#its racism commentary

[moonlitlex]

ok. final thoughts on doctor who season 14 (2024) (because maybe if i say all of this i will finally stop thinking about how much i hate this season)

short version: i'm this season's biggest hater. if this season has a million haters im one of them. if this season has 1000 haters i'm still one of them. if this season has one hater it's me. if this season has no haters it means i have left this world. if the world is against this season i am with the world

long & nuanced version (under the cut)

i'm just really, really, really disappointed. i've always said that good writing can redeem any project, and it kind of feels like they just took it in the exact opposite direction this time. there's so much that went wrong and like 99% of it is down to the writing. i did a rant on my youtube channel (which i'm not gonna link here because i want to keep these accounts separate) and it was like an hour long so i'm not gonna go into detail but i'll just go over my main issues with this season

fifteen lacks depth. i think he's a very generic doctor lacking his own eccentricities. after the first season the doctor usually has quite a distinct personality, but i don't think we got that with fifteen. just compare the kind of characterization fifteen has at this point to like... eleven in his first season. he was a lot more fleshed out. we got to see multiple facets of his personality. it seems like they tried this with fifteen but everything we got to see ended up being really surface level. the susan thing just kind of happens. the rogue thing just kind of happens. he faces racism and he's just kind of incredulous and then the episode ends. it's not explored. the show just moves on to the next thing and we don't get to see how he deals with it.

ruby lacks depth. similarly, i think ruby is a very generic companion. she's a young woman from present day london which isn't in and of itself a bad thing but it's not backed up by much. like, what do we actually know about ruby? she's adopted? she was left on a church doorstep by her biomom? she loves her mom but is still disappointed she can't find her bio parents? these are all plot relevant things. what do we know about her outside of the stuff that is necessary for the plot? job? friends? life before the doctor? there are a few tiny glimpses, but not enough to make her a developed character.

fifteen and ruby's relationship is boring. they never fight. they never disagree. they never argue. they're never angry with each other. they never challenge each other on anything. they're shown to have this amazing best-friend rapport but it's never developed or fleshed out. it just kind of happens. one second they're meeting and the next second they're bffs who never disagree about anything and are always on the same page. it's just not an interesting dynamic.

i found ten and donna to be a very compelling dynamic but that's because they actually have a real friendship and have to deal with conflict and challenges and disagreements. times when the doctor and companion challenge each other are interesting. this is a feature of some really beloved doctor who stories for a reason. dalek wouldn't be so well loved if rose just agreed with nine the entire time. the conflict makes the story more compelling. meanwhile ruby can't even muster an ounce of discontentment with fifteen for the entire season.

season finale payoffs were not compelling and are in my opinion a result of prioritizing shock and surprise and social media buzz at time of release over telling an interesting story.

sutekh is not automatically a compelling villain and the way that arc is written is so... bland. he appears and kills everyone and the next episode they just hit the reset button. fine, doctor who has done this before, but there was interesting character writing back then to distract you from the baffling story decisions.

the season 3 finale had flying jesus ten but it also had interesting character dynamics. this one had sutekh defeated in the most confusing way possible (if he got his power from the time vortex why is it killing him now....) but there's barely anything going on in the character department. it's rtd so i expected hamfisted deus ex machinas, but i didn't expect the lack of care on the character front.

the susan thing was just... it came out of nowhere, didn't really make much sense, and then it immediately disappeared. the doctor thinking it's his susan was just confusing for me and it didn't land. like why would susan.... do that? why would she be basically following him around the universe by weaving herself into the scenery everywhere he landed? this is never even addressed. they just get the tardis anagram and he immediately jumps to it being his susan and you're not really sure why he's so convinced and it's never really explained.

ruby's mom being a normal woman literally just doesn't make any sense. it's never explained. "we thought she was really important" doesn't just do all the inexplicable things. why and how is ruby able to make it snow if her mom is just a normal person? why does the song in his soul scare maestro so much? why is sutekh of all people unable to figure out who her mother is? the reveal is played as a criticism of the audience for building up ruby's mom to be this huge mystery, but it wasn't the audience doing this - it was the writers. these are the clues they laid out and they're never explained. "doctor who is more fantastical now" also doesn't make any sense. fantasy has rules too. you can't just do whatever you want. the world still has to be internally consistent. the reveal by itself is a nice moment but it's just disappointing that they decided to laugh at the audience for taking their show seriously.

i've seen a lot of people compare ruby's mom thing with clara's impossible girl thing. i would like to point out 2 differences that make clara's impossible girl arc superior. first - clara's impossible girl arc never tries to weasel its way out of the mystery. the point is that who clara is is more important than the mystery surrounding her. ruby's mom mystery tries to erase the mystery entirely. second - clara's impossible girl arc is resolved the way it is because of clara. clara is a person who takes an action because of who she is. it shows courage and selflessness and care for her friend. ruby's mom mystery is solved by ruby and the doctor finding a database where they can match ruby's dna to her mom's. it doesn't say anything about her character. her character is irrelevant to the resolution.

i've also seen it compared to the hybrid thing from season 9, but with the hybrid there was never anything unexplainable happening in the first place so "it was just the characters obsessing about it all along" makes sense because it literally is just the characters bringing up the hybrid all the time.

the individual episodes are not... good. here are my opinions on each of them

church on ruby road - ok introduction, weird pacing, the goblin song was just tonally off compared to the rest of the episode

space babies - genuinely makes the doctor seem like a sadistic asshole at times like he keeps laughing at the literal babies for being scared of the monster and this is played for laughs (???), boogeyman reveal thing literally came out of nowhere there was no setup and it made no sense and was never really explained, a lot of tonal whiplash in this episode, poor exposition choices at the start

devils chord - maestro was a fun performance but nothing else about this episode is interesting, there are no beatles, the 4th wall breaks are tonally inconsistent with the rest of the season

boom - ruby gets sidelined but making ncuti act without being able to move any of his body slaps as a concept and while it was too on the nose, the thematic messaging aspects of this episode are coherent and don't talk down to the audience, some side characters get to be relevant to the story and moderately developed (mundy, splice, the dad), splice's actor was far too old to be delivering those lines and it didn't land well, the dad ai defeating the ambulance ai was a bit too much but was in line with the power of love and faith theme so i'm conflicted on how i feel about that

73 yards - did nothing right. there are a few minutes of good welsh folk horror at the start before that aspect of the story is undermined by those people in the pub. ruby gets no character development. the horror atmosphere is abandoned at the start and the horror concept is abandoned entirely partway through the story in favour of the political stuff with roger ap gwilliam, which is kind of resolved in a really anticlimactic scene which doesn't matter anyway because everything just gets undone at the end of the episode. there are no answers.

it's not a good horror story because 90% of it isn't horror. it's not a good political drama because nothing happens. it's not a good character study because we don't get to know anything about ruby's character. i genuinely think rtd has forgotten the kind of stuff he's written because he called this the best thing he's ever written and it's literally not even in the top 10 doctor who episodes he's ever written. like midnight is right there. the waters of mars is RIGHT THERE. this episode is all setup and no payoff.

also - i might just be autistic, but the "can i pay with my phone" joke doesn't land because not everyone can actually accept digital payments yet! it's like... an extremely normal question to ask. i literally ask all the time unless i see an "apple pay accepted" sign because sometimes the answer is "no, we only take cash or card". i know it was supposed to be something about how ruby thinks she's in the past or welsh people getting wrongly stereotyped for being backward but maybe rtd should've come up with a line that would actually be offensive and not just a completely normal thing to ask in 2024.

dot and bubble - this is probably my most controversial take. i hate this episode. i think it's a poorly written bad episode. and furthermore i think only people who are disconnected from all discussion around racism think it's got genuinely good commentary. for MOST of this episode, it's a "kids be on they damn phones" thing. like, genuinely. lindy can't even WALK without her phone. there's nothing in the episode to tip us as the audience off to the idea that the dots hate them because they're racist. everything in the episode is pointing at "the dots hate them because they're stupid as fuck because they're always on that damn phone".

lindy at first seems like a flawed but sympathetic character, and this could genuinely have worked with the racism commentary. if it's about them being racist cause they're sooooooo fucking stupid, maybe don't have lindy be an irredeemable extremely racist character who kills someone. maybe she's repeating all the rhetoric she's heard her entire life without ever thinking about it. maybe trying to convince her racist friends to give the doctor a chance gets her socially isolated. maybe it's about echo chambers and social bubbles. maybe lindy as an individual has no malicious intent either way but she still behaves in a racist way and still ends up siding with the racists because they're her friends and she wants to fit in and be part of the in group and trying to not be racist because the doctor seemed kinda nice got her socially ostracized so she perpetuates racism regardless. but none of this is what happens. this is a reading you can get out of it if you're really dedicated to reading into a story written by a guy who doesn't give a shit about racism.

lindy and all her friends are stupid and bad and racist and the doctor is still desperate to save them for some fucking reason and he doesn't even get to SAY anything to them, he just laughs incredulously and that's his entire reaction. the commentary in this episode is baby's first lesson on racism. it's a message of "racism is bad and stupid" tacked onto an episode with a message of "being on your phone is bad and stupid".

it's shallow. it has nothing to say. it's very clearly a story about racism written by a white man who has never had to even think about racism. the entire writer's room for this season was white as well. rtd didn't even think he should maybe consider giving the racism episode to a black writer. he just wrote a full episode where the message is "racism is bad you guys" and patted himself on the back for his social commentary. i think it's embarrassing that people praise this episode for opening their eyes to racism in the real world and helping them understand it better. literally all that tells me is they've been closing their eyes and covering their ears every time a person of colour talks about racism. like black fans have literally been talking about racism in doctor who for decades and clearly none of you listened to any of them because you're here watching an episode with an "omg racism is bad guys" message going "wow, i never though about it like that!" that's because you're an asshole.

"wow i didn't even notice that everyone in this episode is white!" that's because that's not out of the ordinary for doctor who. or for television in general. this isn't revolutionary commentary. it's an indictment of the season 14 writer's room that they thought they could write this episode without even taking a look around their own writer's room and thinking "huh, everyone here is white too. maybe we should try to change that." this show has been predominantly white for MOST of its history. i'm a huge critic of the chibnall era but at least that guy hired poc to write for the show. at least the bad racism commentary in rosa (which was, to remind you, "the future racist is wrong. racism is bad. also the entire civil rights movement was basically a happy accident") was written by a black woman. at least the weird british empire glorifying shit in the partition episode was written by an indian man (to be clear, stuff written by poc also deserves to be criticized. my point is just that at least chibnall had the basic common sense to hire people who knew more than him to write these stories). rtd didn't even consider this. not even a cowriter.

it's just embarrassing to watch white fans falling over themselves analyzing how this episode is soooo deep when it's simply not. racism isn't silly goofy stupid. it's dangerous. it gets people killed every day. it's even more ridiculous that the racism is addressed in the future episode but not anywhere else! fifteen goes to 60s england and... nothing. he goes to 1800s england and nothing. sure, future people are racist. whatever. are we seriously sanitizing the real, actual, real life racist past of britain? and then patting ourselves on the back for it? and ricky september being considered not racist? like, reading a book doesn't suddenly make you not racist. racist people aren't necessarily idiots. plenty of highly educated people are racist. making ricky explicitly racist while also a clearly smart character would have added nuance to this episode, but rtd didn't do that. watching a black man beg and plead with rich racist white kids to please let him save their lives is just... ridiculous.

there are countless (and i do mean countless) works by actual people of colour that discuss racism in a far more nuanced way. that go beyond "racism is bad and racist people are stupid". there are specifically black british shows you can watch that actually address racism and have real commentary on it outside of what you would expect a toddler who has just learnt about prejudice to say. shows that aren't about coddling while people. watch shows made by and for people who aren't white. read books written by and for people who aren't white. and don't just watch and read this stuff to "educate yourself" on other people's experiences. watch it because it's art. because it's entertaining or funny or interesting or dramatic, just like stories that are about white people are allowed to be. and stop praising an episode with a racism is bad message for being good racism commentary. seriously. we already know racism is bad. this is embarrassing for you.

dot and bubble was a "kids be on they damn phones episode" with "racism is so bad guys" tacked onto it and white fans fell over themselves explaining how it opened their eyes and it was so deep and meaningful and powerful and it was none of those things. it was bland and shallow and honestly really boring they spend WAY too long hitting us over the head with how the kids are so stupid cause they're on their damn phones. you should be embarrassed. if this episode was the first thing that made me realize racism exists and is bad you couldn't waterboard that out of me. grow up.

rogue - rogue was an underdeveloped jack harkness ripoff, there's no development of the relationship between him and the doctor, ruby got nothing to do, the proposal came out of nowhere, the chuldurs were an interesting concept but they literally didn't even do any of the larping they were there for apart from the one who was lady emily. murder is not a prominent part of bridgerton or similar regency era romances that they were supposedly there to cosplay

legend of ruby sunday - this episode is literally 99% exposition. like i'm not joking. there's exposition and exposition and exposition for the whole episode and at the end sutekh appears and kills everyone. also "i will kill everyone" is like. not a compelling motivation. doctor who is full of guys who want to kill everyone. there's nothing making sutekh particularly scary or compelling apart from the fact that he thanos snapped the whole universe and that's also not particularly scary or compelling because he spares the main characters AND because you know they're gonna hit the comic book reset button next episode. sutekh being attached to the tardis since pyramids of mars is unconvincing personally (it would've made more sense if it was since wild blue yonder)

empire of death - ??????? ruby's mom is just a normal woman. they leash sutekh like a dog and drag him through the time vortex which kills him for some reason and also hits reset on his kill switch for the whole universe and that just fixes everything. ruby calls her biomom her real mom instead of carla which just really rubbed me the wrong way. she exits the tardis to stay with her family and it's... fine. you never see why ruby and the doctor were attached to each other so them saying goodbye doesn't hit home. nothing happens and then suddenly everything happens. the fact that the reveal is unconvincing makes the whole thing worse.

conclusion: i think rtd ran out of ideas for doctor who. i think he shouldn't have come back. i think the 60th specials were season 4 fanfiction. i think they should've given the showrunner position to a different writer entirely. i think 8 episodes is far too short for a doctor who season (flux being an exception because it was one ongoing story). i think the bigger budget and better production value can't save a show with poor writing. i think gatwa and gibson are acting their hearts out and i wish they had better material because i really like both of them in these roles. i'm also kind of sick of murray gold's music at this point. he won't let emotional moments just sit and it's really annoying how every time anything happens there's a swell of music. i think rtd should give up on racism commentary and just hire someone else who can do it justice if he really wants it to be in his show. i think rtd should shift focus back to the characters and their interpersonal relationships because that's what he's good at and his plot resolutions have always been underwhelming deus ex machinas. i think they should give this show more episodes. i think they should change the broadcasting times to be a better slot in the uk and the episode should go up on streaming at the same time or after it airs. this season has little glimpses of potential (some of boom, first few minutes of 73 yards, episode concepts in general are quite interesting, more fantasy in doctor who is a fun concept) but squanders all of it with flat characters. i started dreading watching the next episode after a while because i kept hoping it would be good and then i would hate it.

but i still care too much about doctor who to not watch the show so i guess i'll be here this time next year picking season 15 apart. woo.

[macbethz]

what i think REALLY works about dot and bubble is it plays with the genre conventions of doctor who itself. We've seen doctor lite episodes like this, we know how they work. There's person who needs to be saved who gets indirect help from the doctor, maybe they're flawed and learn a lesson at the end, maybe they're part of some flawed society that is just kind of set dressing or ends up being torn down at the end without examination. About halfway through the episode I was ready to brush this off as a fun but predictable classic rtd ep that wasn't really anything special. Then from the the betrayal of ricky September on its like watching a house of cards that has been built the entire episode without us noticing collapse into a perfect stack

“Oh well of course you could see them being racist the whole time” the thing is sometimes doctor who is just like that. RTD EPISODES have historically just been like that, either in that they are microagressions in themselves or have bigoted characters/worlds that go unexamined. And I think this episode performed an absolutely insane self aware slight of hand that relies on both you and the writers knowing that doctor who and sci fi in general has a racism problem. The ending recontextualizes things in the episode you may initially have brushed off as an unfortunate BBC or science fiction moment (all white cast, manifest destiny language) as symptomatic of larger societal issues, thus in turn recontextualizing missed moments of bigotry in the shows own history

[seaweedstarshine]

Late to the game as I’ve kinda been kinda non-here for a minute but I scrolled through the Dot and Bubble tag, and thought I wanted to write this post into existence.

There's this part in Doctor Who Unleashed where RTD says this:

“What we can’t tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending. Because they’ve seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse. I wonder, will you be ten minutes into it, will you be fifteen, will you be twenty, before you start to think, everyone in this community is white. And if you don’t think that — why didn’t you? So, that’s gonna be interesting. I hope it’s one of those pieces of television you see, and always remember.”

And I'm like. Yeah. But the reason this works even as well as it does is largely thanks to the work of the previous showrunner with the previous creative team, which was notably the first era to have any writers of color (amongst other firsts in terms of inclusivity in directors, composer, actors). While Chibnall fumbled whenever he tried to write about race himself, he did have the self-awareness to have Black and South Asian writers writing the episodes where race is the focus (and a female writer for the episode where sexism is a focus; my point is, he seemed to know his shortcomings).

I wonder what the current creative team looks like? (not really, but I wasn't 100% sure for all of them)

To quote RTD:

“...before you start to think, everyone in this community is white.”

This is pretty non-self-aware, right? It's pretty “It is said, and I understand this, there was a history of racism with the original Toymaker, the Celestial Toymaker, who had ‘celestial,’ and I did not know this, but ‘celestial’ can mean of Chinese origin, but in a derogatory way,” right? (from The Giggle Unleashed) It's pretty “and I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that: associating disability with evil,” right? (from Destination Skaro Unleashed)

—none of which are issues that should be overlooked, but think how much exponentially better they might’ve been addressed if he’d consulted with Chinese writers and wheelchair-using writers before going straight to giving the Toymaker weird fake accents and making Davros walk?

How many Black or non-white people do we think saw the Dot and Bubble script before it landed in Ncuti’s hands?

And this just keeps happening.

And like, from some of the shocked responses I've seen from white viewers to the ending of Dot and Bubble, maybe the episode's unsubtlety was needed? From the way RTD talks about it in Unleashed, the episode was written with a white audience in mind, Baby's First Microaggressions (where of course the microaggressions come from people who are pretty self-admittedly white supremacists). Ricky September, a more seemingly normal depiction of someone in the racist bubble of Finetime, seemed like an interesting element, up until the way he died.

The ending worked for me, because I do think the Doctor's reaction is true to how the Doctor would react. I just keep thinking of how much better the core themes could've been handled by someone with actual lived experience on the subject matter.

[lucky-clover-gazette]

at the end of the day, rogue is an episode that depicts queer adventure and joy. for some people, it's just a filler episode with yet another random doctor-side character romance (like voyage of the damned or the girl in the fireplace). but as a gay person, i personally appreciate rogue in a way i can't quite put into words. it is so amazing to watch, as a lifetime fan of the series and person invested in queer representation in popular media.

but i also do recognize that if an episode like dot and bubble was written about homophobia, it would make me feel bad. it would be a Good Episode, praised for its realism and clever storytelling, but it wouldn't be fun for me, as a gay person, to watch.

what i would like to see next, in addition to dot and bubble, is a story that depicts adventure and joy specifically with fans of color in mind. yes, dot and bubble did a good job of pointing out racism, and making the audience think harder about what they're watching. but that's almost more for a white audience, than for the people of color who recognize racism because they actually experience it.

i'm crossing my fingers for more stories like rogue, written by and for people of color, in the next season of doctor who :)

[applesandbannas747]

I have to say, Eugene working so hard to get on the team only to be booted last minute makes Aiden's flippant behavior about Fencing even more frustrating

I understand his whole deal, I promise, I do. I understand the appeal of characters like him. But to see a boy who puts no effort in and doesn't appear to care about fencing beyond Harvard be saved a spot on a team he cannot be bothered to show up for half the time while Eugene, who has been shown working tirelessly since he was seven toward the goal of getting on the team, was told there's not a place for him on it is incredibly frustrating. I don't care about Aiden's internal arc when he hasn't come far enough on it to make it a satisfying payoff to remain on the team when we learn we can only have 4 members.

Really, booting Aiden would have been a better narrative choice because it could have been him stinging as Bobby says they all wish they were fencing--and that would have meant something in a way it didn't to Eugene because Aiden could have realized that fuck, Bobby's right. They all wish they were fencing. Including him. We could have seen some actual growth from him in a heart-pinching but satisfying way. Instead, we fall into the same old pattern. Aiden's spot on the team is unquestioned despite his ambivalence, and Eugene's 10+ years of hard work is answered with a slap in the face

[numberonecodwomenfan]

im reading 1984 rn (unfortunately) and winston (the main character, huge asshole and essentially orwell’s incel self insert) just reminds me of how those people in the fandom write könig and it is so painful to read

like yes george orwell, who was in his mid 40s when this he wrote this fuckass book, make your self insert protagonist wax poetic about how young and supple and curvy the 25 year old girl in your office is. like a normal person.

he literally acts like the creepy stalker pervert people portray könig as and its atrocious

[ardentpoop]

supernatural should have ended with sam killing dean. as a treat for me. they could’ve framed it as earth’s most valorous soldier falling to the hand of evil and i wouldn’t have even cared as long as i got to see it <3

but on a serious note why do you guys think the only readings of spn i endorse are ones that recognize the hunters (absolutely including samndean) as terrifying professional killers who mete out punishments or pardons based on arbitrary calculations abt “good” vs “evil” that leave extremely little room for nuance.

the rugged Good Guys of the american backroads vs the barbaric, dirty, amoral, wicked, parasitic forces of the supernatural. committing yourself to the mission of eradicating this scourge from the country is Noble and Just and the parts of yourself you’ll lose along the way are Admirable Sacrifices for the Greater Good. legendary soldier dean winchester completed a tour in hell where he Tragically broke his mind torturing filthy demons for years and a tour in purgatory where the stink and grime of that lawless pit of evil permanently stained his body. you can’t even dream of being as brave and selfless as he is.

give me a fucking break :)

signed: the only arab american guy you know

[youngpettyqueen]

Repentance is an episode that kind of hits what I think it was trying to say but then also. completely and utterly fails in other areas. which is characteristic of a lot of these types of Trek episodes tbh

[ciderjacks]

YouTube leftist commentary video talking about feminism but it’s by a leftist Man. I always click off immediately. No thank u.

[gatitobladee]

coquettes saying a movie with themes and topics 'changed their brain chemistry' is so scary.... like can u expand on that please^-^

[chemsexholmes]

fave vonnegut novel??

I get this question like once a month, which is understandable I suppose seeing as I seem to have made being a kurt vonnegut enjoyer my entire internet personality. Breakfast of champions 👍

[crunchycrystals]

started reading babel and 1. holy shit this is a thick book and 2. really into it so far especially love the relevance of racism/colonization with languages really resonates with me

[bad-hair-bad-puns]

“There’s a difference between peace and liberation, is there not? You can have injustice and have peace. You can have peace and be enslaved. So peace isn’t the answer. Liberation is the answer. [‘Yes, of course.’] So that’s what you should talk about, never peace. That’s the white man’s word. ‘Liberation’ is our word. [‘But you seem free at the moment.’] I seem peaceful at the moment.”

- Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) of the Black Panther Party

"B-but Palestinians can get their freedom with peace not violence 🥺🥺" no. Screw your feelings. The armed resistance against colonizers and murderers is what will give Palestinians their freedom and what will eventually achieve real peace.

An enemy that bombs and uses white phosphorus against civilians doesn't know nor practice what your broken moral compass describes as "peace". Freedom was proven throughout history not to be achieved through kneeling and asking the oppressor to kindly stop. Freedom needs to be taken by force. Your little Utopian way of thinking doesn't work in the real world. Your feelings don't matter because you're not the one living under occupation. Your feelings don't matter because you're not one of the thousands of children who lost their limbs. You're not one of the children who became orphans due to this genocide. You're not the mother who lost her child to the carpet bombing. You're not the father carrying the remains of your child in plastic bags. You're not the newlywed woman who lost her husband. You're not the one at risk of either getting killed any second or losing your loved ones in the blink of an eye!

"Peace" is not really a thing you see during a live ethnic cleansing!

[thirdsonofeve]

Just like bcs barry has me way more interested in the gay drug lords than the main characters' complicated and ultimately doomed romance<3

[thisisnotacreativeusername]

seeing a lot of "the episode was about social media and suddenly out of nowhere turned into a commentary on racism" THE WHOLE EPISODE WAS ABOUT RACISM. THE WHOLE THING. IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT RACISM. from how white everyone was to lindy immediately blocking the doctor while only "sliding" ruby to them all being rich kids to lindy being appalled ruby and the doctor were in the same room to everyone saying they could "tame" the wild woods and "be pioneers". it was ALWAYS about racism.

yes the social media aspect ties into it bc racism is RAMPANT on social media. i specifically noticed how lindy made an effort to say how her clothes were sustainable and then turns around and commits microaggressions against the doctor. its the exact flavor of showboaty performative activism you see everywhere. just because you didnt notice it doesnt mean it wasnt there.

[zippers]

ugh i really hate this one volleyball commentator. he is announcing the game im watching (ukraine vs colombia) and he a) he is just so negative about all the plays and the players b) keeps singling out one of the Colombian players, Ana Karina, and while she isn't the only Black player she does have the darkest skin... it really feels like she has been targeted since the beginning. she is a heavy hitter who takes a lot of risks, sometimes they don't pay off but she is still one of the top scorers, but whenever she scores (and this is often over the replay of her epic point which just really makes it so jarring) he will say something like "earlier she was playing just foul volleyball, remember xyz failures, but here she actually scored, maybe she's finally woken up, but before she played very poorly, remember that?" and "i can't believe they managed to score a point despite that awful pass from Ana Karina" and just really focuses on her mistakes way more than the other players.

I feel like a different person would say something like "excellent comeback from a shaky start!" like her coach would have swapped her out by now if she was really that bad. And Colombia is losing where I'm at in the game but she is not the only one making errors but she is the one that is called out. Just the way he said her name when she was introduced made my uncomfortable, like i was only listening to the lineup but I noticed how he said it.

i already didnt like this guy, mostly bc of some faux pas that made me uncomfortable in other games that also had women commentators but on his own he is just so critical of these really impressive women, but especially singling out the player with the darkest skin always with something negative to say, and backhanded compliments if any!!