red frame, written in Gothic lettering were the words:

Gryphons & Gargoyles

[bluewatsons]

Jill Fields, "Where my dreidel at?": Representing Jewish Identity in Orange Is the New Black, 13 J Jewish Identities 1 (2020)

The Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black ranks among the most watched shows available for streaming online or on cable. In June 2016, the first episode of Season 4 drew 6.7 million views in 72 hours, making it second in viewership only to HBO's popular Game of Thrones.1 It also garnered critical acclaim, receiving a Peabody Award in addition to many Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild nominations and awards.2 The series is based on a memoir by Piper Kerman, who served thirteen months in a minimum security women's prison in Danbury, Connecticut after her conviction on a drug-related offense she had committed ten years earlier. Created by Jenji Kohan, the series is a "dramedy" that mixes comedic touches with poignant stories based upon Piper's prison experiences and those of others she lived with and worked alongside while incarcerated. When the series debuted in 2013, it was lauded for its diverse female cast—in terms of racial, ethnic, and sexual identities—and for its sympathetic depiction of the plight of the primarily poor women who serve time behind bars.3 Orange Is the New Black (OITNB) clearly broke new ground in representing women who are rarely seen in mainstream cultural texts, especially in prominent roles. Kohan revealed in an NPR interview that she used the character of the blonde Piper—whose last name was changed to Chapman in the show and who labels herself a WASP in both her memoir and on screen—as a "Trojan Horse" in order to sell the series to Netflix executives, who green-lighted a project that began with Chapman as the lead, but quickly evolved in an inclusive direction by elevating women of color to co-starring status.4

Academic assessment of OITNB has celebrated aspects of the series, but also critiqued ways in which the show upholds stereotypes about women of color, lesbians, transwomen, and older women, and how it draws upon women's prison film conventions that objectify incarcerated female bodies, albeit at times self-knowingly.5 Less noted thus far by scholars is the prominent attention the show gives to its Jewish characters and themes.6 Though the series deserves praise for shining light on diverse female experiences, its treatment of Jews draws upon long-standing tropes. The show deploys, for example, the classic construction of the interfaith relationship, seen for over a century in American culture; the enduring American television tradition of covert rather than openly Jewish identity; and reliance on the conversion narrative in portraying Jewish beliefs and rituals. These mechanisms highlight, yet also displace, the depiction of Jewishness on the series and the contributions of its Jewish creator, writers, directors, and actors.

Studies of Jewish representation in American popular culture have addressed both the presence and absence of Jewish characters and narratives. Documentation of the Jewish presence in film and television has produced assessments and generated debates about whether particular portrayals draw upon or challenge antisemitic tropes, provide realistic depictions of the Jewish-American experience, or sidestep considerations of what it means to be Jewish.7 Over time, and in tandem with emerging trends in feminist analysis and cultural studies, investigations of the representation of Jews in film and television began to also consider how particular narratives construct Jewish identity, especially in regard to gender, and explore contradictions embedded in mass cultural texts that reference Jewish experiences. Though ire, fear, outrage, and appreciation continue to motivate some research and give it urgency, analysis questioning assumptions about claims to authenticity, acknowledging diversity within Jewish communities, and drawing parallels in addition to contrasts with how a range of minorities are represented both in front of and behind the camera has provided new insights and opened up new ways of thinking about larger frameworks as well as specific texts. Nonetheless, asking whether products of the culture industry such as OITNB are "good for the Jews" remains relevant even when also taking into account a range of Jewish experiences and practices, the potential instability of identity formations, and possibilities for conflicting interpretations.

Important Jewish characters in OITNB include Piper Chapman's fiancé Larry Bloom, inmate Nicky Nichols—who I assert is a crypto-Jew through Season 5—and African-American inmate Cindy Hayes, who converts to Judaism in Season 3. It is significant as well that a number of actors, writers, and directors employed by the show in addition to series creator and producer Kohan are also Jewish. In what follows, I explore relevant aspects of the source material—Kerman's memoir—with a primary focus on how the fictional characters and their stories create Jewish moments in series episodes. I also suggest ways in which the representation of Jews connects with the show's Jewish cast and crew. Moreover, the contrast between the show's groundbreaking status and its employment of practices that date back to earlier periods in the history of television reveal the persistence of problematics for including fully realized Jews and their narratives on the small screen.

Larry Bloom, Masculinity, and Jewish Betrayal

Piper's Jewish fiancé Larry Bloom appears in the first episode of Season 1 and remains in the series through Season 2.8 The real Piper's real-life Jewish fiancé (now husband), who is a successful writer with the far less iconic Jewish last name of Smith, is in Kerman's memoir supportive and loving throughout Piper's prison ordeal, as are his equally wonderful parents. Larry Bloom of the series, an aspiring writer who struggles to get a paying gig, is initially kind and defends Piper to his awful Portnoyesque parents, who try to get him to dump his shiksa girlfriend. Larry has internalized his father's view of the blonde gentile woman as exotic and uses the term himself when proposing to Piper after she is sentenced. "Why would I want a felonious former Lesbian WASP shiksa who is about to go to prison to marry me? Why? Because this underachieving, underemployed Jewboy loves her."9 Larry Smith describes meeting Piper in similar terms: "Piper was pretty by anyone's standards, but blonde, blue-eyed, Waspy girls are catnip for hairy Jewish guys like myself." He further describes "classic Piper: steely and self-contained. I grew up with a different window into the world of women, one where they are a little neurotic and a lot needy."10 This well-worn construction of Jewish women has appeared in a range of media and texts, including interfaith marriage narratives depicted in such films as The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Along Came Polly (2004), and in the 2015 comment by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump calling Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz "crazy" and "highly neurotic."11 In OITNB, Larry further demonstrates his assimilationist impulse by preparing roasted pig for the couple's last meal together before Piper's self-surrender at Litchfield prison; their first snack in the prison visiting room is pork rinds.12

Larry is played by actor Jason Biggs, who has portrayed Jewish men in films such as American Pie (1999), though not Jewish himself.13 Soon after OITNB debuted, articles such as "Does Orange Is the New Black Have a Jewish Problem?" expressed concern about yet another iteration of Jewish masculinity as having "that tortured, brooding, nebbish quality we've come to associate with Woody Allen."14 Moreover, as other characters are humanized via flashbacks that reveal their difficult personal histories and draw viewers' sympathies, Larry's weaknesses become more apparent as the narrative unfolds and he draws viewers' disgust. A 2014 article, "A Guide to The Internet's Love of Hating Larry Bloom From 'Orange Is the New Black,'" concluded Larry was so detested he was the object of "world-class hatred."15

Larry's multiple betrayals of Piper propel his development into—or revelation as—a despised, nebbishy Judas. His first step down that path is watching episodes of Mad Men alone, after promising Piper he would wait to watch them with her after her release. To do so guilt-free, he turns over a framed photo of the two of them on his coffee table. As one critic called it, "Only a truly terrible human being would go against his loving girlfriend's wishes and watch their show without her. But turning the frame over? That's just cold-blooded."16 Larry's initial betrayal leads to more. When his only chance to get paid for writing an article requires detailing the prison experiences that Piper has shared with him in phone calls and visits, he goes ahead without her permission.17 She finds out about his New York Times "Modern Love" column from her prison counselor and, after viewers see Larry excitedly buying up copies of the newspaper, we find out that he has revealed information that endangers the tenuous relationships Piper has been building and needs to survive prison.18 In a subsequent episode, despite Piper's distress, Larry cozies up to an NPR reporter he meets at a Thanksgiving dinner, which results in a radio appearance sharing similar stories. Again, Piper only finds out about this after the fact, and listens in horror as Larry further humiliates both her and inmates she knows.19

The real Larry did write a "Modern Love" column about his relationship with an inmate, though it was published well after Piper's sentence ended, and a month before the 2010 publication of her memoir. Likely timed to promote Kerman's book prior to its release, the column most importantly does not betray her or her prison friends. Instead, Larry focuses on his devotion to Piper throughout her incarceration and the men he met who were also visiting their wives or girlfriends. The column ends with claims that his consistent visits and phone calls were not testaments to his character but instead prove how wonderful his fiancée is.20 In contrast, Netflix Larry's multiple betrayals reach their ultimate conclusion when he sleeps with Polly (Maria Dizzia), Piper's married best friend and business partner, and then dumps Piper for her. Larry and Polly even move in together and are shown enjoying their comfortable New York City lives as Larry and Piper used to do.21

Expressing dismay about how the show transformed Larry's character by drawing upon familiar tropes that denigrate Jewish men and Jews generally, and identifying differences between the two portrayals of Larry, is a fair, but ultimately narrow criticism. After all, adapting books into movies or television shows, whether fiction or non-fiction, requires alterations. The real Larry, for example, explains that translating Netflix Larry into what he calls a "schmuck" made the show more interesting.22 Another way to frame that transformation is to ask what purpose the nebbishy Judas/Jewdas performs in the OITNB narrative. I would argue that Larry's betrayal not only relieves the show from an unexciting story of a reliable boyfriend, but also displaces questions about possibly exploitative aspects of Kerman's best-seller and hit series onto the despicable and feminized Jewish man. This narrative turn burnishes the author's—and series creator Kohan's—celebratory claims to tell rather than sell the stories of incarcerated women who will not profit from their commercial dissemination.23

Kohan's OITNB cookbook, which features "Larry's Orange and Black Peppercorn Pulled Pork," is suggestive of her commercial goals and conflicted take on just how seriously the show and the discourse it has generated consider prison conditions.24 In addition, Kerman's former girlfriend, Cleary Wolters, who facilitated Kerman's criminal involvement in the drug trade, states in her memoir that she was never contacted by anyone connected with the book or the series prior to their release. In OITNB, her fictionalized character Alex Vause ends up in the same prison with Piper and their relationship is a central story line. When the Netflix series debuted, Wolters was out of prison and working and, though her employers knew the broad outlines of her criminal past, she had not shared details nor come out as gay at work when outed by the series. Wolters feared for her job security, aware of her tenuous status as an ex-felon. Within one day of the series release, the identity of the "real Alex Vause" was posted online, which caused her anxiety that former inmates might track her down. Ultimately, however, Wolters felt grateful that the success of OITNB allowed her to also share in print the sobering lessons of her criminal past and prison experiences.25 Nonetheless, the risks provoked by Wolters's inclusion in the memoir and series raise the question of exploitation, a charge against the show conceptualized as "trauma porn." Ashleigh Shackleford popularized the term in her assessment, shared by a number of African-American critics, that the show depicted "bleak narratives about the experience of people of color for the entertainment of those who have never lived those experiences."26 Such critiques provide further evidence for reading Larry's many betrayals as a displacement or hedge against similar charges directed toward Kerman or the series creators. As a long-standing trope, Jewish betrayal is easily identifiable and works to distract or absolve others of incriminating behavior.

The Jewish Inmate Problem: Levy

The treatment of a woman who, like Wolters, appears in the memoir but who has drawn less attention because she did not become an easily identifiable character in the show, provides an additional avenue for exploring Jewish identity in OITNB. Kerman's descriptions of Levy, a Jewish inmate, suggests the translation of Larry into a Judas can be indeed identified as a "Jewish problem," and one that originated in the memoir rather than the series. Consideration of the memoir is uncommon in studies of the series; Hilary Malatino's analysis is an important exception that provides a point of comparison below.27 A French Moroccan Jew, Levy is the only inmate whose behavior and demeanor Kerman derides repeatedly in her memoir. Levy is a true "other" in prison. As Kerman explains early on:

When a new person arrived their tribe—white, black, Latino, or the few and far between "others"—would … get them settled and steer them through their arrival. If you fall into that "other" category—Native American, Asian, Middle Eastern—then you got a patchwork welcome committee of … women from the dominant tribes.28

Levy thus falls outside or in between even the "other" category, but her status as a Member of the Tribe without a tribe and the impact her singularity might have had on her ability to in fact "get settled" is not considered by the otherwise compassionate Kerman. Described in the memoir as "tiny," Kerman scorns Levy for being "totally useless at electrical studies" despite "preening about her Sorbonne education."29 She is also criticized for her decision not to allow her children to come visit her because she does not "want them to see her in prison," despite Kerman noting without judgement others who "did not want their people to see them in a place like this."30 Kerman even positions Levy below guards in likeability: "'Zey have no class,'" sneered Levy. I didn't like prison guards, but she was insufferable."31 This excerpt is also an example of how Levy is singled out by Kerman, who reproduces her accent in the text to a greater degree than any other prisoner's. Levy is also ridiculed for crying more often than Kerman deems appropriate, though Kerman writes that when seeing an inmate cry after visiting hours are over, "you smiled sympathetically or touched their shoulder."32 Together, these comments justify Levy's status as:

the unifying factor in the [electrical] shop: the rest of us united against her. She was insufferable, crying daily and complaining loudly and constantly about her measly six-month sentence, asking inappropriate personal questions, trying to boss people around, and making appalling and loud statements about other prisoners' appearance and lack of education sophistication, or "class," as she put it. … Most of the time she was nervous-verging-on-hysterical, which manifested in dramatic physical symptoms; an astonishing hive-like swelling made her look like the Elephant Man, and her always sweating hands made her particularly useless for working with electricity.33

Though we do not learn the specifics regarding the cause of Levy's incarceration, Kerman mentions Levy was "whisked away to testify against her chiseler ex-boyfriend."34 However, the worst offense committed by Levy, according to Kerman, occurs after her release when she is interviewed by the Hartford Courant in September 2004, just before Martha Stewart's incarceration. Kerman reports the "Camp freaked out" that Barbara, as Levy is referred to in the newspaper article, describes the prison as a "big hotel" with "an ice machine, ironing boards," "two libraries" and "amazing food," and that she says she enjoyed not having to cook, clean, drive or buy gas. Kerman responded to the article in her memoir by "pictur[ing] Levy, swollen with hives, looking like the Elephant Man, crying every single day over her six-month sentence and sneering at anyone she thought was not 'classy.'" Though Kerman states the "reporter got many minor facts wrong," she and other inmates who "are outraged by the false claim that [they] could buy Haagen-Dazs ice cream" at the commissary blame Levy for the error. The prisoner in charge of the kitchen, Pop in the memoir and Red in the show, is upset and confused:

Piper, I just don't understand it. Why would she lie? You have the opportunity to get the truth out there about this place, and instead she makes up these lies? We have nothing here, and she makes it sound like a picnic.35 

Kerman then explains to her readers that Levy lied because she "didn't want to admit to herself, let alone to the outside world, that she had been placed in a ghetto, just as ghetto as they had once had in Poland." Kerman here assumes that she understands the Jewish ghettos of World War II-era Poland better than Levy. She continues:

It was too painful … for Levy and others (especially the middle-class prisoners) to admit that they had been classed as undesirables, compelled against their will into containment, and forced into scarcity without even the dignity of chosen austerity. So instead, she said it was Club Fed.36

Kerman uses the ghetto metaphor to help her readers understand the "revolving door between our urban and rural ghettos and the formal ghetto of our prison system" in the United States and the difficulty of escaping either.37 However, Kerman, in collapsing distinctions, overlooks differences between Nazi ghettos and those she references, and also ways in which targeted communities form alliances based in shared histories of pain and oppression. Moreover, she does not consider the possibility if not probability that Levy has family members who perished, or who suffered and survived the Holocaust in France and Morocco. In a comparable critique, though one focusing on gender identity, Malatino finds Kerman "lacks a framework for understanding trans subjectivity," and uses "classic othering strategies … [that] serve to de-authenticate transfeminine gender expressions."38 Kerman similarly lacks intersectional frameworks that could account for Levy's status as both wielding middle-class privilege and experiencing her subjectivity as an isolated and vulnerable minority.

Lacking fuller consideration of Levy's multiple facets, Kerman also did not mention that Levy in the interview lauded her fellow prisoners as "classy" and defended them against charges that sexual assault was common. For Levy, "The worst part about being there was being counted. They count you like an animal." Whether intentional or not, her emphasis on this aspect of prison life being exceptionally difficult for her evokes the experiences of Jews in Nazi camps during the Holocaust, an allusion that escapes Kerman. The Courant also sympathetically reported Levy's decision not to see her children, which Levy states was the hardest part of her stay, and an effort to maintain her dignity.39

Levy indeed may have been annoying. But that alone does not explain why Kerman devotes so much attention to her. In assessing what work she performs in the narrative, I argue Levy serves several functions. First, she is a vehicle for the middle-class Kerman to distance herself from those of her own class and to legitimate her claim that she accepts her shared status with poor undesirables, which other middle-class women prisoners like Levy do not. Second, she confirms the view of Jewish women as needy and neurotic, a dominant caricature even promulgated by Kerman's real-life Jewish husband. Levy thus also is a vehicle Kerman uses to elide her possible association with reviled Jewish femininity via her relationship with a Jewish man. Third, Levy translates into Netflix Larry as they are both Judases who in self-interest betray the experiences of incarcerated women in mass media forums. Levy-Larry are categorically unable to truly understand who those women are or identify with them, unlike the transcendent Kerman. Thus Levy-Larry is the mechanism by which Kerman and by default Kohan distance themselves from assessments that they are profiting from the ordeals of women who do not have similar professional opportunities to do so.40 Moreover, the construction of the justifiably hated if not abject Jew that results from Levy's transgressive behavior and Larry's increasingly despicable acts creates more possibilities for the diverse female inmates to be viewed sympathetically by readers and viewers.

OITNB and Television's Crypto-Jews

The portrayal of Jewish identity on the television series OITNB contains further complexities, as Jewish elements beyond the Bloom stereotypes are depicted from its earliest episodes. A mechanism for simultaneously including and excluding Jews in television is the long-standing practice of the crypto-Jewish character. Leslie Fiedler first used the term in 1964 to describe the phenomenon of characters whose Jewish identity is hidden, like the original crypto-Jews, Spanish Jews forced to convert in 1492 whose Mexican and Mexican-American descendants maintained Jewish practices for centuries typically without knowing the origins of their family traditions.41 Fiedler deployed the term critically in analyzing Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and other characters penned by mid-twentieth-century Jewish-American writers such as Paddy Chayefsky, Bernard Malamud, and Norman Mailer. Fielder deplored the effect of "characters who are in habit, speech, and condition typically Jewish American, but who are presented as something else—general American," as "pseudo-universalizing." As a result, "the works … lose authenticity and strength" and constitute a "failure to remember that the inhabitants of Dante's Hell or Joyce's Dublin are more universal as they are more Florentine or Irish."42

Jewish Studies media critics such as Jeffrey Shandler, David Zurawik, and Vincent Brooks found the crypto-Jew concept useful in describing television characters whose Jewish identity is ambiguous, hidden, or suppressed but hinted at through narrative gestures, personal qualities, or physical features and often by being played by a Jewish actor. These critics explain that the crypto-Jew phenomenon was born of concern largely on the part of Jewish television executives that shows that appeared "too Jewish" would not appeal to most Americans and would make them vulnerable to charges of Jewish control of the media. The practice emerged in television's "Golden Era," after the popular radio and then television show The Gold-bergs ended its twenty-six-year run in 1955. The Goldbergs depicted an observant Jewish family of modest means comprised of immigrant parents and America-born children living in New York City. Matriarch Molly Goldberg (Gertrude Berg) was a beloved mass culture icon known for her down-to-earth wisdom and endearing malapropisms. Despite its broad appeal—Berg won the first Emmy awarded for Best Actress in 1950—Jewish television moguls such as William Paley, who headed CBS, made it clear that no new shows with Jewish leading characters would be aired. This attitude has been attributed to television executives' fears that Jewish programming would bring unwanted attention and therefore problems to Jews working in the medium. Occasionally, Jewish characters appeared in Jewish-themed episodes of shows from westerns like Rawhide (1959–1965) and Bonanza (1959–1973) to procedurals such as The F.B.I (1965–1974). However, the maxim "write Yiddish, cast British" became the rule through the 1970s. It was implemented most famously in network discussions about what became The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966). Created by Carl Reiner, who planned to star, the sitcom was based on his life as a television comedy writer and head of a Jewish family living in the suburbs. Innovative in depicting both its main character's home and work life, CBS agreed to put the show in the prime time schedule if Reiner, et al. would step aside for a "less ethnic" cast. The one exception in the final ensemble was supporting character Buddy Sorrel, played by Morey Amsterdam, though his Jewish identity was rarely referenced.43

In the 1970s, "write Yiddish, cast British" remained a guiding principle on network television, though popular shows such as Barney Miller (1974–1982) and Welcome Back Kotter (1975–1979) featured lead characters with familiar Jewish identifiers, such as their New York City origins and speech patterns, and who were played by Jewish actors. Nonetheless, such characters remained crypto-Jews, as story lines never referenced or confirmed their Jewish identity. Rhoda (1974–1978), a spin off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show starring the non-Jewish Valerie Harper as Mary's Jewish friend Rhoda Morgenstern, was an exception, a sitcom about a Jewish woman. Even after the late 1980s and 1990s saw the return of the Jewish female lead in The Nanny (1993–1999) and Will & Grace (1998–2006), and the Jewish leading man in dramas thirtysomething (1987–1991) and Northern Exposure (1990–1995), the crypto-Jew remained an important creature of network television. Crypto-Jews of this era include George Costanza, Kramer, and Elaine on Seinfeld (1989–1998) and Rachel Green, Monica Geller, and Ross Geller on Friends (1994–2004). In an echo of the decision to recast what became The Dick Van Dyke Show, NBC executives insisted the Seinfeld characters, who were created as Jews, not remain so. Only Jerry Seinfeld remained identifiably Jewish, which was unavoidable as his character was based on the already known Jewish comedian's real persona.44

Despite this decades-long context and an emerging self-referential and fearless Jewish sensibility in twentieth-first-century cable programming personified by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson's Broad City, and by the Amazon series Transparent, celebrated as the "Jewiest show ever," all of which found broad audiences, Orange Is the New Black features crypto-Jews among its diverse cast.45 Jewish actors in the series in recurring roles that began in the first season include Yael Stone, Constance Shulman, Barbara Rosenblatt, and Natasha Lyonne. Constance Shulman's character Yoga Jones's potential identity as a crypto-Jew is tipped off in a visual cue. As the inmates prepare for the December holidays by decorating the prison, Jones tapes a two-dimensional dreidel decoration to the wall upside down. Whether this indicates ignorance or a sign of Jewish distress (or Jews in distress), like the meaning of flying the American flag upside down, it is significant that this moment precedes, and perhaps precipitates, the scene where Jones's back story is revealed in flashback. Though nothing in the character's background particularly suggests she is Jewish, that she becomes a Buddhist after her conviction for mistakenly shooting and killing a neighbor's child when protecting her remote marijuana crop might be, as so many American Buddhists are Jewish, they are known as "JuBus." Jones's story also evokes the television character Dharma Finkelstein of Dharma & Greg (1997–2002) whose father is a Jewish hippie and befuddled pothead.46

Drug offender Nicky Nichols is the most prominent and clearly identifiable crypto-Jew on OITNB throughout its first five seasons. Yet a case can be made as well for Yael Stone's Lorna Morello. Stone, for example, was originally considered for the part of Nicky Nichols, but instead was cast as the working-class Italian-American Lorna Morello. This cultural slippage between Italian Americans and Jewish Americans has been long noted. In 1964, for example, Leslie Fiedler cited Paddy Chayefsky's Italian American Marty as a Jewish American being "presented as something else."47 More recently, Dominique Ruggieri and Elizabeth Leebron in their research on Jewish- and Italian-American women on television conclude that ever since Mama Rosa debuted in 1950, shortly after the transition of The Goldbergs from radio to television, both Jewish- and Italian-American women have been portrayed as:

selfish, pushy, materialistic, domineering, manipulative, assertive, loud, shallow, whiny, demanding, man-hunting, weight-conscious, high-maintenance, shopping-crazed bargain hunters, possessive, controlling, unmarried, success-oriented, food-oriented, asexual, and unattractive. Physical qualities that epitomize these characters include large noses, big hair, a dark complexion and issues with their bodies. The positive characteristics linked to these ethnic portrayals include strong family orientation, loyalty, and devotion as mothers.48

In addition, several prominent Italian-American television characters, such as Dorothy Petrollo-Zbornak on The Golden Girls (1985–1992) and Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005) were played by Jewish actors, Bea Arthur and Doris Roberts respectively. Some Jewish media journalists have gone a step further and declared the entire Barone family Jewish because the show's Jewish creator, Phil Rosenthal, infused the series with storylines based on his own family.49 Similarly, crypto-Jew Costanza from Seinfeld, who is ostensibly Italian American, is played by a Jewish actor, as are his parents. It works both ways; Italian-American actor John Turturro has played Jews in multiple films.50 Moreover, on OITNB, the connection between Nicky and Lorna is part of the narrative. In the first episode of Season 1, we are introduced to both characters along with Piper, who discovers them having sex in the shower. The amorous relationship between Nichols, who is a lesbian, and Morello, who identifies as heterosexual, continues through the fifth episode, when Morello breaks it off to save herself for her fiancé. Nonetheless, their relationship maintains an emotional and at times physical intimacy. Furthermore, Lorna later reveals her fiancé is Jewish, and decides, "If I marry him, I'll be Jewish too."51

On her own, drug offender Nicky Nichols personifies the typical television crypto-Jew. Natasha Lyonne neé Bronstein's thick, wavy long hair and New York accent are key physical markers. Nicky, an articulate, insightful, and wisecracking lesbian, was raised in Manhattan by her professional, well-to-do, divorced mother. Nicky complains about and blames her mother's absence in her life for some of the psychic distress that undergirds her addiction. Flashbacks depict their difficult relationship; however, as her back story progresses, we see Nicky is an incorrigible addict who uses her smarts and sarcasm to manipulate her mother, who eventually throws up her hands. Nicky's mother's characterization is not stable in the show and there is no evidence to suggest she is a crypto-Jew herself. For example, she is not played by a Jewish actor. Perhaps then it is Nicky's truly absent father who is Jewish. After all, her last name mirrors jokester Joey Nichols, who is Woody Allen/Alvy Singer's father's friend in Annie Hall. As Joey's cultural descendant, Nicky's comedic abilities are more fully evolved: in another marker of Jewish-American identity, she performs stand-up during the prison holiday talent show.52 Moreover, Lyonne makes her own Jewish identity clear in interviews and in the extra feature "Getting to Know the Cast" on the Season 3 DVD, where she talks about living in Israel in the 1980s, and provides the wittiest responses to many of the questions she and the other actors are asked. Nicky is also the first character to use Yiddish words in the series and the first to term a gang of white supremacist inmates as Nazis.53

In critical readings of the show, Nicky has been noted for her non-normative lesbian body, i.e., she is perceived as non-conforming to dominant standards of beauty. Such critiques either laud the show for depicting Nicky enjoying her sexuality despite not being thin and "attractive" or find fault in that the white lesbians with leading roles, Piper and her girlfriend Alex (Laura Prepon), uphold and thus perpetuate these oppressive standards.54 Furthermore Nicky's (crypto-Jewish) hair is unruly, and she does not attend fully to grooming and behavioral practices associated with femininity such as being neat, tidy, and controlled in appearance or speech. Nicky's presentation thus can be seen as conforming to the view of Jewish women as unattractive. Nonetheless, Kyra Hunting finds that:

often it is not Piper, marked by the politics of respectability who is the moral center for the group of white women but drug addict and promiscuous Nicky—whose appearance and lascivious language has rough edges but who consistently provides the most rational advice to other inmates.55

In addition, Nicky articulates incisive feminist critiques. For example, in regard to Lorna's obsession about her future marriage to her fiancé, Nicky comments on "the wedding industrial complex and society's bullshit need to infantilize grown women." Though Nicky demonstrates the benefits of her college education in such comments, she does not use her well-honed analytical skills to assert her superiority in the same manner as Piper's displays of knowledge sometimes do and for which other inmates call her out.56

Claiming Nicky as a crypto-Jew opens up further possibilities for considering her within the genealogy of "tough Jews," who defy stereotypes of Jews as weak, passive, victims or brainy yet nebbishy nerds. Scholars and commentators have deployed the term "tough Jew" to describe a range of real and representational Jewish men, from early twentieth-century Jewish-American gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel and Holocaust resistance fighters the Bielski Brothers, to the muscular Zionists and Israelis who forged a Jewish state and aim to protect the Jewish people. Nathan Abrams in The New Jew in Film extends the category to include the "tough Jewess with Attitude" seen in a number of turn-of-the-century films such as Miller's Crossing (1990), Homicide (1991), and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). Though Nicky engages in illegal activity, she is not a gangster in the Lansky mold, nor is she a righteous member of anti-fascist resistance. Instead, her brand of Jewish toughness is born of her defiant lesbian identity, rough street life as a junkie, and willingness to speak her mind. These attributes are essential components of her prison survival skills.57

The tough Jew is posited by Abrams as a one-half of a binary paired with the queer Jewish male. In regard to Jewish women, he explains:

the tough Jewess with Attitude not only rebels against stereo(typical) gender roles, demonstrating that she can perform the same roles and tasks as the Jew, but also questions the duality of gender in the first place, confounding both the general and Jewish binary logic.58

As Nicky is queer and tough, she confounds stereotypes about Jewish women's representation on television, and, as I discuss further below, the representation of Jewish women in OITNB. Perhaps Nicky's status as a crypto—rather than "out" Jew—is thus overdetermined because not only does she defy categorization, she is categorically defiant. However, the popular cultural presence of well-known Jews with histories of substance abuse such as Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, Hillel Slovak, and Amy Winehouse—and that Natasha Lyonne's own struggles as an addict inform Nicky's narrative—raises additional questions about the reluctance or apparent impossibility of presenting Nicky as Jewish.59

Like many of the inmates, Nicky is not only tough. She displays vulnerability, particularly in her relationship with her prison mother Red (Kate Mulgrew). Yet even crypto-Jew Nicky engages in a Judas betrayal by sharing with a corrupt prison guard her prison mom's secret method of getting in additional culinary supplies. He plans to use the information to smuggle in drugs. This will lead to Nicky's downfall, as she later is found with drugs in her possession and, early in Season 3, gets sent to the nearby higher security prison. The dispatching of Nicky underscores the tenuous status of the television crypto-Jew, whose identity both articulates and avoids representations of Jewishness. Crypto-Jews provide gestures of Jewish representation, however reified—such as physical features, names, personal qualities, comedic sensibilities and intellectual insights—that convey a sense of Jewishness detached from historical contexts and specific experiences. Thus, a crypto character's Jewish attributes can be assigned or withdrawn at will, evading narrative demands for continuity or follow-through. The tattoo of a cross Nicky sports on the inside of her forearm, for example, thus neither confirms nor denies her Jewish identity. Instead it speaks to the shifting construction of the crypto-Jew as both trope and pastiche.60

"Where my dreidel at?" Kosher Food and Conversion Narratives

It is telling that it is only shortly after Nicky leaves, that the first "out" Jewish inmate shows up. Or at least, the first inmate who asks for a kosher meal. It turns out she is not Jewish, but requests kosher meals to get better food. This is a real phenomenon in US prisons. According to a 2012 Forward article, just one-sixth of the 24,000 prisoners receiving kosher meals in America are Jewish.61 On OITNB, the quality of the kosher meals is quickly noticed by other inmates, particularly Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore), who is among the first to request one. By the next episode several other African-American characters whose back stories have been previously highlighted are also eating kosher. However, it is Cindy who most embraces the potential of claiming Jewish identity. When she is accused of not being Jewish, she replies, "You think you know my life? Shabbat Shalom, bitch!" And as one Jewish popular press article on the topic notes, Cindy's "quest for edible food" leads her to other Jewish references, "including 'Shanah tova and hava nagila. It is good to be chosen.'" In response to someone asking if a seat is taken, she replies, "Yeah. We're saving it for Elijah." Cindy pursues her desire to learn more about Jewish culture by checking out Fiddler on the Roof and a Woody Allen movie from the library, which is humorous yet also a self-referential gesture to the importance of popular cultural texts in disseminating information about what it means to be Jewish.62

Up to this point in the series, Cindy's character has largely served as comic relief. She is depicted as a fool and an immature petty thief who is in prison because she abused her position as a TSA officer to steal passengers' belongings at the airport.63 When a rabbi is brought into the now privatized prison to determine if prisoners requesting kosher meals are motivated by "sincerely held beliefs"—an actual legal standard employed to determine the validity of prisoners' claims to kosher meals—his interviews are relayed in a montage of inmates sharing both goofy ideas about what it means to be Jewish and some well-worn stereotypes that are played for laughs: "I think y'all are doing a wonderful job controlling the media. I mean we. We are doing a wonderful job;" and "I call my mother a lot, like every day, and, love a bargain." When asked whether she was raised Jewish, Cindy claims she was "born and bred," and recounts plot points from Annie Hall and Yentl. This strategy fails to keep her on the kosher meal list and Cindy decides to convert, ending the episode with its title question, "Where my dreidel at?"64

In the next episode we discover there actually are Jewish women inmates held at Litchfield; Cindy has sought them out to prepare for her conversion. One is Ginsberg (Jamie Denbo), who sheepishly reveals she has been convicted for money laundering when asked. This is an odd exchange not only because it is rare for a prisoner to be asked that question by another inmate, especially when they have just met, but also because Ginsberg's gesture when revealing the basis for her conviction conveys shame at having been caught both in the crime itself and in a crime that evokes the antisemitic association of Jews with money. However, that same information reassures Cindy that Ginsberg is indeed Jewish, as she was skeptical due to Gins-berg's blonde hair and blue eyes. In the commentary on the episode by its credited writer, who describes herself as an Irish Catholic, she explains that Kohan rewrote Ginsberg's monologue describing the inmate's upbringing. Ginsberg's experiences thus appear grounded in those of Kohan's herself, as when Ginsberg demonstrates she knows her Jewish chops by talking about her bat mitzvah and her Hebrew name, Shayna Malka.65

In the last episode of Season 3, Cindy, with Ginsberg and another Jewish inmate, Rhea Boyle (Yelena Shmulenson) by her side, meets with the rabbi. Rhea opens the conversation: "Why you want to go from a hated minority to a double-hated minority is beyond me," before turning to the rabbi, and vouching for Cindy by asserting, "she's for real." Cindy has chosen the Hebrew name Tovah—"which means good and it's all good now"—and explains she has traded granola bars with Ginsberg and Boyle for Hebrew lessons. The rabbi then asks, "What is this for you?" Cindy's reply, written by Kohan, is conveyed in a truly moving performance by Moore.

Honestly, I think I found my people. I was raised in a church where I was told to believe and pray. And if I was bad, I'd go to Hell. If I was good, I'd go to Heaven. And if I asked Jesus, he'd forgive me and that was that. And here y'all saying there ain't no Hell. Ain't sure about Heaven, and if you do something wrong, you got to figure it out yourself. And as far as God's concerned, it's your job to keep asking questions and to keep learning and to keep arguing. It's like a verb. You do God. … I want to learn more and I think I got to be in it to do that. … Can I be a Jew?

Cindy is ecstatic when he and both witnesses say yes, until she finds out she must also experience ritual immersion in a mikvah to make her conversion official. Ginsberg consoles her by explaining that although she is not a Jew yet, she is "Jew-ish."66

A miracle ensues for all the inmates when the guards go on strike and a construction crew accidentally rips open a hole in the fence, allowing everyone to take a dip in the lake on the other side. Most prisoners run in to enjoy their momentary freedom. Cindy finds Ginsberg, who recites the blessing as Cindy immerses her naked body in the water. Conversion complete, Gins-berg congratulates her with a "mazel tov" and Cindy is all smiles in a closeup shot depicting her deep expression of her new found source of joy. Cindy's transformation during a season in which all sorts of religious identities and meanings are explored is remarkable for her as a character and also for the way it explains the meaning of Judaism, and most importantly, the difference of Judaism, which the show affirms and upholds. Furthermore, the sensitive treatment of her conversion story creates opportunities to depict Jewish community within the prison, and allusions to Jewish community outside it. In so doing OITNB incorporates significant Jewish content that a focus on individuals, especially when occurring in fleeting moments or signaled in quips, cannot accomplish alone. I would argue the brief depiction of Jewish community on the show reveals the fissures of representing Jewishness without that larger communal context, and the potential for greater narrative depth when included.

African Americans and Jews by Choice

Cindy's conversion is credible as a personal journey that concludes the series' prison kosher food narrative, and also because it resonates with the experiences of other well- and lesser-known African-American converts—whether real or imagined—to Judaism. These "Jews by Choice" join a diverse Jewish community: a 1990 study conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations concluded that in the United States 2.4 percent of "self-identified Jews list their race as black," and "about 100,000" additional African Americans "reported having 'connections' to Judaism." In addition, African-born Jews comprise 14.6 percent of Israel's Jewish population.67 Popular entertainer and Rat Pack member Sammy Davis, Jr. was the most well-known African-American Jew for many decades following his 1960 conversion, which occurred after years of study and consultation with Reform rabbis in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He and his Swedish fiancée, actress May Britt, "formally converted a few weeks before their wedding."68 Other well-known African-American converts include writer Julius Lester, actress Nell Carter, writer Jamaica Kincaid, and rapper Shyne. Convert Alysa Stanton became the first African-American woman rabbi in 2009. She decided to convert when in her twenties, explaining her choice in similar terms voiced by the fictional Cindy, "For me, Judaism was where I found a home." After overcoming initial hesitancy upon her hiring, she ultimately led the Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, North Carolina to great acclaim.69

Fictional African-American Jews have also previously appeared on television. In an episode of the 1970s situation comedy Sanford and Son entitled "Funny, You Don't Look It," patriarch Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) is told by a genealogist that he is a descendant of Ethiopian Jews. His initial reaction trades in stereotypes in a similar vein to Litchfield inmates' attempts to assert a legitimate claim to their kosher meals, such as articulating his new-found desire for his son to become a doctor. However, like Cindy, Fred then explores more deeply the meaning and history of Judaism and its rituals. When it turns out he was misinformed about his Jewish roots, he celebrates what he learned and appreciates his Jewish teacher's perspective that "Jews and blacks … have a lot in common," hoping that "the similarities will bring us closer together."70

Sammy Davis, Jr.'s conversion was also motivated by sentiments about connections between the two minority groups, in addition to spiritual connections he felt after a 1954 car crash in which he lost one of his eyes. He had become familiar with Jewish teachings and practices after working closely with Jewish entertainers such as Eddie Cantor, whom Davis credited for giving him his first big break. Davis particularly admired and was inspired by the Jewish people's ability to survive adversity.

These are a swinging bunch of people. I mean I've heard of persecution, but what they went through is ridiculous! … They'd get kicked out of one place, so they'd just go on to the next one and keep swinging like they wanted to, believing in themselves and in their right to have rights, asking nothing but for people to leave 'em alone and get off their backs, and having the guts to fight to get themselves a little peace.71

Despite the lengthy period during which Davis considered conversion, when accomplished it was met with some skepticism and criticism. Ribbing from his Las Vegas Jewish comedian friends was to be expected, but he was also the object of charges from some African Americans that he converted to advance his career, and escape from his blackness. Such accusations may explain his 1980 statement in Ebony that "My people are my people and my religion is my religion. My people are first. I happen to be a Black Jew. I am Black first and the religion I have chosen is Judaism."72

African Americans who become or are born as Jews challenge static notions of black and Jewish identity. Popular cultural renditions can further evoke the fluid terms that construct identities generally. African-American inmate Cindy, in OITNB, seeks and finds a spiritual home by converting to Judaism. Moreover, African-American Jews, both real and imagined, create spaces for plural Jewish identities. Yet questions remain about the benefits, costs, and consequences of such transformations, and their meanings in cultural representations.

In Lovesong, Julius Lester's 1988 memoir, he explores his path to conversion and the many dimensions of his Jewish identity. In the book's preface Lester states, "I am no longer deceived by the black face which stars at me from the mirror. I am a Jew."73 This expression of tension between his identities as black and Jewish is articulated by other African-American converts as well. Assumptions when attending services at an unfamiliar congregation that one is a curious visitor and not Jewish, and accusations from African Americans that conversion to Judaism represents a desire to escape blackness and become white, are both common experiences of black Jews by Choice. However, among other diverse Jewish populations, African-American Jews open up conceptions of what an American Jew looks like and point to limitations regarding assumptions about Jews and whiteness. In OITNB, Cindy's character also points to more flexible understandings of Jewish-American identity. Cindy's turn to gospel music after an African-American inmate's death—"I may be a Jew now, but times like this call for some Black gospel no matter what"—is a tribute to the power of that musical form and an expression of her own dual moment when she articulates both her black and Jewish identities. Asserting Jewishness as American in this case is also related to African-American cultural expression. Moreover, as Terry Shoemaker points out, Cindy shows she "is capable of being both Jewish and African American."74

OITNB's deployment of an African-American character's conversion to Judaism to convey Jewish values and depict Jewish rituals without inclusion of a fully realized recurring Jewish-American character and community underscores the problematic representation of Jewish identity in American popular culture. Though Cindy in OITNB tells the visiting rabbi in Season 3 she has "found her people" when professing to the sincerity of her quest to become a Jew, Season 4 depicts her prison experience largely as before, living among and hanging out with her African-American friends, with sparse attention to her new found faith and its meaning for her. Despite her new mezuzah, the Jewish inmates who assisted her conversion have not become a part of her life and no longer appear on the show. Moreover, Cindy's Jewish identity flattens, expressed primarily by her and other inmates in articulations of stereotypical if not antisemitic Jewish avarice. Conflicts with Alison, a newly arrived African-American inmate who is Muslim, wears a hijab, and is assigned to the bunk next to Cindy's, lightly spoof tensions between the two groups, yet mostly at Cindy's expense. In one episode, Alison hopes to trade access to her contraband cell phone for some of Cindy's commissary-purchased tampons during a prison sanitary napkin shortage. When Alison references a Biblical admonition, "If there are poor among you, do not be selfish or greedy towards them" to make her case, Cindy rejects this view as Christian. In addition to demeaning Cindy by showing her to be ignorant of the shared basis of the Abrahamic religions, which Alison understands, the one-dimensional focus on stale jokes about Jewish greed that dominate Jewish references in Season 4 prevents Cindy from articulating deeply-held Jewish values—for example in this moment of potential tzedakah—as she had during the previous season's focus on her conversion.75 Thus, the show's sympathetic portrayal of Jewish faith, values, and identity is short-lived, and its reliance upon an African-American character who converts to convey the authenticity of the Jewish experience most fully proves unstable.

Despite their limitations, a century of cultural texts from The Jazz Singer to OITNB have served as vehicles for disseminating information via mass culture about Jewish practices, values, family life, and community concerns to gentile audiences. Such exposure serves an ongoing need, as African-American actress Yvonne Orji recently demonstrated when she said, "I know what Shabbat is by watching Curb Your Enthusiasm."76 Yet the apparent impossibility for OITNB, despite its well-deserved reputation for inclusivity, to incorporate a Jewish-American inmate, or an ongoing Jewish prison community, however small, for Cindy to continue to interact with, suggests Jewish television creators and writers are still struggling with a revised, contemporary version of the "write Yiddish, cast British" mandate. One expression of that dilemma occurs early in the series when a posted list of religious services is shown to include Catholic, Wiccan and Muslim, but omits a Jewish option.77

Nicky and Cindy: New Information and Missing Connections in Season 6

Six years into the series, Nicky's crypto-Jewish identity resolves via a flashback to her fraught bat mitzvah. Her parents are divorced, squabbling, and more concerned about superficial and materialist aspects of the event than their daughter's achievement. As the second pair of Jewish parents depicted on the show, they are far worse than Larry's, who, however misguided, at least cared about their son's well-being. The bat mitzvah plays out as a teenage revenge fantasy, as Nicky strays from her prepared Torah commentary to excoriate her parents in front of the congregation. Yet the additional details provided about Nicky's self-absorbed and neglectful parents, whose behavior has been referenced previously, though not as Jews, do not further humanize Nicky nor serve to explain in a compassionate manner her drug addiction and criminal behavior because her parents, like Larry's, are one-dimensional. As one reviewer assessed the season, "Nicky Nichol's bat mitzvah is a train wreck with some good laugh lines, but it does not feel like an indispensable part of this show." Rolling Stone's Season 6 review similarly found only one of the season's flashbacks—about two other characters—"worth the bother," and did not mention Nicky's at all.78

The bat mitzvah flashback comes after Nicky, who is facing significant additional prison time in the aftermath of a prison riot, has contacted her father for legal assistance, and he comes through. Themes of Jewish betrayal become central as he urges Nicky to betray Red—again—to save herself. She does, though Red in a Stella Dallas moment of maternal self-sacrifice grants her permission to do so.79 Moreover, Cindy faces a similar high-pressure situation. She contacts her conversion rabbi for legal assistance, which he facilitates. Here too, her lawyer advises her to betray her best friend.80 Though wracked with guilt—a "Jewish thing" another inmate explains—she does.81

Though Cindy asserts the primacy of her Jewish identity in this season by using her Hebrew name when she becomes co-host of a radio show within the prison, she must do so repeatedly to her gentile friends. Other audiences apparently also need convincing; it is interesting that in the closed captions for the show, she is always referred to as Cindy, not Tovah.82 Furthermore, though there are parallels to Nicky's and Tovah's story lines, they seem to exist, like these characters themselves, in separate worlds within the prison. They appear briefly together in a prison wedding scene, where Nicky has donned a yarmulke and prayer shawl to officiate, though the couple, Piper and Alex, are not Jewish and there is no Jewish content to the ceremony. The Jewish objects, which also include a chuppah, add an exotic vibe that liven up the dreary setting, but like Nicky and Tovah, do not connect in any meaningful way with their Jewish character, identity, or values. The cross tattoo on Nicky's forearm is prominently displayed in another indication of her continuing ambivalent status post bat mitzvah flashback. In a measure of the irrelevance of the Jewish components depicted at the wedding, many reviews of the episode do not mention them at all. Thus, the Jewish elements of this season's important final episode—that includes a classic TV series ratings magnet, a wedding—provide color or comic effect, detached from ritual and cultural significance.83

Conclusion

In OITNB's final, seventh season, Nicky retreats to her crypto-Jewish identity. Despite having a loving relationship with a lesbian Egyptian inmate held for an immigration violation, a seeming set up for jokes and storylines like those created for Alison and Cindy in Season 4, there is bupkis about Nicky's Jewishness in any of this season's episodes. In regard to Cindy, the brief references to her being Jewish in Season 7 are few and far between. Though her rabbi comes through for her again in writing an employment reference letter, which secures her a job, he is mentioned only in passing, and Cindy is never depicted interacting with other Jews. These retrenchments once again point to the instability of the crypto-Jew and convert in reliably relating Jewish identity, practices, and sensibilities in television narratives. Erasure and marginalization of Jewish perspectives also appear to be facilitated by the absence of depictions of Jewish community.

Over its seven seasons, OITNB's shifting representations of Jewish identity move from the Bloom stereotypes and crypto-Jew Nicky Nichols, to the inclusion of Ashkenazi Jews in minor supporting roles that are essential in supporting the conversion of higher profile character Cindy. In Season 4, the reversion to stereotypes about Jews accompanies the return of crypto-Jew Nicky, who has been transferred back from a higher security prison. Perhaps the series' success in featuring the stories of women of color, lesbians, and transwomen, and in building a fan base for its diverse cast, created the possibility for the open exploration of what it means to be a Jew, if only temporarily. Nonetheless the instability of Jewish identity in the show may suggest tensions and uncertainties surrounding the relationship of Jewish subjectivity to those more clearly understood as marginalized. Thus it is significant that the character with the most screen time who voices the most endearing and sympathetic Jewish perspective is a convert who expresses her Jewish identity through the lens of her experience as an African American. When Nicky is revealed to be Jewish in Season 6, it makes little difference, as her Jewish identity and that of Cindy/Tovah's typically find expression only in passing verbal quips or visual jokes. These indications are underscored in Season 7, the series' last, in which the Jewish identities of these characters are rarely referenced or elided completely. Like other television shows that only explore Jewish identity in the apparently safer context of interfaith marriages and relationships, Jewish identity in OITNB is most fully realized when linked with someone who is not, at least initially, Jewish, and whose struggles as an incarcerated African-American woman have been depicted previously in the series, though no Jewish inmate's story receives similar treatment. Moreover, the troubling treatment of Levy in Kerman's memoir finds an echo in references to Jewish identity on the series that mine well-worn stereotypes without addressing the consequences, for example, of antisemitism in similar ways that the series addresses racism and homophobia. Yet importantly, Cindy converts and becomes a Jew who is accepted by the Jewish inmates who supported her religious transformation and by the rabbi who authorized it. Her conversion narrative provides opportunities for compassionate expression of Jewish values, conveys information about Jewish rituals, and challenges static notions of Jewish identity.

Though OITNB incorporates if not champions the experiences and perspectives of a range of minority groups, portrays incarcerated women sympathetically, and aims to critically depict the prison-industrial complex, and deserves praise for doing so, the significant Jewish presence on OITNB still bears consideration as simultaneous displacement through deployment of familiar stereotypes, crypto-identities, and conversion narratives. As Malatino also finds in regard to trans issues, "the show subverts certain tropes," yet also relies on "stereotypes."84 Cindy's struggles to be recognized as Tovah are emblematic and suggest that a Jewish problem—the problem of Jewish representation—remains a forceful shaper of narratives and character development on episodic television and streaming series.

Notes

Michael O'Connell, "Nielsen Says 6.7M Watched Orange Is the New Black Premiere in 3 Days," Hollywood Reporter, June 29, 2016, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/orange-is-new-black-ratings-907390; Daniel Holloway, "TV Ratings: Orange Is the New Black Premiere Numbers Revealed by Nielsen," Variety, June 29, 2016, http://variety.com/2016/tv/ratings/tv-ratings-orange-is-the-new-black-premiere-nielsen-1201805991/, accessed December 4, 2016. OITNB is the "most-watched show" on the streaming platform according to Netflix executive Ted Sarandos. Dana Birnbaum, "'Orange Is the New Black': Jenji Kohan, Cast Talks Season 4, Diversity, Binge-Watching," Variety, January 17, 2016, http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/orange-is-thenew-black-season-4-jenji-kohan-1201681782/, cited by Sarah Artt and Anne Schwan, "Screening Women's Imprisonment: Agency and Exploitation in Orange Is the New Black," Television & New Media 17:6 (September 2016): 468.

Suzanne Enck and Megan Morrissey, "If Orange Is the New Black, I Must be Color Blind: Comic Framings of Post-Racism in the Prison-Industrial Complex," Critical Studies in Media Communication 32:5 (October 2015): 303. Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black (New York: Random House, 2010). See also Internet Movie Data Base, which notes over 250,00 reviews and an overall viewer rating of 8.1, www.imdb.com, accessed March 14, 2019.

Numerous articles laud the show's diverse cast, even those finding fault with how specific individuals and groups are represented. See for example, Roxanne Gay, "The Bar for TV Diversity Is Way Too Low," Salon, August 22, 2013. Gay notes, "You can't blink without someone celebrating the show's diversity," accessed March 10, 2019, https://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/the_bar_for_tv_diversity_is_way_too_low/.

“Orange Creator Jenji Kohan: Piper Was My Trojan Horse," Fresh Air, National Public Radio, August 13, 2013, accessed December 4, 2016, http://www.npr.org/2013/08/13/211639989/orange-creator-jenji-kohan-piper-was-my-trojan-horse. See also Jason Demers, "Is a Trojan Horse an Empty Signifier? The Televisual Politics of Orange Is the New Black," Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue Canadienne d'Études Américaines 47:3 (2017).

For essay collections with a range of perspectives on the series and how it represents particular groups, see Shirley A. Jackson and Laurie L. Gordy, eds., Caged Women: Incarceration, Representation and Media (New York: Routledge, 2018); April Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, eds., Feminist Perspective on Orange Is the New Black (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2016), and Television & New Media 17:6 (September 2016), special issue, ed. Sarah Artt and Anne Schwan.

Analysis of religion on the show that discuss Jewish themes include Terry Shoemaker, "Escaping Our Shitty Reality: Counterpublics, Orange Is the New Black, and Religion," Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 29.3 (Fall 2017): 217–229, and Terri Toles Patkin, "Broccoli, Love, and the Holy Toast: Cultural Depictions of Religion in Orange Is the New Black," in Shirley A. Jackson and Laurie L. Gordy, eds., Caged Women: Incarceration, Representation and Media (New York: Routledge, 2018), 227–238.

Foundational texts in Jewish television studies include Jonathan and Judith Pearl, The Chosen Image: Television's Portrayal of Jewish Themes and Characters (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1999); Vincent Brook, Something Ain't Kosher Here: The Rise of the "Jewish" Sitcom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); David Zurawik, The Jews of Prime Time (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 2003). For a critical assessment of the field, see Michele Byers and Rosalin Krieger, "Beyond Binaries and Condemnation: Opening New Theoretical Spaces in Jewish Television Studies," Culture, Theory & Critique 46:2 (2015): 131–145. Some studies incorporate consideration of both television and film. See for example, J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Paul Buhle, ed., Jews and American Popular Culture, vol. 1 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007); Joshua Louis Moss, Why Harry Met Sally: Subversive Jewishness, Anglo-Christian Power, and the Rhetoric of Modern Love (Austin: University of Texas, 2017); Michael Renov and Vincent Brook, eds., From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2017).

OITNB, www.imdb.com

"I Wasn't Ready," OITNB season 1, episode 1, Netflix, July 11, 2013. Piper tells Larry not to inform his father about her predicament because "he already hates me."

Larry Smith, "My Life with Piper: From Big House to Small Screen: The Other True Story Behind Orange Is the New Black," Medium, July 14, 2014, accessed December 4, 2016, https://medium.com/matter/my-life-with-piper-from-big-house-to-small-screen-592b35f5af94#.t5josbg1p.

Jeremy Diamond, "Trump: DNC Chairwoman 'Crazy' 'Neurotic Woman,'" CNN, November 2, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/02/politics/donald-trump-debbie-wasserman-schultz-crazy-neurotic-woman/index.html; Miriam Levine, "Am I That 'Crazy Neurotic' Jewish Woman Donald Trump Is Describing?" Forward, November 3, 2015, accessed December 4, 2016, http://forward.com/sisterhood/323877/the-crazy-neurotic-jewish-woman/

"I Wasn't Ready," OITNB season 1, episode 1.

13. Biggs also portrayed American Pie character Jim Levenstein in American Pie 2 (2001), American Wedding (2003), and American Reunion (2012).

Sigal Samuel, "Does Orange Is the New Black Have a Jewish Problem?" The Daily Beast, July 18, 2013, accessed December 4, 2016 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/18/does-orange-is-the-new-black-have-a-jewish-problem.html.

Ashley Burns, "A Guide to the Internet's Love of Hating Larry Bloom from Orange Is the New Black," Uproxx, June 30, 2014, accessed December 4, 2016 http://uproxx.com/tv/aguide-to-the-internets-love-of-hating-larry-bloom-from-orange-is-the-new-black/3/.

Ibid. See also Kimberly Potts, "Orange Is the New Black: You're Not the Only One Who's Not on Team Larry," Yahoo TV, June 20, 2014, accessed December 15, 2016, https://www.yahoo.com/tv/orange-is-the-new-black-youre-not-the-only-one-96478890565.html.

"WAC Pack," OITNB season 1, episode 6, Netflix, July 11, 2013; "Blood Donut," OITNB season 1, episode 7, Netflix, July 11, 2013.

"Moscow Mule," OITNB season 1, episode 8, Netflix, July 11, 2013.

"F … sgiving," OITNB season 1, episode 9, Netflix, July 11, 2013; "Bora, Bora, Bora," OIT NB season 1, episode 10, Netflix, July 11, 2013; "Tall Men with Feelings," OITNB season 1, episode 11, Netflix, July 11, 2013.

Larry Smith, "A Life to Live This Side of the Bars," New York Times, March 28, 2010, accessed December 4, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/fashion/28Love.html. He wrote an earlier "Modern Love" column about proposing to marry Piper that did not mention her recent prison experience. Larry Smith, "Hear that Wedding March Often Enough You Fall in Step," New York Times, December 26, 2004.

"Comic Sans," OITNB season 2, episode 7, Netflix, June 6, 2014; "Take a Break from Your Values," OITNB season 2, episode 11, Netflix, June 6, 2014.

Smith, "My Life with Piper."

See for example Yasmin Nair, who states, "White women like Kerman leave prison with book contracts, while others keep moving through its doors, fodder for the expanding Prison Industrial Complex." Idem, "White Chicks Behind Bars," In These Times, July 18, 2013, accessed March 10, 2019, http://inthesetimes.com/article/15311/white_chick_behind_bars/. The term "trauma porn" emerged to signal concerns about the show's exploitative aspects. Ashleigh Shackelford, "Orange Is the New Black Is Trauma Porn Written for White People," June 20, 2016, accessed March 10, 2019, https://wearyourvoicemag.com/culture/orange-is-the-new-black-trauma-porn-written-white-people.

Jenji Kohan, Tara Hermann, Hartley Voss, and Alex Regnery, Orange Is the New Black Presents: The Cookbook (New York: Abrams Image, 2014).

Cleary Wolters, Out of Orange: A Memoir (New York: Harper Collins, 2015), 4–8, 300–303.

Shackelford, "Trauma Porn;" Keah Brown, "Season Four of Orange Is the New Black Has a Race Problem," June 30, 2016, accessed May 14, 2019, https://medium.com/the-establishment/season-four-of-orange-is-the-new-black-has-a-race-problem-159a999dc66c.

Hilary Malatino, "The Transgender Tipping Point: The Social Death of Sophia Burset," in April Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, eds., Feminist Perspective on Orange Is the New Black (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2016), 95–110.

Kerman, Orange Is the New Black, 49; see also "WAC Pack," OITNB season 1, episode 6.

Kerman, Orange Is the New Black, 90.

Ibid., 91, 111.

Ibid., 94

Ibid., 114.

Ibid., 97.

Ibid., 199.

Ibid., 200.

Ibid., 200–201.

Kerman writes: "Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the world [sic], a place where the US government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient—people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled. Meanwhile the ghetto in the outside world is a prison as well, and a much more difficult one to escape from than this correctional compound. … t." Ibid.

Maltino, "Transgender Tipping Point," 101.

Lynne Tuohy, "Don't Worry Martha, It's Like a Big Hotel," Hartford Courant, September 19, 2004. There are Holocaust references in the series; for example, inmate Red refers to Anne Frank in "Blood Donut," OITNB season 1, episode 7.

See for example, Nair, "White Chicks;" Shackelford, "Trauma Porn;" Brown, "Season Four"; Cate Young, "On Orange Is the New Black and the Destruction of Black Bodies," July 14, 2016, accessed March 10, 2019, https://medium.com/the-establishment/season-four-oforange-is-the-new-black-has-a-race-problem-159a999dc66c.

For earlier use of the term, see for example, Lucien Wolf, "Crypto-Jews under the Commonwealth: A Paper Read before the Jewish Historical Society of England on Re-Settlement Day, February 4th, 1894," (London: Jewish Chronicle Office, 1894).

Leslie Fielder, "Jewish-Americans, Go Home!" in Leslie Fielder, ed., Waiting for the End: The American Literary Scene from Hemingway to Baldwin (New York: Stein and Day, 1964), 91. See also Henry Popkin, "The Vanishing Jew of Our Popular Culture: The Little Man Who Is No Longer There," Commentary, July 1952.

Jeffrey Shandler, "At Home on the Small Screen: Television's New York Jews," in J. Hoberman and Jeffrey Shandler, Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 244–257; Zurawik, Jews of Prime Time, passim, 51–54; Vincent Brook, Something Ain't Kosher Here: The Rise of the "Jewish" Sitcom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003); Pearl and Pearl, The Chosen Image, 73–4, 155.

Zurawik, Jews of Prime Time, chapters 4 and 6; Brook, Something Ain't Kosher. Also notable is the Jewish family depicted in Brooklyn Bridge, 1991–1993.

Jon Stewart debuted on The Daily Show in 1999; Curb Your Enthusiasm launched the next year. Transparent began streaming in 2014, the year after OITNB's first season. Debra Nussbaum Cohen, "How Jill Soloway Created Transparent—the Jewiest Show Ever," Forward, October 21, 2014, cited by Roberta Rosenberg, "The Importance of Jewish Ritual in the Secular, Postmodern World of Transparent, Jewish Film & New Media 5:1 (Spring 2017): 98.

"Fool Me Once," OITNB season 1, episode 12, Netflix, July 11, 2013. See for example, Emily Sigalow, American JuBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

Fielder, "Jewish Americans," 91.

Elizabeth J. Leebron and Dominique G. Ruggieri, "How TV Portrays Jewish and Italian Women," Television Quarterly 34: 3/4 (Spring 2004): 41; Dominique G. Ruggieri and Elizabeth J. Leebron, "Situation Comedies Imitate Life: Jewish and Italian-American Women on Prime Time," The Journal of Popular Culture 43:6 (2010): 1266–1281; 1269. The article cites a 1998 study by Hadassah of portrayals of Jewish women in the media that found similar qualities.

Ellen Sandler, "Raymond Barone, Crypto-Jew?" Jewish Journal, January 24, 2002, accessed December 15, 2016, http://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/5412/; Tom Teicholz, "The Heroes of Jewish Comedy," Jewish Journal, July 4, 2003, accessed December 15, 2016, http://jewishjournal.com/news/16/the-heroes-of-jewish-comedy/.

Turturro plays Jewish characters in such films as Mo' Better Blues (1990), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), and Quiz Show (1994). In The Truce (1997), he portrays Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. It is also worth noting that Jason Biggs is three-quarters Italian American, and Jewish actors James Caan, Henry Winkler, and Edward G. Robinson have portrayed Italian Americans (Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, The Fonz in Happy Days and Rico in Public Enemy, respectively). See Nathan Abrams, The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012).

"Fear and Other Smells," OITNB season 3, episode 8, Netflix, June 11, 2015.

"Can't Fix Crazy," OITNB season 1, episode 13, Netflix, July 11, 2013.

See for example, "Take a Break from Your Values," OITNB season 2, episode 11; "It Sounded Nicer in My Head," OITNB season 4, episode 7, Netflix, June 17, 2016.

Sarah Fryett, "'Chocolate and Vanilla Swirl, Swi-irl': Race and Lesbian Identity Politics," in April Kalogeropoulos Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 16.

Kyra Hunting, "All in the (Prison) Family: Genre Mixing and Queer Representation," in April Kalogeropoulos Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 120.

Sarah Gibbons, "'Can't fix crazy': Confronting Able-Mindedness," in April Kalogeropoulos Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek, eds., Feminist Perspectives on Orange Is the New Black (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 213.

Paul Breines, Tough Jews: Political Fantasies and the Moral Dilemma of American Jewry (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Nathan Abrams, The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012).

Abrams, The New Jew, 132.

Ben Stiller played Jewish writer and heroin addict Jerry Stahl in the 1998 film based on his memoir Permanent Midnight. "Fool Me Once," OITNB season 1, episode 12.

"Friends in Low Places," OITNB season 4, episode 8, Netflix, July 17, 2016.

Naomi Zeveloff, "Kosher Prisons in U.S. Spend Millions on Food for Non-Jewish Inmates," Forward, April 30, 2012, accessed December 15, 2016, https://forward.com/news/155363/not-just-jews-eat-kosher-food-in-prison/.

Linda Buchwald, "Orange Is the New Black: The Best Jewish Moments from the New Season," Jewish Telegraph Agency, June 15, 2015, accessed December 15, 2106, https://www.jta.org/2015/06/15/arts-entertainment/orange-is-the-new-black-the-best-jewish-momentsfrom-the-new-season. "Ching Chang Chong," OITNB season 3, episode 6, June 11, 2015; "Tongue-Tied," OITNB season 3, episode 7 Netflix, June 11, 2015; "Fear and Other Smells," OITNB season 3, episode 8.

"Comic Sans," OITNB season 2, episode 7.

“Where My Dreidel At?" OITNB season 3, episode 9, Netflix, June 11, 2015.

"A Tittin and a Hairin'," OITNB season 3, episode 10, Netflix, June 11, 2015.

"Trust No Bitch," OITNB season 3, episode 13, Netflix, June 11, 2015.

Nora Rubel, "Chicken Soup for the Souls of Black Folk: African American Converts to Judaism and the Negotiation of Identity," Social Compass 51:3 (2004): 335–347, accessed June 22, 2018, http://www.academia.edu/5543962/Chicken_Soup_for_the_Souls_of_Black_Folk_African_American_Converts_to_Judaism_and_the_Negotiation_of_Identity_English_Translation_.

Rebecca Davis, "'These Are a Swinging Bunch of People': Sammy Davis, Jr., Religious Conversion, and the Color of Jewish Ethnicity," American Jewish History 100:1 (January 2016): 40.

Amanda Seigel, "Celebrating African American Jews" New York Public Library Blog, February 11, 2016, accessed June 22, 2018, https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/02/11/celebrating-african-american-jews; Dina Kraft, "Rapper Finds Order in Orthodox Judaism in Israel, New York Times, November 10, 2010, accessed June 22, 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/arts/music/11shyne.html?pagewanted=all. Stewart Ain, "Pulpit of Col-or," The New York Jewish Week, May 20, 2009, accessed June 22, 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20110615044723/http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/pulpit_color.

Pearl and Pearl, The Chosen Image, 82–83.

Sammy Davis, Jr., Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), 246–247, emphasis in original, cited by Rebecca Davis, "'These Are a Swinging Bunch of People': Sammy Davis, Jr., Religious Conversion, and the Color of Jewish Ethnicity," American Jewish History 100:1 (January 2016): 36.

"Becoming a Jew Gave New Meaning to Davis' Life" Jet, June 4, 1990, 29. The entire issue was devoted to "Sammy Davis Jr., World's Greatest Entertainer, 1925–1990."

Julius Lester, Lovesong: Becoming a Jew (New York: Arcade Books, 1988), 1, cited in Adam Meyer, "Gee, You Don't Look Jewish: Julius Lester's Lovesong, an African-American Jewish-American Autobiography," Studies in American Jewish Literature 18 (1999): 41–51.

"Toast Can Never Be Bread Again," OITNB season 4, episode 13, Netflix, June 17, 2016. Shoemaker, "Escaping Our Shitty Reality," 225.

"Power Suit," OITNB season 4, episode 2, Netflix, June 17, 2016; "We'll Always Have Baltimore," OITNB season 4, episode 5, Netflix, June 17, 2016.

Sonaiya Kelley, "Yvonne Orji on Dating, Virginity and Playing Sexually Liberated Molly on 'Insecure,'" Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2017.

"The Chickening," OITNB season 1, episode 5, Netflix, July 11, 2013.

"I'm the Talking Ass," OITNB season 6, episode 4, Netflix, July 27, 2018. Kathryn VanArendonk, Orange Is the New Black Season 6 Is Aimless, But Still Compelling," July 18, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019, https://www.vulture.com/2018/07/orange-is-the-new-black-season-6-review.html; Alan Sepinwall, "Orange Is the New Black Season 6 Review: Maximum Security, Medium Payoff," Rolling Stone, July 25, 2018, accessed May 14, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/orange-is-the-new-black-season-6-review-701476/.

"Who Knows Better Than I" OITNB season 6, episode 1; "Sh*tstorm Coming" OITNB season 6, episode 2, Netflix, July 27, 2018; "Look Out for Number One," OITNB season 6, episode 3, Netflix, July 27, 2018; "I'm the Talking Ass," OITNB season 6, episode 4.

"Who Knows Better Than I" OITNB season 6, episode 1; "Sh*tstorm Coming;" OITNB season 6, episode 2.

"Well This Took a Dark Turn," OITNB season 6, episode 11, Netflix, July 27, 2018; "Double Trouble," OITNB season 6, episode 12, Netflix, July 27, 2018.

Cindy asserts her name as Tovah in season 6 episodes, such as episode 6, "State of the Uterus;" OITNB, Netflix, July 27, 2018; episode 7, "Changing Winds," OITNB, Netflix, July 27, 2018; and episode 9, "Break the String," OITNB, Netflix, July 27, 2018.

"Be Free," OITNB Season 6, episode 13, July 27, 2018. VanArendonk, "Season 6 Is Aimless"; Alana Altman, "Alex and Piper's Wedding on Orange Is the New Black Season 6 Was A Bright Light," July 27, 2018, https://www.elitedaily.com/p/alex-pipers-wedding-onorange-is-the-new-black-season-6-was-a-bright-light-9869449; Isabella Silvers, "Here's what the Orange Is the New Black Cast Thought About That Surprise Wedding," Cosmopolitan, August 7, 2018, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a22666213/orange-is-the-new-black-season-6-piper-alex-wedding/. All accessed June 7, 2019.

Maltino, "Transgender Tipping Point," 95.