#im very aware of my own character biases. and how that affects my perception of content. but sometimes ya just wanna complain to complain😔

[telesodalite]

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[whereconfusionisarhyme]

okay the way the fandom draws hobie brown is such an interesting indication into the way subconscious racial stereotypes play into characterization and it's,,,it's just interesting.

now, i spend A Lot of time in this fandom. and something i've noticed a lot of is hobie brown being drawn HUGE. like, they're making mans into a TANK. and he's just,,,not that??

like yeah, he has broad shoulders, and he's tall, but that's literally just most any black teen boy let's be honest. if you look at his actual canonical character design, he is LANKY. and yet everyone is drawing him super buff. now at first i didn't think much of it--people like buff men, and fanartists are always gonna take some liberties (honestly, i love when they put their special little twists on the characters). but as i saw it more and more, it bothered me more and more and felt a lot more indicative of some underlying biases within the fandom.

hobie being mischaracterized and stereotyped isn't shocking or new, but that mischaracterization leaking into physical depictions of him is! not to get too deep into it, but throughout american history*, black men have not been able to protect their loved ones in any way other than physical thanks to slavery and horrid mistreatment within an inherently racist system. thus gave birth to the trope of the big, aggressive black man who solves his problems with his twists. and after that, the big aggressive black man who is actually a sweetheart on the inside, but just has raging anger issues (and probably an abusive father as well).

*im aware that movie!hobie is not american and that not the entire fandom is either, but seeing as a large chunk of it is, and are going to be viewing hobie through an american lense, i think this is an appropriate connection to make. also, african slavery was very much a thing outside of america as well. also ALSO, the rest of the worlds perception of black men is affected by american (and english) views just because of how huge the two countries are within the global landscape.

now, the reason this was even bothering me at all in the first place is because when i first watched the movie, the fact that hobie wasn't overly muscular was super novel to me. i was glad that we got to see a black male character who was strong without taking strength from others, loud without obnoxiously talking over others, violent without being aggressive, assertive without being framed as forgetting this place or naive about the world. in terms of personal experience, it pisses me just that bit more than the last time whenever i hear my father insist to my (very sensitive and emotional) brother that the proper way to deal with any and every problem was by fighting. i was glad my brother (severely lacking in good black male role models) got to see this cool guy, someone you're meant to look up to, who is strong without being ripped and punching all of his problems. that black masculinity is more than how well you can fight.

so, the way a lot of the fandom forces hobie into this box, this preconceived idea of what a black man (or boy, more like, but the erasure of childhood from black kids is a topic all its own) should be, just. sits wrong.