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drzito · 1 year ago

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Las 242 peliculas que he visto en 2023 (parte 2)

122. Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008)

123. Of time and the city (Terence Davies, 2008)

124. Pandorum (Christian Alvart, 2009)

125. La casa del diablo (Ti West, 2009)

126. Catfish (Ariel Schulman y Henry Joost, 2010)

127. Rare exports: Un cuento gamberro de navidad (Jalmari Helander, 2010)

128. Final Destination 5 (Steven Quale, 2011)

129. Infierno blanco (Joe Carnahan, 2011)

130. La maldicion de Rookford (Nick Murphy, 2011)

131. Berberian sound studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)

132. Turistas (Ben Wheatley, 2012)

133. Across the river (Lorenzo Bianchini, 2013)

134. Colonia V (Jeff Renfroe, 2013)

135. Como todas las mañanas (Toni Nievas, 2013)

136. El Congreso (Ari Folman, 2013)

137. The Sacrament (Ti West, 2013)

138. Vivir en peligro (Paul Wright, 2013)

139. El sopar (Pere Portabella, 2014)

140. Lucy (Luc Besson, 2014)

141. Sueñan los androides (Ion de Sosa, 2014)

142. Uno tras otro (Hans Petter Moland, 2014)

143. Equals (Drake Doremus, 2015)

144. Dope (Rick Famuyiwa, 2015)

145. 13 horas: Los soldados secretos de Bengasi (Michael Bay, 2016)

146. El Caso Sloane (John Madden, 2016)

147. El Contable (Gavin O'Connor, 2016)

148. El Vacio (Jeremy Gillespie y Steven Kostanski, 2016)

149. Holy Hell (Will Allen, 2016)

150. La autopsia de Jane Doe (André Øvredal, 2016)

151. Maria (y los demas) (Nely Reguera, 2016)

152. Swiss Army Man (Dan Kwan y Daniel Scheinert, 2016)

153. Without Name (Lorcan Finnegan, 2016)

154. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S Craig Zahler, 2017)

155. Caras y Lugares (Agnes Varda y JR, 2017)

156. Good Time: Viviendo al limite (Benny y Josh Safdie, 2017)

157. Hagazussa (Lukas Feigelfeld, 2017)

158. Secretos Oscuros (Michael Pearce, 2017)

159. Ghost in the shell. El alma de la maquina (Rupert Sanders, 2017)

160. The Cloverfield paradox (Julius Onah, 2018)

161. Illang: La brigada del lobo (Kim Ji-Woon, 2018).

162. Normandia al desnudo (Philippe Le Guay, 2018)

163. Al otro lado de la ley (S Craig Zahler, 2018)

164. Apuntes para una pelicula de atracos (Leon Siminiani, 2018)

165. El odio que das (George Tillman Jr, 2018)

166. 303 (Hans Weingartner, 2018)

167. El Convento (Payl Hyett, 2018)

168. La primera purga: La noche de las bestias (Gerard McMurray, 2018)

169. Mudo (Duncan Jones, 2018)

170. Noche de lobos (Jeremy Saulnier, 2018)

171. 6 en la sombra (Michael Bay, 2019)

172. Bait (Mark Jenkin, 2019)

173. Escape room: Sin salida (Adam Robitel, 2019)

174. Fyre (Chris Smith, 2019)

175. Sator (Jordan Graham, 2019)

176. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis, 2019)

177. Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

178. Ventajas de viajar en tren (Aritz Moreno, 2019)

179. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi y Bilall Fallah, 2020)

180. El año del descubrimiento (Luis Lopez Carrasco, 2020)

181. Last and First Men (Johann Johannsonn, 2020)

182. Socias y Enemigas (Miguel Arteta, 2020)

183. Undergods (Chino Moya, 2020).

184. A tiempo completo (Eric Gravel, 2021)

185. Belle (Mamoru Hosoda, 2021)18

186. Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2021)

187. Candyman (Nia DaCosta, 2021)

188. Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021)

189. Destello Bravio (Ainhoa Rodriguez, 2021)

190. El Escuadron Suicida (James Gunn, 2021)

191. Eles transportan a morte (Samuel M. Delgado y Helena Girón, 2021)

192. Escape Room: La Pel·lícula (Hèctor Claramunt, 2021)

193. Espiritu Sagrado (Chema Garcia Ibarra, 2021)

194. Hellbender (John Adams, Zelda Adams y Toby Poser, 2021)

195. King Car (Renata Pinheiro, 2021).

196. La casa de las profundidades (Julien Maury y Alexandre Bustillo, 2021)

197. La Hija (Manuel Martin Cuenca, 2021)

198. Lamb (Valdimar Jóhannsson, 2021)

199. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2021)

200. Malignant (James Wan, 2021)

201. The ice road (Jonathan Hensleigh, 2021)

202. The Medium (Banjong Pisanthanakun, 2021)

203. Tiempo (M night Shyamalan, 2021)

204. Tros (Pau Calpe, 2021)

205. You are not my mother (Kate Dolan, 2021)

206. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

207. Almas en pena de Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022)

208. Ambulance. Plan de huida (Michael Bay, 2022).

209. Argentina 1985 (Santiago Mitre, 2022)

210. As Bestas (Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2022)

211. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022)

212. Cangrejo Negro (Adam Berg, 2022)

213. Crimenes del futuro (David Cronenberg, 2022)

214. El agua (Elena López Riera, 2022)

215. El triangulo de la tristeza (Ruben Ostlund, 2022)

216. Emily, la estafadora (John Patton Ford, 2022)

217. En los margenes (Juan Diego Botto, 2022)

218. Enys Men (Mark Jenkin, 2022)

219. Eo (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)

220. Flux Gourmet (Peter Strickland, 2022)

221. La hija eterna (Joanna Hogg, 2022)

222. La paradoja de Antares (Luis Tinoco, 2022)

223. Men (Alex Garland, 2022)

224. Modelo 77 (Alberto Rodriguez, 2022)

225. Muertos muertos muertos (Halina Reijn, 2022)

226. O corpo aberto (Angeles Huerta, 2022)

227. Predator. La Presa (Dan Trachtenberg, 2022)

228. Puñales por la espalda: El misterio de Glass Onion (Rian Johnson, 2022)

229. RRR (SS Rajamouli, 2022)

230. Suro (Mikel Gurrea, 2022)

231. Vesper (Kristina Buozyte y Bruno Samper, 2022)

232. You won’t be alone (Goran Stolevski, 2022)

233. X (Ti West, 2022)

234. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson, 2023)

235. Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023)

236. El banco de Dave (Chris Foggin, 2023)

237. Elemental (Peter Sohn, 2023)

238. Indiana Jones y el dial del destino (James Mangold, 2023)

239. Llaman a la puerta (M Night Shyamalan, 2023)

240. Mision Imposible: Sentencia Mortal - Parte 1 (Christopher McQuarrie, 2023)

241. Nadie te salvara (Brian Duffield, 2023)

242. The Creator (Gareth Edwards, 2023)

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rebeleden · 1 year ago

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Watch "Moya Bailey, “Misogynoir Transformed Black Women’s Digital Resistance”" on YouTube

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#Youtube

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notchainedtotrauma · 8 months ago

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Black feminism, as well, as womanism, cannot stand without accurate citations. I'm not being argumentative, a lot of it has to do with the sources you used. But as Patricia Hill Collins wrote: "

"I also know that, lacking a collective voice, individual voices like mine will become fainter until, one day, many may forget that we ever spoke at all."

from Fighting Words by Patricia Hill Collins

Misogynoir was created by a queer scholar Moya Bailey circa 2012, who developed its scope and use alongside Trudy. Misogynoir was coined as term that was to merge and read antiblackness and misogyny, but that was also a way to read the experiences of Black women in digital spaces. Below is Moya Bailey's first book.

Mammy derives from the real life figure of the in house servant, oftentimes living with the white family that has become over the years imaged as this generously Black object of abundant flesh, the signifier of her endless nurturing and her willful servitude. Here are quotes that discuss the Mammy:

As domestics in white households, black women were the bodies at the core of the private sphere, both invisible and essential to ideas of proper white womanhood. Assigned to perform the functions of the female body (disavowed by the angels of the home) meant that they carried the sweat and labor of constructing the domestic stage.

from Babylon Girls by Jayna Brown

The usually nameless black mammy figure, in these-black and-white-pairings, served a very specific function: since"small children would not sit still for the long exposures required by early photography", she held the child steady, and therefore, guaranteed the success of the portrait.

from Embodied Avatars by Uri McMilan

Jezebel and the mammy have been theorized, alongside the welfare mother, by Patricia Hill Collins, from her seminal book Black feminist thought, as controlling images, that is as the tropes that crush Black women out of their humanity and work to establish their inferiority. Patricia Hill Collins cites Jezebel as originating during slavery: "The fourth controlling image-the Jezebel, whore, or sexually agressive is central in this nexus of elite white male images of Black womanhood because efforts to control Black women's sexuality lie at the heart of Black women's oppression.

“Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt2

So I'm sure that you all thought I was going to give a blow-by-blow list of "visual stereotypes to avoid". I'm going to be honest here, I thought about it, and figured it would be redundant. My page already includes sensitivity on depicting Black people. So instead, I'm going to focus on stereotypical "character" concepts, so that you can 1) not write it in your stories and/or 2) recognize it in media (fiction and reality!) and in life!

Two major resources: the Jim Crow Museum website is an EXCELLENT resource to understand the imagery of antiblack racism in U.S. history and society. The other, White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad. The book focuses on the many racist stereotypes projected onto women of color and how that purposeful, systemic negative perception of us bleeds into every aspect of our lives- specifically by white women/white feminists who believe that they are not contributing to said oppression.

I'll start with Black women, just because I’m passionate about it (obviously) and there are so many things I wish I had and hadn’t seen growing up. We deserve better by the year of our lord 2024.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: mention of sexual assault, assault

Misogynoir

What I want everyone to understand, before I get into this, is the concept of intersectionality, and more specifically, misogynoir. Misogynoir is the specific type of contempt and prejudice that Black women face at the intersection of race and gender. I say this because you might read these things and go “oh, as a woman, I experience these things!” I get it, but I want you to PAUSE, and remember, that right now, we are talking about Black women’s experiences. And those will often be different, due to that intersection of identities. And that understanding will have an effect on how you understand (and thus, write) those experiences.

The Jezebel

The link goes into much deeper detail, but the Jezebel is the idea that a Black woman or girl who is sexual is somehow ��fast”, “salacious”, “a hoe”, “driven by desire/doesn’t understand purity”, and at its worst, unable to be r*ped/a victim because she is less valuable yet somehow inherently seductive to men.

This gets thrown around CONSTANTLY in media and life for Black women (my first experience of treated like I was ‘fast’ was when I was like… twelve?) One major, visible example is Megan Thee Stallion. Meg has a college degree, she likes anime, she’s a brilliant rapper, and has an entire personality and struggles she’s shared… But she also likes to dress scantily clad and have sex. By doing those things, she ‘lessened in value’. And because of this, when she was shot at and assaulted, even Black people questioned her character, rather than understanding that she could have been anyone, and she still wouldn’t have deserved to be assaulted. She's not allowed to be multi-faceted; she "brought it on herself".

Black girls and women who happen to take charge of their own sexuality, to the discomfort of society, are treated as Jezebels- as whores. Think about it- if one of Taylor Swift's recent boyfriends shot at her, would the media question her value or her word? Question her equivalently high ‘body count’?

Question how you write your Black woman- she can enjoy sex! She can be sexy! We love to see it! But if you're punishing her specifically, or judging her within the narrative, versus your other characters who are allowed to safely explore and act upon their sexuality… Check your judgment! Why do you feel the way you do about this character? Why do you think that your Black character is the one that should be judged for her actions. Would you feel this way if it were a nonblack character?

The Sapphire/Angry Black Woman

Ohohoho, I have infinite amounts of feelings about this one.

This is the "sassy Black friend", the "aggressive Black boss", “step on me angry mommy”, the one who does the z formation and makes everyone "uncomfortable". She’s not allowed to be confident, assertive, or self-assured- she’s arrogant, rude, and aggressive.

I discussed it in part one, but I'll reemphasize it: your Black woman doesn't have to be an ‘Angry Black Woman’ in order to be angry! Just like any other human being on the planet, we are allowed to be mad. (In my honest opinion, we have a lot to be mad about, but I digress 😅)

If the only character that ever gets angry is your Black character, I want you to consider why. What is she angry at? Was this something you wanted the reader to understand or empathize with? Are we supposed to disagree? How does everyone around her treat her anger? Is her anger righteous? Is she always shut down or dismissed for it? Is it only meant to defend her friends, but never herself? Does the narrative suggest that it’s only good in use of others and not herself? Would this be the same reaction if one of the nonblack characters was angry? Is this something you did on purpose?

Very often, we're called 'angry Black women/girls' to invalidate our emotions. My therapist once said anger is a protective emotion. We might be hurt, overstimulated, sad, depressed, frightened, anxious… But we are often not allowed the grace of others digging deeper to see that. Even if the other characters do not understand her anger, even if her motives are not meant to be understood at the moment… you as the writer should be aware. But if every time it’s time to show anger or upset, it’s your Black character… consider why this is the one you thought would best convey that message, and how your Black readers might feel seeing that this character (who may not even be the ‘bad guy’) is the one that is ‘only’ angry. No other development, no other emotions, just… there to be mad.

I take this one to heart, as someone who feels very passionately about things… this is one of those things where I wish, in life and in media, people would have more grace for Black women. We're human, too. We have feelings, too.

The Mammy

This one isn’t as visually blatant anymore in media as it was in the past (like every Mammy doesnt look like Aunt Jemima), but you may have seen this one as "the mommy figure". The "lesbian that parents the silly gay boys". The one that’s always encouraging the ship of the white boys, but never the one allowed to be in the ship (especially when her ship is canon!)

A good example of this was how people expected Jessica Drew from ATSV to be "more loving" to Gwen, rather than the mentor and boss she was (plus, as a Black woman with a Black mother… trust and believe, she was quite direct and gentle). And in comparison to her counterpart, white man Peter B. Parker, was decried far worse for similar detrimental actions.

The Mammy often serves in opposition to the Jezebel and Sapphire/Angry Black Woman. What makes the Mammy particularly annoying is that it implies that the only good Black woman character is a ‘nice’, demure, unthreatening, homely, motherly figure whose job it is to make sure to center the (usually) white ones. The Mammy is expected to coddle everyone, to her own detriment. She's a ‘good Black’ because she causes no issue, raises no fuss, never shows a negative feeling, knows that she has to ‘be strong’ but to always defer because the white characters know best. She’s ‘not a threat’, and that’s why she’s ‘allowed’ to be around. We shouldn’t have to be those things in order for our stories to be heard and understood, in order to be empathized with or treated like someone of value.

The Strong Black Woman

If I never hear this phrase again in my life, if we eradicate it from future generations for Black girls and women, I'll cry of joy lmao. I hate it, and it's not for the reasons most nonblack people would expect. Lord, this one. Anyway. The ‘strong Black woman’ is meant to protect everyone, no help needed! Whenever something is wrong and we all need a pickup, here she comes to ‘let me do it’ and everything is going to be okay! She did all the necessary suffering so that your characters don't have to! She can sweep in and save the day!

Now here's the dissonance kicks in. This one on its surface probably sounds like a good thing. She's a hero! She’s resilient! She's great! Who wouldn't want to be superwoman? Who wouldn't want to reject being a love interest, all women are always love interests! Let us be the badass that kicks ass and shows the men what for! Who wouldn’t want that, 24/7?!

The answer: US. 👍🏾🤣

This is a long, separate conversation on its own, but we have to understand that Black women (women of color, really) and White women do not always share the same end goals and understanding of "strong woman character" or even feminism. We certainly aren't always the love interest. Very usually not, in fact. We are always pushed to the side. We are already the hero in our lives, we're already the "strong woman".

Not everyone yearns to be the Singular Hero who will Fix It All as many of us are already expected to do. It's exhausting having to swallow your own needs for everyone else all the time, especially when it's suggested that you have no value otherwise if you don't. Heroism is Exhausting, and it's something worth looking into when you’re characterizing your Black girls and women. I’m not saying that we can’t be strong! We are, and it’s impressive! But I also want us to add some nuance to that strength, the way we would for any other character. What it means to have community, rather than to do it all alone. How even if she wants to be the hero (and that’s okay! That’s fine!) how it would still wear on her. Surrounding your Black girl character with unconditional support, to have a lover that actually wants to pull some weight- that's something many of us actually would like to see, because we're usually shafted to the side as 'someone who can do it all herself' (in order to hide that no one thinks we need or are deserving of the help).

It's okay to let your Black woman and girls show weakness, to rest, to be taken care of! It's not "less feminist" to accept that we're humans that need help and can't carry it all, too. That it’s okay to want to feel valued and protected. Because god knows, I wish I didn’t grow up strong and resilient, I wish I grew up knowing that the world cared that I was safe.

Standards of Beauty

These standards are not the same! I've mentioned it before in my lesson on skin tones, but very often when we think of "beauty", it’s easy to fall into the idea of whiteness. Pale skin, thin hair textures, etc. If those are our existing standards of beauty, then it doesn’t matter what any of us look like- we’re ugly! When I was in high school, I remember a classmate saying that Swedish people were the most beautiful people because of "white hair and pale skin". Without even meaning to, that guy basically said everyone darker than a stack of loose leaf printer paper was ugly by proxy of not being Nordic White (no matter how pretty they actually might be!!) 🤣

It’s also of note that whiteness/paleness tends to be connected with innocence and cleanliness in western culture, while blackness/darkness tends to be considered dirty, sinful, fearful. Now, while the origin of this idea may not be racist itself, when you spend hundreds of years implying that Blackness is bad- to the point that, in the U.S. they came up with an entire slur one step past “negro” (meaning ‘Black’) to deem you less than- it’s hard to say that the societal connotation didn’t apply.

Now we've already discussed working on describing our Black characters better! I continually remind you all that you should be describing them as wonderfully made as you do your white characters. Keep in mind that we live in a world where from day one when we enter the world, Blackness and Black features are not seen as beautiful nor emphasized. Whiteness is the standard of beauty that we, for a long time and still, are expected to adhere to. If you'd like to do better by your characters, remember that you don't have to give them "white features" or use "white" as an adjective to do that!

Black Women as Women

“There was literally nothing, not a thing, that a white woman could ever have that was worth more than her sexual virtue, and this obligated mandatory chasteness and sexual vulnerability… If the most important thing a woman has is virtue, and only white women can have virtue, then by definition, only white women can be women.” Ruby Hamad, ‘Only White Women Can Be Damsels’, White Tears, Brown Scars

Often, Black women by definition are not included under the societal banner of “women”, from our features, to our personalities, to our 'role' in life. "True Womanhood" is denied us, cis and trans, because of our Blackness. The things that make women ‘women’, we are not included under, because systemically, the only ‘women’ that were meant to mean anything were white.

I bring up Megan Thee Stallion again. Meg is probably one of the most beautiful, feminine women I've ever seen in my life. Men still call her a man, due to her height, due to her confidence, and due to their insecurities. Same with Serena Williams; Serena is damn near built like a god in my eyes. She was told she was manly from the beginning of her career, no matter how beyond skilled she was in women's tennis. Even when she damn near died giving birth- the most basic of 'tasks' women are seen as having in this society, it didn't matter. Black women are 'less womanly', 'less valuable', 'less in need' of that protection and identity that society swears Women™ need (and not in the honest way that we do need protection).

Consider that you're making sure that your Black women have the options of range of gender expression and emotions (and if they aren't allowed to, is that on purpose). If you're only ever creating us and we're in service of some dainty white woman and never the other way around... consider how that may reflect what you think our role is in your story, and in your mind.

Adultification

“Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blond girl you imagine.” twitter: sw4q

It has been shown that Black girls the same age as their white girl counterparts are deemed older and less in need of protection, and supposed to 'be more mature'. Imagine that. Deemed inherently less innocent, due to your skin color. Having to parent our siblings, get jobs to contribute, do all the cleaning, and more. Yet, when we act with the maturity that we've been forced to grow into, we're "fast". A little 12-year-old girl, now to society, the Jezebel. All because she wanted to try pink lip gloss or wear a skirt; things that little tween girls might try to understand the big world around them and push boundaries. Now she's a woman, now she can never be a victim. Now she can be beat on and hurt and it's her fault.

I explain this for two reasons: One, for you to think about how your write your Black girls, and Two, for you to hold more grace for Black girls- real and fake. Do you hold her to a higher standard than your white characters of similar age? Does she inherently seem less innocent to you for reasons outside the plot? Is she as human to you as your other characters? Is she allowed to be a child? To act like one? To make mistakes? Are you as empathetic or understanding about that childishness as you are towards nonblack characters? Do you make these decisions on purpose?

It's not like Black girls can never be YA protags or anything- ofc we can. But keep in mind that she's not somehow automatically "stronger" by proxy of her Blackness, that she'd "be tougher". She's a kid. Let her be one.

Conclusion

There’s a LOT you have to consider when writing Black girls and women. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s easy, because being Black, and being a Black woman, is not easy. If you’re stressed reading it, imagine being stressed living it lmao. It’s a constant chain of quick-time events every day of your life to prevent nonblack nuclear meltdown in response to your every single action. I’m not going to apologize for it, either.

That being said, I don’t expect you to understand everything, especially not all at once. I just want you all to keep these things in mind, to question yourself when you’re writing your character- are you treating her differently on purpose? Or are you treating her differently because of a bias you might not even notice you have? It might help to go back, to read how you treat all of your characters. Or, if you’ve never written before, to maybe outline the traits of your characters and figure out where things balance out. As always, all you can do is practice at it. Because it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers.

Whew, I'm actually emotionally strained after this one. My chest is beating fast. Let me go get some groceries now.

#stories from the void

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emergingmediaculture · 1 year ago

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Graphic created by Kiersten W. on Canva.

I feel as though we have discussed a good bit about the issues of internet life and some of its negative effects, however, that leaves out the entire story. I find it just as important to highlight the benefits as well. One of the most notable is the communities and cultures that have been given a voice when they otherwise had none.

For centuries, it has been mostly those with some form of influence or power whose voices were the loudest. Those were the only ones that mattered. Even more, those were the only people who could afford to get their voices and opinions out there. Historically, the makeup of those people has been white men.

The digital age we now live in, however, has provided opportunities for marginalized groups of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, and more.

Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles discuss in #HashtagActivism the power online platforms like Twitter have given to those who would otherwise be voiceless. These platforms give these groups the power to hold the powerful accountable.

More so, it allows for a collection of people with similar backgrounds, experiences, or concerns to connect with one another or spread awareness through the very powerful tool of the #hashtag. It is the hashtag, as the authors believe, that helps collectives form, make people visible to one another, and cohere and sustain movements against injustice.

Movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter are specifically named after their hashtags that spread across social media platforms allowing individuals to share their own experiences, call for justice, offer support, and more. It is the reach that hashtags have across all platforms that helps propel these movements exposing them to wider audiences.

History is always said to repeat itself and, to me, this instance of groups having to utilize the tools they have and put it upon themselves to get their experiences out there because it is common for them to not have the opportunities to share them in many ways mirrors the past, specifically the creation of what was referred to as the "Black Press". As African-American journalism is a topic of this book as well, it is only right to mention it.

For the longest time, it was extremely uncommon to find newspapers reporting on anything about black people or anything happening within the black community outside anything negative. After getting tired of hardly ever seeing their stories or anything regarding their community included in the newspapers, in the early 1800s a group of African-Americans decided they would create their own. This started what came to be known as the Black Press, whose contributors included the likes of Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, and the "First Lady of the Black Press", Ethel Payne.

I see similarities in what the lack of a voice in the flow of society for marginalized groups has birthed across history. In so many instances it has started movements and I feel now the accessibility to do so is so much more apparent. Though everything comes at a cost, so many more people have access, resources, and reach, unlike any time before us.

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lqb2listen · 1 year ago

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twinsforfashion · 1 year ago

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Summer reading

Hoy os compartimos nuestras listas de lectura veraniega: Novelas, feminismo, salud, ciencia ficción…

Amalia:

Tea Rooms. Mujeres obreras - Luisa Carnés

Lo que hay - Sara Torres

La educación física - Rosario Villajos

Germanet - Ibrahima Balde y Amets Arzallus Antia

Júlia:

Chapterhouse: Dune - Frank Herbert

Glucose Revolution - Jesse Inchauspé

Misogynoir Reansformed - Moya Bailey

Vibrate Higher Daily - Lalah Delia

Today we share our summer reading lists: Novels, feminism, health, science fiction...

Amalia:

Tea Rooms. Mujeres obreras - Luisa Carnés

Lo que hay - Sara Torres

La educación física - Rosario Villajos

Germanet - Ibrahima Balde y Amets Arzallus Antia

Júlia:

Chapterhouse: Dune - Frank Herbert

Glucose Revolution - Jesse Inchauspé

Misogynoir Reansformed - Moya Bailey

Vibrate Higher Daily - Lalah Delia

Pic: Hood Feminism - Mikki Kendall.

#inspo #inspiration #book #reading #red #summer #sumer book #summer reading

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narrativestringtheory · 1 year ago

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Flying Toward a Twenty-First Century Aesthetics of Technomagic Girlhood

by Ravynn K. Stringfield

What is Technomagic Girlhood?

When I began thinking, reading and writing about Black girl superheroes in my dissertation, I found I wanted a way to explore how characters like Riri Williams as Ironheart and Lunella Lafayette as Moon Girl were both performing fantastic feats while defining and creating their Black girlhood with the scientific, technological, and digital tools available to them. Their oft favorite feat? Flight. This list of characters includes but is in no way limited to: Shuri from Black Panther lore, Karen Beecher as Bumblebee, Lunella Lafayette as Moon Girl, and Max from Batman Beyond, the animated television show which ran on the Kids’ WB from 1999 to 2001. There are arguments to made for extending the category to include characters like Marvel Comics’ Misty Knight or even young Diana (Dee) Freeman from HBO Max’s Lovecraft Country, a speculative horror show adapted as a continuation of the 2016 Matt Ruff novel of the same name. In entering a conversation around Black superheroines that scholars like Sheena Howard, Deborah Whaley and Grace D. Gipson have nourished, technomagic girlhood became the term I used, as I was fascinated by the way innovative digital practices and self-making become intertwined for Black girls in superhero stories where our current reality and its technologies were recognizable, but where these girls could manipulate technology to give themselves the ability to literally (and metaphorically) fly.

The idea of technomagic girlhood draws energy from a number of related terms, primary among them being Afrofuturism, the artistic/aesthetic movement and critical framework around the relationship of folks of the African diaspora to the future, technology, and questions of liberation.1 Technomagic girlhood sits underneath the large Afrofuturistic umbrella, though it takes as its large focal point the fantasy genre, magic, the unexplained, whereas much of the strongest Afrofuturistic theorizing prioritizes science fiction as a genre. Work is being done amongst scholars all over to push the boundaries of what constitutes Afrofuturism, and what is in conversation with it.

Also related is Moya Bailey’s term, digital alchemy, which she uses in Misogynoir Transformed to refer to “the ways that women of color, Black women, and Black nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant folks in particular transform everyday digital media into valuable social justice media that recode the failed scripts that negatively impact their lives” (24). Hashtags under the work of Black women, Black queer folks and Black gender expansive folks become entire movements, with “alchemy” implying a chemistry. The chemistry of it all denotes a type of a work, rather than the social justice media appearing as if by will alone, and not backed by the labor of Black women and femmes. I prefer technomagic rather than alchemy because magic connotes, for some a discipline, but contains a joy of use as well. Bailey continues: “Digital alchemy shifts our attention from the negative impact stereotypes in digital culture to the redefinition of representations Black women are creating that provide another way of viewing their worlds” (24). There is a joy in learning to manipulate science, technology and the digital to your own ends for experiments in redefinition and self-making in technomagic girlhood.

For this playful turn, I draw from digital ethnomusicologist Kyra D. Gaunt’s work on embodied play and Black girlhood. I also use “magic” because it locates me more clearly in a legacy of the Black speculative, the Black fantastic, longer traditions of Black girls in magic—and accounts more clearly for how it is possible for these girls to fly. But to fly does not always mean “magic” is afoot. Flight is a condition of reality in texts such as Virginia Hamilton’s retelling of African American folk tales, The People Could Fly (1985), in which Africans take flight back home, and Toni Morrison’s critically acclaimed novel, Song of Solomon (1977), in which Pilate takes to the air. The “techno” prefix is inspired in part by film scholar Anna Everett’s work on Black technophilia and draws us more toward a legacy of Black participation in technology and the digital.

As in #BlackGirlMagic, a commonplace example of technomagic girlhood practice to me, the magic and the fantastic are deeply rooted in reality. This hashtag originates with CaShawn Thompson, who in an interview with journalist and author Feminista Jones says: “I was the first person to use Black Girl Magic or Black Girls Are Magic in the realm of uplifting Black women. Not so much about our aesthetic but jut who we are.” Our magic, Thompson argues, is simply the truth; it was true of her everyday life and how she experienced the world. There is nothing speculative about it, and simply and uniquely of Black girlhood. In many ways, Thompson’s understanding of Black Girl Magic is in conversation with how I understand technomagic girlhood and the potential of what it could be.

I specifically came to use “technomagic” when writing about Marvel Comics’ teenage superhero Riri Williams, also known as Ironheart. The young Chicagoan was able to create her own version of Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, making her supergenius hypervisible on a large scale, but which she uses locally to help her community. Afrofuturism was the term that I had used for a long time in my work on her, but when we are first introduced to Riri in Eve L. Ewing and Luciano Vecchio’s run, this Black girl, in her tech suit by which she has engineered herself the ability to fly, her face turned skyward, reveling in joy and legacy as seen below…something else occurring. Something that needed to center Riri’s Black girlhood, her experimental and creative self-making through technology, and the joy of impossibility now made tangible…2

Technomagic girlhood is in part a response to some of the questions that André Brock, Jr. asks in Distributed Blackness about whether or not his work on technology and the internet is Afrofuturistic: what about the digital present? Afrofuturism, Brock argues, “is rightly understood as a cultural theory about Black folks’ relationship to technology, but its futurist perspective lends it a utopian stance that doesn’t do much to advance our understanding of what Black folk are doing now” (15). In considering the “now” in possibilities of Black technophilia, technomagic was where I had space to spread out and play as Riri does, as many of the contemporary Black girls do, informed deeply by the legacies and lineages that have come before.

Cover Girls

I choose to examine here Riri Williams as the catalyst for my interest in the topic, along with DC Comics’ Natasha Irons. In what follows, I address these characters’ relationship to technomagic, as seen in the covers for the collected edition of Ironheart: Meant to Fly (Marvel, 2020) and Action Comics #1054 (DC Comics, 2023) that exemplify a few core characteristics of a visual aesthetics of technomagic girlhood and work in tandem.

Technomagic describes a particular quality of contemporary Black girlhood, expansively defined. While this idea most certainly can be applied to other groups of people, I use it as a way of understanding the relationship Black girls in superhero media and other fantasy narratives have to science, technology and digital media, to creativity and joy, and to self-making. By Black girlhood, I often think of how Aria S. Halliday and the authors of the Black Girlhood Studies Collection interrogate the ways in which society tends to conflate Black girlhood and Black womanhood, in both seemingly innocuous and explicitly dangerous ways. Black girls’ joy practices are central to education scholar Ruth Nicole Brown’s work and are resonant here when viewing Riri in Ironheart #1, skyward facing, heart open and Natasha’s focused joy on the cover shown below.

To remember that Black girlhood can be expansive, it is important to incorporate writers who consider girlhood to be a state of mind and being, rather than exclusively an age range. Digital ethnomusicologist Kyra D. Gaunt, for example, asks readers to engage questions of girlhood that include women who might begin their intimate stories to each other with a resonant, “Giiiirl” (p. 2). And Moya Bailey urges readers to consider a wider breadth of possible people who might be brought in by widening what we consider womanhood in her book Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance—in particular, she argues that more than cisgendered heterosexual Black women are harmed by misogynoir (p. 18-22). This is relevant for Natasha (above right), who is canonically a lesbian in the comics, and whose cover brings to mind the colors of the bisexual flag: pink, purple and blue.

After the primary condition of Black girlhood is established, there are secondary conditions that are present in an aesthetics of technomagic girlhood. These include elements of:

impossibility, whether feats or conditions;

creativity, ingenuity, or innovation, often expressed as a practice of the girl in question;

technology, science, or digital media;

self-making or alter-ego creation; and

unbridled joy.

The magic emerges from the clear masterful manipulation of most of these elements in a playful fashion, often for heroic ends, though regularly for their own enjoyment as well.

When we look at these two covers together, we can see elements from many of these categories. On Riri’s cover (by Amy Reeder for Ironheart #43), we see a young Black girl who has presumably engineered herself the ability to fly—impossibility—but who, in this instance, is now falling. Riri falls downward and, judging by the surprise on her face, it appears that the Ironheart suit she has created for herself has fallen apart. It calls to mind the image of the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, though Riri is both: she is both the famed inventor and also the child who maybe has flown too close to the sun. Riri’s relationship to this myth calls to mind the ingenuity and technology inherent to technomagic girlhood. But the image is juxtaposed with the title phrase “meant to fly”—so, perhaps it is that Riri’s suit is coming to her, not away from her, to save her, to enable her flight, because that impossible feat is what she deserves, and she knows it is hers. She created the impossible and trusts in her own ability—self-making. Notably, in issue #1, Riri can find who she is within the suit, and within a larger legacy not just of superheroics, but of Black women who made her possible. This is both self-making and joy.

DC Comics’ Black girl science genius, Natasha Irons, has a longer history than Riri Williams. Where Riri’s origins date back to the Invincible Iron Man run in 2016 (Vol. 3 #7) written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Mike Deodato, Natasha Irons was introduced as Dr. John Henry Irons’ precocious niece in Steel #1 (February 1994), written by Jon Bogdanove and Louise Simonson, with art by Chris Batista and Rich Faber. While Irons earns his claim to fame by filling in for Superman, going on to becoming a hero in his own right, over time Natasha develops an aptitude for science as she hangs around her uncle, eventually proving adept at working on Irons’ suit and going on to develop her own. Natasha’s heroism in her own right has only deepened with time. With a new Steelworks run beginning in the summer of 2023, there have been opportunities for Natasha fans to get excited. Most recently, Action Comics #1054 had a variant cover (1:25) by Milestone Initiative artist Yasmín Flores Montañez featuring a solo Natasha in a similar vein to the iconic Riri “Meant to Fly” cover (shown above).4

On this cover, Natasha more clearly appears to be attracting the pieces of her suit to her as she leans over, possibly suspended in air—similar to some iconic scenes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe Iron Man films—anchored by a neon pink background, with a touch of blue, guiding viewer to think more critically about our gendered assumptions regarding technology and science. There’s a look of satisfaction on her face—this is where she is meant to be. She clearly wears the crest of the House of El—Superman’s iconic “S”—as a symbol of hope, though perhaps this will mean something different for Natasha in the issues to come. Natasha’s relationship to this technology, her ability to manipulate it, will inevitability lead to some creative self-making in relationship to this iconic symbol and who she is within in—and without it.

Optimally, technomagic girlhood does not prioritize a capitalistic notion of the lone Black girl science genius. It is not simply “Black Girls Code” for a means to an end. There must be a fantastic joy to it, enabling the Black girl in question to just be, to simply exist, to feel confident in exploring her sense of self, to experiment in self-making. It is not the entering into science and technology spaces to perpetuate capitalistic ideas of productivity or advancement, but for joy and exploration of the self. Therefore, those who care about the well-being of Black girls—all children—must work toward communal needs being met.

In order for this to be meaningful, it needs to be communal, or in relation to others, as it is portrayed in Eve L. Ewing’s twelve-issue Riri Williams: Ironheart run (2018-2019). The idea of the lone Black girl genius feeds into harmful stereotypes related to the magical Negro; instead, intelligence can, and should be, nurtured in community. In Ewing’s Ironheart, Riri’s mother is a loving and watchful presence. Xavier King is Riri’s friend in the series, not just a teammate as many of the other supers she encounters in other runs are. Xavier cares about Riri as a person, with no real investment in what she can offer him. Those who participate in technomagic girlhood are still, after all, girls—children—and still need to love and be loved.

Ewing’s Ironheart gives Riri something she hasn’t had until that point: space to be. We should be working towards these girls’ ability to just be. The ability to create and play in these spaces is contingent on safety. Though Black girl will continue to create and play in spite of oppressive systems, it does not mean these systems as constructed are just. What will it mean for technomagic girlhood to not just be reactive, but to be generative?5 What will it mean for technomagic girlhood to embrace Afrofuturism in so far as it connects to questions of abolition, which devalues the role of policing and commits to a politics of care, as we seek to imagine new and better worlds for Black people, especially children?6 By this I mean: when safety and care are prioritized, what new worlds might our Black girls imagine with their newfound access to digital tools?

Conclusion

With technology, science, and digital media as the backdrop of our era, Black girls who engage in technomagic are increasingly enabled. They are the girls in fantasy stories who may not be gifted with an inexplicable gift for controlling the weather or who can speak to animals, but who have a technophilia akin to magic. They make their ordinary lives extraordinary with their ability to manipulate and build their sense of self in the process. Here, I’ve examined technomagic in superhero narratives, but the principles can and likely will apply across different types of speculative media where Black girls have unique relationships to science, technology and digital media. In particular, these girls are often seen more widely in comic stories adapted for screen: most folks met Riri Williams for the first time on screen in Wakanda Forever (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2022), the sequel film to Black Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018).

While the general connotation of this term slants towards positivity, as does a related popular phrase like Black Girl Magic, or the hashtagged version: #BlackGirlMagic, it’s worth approaching it with a touch of skepticism and several doses of care. Technomagic, while it does align us with the idea of the Black girl science genius, can also perpetuate the trope of the solitary genius, an idea which Ironheart writer, Eve L. Ewing, problematizes in a 2021 interview with Catapult: “…If that [the trope of the Black girl STEM superhero] becomes the only mode through which we see Black girls, that’s also a problem… I love Ironheart, I love Riri, but Shuri and Riri and Moon Girl are all science geniuses, you know? How does that reinforce certain limited notions about what Black intelligence or Black genius has to look like? How does that play into capitalist-driven conversation about Black girls in coding or Black girls’ participation in science fields?”

To Ewing’s inquiry and to Bailey’s assertions that digital alchemy helps us think about the possible ways Black women are redefining and rethinking about themselves, technomagic girlhood might offer one potential answer. Where we are able to keep joy practices, build and form community together, and experiment in self-making, we protect the essence of technomagic girlhood.7

Notes

1 The term “Afrofuturism” was originally coined in the 1994 roundtable essay “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate and Tricia Rose” by cultural critic Mark Dery in Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture. It is noted in the essay that Afrofuturism, both as an aesthetic and as a critical framework, has a much longer history, including origins that are often thought of as musical, thinking about the contributions of experimental musicians such as Sun Ra.

2 In this panel, Ewing invokes the legacy of Maya Angelou's poem “Still I Rise” (1978). The entire stanza reads:

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

3 Notably for this essay, Reeder is also known for her artwork on Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

4 Milestone Media was an African American centric superhero comics publishing company founded in 1993 by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle. DC Comics is currently relaunching Milestone and reintroducing its characters by bringing in a class of artists and writers specifically dedicated to the mission of Milestone. Flores Montañez is part of the Milestone Initiative’s inaugural class.

5 This question is in the spirit of Moya Bailey, whose work and distinction between generative and defensive alchemy as one which is creative for the community and one which is responsive to hatred. It is my hope that technomagic girlhood is framed similar to a generative digital alchemy.

6 I think here of the necessary and timely work of abolitionist organizers and writers Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba in their new book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (2023).

7 Gratitude: Many thanks to early readers of this piece for offering kind words and useful insights: Vanessa Anyanso, Shira Greer, Dr. Autumn A. Griffin, Dr. Jordan Henley, Grace B. McGowan, Kristen Reynolds and Dr. Justin Wigard. Conversations with KàLyn Banks Coghill and Dr. Francesca Lyn were also invaluable. Though they are not cited here, the scholarship of education scholars Drs. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and S. R. Tolliver remain deeply influential to how I think and write. I would like to thank Dr. Shawn Gilmore for his careful editorial eye.

Works Cited

Bailey, Moya. Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance. New York University Press (2021).

Bogdanove, Jon and Louise Simonson. Steel #1. DC Comics (1994).

Brock, André. Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures. New York University Press, (2020).

Everett, Anna. “On Cyberfeminism and Cyberwomanism: High-Tech Mediations of Feminism’s Discontents.” Signs (Vol. 30, No. 1).

Ewing, Eve L. & Luciano Vecchio. Riri Williams: Ironheart #1-12. Marvel Comics (2018-2019).

Ewing, Eve L. & Luciano Vecchio. Riri Williams: Ironheart: Meant to Fly. Marvel Comics (2020).

Gaunt, Kyra D. The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip-Hop. New York University Press (2006).

Halliday, Aria S. ed. The Black Girlhood Studies Collection. Women’s Press, CSP (2019).

Jones, Feminista. “For CaShwawn Thompson, Black Girl Magic Was Always the Truth,” Beacon Broadside (2019). https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2019/02/for-cashawn-thompson-black-girl-magic-was-always-the-truth.html

Montañez, Yasmín Flores. Action Comics #1054, 1:25 Variant Cover. DC Comics (2023).

Stringfield, Ravynn. “How Eve L. Ewing Makes Her Stories Fly,” Catapult Magazine, May 19, 2021. https://catapult.co/dont-write-alone/stories/interview-with-dr-eve-ewing-by-ravynn-stringfield

#Ravynn K. Stringfield #feature #comics #Ironheart (comic-book series)#Action Comics (comic-book series)#Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)#film

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