#not assumptions that are based in bigoted stereotypes

[lollytea]

I am just as nitpicky as anybody else when it comes to characters I'm obsessed with. But I don't find people who mischaracterize them nearly as annoying as people who write condescending posts about others who mischaracterize them which seem more motivated by feeding their own superiority complex about Being The One Person to Understand Mr Blorbo rather than giving any constructive advice.

[dallasgallant]

“Ain’t nobody call the Fuzz in this neighborhood cause they know better!”

This line sits with me as a very telling one that often goes overlooked, as it’s lost in the blur of energy before the rumble. Now most of this is going to be from existing knowledge but it did prompt me to dig into poor communities a bit more. The line is said differently between the Book and the movie but both are said within the idea of pride and community— when they’re caught up in the high of before a rumble, all the energy close to bursting out of them- repping their kind and going on this spree of yelling stereotypes and taking ownership. In the movie Steve’s much more happy and hyped as he yells it— in the book he also says it to correct Darry but in a more exact tone.

In a surprise to no one cops aren’t friends to poor communities. Economically poor, crime heavy communities tend to be over policed and often met with force, brutality etc. We know the boys get hauled in a lot, sometimes just for the assumption they did something. Cops pick out, they stereotype and often target within the neighborhood.

There’s a social aspect as well that’s not so direct to do with police action and that is the social isolation. Lack of resources, mistreatment and disapproval from those outside creates strong communities that further isolate. In a lot of ways it’s a helpful thing, mitigating the effects of poverty by having a social net and trust. A detail I like is that Darry seems to be a part of a phone tree when Pony was late the first time (not exclusive to poor areas but a great example of having networks.) People help each other out “help their own” building networks. A lot of work is under the table or can be barter based - questionable legality of work, building/fixing things, way of general running of life. Perception of law is different.

This isn’t to say everyone in the neighborhood has broken the law at some point but it’s likely a lot have at least something of questionable legality or more likely have family members who are greasers, criminals etc but will protect them. All of the guys instantly flock to go help Dally after he robbed the store and have been stated to hide and protect the guys whenever they do something like this. It comes back to the “help/protect your own” … no one in the neighborhood is calling the cops because they know what will happen if they do. A family member or friend might be taken in, potential brutality, people coming in and uprooting the way you live your life because it’s “abnormal” etc etc etc.

If someone does call the cops who do you think they’re going to help? A bunch of no good, greasy hoods or the nice boys from the other side of town with their khakis and new cars and clothes? It was probably a greaser who threw the first punch too… doesn’t matter their side of town or what its over, or if some Soc is standing over some bleeding greaser kid. It’s systemic. (An aside but this is also why it drives me nuts people would assume the boys to be bigots because they’re … lower class in the 60s… let’s do some introspection there. Added to the fact that, there’s a lot of overlap with racial issues, their community would likely be FAR more integrated than the west or even rest of the town. Not that their wouldn’t be ignorance but the assumption— that’s not the point of this post but a pet peeve of mine)

Anyways, the Outsiders often gets reduced to a simplistic “use vs them” of just Greaser vs prep like it’s one of the beach movies they watch. When in reality it’s actually a lot to do with class and societal expectations/conditioning.

—

Papers if interested Here and here

Either for general interest or potentially helping with writing. Ones an older study (which skimming and certain sections I found interesting), the other IS Wikipedia but it’s for the general idea

[derseprinceoftbd]

I think the most interesting thing in the whole world is application of DOTA to times where the Author's journey and nature is supposedly important. Kit Conner as Nick, whoever that is-what changed? To one who watches without knowledge, what will they assume of all that? Some say Nabokov had the right to write Lolita due to his experiences-but the reality of that theory shows little actual support! So does anything change there? Muir, who was inspired by him, her stories so personal to her-I knew she was a lesbian dealing with great trauma even before I opened Gideon, but not of her schizophrenia, and so latched onto and understood the personal elements of Nona, so close to Nabokov-but thought Harrow, at one point, was being revealed as "not actually schizophrenic" as a plot element, until I was told otherwise. Art Spiegelman had to declare the unsympathetic greed of his own Jewish father was reality. The themes of the Matrix; have they changed with the directors? Were they always there? And do those line up necessarily with the assumptions of viewers with lenses of queer theory, then versus now?

This fascinates me, it really does. Where does the right to risk offense derive? What is the line between an unusual, perhaps stereotypical, depiction, as personal versus bigoted? Is there a duty to assume? To research? To inform? Does it change if you assume the blind viewer will take offense, or will assume the offensive fine and personal?

Pierre Menard was no Spaniard; how could he say his depiction of the nation's history was accurate, and not merely based in stereotypes?

[loki-zen]

re: hair loss, at what point as a man should you just shave it? I have/had long wavy Matthew McConaugh-hair, and I’m decently emotionally invested in the compliments I used to get. Outside of wanting to look good to women I don’t super care though, that and that my dad always wanted to grow his hair long but it didn’t work out for him, so I’m kinda doing it for both of us.

anyway, I’m on the road to approaching the “woody harrelson at the beginning of Natural Born Killers” hairline, and it’s a struggle. Been on finasteride for like 8 months, and I’m pretty sure it’s making me depressed, plus it does weird stuff to your cum, which is both gross and frightening in its implications. I had good results with rogaine, should probably start that again, regardless of what I do.

At what point does a man become sexier with the buzz cut a la Jason Statham, every Russian guy, etc?

it’s also frustrating because there’s so many memes out there about “creepy balding guys”, like it’s just this shorthand for being a coomer or a serial sexual harasser or what have you. I could live with “ugly balding guys”, there have been times in my life when I was hot and times I was ugly, I’m able to cope with that. But creepy just really sucks. I had a lot of female friends in college, and some women I’m very close to were victims of sexual violence, and so I’m probably hyper-sensitive and afraid of being perceived as predatory in any way. It’s good that I’m aware of the problems, but sometimes I wish I was more ignorant, it’d make it a lot less scary to strike up conversations with new people if I wasn’t crushingly aware of how often women are uncomfortable with men they’ve never met.

(I’m not morlock-Holmes, but I think we have some of the same dating issues)

So first off, it is obviously wrong and bigoted to make assumptions about someone's behaviour or intentions based on what they look like unless we're talking about something very specific and intentional like 'they have nazi tattoos'. If it helps any (I'm not sure it does) I don't think that these people necessarily see a balding guy and think that's a sexual predator so much as they are doing that very schoolyard thing of "we don't like this kind of people (sexual predators) and so we're going to stereotype them as being something we think is unattractive" (you see similar things with fatness and 'neckbeards').

If it is the women you actually know who say these sorts of things (that wasn't clear), it literally might not occur to them that they're making you feel this way because it's just a general-purpose insult to them that's become detached from the actual notion of a person they might know and like who happens to be male and balding.

This sort of talk is actually, if anything, dangerous to potential victims of sexual violence, because the idea that you can somehow spot Creepy Guys and they definitely look different to anyone else will tend to help conventionally attractive guys get away with it!

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about the hair thing. Lots of guys do look cute with a buzzcut, and it is common (but not universal) in the dominant Anglosphere culture for people to find this more attractive than even very nice hair when that hair has visible male-pattern balding going on. I confess I do have this reaction myself sometimes, but I also find that the more I get to know people the more I see the nicer hair and the less I see the "but it's balding" part, but there are levels that will always look a bit odd to me (eg the shakespeare cut). Which, yknow, isn't actually a reason why people should change their hair, though I imagine you're asking because being attractive to other people is important to you.

Your female irl friends are perhaps best-placed to approximate the sort of views that predominate among the sort of women you're likely to be trying to date, and there are now decent AI tools to give you an idea of what you might look with different hairstyles - maybe try one out, see what you think and ask their advice.

Oh, also, in my personal opinion if your hair is fairly voluminous and past shoulder length you can get away with a receding hairline a lot longer - same with certain careful short but long on top looks, although they can be more fiddly.

[heartshapedcaskett]

Follow-up about why I dislike Ethel Cain tiktok fans: the other point I wanted to make in regards to stereotyping southerners was that I hate that audio that is like “are you wearing that (camo jacket) in a Ethel Cain vinyl way or in a conservative way?” I detest this audio because it condemns the aesthetics of the rural working class mainly southern working class. I constantly see these fans dressed in camo and cowboy boots talking about how they aren’t “rednecks” but instead Daughters of Cain. I’m all for reclamation of rural/southern aesthetics as a queer person. I indulge in this practice as well. However, the example I provided assumes that all southerners can be typecasted as ignorant and categorized as bigots based upon the way they dress.

It gives people the solace of seeing a blue collar worker in public and condemning them to assumptions that they are right-wing bigots cause they choose to wear camo, boots, americana, Marlboro apparel, or distressed work clothes.

[aphverse-confessions]

piggybacking off of the other anon as someone who has watched all of mys.

jesson actually does attempt to improve upon her treatment of the werewolves as a minority group in later seasons. it's actually a pretty major theme post-s3 (mostly bc aaron is a openly a werewolf) and you can tell that jess was actually taking it seriously. s5 aph's major arc is recognizing how her assumptions aboht their culture were harmful and actively trying to be the werewolf equivalent of anti-racist.

BUT it absolutely isn't perfect and it does that fantasy racism thing where it views a predator/prey dynamic through the lense of irl oppression.

like, every ww is a descendant of a victim of the ultima's eyes, an extremely dangerous and potentially fatal curse for those affected. literally every ultima we meet has a kill count.

the audience is repeatedly lectured about how its wrong to view ww as dangerous and its a harmful stereotype. but also ww are canonically biologically superior to humans in nearly every way and s6 goes out of its way to show how much stronger and faster aph is just from turning.

katelyn distrusts werewolves because back in high-school, the alpha ww and his ww supremacist goons pummeled her little brother into a coma and sent his ass to the hospital for several months bc kacey tried standing up for aph when he heard that the group was plotting to physically harm her. katelyn is treated like an irrational bigot for her views by everyone she knows, who also went to the same high-school and should be aware of what happened.

there's a really on the nose comparison to the civil rights movement in this one episode where aaron and his pack are denied entry into a restaurant at starlight. the reason for the ban is due to repeated incidents of rowdy wws breaking glass and getting into fights and generally posing a physical threat to customer safety. the majority of the pack have participated in the breaking of glass on screen. they are surprised and appaled by this explanation.

sylvana, certified race fetished and latina woman, directly compares aph turning into a werewolf to cultural appropriation of latin americans. while i recognize jess is, herself, latina, and is entitled to make this metaphor based on her life experiences, however considering i have been latine since i was concieved, I'm entitled to say that it is a nonsense comparison. it is made worse by the reveal that aph has secretly been half werewolf this whole time and sylvanna is the only person who knew and said nothing.

(also in retrospect having a whole episode ehete aph wears fake ww ears and tail in her underwear for fetish reasons is yikes)

at one point in fcu zane calls aph a furry and she reacts like he just called her a slur. idk if its an anti-ww slur (at this point in the story both parties think aph is human) or a slur against people who fetishize wws, but the furslur exists and you have to know about it.

.

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

Have you noticed this trend of feminist women who generally don't hang out in TERF spaces defending conservatives? Like TERFs tend to think that femininity is oppressive, but these seem to think that femininity is under attack. They call themselves feminists, just like TERFs do, and they defend conservatives, just like TERFs do, but they come at it from a different angle.

I see this type of feminist so much on baby name websites. It's honestly mind-boggling how much the feminist cis moms on there keep missing the point of debates and derailing it to the point where they call normal people misogynist for basically nothing, while letting obvious sexists slink by. Actually I will use this as an example because I think it shows just how oblivious they are to gender essentialism. An average argument will go something like this:

Tradmomma: "My neighbour named her daughter Elliot Rebecca. Can you believe! A girl with a boy name! Horrible! Girls all want to be feminine and these parents are forcing masculinity on their baby!"

Divinemotherhood: "I know, they're trying to erase gender! My own husband suggested we name out son Evelyn after his grandfather, but no son of mine is going to have a sissy name. Thankfully I convinced my hubby and we named our baby Daniel."

Blueylover: "Idk, I like some boy names on girls. Elliot is a lovely choice. And there's good feminine nicknames too if she ends up girly, like Ellie!"

Allison1987: "Uh, I can't belive you, Blueylover! People like you who only like boy names on girls and not girl names on boys are the worst kind of sexist! Why can't you appreciate feminity? I bet you just give your daughters boy names because you want them to be CEOs one day, as if my daughter can't do the same with a girls' name! I want to bestow my daughters with names filled with women's history, so they have female rolemodels who share their name!

[Five people proceed to have a lengthy but shallow discussion about how it's more common to give girls boy names than the other way around (which could be interesting except the whole argument is too shallow to make any real points), and how that means that nobody values feminine women anymore. Blueylover is painted as a horrible misogynist, while Tradmomma and Divinemotherhood get completely forgotten. Someone asserts that their daughter, Annabella Ballerina Pink Princess, has a good, versital name that fits any type of personality she might have as an adult, and people agree that it forces fewer gender norms than Elliot Rebecca does. Blueylover leaves the forum and everyone pats themselves on the back for having cleared the space from people who disrespect women.]

There's so many of these types of "defend femininity at all costs" feminsts around me and I feel like I'm going insane. A conservative will call me a slur for being a (non-passing) trans man, and then one of these feminists will show up right after and say that my identity as a trans man is valid, but since I chose to dress like an average guy instead of wearing dresses and stuff, it means I'm disrespecting femininity so I'm sexist and deserved the bad treatment anyway. No shade towards femininity itself, but it's not for me, and it's weird that supposed feminists don't think I should be allowed to avoid it even after a lifetime of being forced into it.

Have you also noticed this type of feminist? I feel like there's more of them since the pandemic started. What's your take?

Yeah people like that give a bad name to feminism. It’s always the mothers commenting on other people’s children too and making assumptions about infants based on nothing but their biology.

This is why I have my own unique relationship with feminism and rarely go into solely feminist spaces. They’re way too often, in my experience, overrun with white, cishet, stereotypically feminine mothers with bigoted views, who think their way is the only way and anyone who disagrees just hates them because they’re women.

[kurtmustdie]

I think stereotyping a whole group of people is incredibly dangerous. Me thinks. I think it’s dangerous to see all bigots or people on the right as overt, loud, gun toting asshole (for the most part) Americans. Me thinky. I think it’s dangerous to treat all people on the left as safe. I thinky-winky. I think we should look at things with more nuance than “[insert group]? Oh they’re all just [insert stereotype].” Because that’s a dangerous way of thinking. I think. Me thinks. Me thinking.

Assumptions based on preconceived notions about any group isn’t good, basically.

[angremlin]

People have got to learn that the only way for a neural network trained on data to not be a bigot is for the data it's trained on to not be bigoted! And if you train it on everything you can scrape together, guess what? There's a lot of bigotry! And on top of that, AI doesn't actually understand anything or care what you actually want, it loves shortcuts, if it can find one feature it can just put in every image to make the heuristic say 'yes this shows [x]' it will do that as much as possible - you might notice this is basically the definition of a stereotype and the fundamental structure of racialization. It's not JUST bigotry either, ALL of the assumptions and stereotypes we have about people and objects make it in. There was a commercial AI marketed to HR people that purported to judge a person's intelligence based on body language and expressions during video interviews. Researchers tore into this thing and made a number of interesting discoveries: 1) It was racist - it generally preferred whites and asians because that's what it had been shown as smart people 2) It was ableist and xenophobic - people who do not emote as much (like many autistic people) or in the same ways as neurotypical Americans (neurodivergent people or people from other cultures) were generally rated lower 3) It can't possibly know what a person even IS, so it was judging people based on external factors the developers didn't even know about. They showed it the same video twice but edited a bookshelf into the background of one, and the one with the bookshelf was rated higher Neural networks are not "objective", they just very efficiently automate bias. Of course please don't forget that there ARE good uses for AI - someone made one that was really good at identifying which kinds of bread someone was buying to speed up checkouts, and other researchers went "hmm" and then modified that AI to be really good at identifying CANCER CELLS in heterogenous samples. The problem is that now people have a hammer and want everything to be a nail.

This is why it is so important to be critical and double check everything you generate using image generators and text-based AI.

[literally-tired-of-this]

8) I taught myself that introversion and extroversion aren't even 'personality' traits, they just determine how people have to recharge their batteries. The former makes you need peace and quiet, and the latter makes you need others' presences, others' voices, others' ideas. That's it.

I'm an 'outgoing', or ExtrOVeRteD introvert. You see me go wild with the people I'm comfortable with. You see me like that, and it doesn't even cross your mind that I could be an introvert, if you're still having the assumption they're 'personality' traits. I'm confident. I will stand up for myself and I know I can hold my own, despite whatever my rivals would think as they're wading in their own denial and delusions. I would probably enjoy activities like public speaking or whatever! And I still need hours and days to recover from physical events. I still need to sleep and draw and listen to songs in the privacy of my room. I still prefer straight-to-the-point written messages over energy-wasting, late-night meetings. I still cope better with texting my closest, most intimate friends and partners, as opposed to calling or meeting up with them! I love myself.

And then there could be extroverts out there that are loud but insecure! Maybe they don't want to perform in public because they're too anxious about making what they think are mistakes! Maybe they talk to a lot of people but everyone merely tolerates them and secretly wishes they were gone!

The point is, you can be confident and be EITHER an introvert or an extrovert. You can be a bigot and be EITHER an introvert or an extrovert. You could be adored and be EITHER an introvert or an extrovert. You could be anything at all and be EITHER an introvert or an extrovert. You know what YOU love and how to best manage the activities and connections in your life. Now stop stereotyping people based on silly billy labels 🤓

[maxwell-grant]

Charlie Chan. Who is fascinating, because he was created explictly to be an anti-Yellow Peril character. Unlike most Chinese characters of the time, he's both intelligent, physically capable, and unambiguously heroic. In the novels, he's simultaneously proud of being Chinese AND proud of being an American citizen. He gives orders and instructions to white people, and the narrative treats this as perfectly normal and acceptable. There's a bit in the first book, when an attempt to trap the..(1/2)

(cont'd)There's a bit in the first book where an attempt to trap the protagonist fails, because a message supposedly from Charlie clearly isn't because Charlie's English isn't broken, it's like poetry. Etc. The movies made him more stereotypical, & played by white actors in yellowface, but still, he's a heroic Chinese man, who is as capable and patriotic as any white man. Nowadays, he's thought of as racist caricature. Which he is, but still, it makes one think.

I'm not nearly as acquainted with Charlie Chan as you are (and I definitely suspected he was less racist in the original books because that's nearly always the norm when it comes to pulp characters) but yeah, that "Which he is" is forever going to be the most unfortunate and saddest part of it all when it comes to Charlie Chan. For all the virtues that can be bestowed on Charlie Chan, for everything great that the character had going for him and inspired, the fact that the least offensive image of the character I could find to put here for illustration's sake is from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon kinda exemplifies the big elephant in the room when it comes to Charlie.

Charlie Chan is a great example of two things: One is the way progress is never a fixed quantity and often what was progressive and forward-thinking in it's time can become something outdated and backwards and downright offensive given enough time, and the 2nd is my constant stressing that this is all the more incentive to reclaim the pulps and either highlight or fix aspects of them, instead of dismissing every aspect of them based on the preconception that everything about it's history is unforgivably bigoted and must be handled with the nuance of a sledgehammer.

I stress time and time again the need to highlight and understand the prejudices that went into pulps, because either ignoring them or wielding them as a weapon to attack them does no favors to anyone. The pulps weren't exceptionally bigoted - look at literally any medium in it's time period and you'll find bigotry and prejudice and hatred - and they were exceptional in the number of POC heroes and heroines. Pulps were a medium of experimentation and cheap entertainment that gave way to much, much more varied kinds of protagonists than were permitted in films, serials, novels, comics and radio serials of the day. Imagine if no one was allowed to bring up and discuss superheroes without mentioning the Superman Slap-a-Jap posters or the Captain Marvel story so horrifingly racist it was recounted by an American ambassador after it deeply offended a friend's son and a major influence on the 1950s anti-comic trials. "Pulp fiction had deeply, unforgivingly racist depictions that deserve intense scrutiny and cannot be ignored" and "Pulp fiction was significantly ahead of every other medium at the time in regards to authors and editors striving to publish stories about heroic POCs, this cannot be dismissed and is something that needs to be perpetuated" are not exclusive facts. "A product of it's time" is not an excuse and never was, but it's a fact nevertheless.

Every time someone speaks favorably of Charlie Chan in any capacity, they have to start with a long preface of everything positive that the character had going for him. Yes, he's a deliberate subversion of the Yellow Peril, he's a heroic protagonist, he's plump and good-natured and humorous but far from a joke, he's friendly and pleasant and well-educated and wise, he's a good dad and family man and a terrifically sharp detective who's so good at his job he gets called to solve crimes all over the world, and none of these traits are apparent to people who have to google the character and repeteadly see a white man in awful make-up into every single image of the character, who watch the movies and cringe at the broken English. It's hardly relevant in the face of all the Asian-American critics who acknowledge the character's virtues but rightfully point out that this fortune-cookie spouting caricature, acting subservient to whites and whose virtues are based around his proximity to a white American ideal, doesn't represent them and they shouldn't pretend it does.

Which isn't to say that to like Charlie Chan is "wrong", a lot of East Asians love Charlie and the character's obviously got fans in Asian Americans. It's a complicated subject and I obviously cannot begin to vouch in a subject so heavily based around perceptions I cannot experience. And I deeply detest the idea of speaking for others on their particular experiences on this kind of matter, which is something Americans do a lot everytime they talk about representation in media.

So instead, I'm going to tackle this on a roundabout manner by going on an unrelated tangent to bring up an example of representation that isn't quite representative of what it's supposed to be, has a lot of issues that have been dissected by critics among the people it was supposed to represent, and none of that stopped the character from being popular and beloved and from being claimed anyway. And it's a Brazilian fighting game character, which means it's completely within my ballpark.

Yeah, obviously Blanka doesn't look like anyone who lives in Brazil (whatever resemblance he bears to redheaded jungle protectors of Brazilian folklore is purely accidental). Obviously neither Jimmy nor Blanka are Brazilian names or even exist in the Portuguese lexicon. Obviously there are issues in Street Fighter's approach to representation across the board, sure, and I'd actually say Laura is much worse than Blanka in that regard (again, my opinion, obviously not universal), but the fact remains that Blanka is and has always been pretty controversial. Obviously there's Brazilians who took offense to Blanka and they weren't wrong to do so, and I obviously do not speak for everyone here, that goes without saying.

Obviously the idea that Brazil's major representative in a global cast of characters, the first big name Brazilian character in videogames, is going to be a freakish jungle monster who roars and bites faces has problems, as is the fact that all the others get to be regular people representing fighting styles from their countries while Blanka doesn't. None of the Brazilian SF characters represent Capoeira, which is kinda shitty to be honest. And there's a whole stereotype of Brazil as a backwards land of beasts and savages that Blanka's creation played into. There's no shortage of ground to criticize Blanka's representation and Ono actually apologized in an interview once, but then he learned one teensy little thing:

Street Fighter is very popular on Brazil. Would you like to leave a message to the fans from there?

"Ono: Yes, I'm aware. At the time of Street Fighter II a lot of the arcade machines produced went there, so I knew we had lots of fans there. A message to Brazilians, well, I'd like to apologize. I know Blanka's a weird character and I don't want any Brazilian to feel uncomfortable with that.

When Blanka was conceived, we knew there were forests in Brazil, and so we thought he could look like that. I was actually kinda nervous knowing I'd meet Brazilian journalists. Still, this is the first Street Fighter in ten years, so we'd like all fans to play, including Brazilians, which are many.

Thanks. Well, but you should know that Brazilians love Blanka

"Ono: Ah, good! I was scared of getting beat up if I ever went to São Paulo! (laughs)"

(That's from a 2012 tv special called The Greatest Brazilian of All Time where over a million viewers voted to elect whoever they wanted, and Blanka was going to win. He was polling ahead of Aryton Senna and PELÉ, fucking Pelé, yes this happened. He wasn't even disqualified for being a cartoon character, it was an open poll, he was disqualified due to canon stating he had been born in Thailand, which I think may have been retconned since then. Again, A MILLION BRAZILLIANS voted for this contest, and Blanka was going to win.)

Blanka is great and sweet and lovable, he made the best out of the incredible shitty hands fate dealt him and became a cool and strong green man who shoots lightning and flies, a self-taught warrior who rides whales and planes to fighting tournaments, and he loves his mom and friends and kicks ass and after he's done he dances in joy and gives the kids of his village piggyback rides, and Brazil loves him. He doesn't represent any existing person or fighting style, he's rooted in a negative stereotype and incorrect assumptions, he's not even really Brazilian, and he's our boy and nobody can take him away from us.

No criticism of Blanka, no matter how in-depth or even right it is, is ever going to affect that, because regardless of what was wrong or misguided and offensive about him, we claimed him and loved him so throughly that Capcom kept playing up Brazilian representation in every subsequent game post Alpha, and because of Blanka's impact and reception in such a big game, Brazilian characters have become a staple of fighting games, and that's how we got much more diverse representatives in those games. Fighting games have more Brazilian representation than LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE on media not produced here. It started as BAD representation, with way less thought put into it than Charlie Chan, and it still mattered to a lot of Brazilians who reclaimed it and made it better than it was ever intended to be, and as a response to it, it gradually became better. 

Progress is not a fixed quantity, it's an uphill battle, and it's not unwinnable. Everything's gotta start somewhere.

The Good Asian is a ongoing comic that I think does the best job I've seen yet of handling an Asian American detective protagonist, which is not really a high bar in the first place, and more to the point, The Good Asian illustrates the 2nd part: the reclaiming. The Good Asian deals a lot with the realities that a 1930s Asian-American detective would run into, the strained circumstances and relationships between said character and the world around him, because it's born from an author who took a look at Charlie Chan and Mr Moto and the like and recognized the potential in those stories that could not be fulfilled in it's time period by the people writing said stories. 

The Good Asian pays little reverence to Charlie Chan, but it acknowledges that it cannot exist without Charlie Chan, and it reclaims the Charlie Chan premise at the hands of someone more adequately equipped to tell a gripping story that goes places none of Charlie's contemporaries would ever go. Regardless of how good or bad of representation Charlie Chan was, Charlie Chan mattered and was beloved and inspired a better example for others to improve on or rebel against.

I desperately wish that I could google Charlie Chan without having to look at a guy in yellowface, and the ONLY way that's going to happen is if the character ever gets meaningfully brought back and reclaimed for good by people who can meaningfully tackle the character and present him as he should have always been presented.

And then, I imagine it would be a lot easier to show people on how swell Charlie really is. A true, positive role model and hero, who no longer has to look like a gross cartoon to be able to exist at all. Who can finally be what he was always meant to be, and always was deep down.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

What's biphobia? Isn't that just watered down homophobia? Don't bi people have it slightly easier since they can "pass" as straight if they want to?

As a bi person who writes about bi issues, I get this question a lot. The answer, in short, is no. Biphobia is not just "watered down homophobia". To say so is... you guessed it... biphobic.

Biphobia is related to the term homophobia, in the sense that both refer to fear-based bigotry toward non-straight people, but they are not synonyms. Homophobia, in modern usage, has come to refer not only to stigma against gay people but against same sex relationships in general (which does include bi people). Bi people, who often are in same sex relationships, are thus victims of homophobic bigotry all the time. Biphobia, however, is a term that was coined by bisexual activists to describe specific kinds of bigotry unique to the bisexual experience.

This means bi people can be victims of homophobia AND biphobia. Bi folks experience the same homophobic insults and attacks, the same risk of being disowned by our parents, fired from our jobs, or even threatened with violence for not being expressing our attraction to the same gender. In addition to all of this, society also subjects us to additional stigmas that are unique to bisexuality. Here are a few;

Bi people can experience discrimination from WITHIN the LGBT community.

When gay people come out, they can at least seek the safe space of LGBT circles, but bi people are often ridiculed and made to feel unwelcome even within LGBT spaces. This is due to biphobic attitudes held, unfortunately, even by some gay people. It's a very common (and sad) story. Bi people reach out to "Lesbian and Gay centers" or to "Gay/ Straight alliances", only to be told they don't "qualify" or worse yet - that they are in denial or lying about their sexuality. Stop to think for a minute how devastating it could be for a person to finally get up the courage to come out and be honest about their sexual orientation - only to be rejected by the very communities that claim to be safe spaces for such people.

Bi people can be rejected by potential partners SIMPLY due to our sexual orientation.

Straight and gay people, of course, experience romantic rejection as well. But straight people aren't turned down by potential partners of the opposite sex simply for being straight. Similarly, gay people aren't turned down by partners of the same sex simply for being gay. It is all too common for bi people to be rejected by partners of either sex simply because we are bi. For a lot of people, bisexuality is a deal breaker when it comes to dating. This can be due to false and unfair stereotypes about bi people being confused or disloyal, or it can even be because some claim to find bi people "gross".

I myself have had both men and women turn me down as a potential mate simply because they were icked out by the thought of me having had sexual relations with one or another sex in the past. That is so ridiculous. I mean, even if women aren't you thing, guys, it's not like I haven't showered since. And ladies, just the fact that I've been with fellas doesn't mean I'm any "less of a man". Statements like this, made bluntly to a first date's face, are beyond the pale. If someone is truly this bigoted, I sure wish they'd be polite, keep it to themselves, and do the fade away like a normal civilized person.

Bi people have to come out over and over and OVER again, throughout our entire lives.

This is another problem unique to biphobia, one to which gay folks cannot relate. When a bi person comes out, society still doubts us. Or worse, ignores us. We are treated as if we are still in the closet, and as if we are just waiting to get up the courage to come out "all the way". When I date a girl, people ask me why I'm straight again. When I date a guy, people ask me if this means I'm gay now. Let me save everyone some time: sexuality doesn't work that way. I'm still bi no matter whom I'm dating, or even if I'm single. Bi. Still bi. Always bi. Simple as that.

So, what can you do to be more supportive of bi people? Simple. If you ever see a bi person being ridiculed or excluded in an LGBT center or community, please speak up in defense of the bi person. This includes being teased or pushed to finally admit that they are gay. Even the kind words of one person can make a huge difference.

Also, if you ever go on a date with a bi person, please don't assume that our sexual orientation disqualifies us. Take the time to get to know us; you might like us.

And lastly - if a friend or family member comes out as bi, please don't force them back in the closet every other week with assumptions about their "true" sexuality. It's true that some people are confused, but that doesn't mean every bi person is confused. And with that kind of pressure, no wonder so many bi folks give up and accept the monosexual labels straight or gay. Basically, just understand that bisexuality is a real orientation and that bi people are a diverse group who deserve to be judged for their character - not for their orientation - just like everyone else.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Conservatism in Brandon Sanderson’s Writings; or, Reflections on Revolution in the Cosmere

I’ve only read The Stormlight Archive and Warbreaker, so this is based on an incomplete picture, but the combination of those two have given me an impression of Sanderson’s ideas on social structures, appropriate and inappropriate responses to institutional injustice, and revolution. These ideas strike me as being essentially conservative; I’m tempted to say Burkean (hence my alternate title), but I don’t know Burke’s writings well enough to be sure if that’s correct.

To be clear: this is not a ‘call-out’ post. I personally disagree with some of Sanderson’s themes, but I’m trying to understand, engage with, and debate them, not flatly condemn them.

My interpretations here are primarily based on two storylines: Warbreaker, and Kaladin and Moash’s arcs in Words of Radiance. Both of these two storylines, and their resolutions, seem grounded in the following political ideas:

1) Injustice and cruelty are the result of bad, or flawed, people; not of bad systems. And people can change. The solution to a system that seems unjust is to improve the people within it, not to tear it down.

2) Those who seek revolution are basically self-serving and vengeful, not interested in the good of others or that of society.

3) Radicals and those who seek revolution have a blinkered political perspective, flattening societies and people into stereotypes rather than acknowledging their complexity.

1. People, not systems

For the first point: both Alethkar and the world of Warbreaker have systems that are fundamentally founded on entrenched and institutionalized inequality. In Alethkar it is the division between lighteyes and darkeyes (and the different ranks thereof). In Warbreaker it is the position of Returned, who can only exist by daily taking life-force/spirit from others - typically from the poor. Nonetheless, the narrative justifies the maintenance of both systems, primarily on the basis that the ruling classes contain good people (e.g. Dalinar, Adolin; Siri, Susebron, Lightsong); one of the major themes in TWOK and WOR revolves around forcing Kaladin to recognize that some lighteyes are good, and others, like Elhokar, have the desire and capacity to improve.

The basic political conflict is, to me, expressed by two lines following Kaladin’s (second) defeat of a Shardbearer. The first is Dalinar’s, when he states what Kaladin should do about institutionalized discrimination against darkeyes: “You want to change that?...Be the kind of man that others admire, whether they be lighteyed or dark...That will change the world.” This fundamentally rubs me the wrong way - it’s the Booker T. Washington theory of how to address racial inequality, and history has proven time and time and time again that it doesn’t work. If Kaladin did that, people would say, “Wow, that Kaladin, what an unusually exceptional darkeyes!” and continue to treat the rest of darkeyes just the same.

The second line is Kaladin’s when he refuses the shardblade that would make him lighteyed: “I don’t want my life to change because I’ve become a lighteyes. I want the lives of people like me...like I am now...to change.” This, I completely agree with - but later events would suggest the narrative may not. (And the fact that Kaladin doesn’t used his increased status in later books to push for change on this front frustrates me.)

To give another example: when Sadeas treats bridgemen as cannon fodder and their lives as utterly disposable, the problem is treated as being that Sadeas is a bad person (and facing certai. tactical constraints) - not the fact that Sadeas and the other brightlords has the power to treat darkeyes’ lives as disposable in the first place. When Kaladin is imprisoned for challenging Amaram to a duel - in effect, imprisoned for being darkeyed, since a high-nahn lighteyes would not have been punished for issuing such a challenge - this is treated as Kaladin’s fault, not the fault of a system that treats him as having fundamentally less worth than Amaram.

There’s no focus in the books on getting rid of the unjust system - by any means, violent or non-violent, bottom-up or top-down - just on having the ruling class become better people, which is expected to alleviate some problems without fundamentally altering the social structure.

2. Revolutionaries are selfish

The most open expression of this idea is in TWOK, where Moash says outright that he’d like to keep the same system but flipped, with darkeyes on the top and lighteyes on the bottom. Vivenna’s endeavours towards revolution are also portrayed as driven by bigotry against Hallandran culture. And Kalladin’s desire to remove Elhokar is shown as driven by a desire for revenge, with any larger goals or motives being mere rationalization. Likewise, the main antagonist of Warbreaker is shown as having destructive, not constructive goals.

While this is ceratinly true of some revolutionary movements, in Sanderson’s works it is shown as invariably true, with no revolutionary characters being driven by genuine justice or the desire to improve people’s lives. This provides a stark contrast with the number of virtuous characters who are shown depicting or upholding the existing social systems.

3. Radicals see society in shallow and stereotypical terms

This is a big part of the characterization of both Vivenna and Kaladin. For Vivenna, the main example is that she initially sees her people - from a largely rural nation - as fundamentally virtuous, and is horrified by the ‘criminals’ they have to live among in the slum. When she’s made to see that those ‘criminals’ are in fact members of her people, she sees them as victims tragically corrupted by the terrible (urban) culture they’ve immigrated to. She generalizes; she doesn’t want to recognize the fact that some of her people prefer life in the city - despite marginalization and poverty - to life in their country of birth, and wouldn’t want to return. She spends most of the book being gradually forced to break down her stereotypes of her culture as good and Hallandran society as corrupt.

Kaladin, for his part, continually stereotypes lighteyes. In his youth, it’s a kind of internalized caste-ism - he’s constantly disappointed and mistreated by the lighteyes around him, and he keeps on thinking that the people doing it aren’t ‘real’ lighteyes, ‘real’ lighteyes are noble and honorable and he’ll get to fight for one someday. After being betrayed one too many times, he switches to thinking that all lighteyes, invariably, are corrupt, exploitative and evil; it takes a lot to get him to trust Dalinar, and for well after that he continues stereotyping every lighteyes he meets (Adolin, Renarin, Shallan) as spoiled and uncaring even after evidence to the contrary. Even in Oathbringer stereotypes are his default reaction to lighteyes he doesn’t know. He also tends to ignore the fact of major differences in variations in status and life with the two main castes, by nahn and dahn. It’s treated as one of his more persistent character flaws, and contrasted with the more open and merit-based attitudes of the main lighteyed characters.

I’m not really comfortable with this portrayal. Kaladin’s entire life, and everything he’s suffered, have been defined and determined by being lighteyes. He doesn’t have the luxury of being ‘eye-colour-blind’ . Does he make invalid assumptions? Yes, especially about Shallan. But Kaladin thinking of Adolin as a spoiled brat and Adolin calling Kaladin ‘bridgeboy’ are not the same kind of thing; calling someone from a discriminated-against group (who is an adult of about your age) ‘boy’ has implications that both the author and reader are aware of; it is, intentionally or not, an expression of power and superiority, and it is quite justified that it would guve Kaladin a negative impression of Adolin! More broadly, mistrusting lighteyes is basically a trauma-induced defense mechanism for Kaladin, and understandable given what he’s been through. Adolin’s thinking, early in Words of Radiance, that “he was all for treating men with respect and honor regardless of eye shade, but the Almighty had put some men in command and others beneath them; it was simply the natural order of things” is to my mind far more offensive than Kaladin’s personality hostility to lighteyes, but the only main character who the narrative treats/criticizes as being bigoted on the basis of eye color is Kaladin. Adolin’s treated by the narrative as a great person who Kaladin needs to be nicer to, and the aforementioned attitude is never addressed again; it’s not part of his character arc like Kaladin’s view of lighteyes is.

In short, Sanderson’s works are strongly grounded in the idea that the quality of a society is grounded in the personal goodness of its people (including the goodness of its ruling class) more than in the creation of just and equal social structures; and that attributting a society’s problems to structures that create and perpetuate injustice rather than to the choices of individuals is basically wrongheaded. I agree with him on the importance of individual goodness and choices; I disagree with his minimization of the need to dismantle unjust social structures.

[deathlygristly]

Yeah, when people start hating on my beloved South, I'm like, "Oh, okay, you're really racist and also classist. Good to know."

Like I like to say about non-Southern racist white "liberals" - they say they don't see color because they literally do not see color.

I think my county is red on that map? I know my city is only 45% white or so based on the most recent census data, and our mayor, who I think is a damn good mayor, is a black woman.

So bigots on the internet will insist that everyone here is an extremely classist stereotype of a bigoted uneducated fundamentalist hick, that there are no systemic reasons for this region to be poorer or less educated, and that it's perfectly fine for us all to die of Covid/suffer under authoritarian governments/get instantly killed by nuclear bombs while people in their region are left to deal with the fallout/etc.

I grew up in the same town that Andy Griffith grew up in and that he based Mayberry on, okay, and nothing in my experience of living here in the South, either in my hometown or in my current city, has ever reflected the nasty hateful stereotypes and assumptions I see online.

You don't become a decent person by hating other groups of people. Virtue isn't measured by who you hate. Designating an Other, projecting what you see as your negative qualities on to them, and loudly hating on them is of course a time honored human tradition, but it's not one of the best human qualities and it's something to work on if you see it in yourself.

So, hey, you know, maybe you've never been here and you've never been exposed to actual Southerners and you're just repeating what you hear in your "liberal" social groups. Okay, that's human, it's a thing humans do, it's not something to hate yourself forever about. But if you recognize that in yourself, you can make an effort to learn more about the South, to get to know people who live here, to work on exposing yourself to us so we aren't as easy to dismiss as a mass dehumanized Other.

You can stop those thoughts when they come up and go, no, okay, humans are human everywhere that humans live, all the land that humans have lived on has witnessed human atrocities, the land that someone lives on does not make them a good or bad person, and people who are currently living on a bit of land live in the systems and environments created by the actions of powerful people who used to live on that land, but they are not defined by the actions of powerful people who used to live there. They are also not defined by the actions of the most powerful people who happen to live in that same region now.

Also actually just last night my husband and I were eating at a local soul food restaurant, and on the TV in the restaurant there was a news story about new members of our local police force touring a civil rights museum, and someone who was involved in the program talking about how they hoped to send the message that okay, this is something you can change, something you can do better than your ancestors.

It's always possible to change and to work to be better than your ancestors.

U.S. Counties where the African American population is 25% or more

[madtomedgar]

a. i cannot begin to imagine how sick and angry i would be if someone shot my mom in a targeted hate crime and then i went online to see strangers insisting that she must have been a sex worker and/or traffiker and/or traffiking victim based on nothing but stereotypes and the deranged words of her murderer. so maybe think about who might be reading what you type before you hit post here.

b. the extremely racist and misogynistic assumption that asian women who work in massage therapy are sex workers, or that asian-owned businesses that offer massage also offer sex, is what got these women killed. repeating it as if it’s neutral is not helping. my mentor’s ex-wife almost got deported because a cop came into her salon and tried to buy sex. when she insisted they didn’t do that there and told him to leave, he called ICE. She got to stay in the country because she and my mentor got green-card married and is now a citizen and thriving, but these are the consequences for asian women of this assumption. Stop repeating it. It’s not supporting sex workers, and it sure as hell isn’t supporting Asian women or the victim’s families.

c. how do you imagine all the asian women who work in massage therapy and who have had close-calls with (white) men who assume they are sex workers and refuse to be told otherwise feel seeing self-styled “allies” regurgitate these racist lies and assumptions? how would you feel if, in response to the violent killing of people that very easily could have been you, people claiming to support you repeated the very same nasty stereotypes that had been weaponized against you and used to justify people hurting you and, in this particular case, someone killing your sisters, and insisting anyone who argued with them was the *real* bigot?? I guarantee you you would NOT feel supported!

[queermediastudies]

Putting the “Camp” Back in “Conversion Camp”

How But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) Makes a Comedy Out Of Conversion Therapy (And Whether or Not it Should)

Jamie Babbit’s cult classic, But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) paints a satirical portrait of what most queer youth fear most, conversion therapy. The titular cheerleader, Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is your typical all-American good girl. She goes to church, she never drinks, and she is even dating the high school football star. She is the kind of daughter that white, middle-class Americans dream of having, with one glaring exception. Megan is a lesbian. With the help of the self proclaimed “ex-gay” counselor Mike (RuPaul), her family and friends stage an intervention before shoving her off to True Directions, a conversion camp run by Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty). Once there, she realizes that she is in fact a lesbian, one who is in love with her fellow camper, Graham (Clea Duvall). 

The film is hilariously over the top, hence it’s description as a camp classic. Babbit uses exaggerated gender roles to illustrate the intersection between gender performativity and sexuality. Unfortunately this decision to poke fun at heteronormative stereotypes come at a cost. Even the gay characters are uncomfortable stereotypes, and the film ignores any questions of intersectionality. Moreover, Babbit does not always handle the horrors of conversion therapy with the kind of tact and grace such a subject demands. Essentially, while the film attempts to show the ridiculousness of gay conversion, its use of stereotypes and one-dimensional characters lashes back to harm the very people Babbit is speaking on behalf of. 

One of the most easily recognizable problems with But I’m a Cheerleader is its overwhelming whiteness. There are all of four characters of color, and only one of those characters is a woman. Jan (Katrina Philips), the one woman of color, is treated terribly in the film. She shows up with a unibrow, dark mustache, shaved head, and baggy clothes. When she introduces herself, she smiles and says, “I’m Jan, and I’m a softball player, and I’m a homosexual” (00:14:36). Essentially, Jan is a lot of outdated stereotypes about lesbians put into one character. The twist, though, is that Jan is actually straight.

This is a good example of how Babbit attempts to tell an important message, but she fails to see the harm she causes while doing it. Jan’s character is essentially Megan’s foil. She is everything a “dyke” is supposed to be, except that she is not attracted to girls. Megan, on the other hand is a lesbian that completely defies all of the stereotypes that Jan encompasses. Both women are meant to discourage our tendency to make assumptions based on appearance. While that is a wonderful message, the problem is that Jan is the only woman of color. There is a definite lack of positive representation for masculine women of color, so there is nothing inherently wrong with having a black, butch character. However, black women are often portrayed as more masculine than white women in both fiction and non-fiction. One need only look at the conversations the media has had about Serena Williams or the New Jersey Four to see how black women are ascribed a level of masculinity that white women are not. In the film, this is exacerbated by the consistent assertion that Jan is ugly, which is never challenged by any of the characters. The motive behind Jan’s character was excellent, but it is clear that the consequences were not thought out. Babbit could have avoided the problematic elements of her character by adding in more women of color, giving the masculine stereotypes to a white character, or by having a conversation about how her blackness and dark facial hair affected how she was treated. Instead, the meaning of Jan’s character is one-dimensional, and she comes off as the butt of the joke rather than the harbinger of an important message. 

Jan is not the only character wrought with gay stereotypes. Andre (Douglas Spain) is the most stereotypically gay man in the film. Whether by coincidence or not, he is also a person of color. Regardless, his character is so stereotypical it is almost offensive. The boys are taught to play football, chop wood, and fix cars in the hopes that heteronormative activities will straighten them out, so to speak. Andre fails miserably at all of these tasks, which, again, is fine in concept. What is offensive is the way he flails about and shrieks in a way that is so unnatural it plays out like a bigot’s idea of what a gay man is really like.

There are other issues of intersectionality and representation that are not quite so garishly offensive. For example, Joel (Joel Michaely) is Jewish, and very devoutly so considering he is never seen with his yarmulke. The True Directions programs, however, is very Christian-oriented. This tension between the two religions is never addressed, and that is truly a shame. Moreover, race is not mentioned once. As previously mentioned, there are horrendously few characters of color. Even worse, however, is the fact that not one of them has a storyline that acknowledges the difficulties of being a gay person of color. The film is a comedy, so no one should expect an especially fruitful in depth analysis, but there is not even one or two off handed jokes about it. The fact of the matter is that the characters of color are not fully realized people. They are surface level representations that rattle off jokes. It should be acknowledged that pretty much all of the characters have this shallow level of development (such is the price one pays when creating a satire that makes such liberal use of stereotypes), but that is no excuse for not acknowledging how race plays a factor in homophobia and gender norms. Much of the movie is centered around learning how to “act straight”, but performances of gender and sexuality shift when different identities come into play. Harris and Holman Jones explain how intersectional performances play into feeling like a minority, “In “feeling queer,” racialized subjects intersect with religious, gendered and sexualized minoritarian subjects to “do” minoritarianism differently” (Harris and Holman Jones, 2017, p.574). In a film that is all about acting out the roles society demands, ignoring how people of color are expected to perform their minoriatarianism does an injustice to the topic at hand.

There is also a good bit of homonormativity, a concept that describes the push for queer people to fulfill heteronormative roles even in gay relationships. The three same sex couples we see in the film follow the general idea that one person in the relationship should be more feminine and the other more masculine, though some couples embody this concept more than others. Dolph (Dante Basco) and Clayton (Kip Pardue) are the couple that fit this mold the least, but one there are remnants of it in their relationship. Dolph is on the varsity football team, and Clayton is generally more demure and submissive. Unlike Dolph and Clayton, Graham and Megan fulfill their homonormative roles with a good amount of clarity. Graham is by no means butch, but she is more masculine than she is feminine, at least by society’s standards. She has short hair, she never wears skirts, and she has a tendency toward profanity and vulgarity. Megan, on the other hand, is, well, a cheerleader. She only wears skirts, she wears her hair long, and she spends most of the moving gasping at any mention of sex. Finally, there is the old gay couple, Lloyd (Wesley Mann) and Larry (Richard Moll) who are “ex-ex-gays” as the film calls them. Once again we see the more feminine half of the couple, Lloyd, performing typically feminine activities like setting up dinner and getting in touch with his emotions. Larry, on the other hand, is a curt, large, bearded man who is quick to anger. The two could easily fit in to any heterosexual sitcom. 

While domesticity is the goal for many queer couples, the film ventures into what Duggan (2002) calls, “equality politics,” (p. 44). Essentially, it is the trap that members of the gay community where they ask the powers that be for marriage and military equality. After that, they feel that there is nothing left to do, so they promise to depoliticize gay culture. Duggan describes them best when she writes, “These organizations, activists, and writers, promote ‘color-blind’ anti-affirmative action racial politics, conservative-libertarian ‘equality feminism,’ and gay ‘normality,’” (Duggan, 2002, p. 44). In it’s failure to acknowledge race and the enforcement of heterosexual roles onto gay characters, the film certainly demonstrates these equality politics and a message in favor of homonormativity.

Perhaps the most difficult to address issue with the film is the premise itself. It begs the question: should conversion therapy be used for comedy? Moreover, questions of how to do that respectfully arise, and, frankly, there were several instances where Babbit failed to do so. Babbit’s own history is important in understanding why she created a comedy about conversion therapy. She herself is a lesbian, and her mother worked at New Directions, a rehabilitation center for teens and young adults. Obviously, the name of the conversion camp, true directions, is a play on New Directions, and Babbit further explains the connection between her mother's career and But I’m a Cheerleader in an interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon. “So I'd always wanted to do a comedy about growing up in rehab, and the absurdity of that atmosphere. But I didn't want to make fun of twelve-step programs for alcoholism and drugs, because they really help people, but when you turn it into Homosexuals Anonymous, then I felt that was a situation I could have fun with” (Dixon, 2015, p. 2). Babbit likely felt that conversion therapy would be a harmless target because making fun of the programs and their leaders is not damaging to anyone. However, as we have seen with Jan and Andre, the queer community was not spared from the ridicule. Moreover, while belittling the programs themselves, Babbit made light of some truly traumatizing experiences. For instance, the teens are given electric wands, which they must use to shock themselves when they have “unnatural” thoughts. Pain-based aversion therapy is a very real, traumatizing experience that too many people have had to face. But I’m a Cheerleader makes a mockery of it by using it for a number of sex jokes and showing that it does not hurt that bad. Graham playfully shocks Megan with it, eliciting a yelp, but not much else. Another girl in the program, Sinead (Katherine Towne), proclaims that she likes pain. She is then shown in multiple scenes using the electricity as a masturbatory tool. There may be arguments in favor of this detail, perhaps that Babbit was trying to show how pain can be reclaimed and used for pleasure, but I personally find it tasteless. It is especially questionable since Babbit herself has never gone through that trauma. When creating gallows humor, one must examine if they are on the gallows or a member of the crowd. A person on the gallows who laughs is using humor to cope. A person in the crowd who laughs at the man getting hanged is simply cruel. It seems that Babbit believes that she, having experienced lesbianism, has just as much of a right to stories of conversion therapy as someone who actually experienced it. She does not. This is not to say that the premise of this film is off limits. Babbit simply should have been more careful in how she portrayed the horrors of conversion therapy.

But I’m a Cheerleader has the difficult job of being a breakout text. Cavalcante explains that a breakout text accomplishes three things, “ Breakout texts also generate three definitive breaks: (a) a break into the cultural main-stream, (b) a break with historical representational paradigms, and (c) a breaking into the every day lives of the audiences they purport to represent,” (Cavalcante, 2017, p. 2). It may have not been hugely successful, but it was popular enough to make its way into straight communities. Moreover, it breaks plenty of ideas of historic representation. Finally, it made its way into gay communities, and it has continued to live comfortably within them. This is why we need to be so hard on the film. As with anything that may be the foundation for someone’s knowledge about a topic (i.e. homosexuality, conversion therapy, gender non conforming heterosexuals, etc.) there is a responsibility to provide quality representations. Babbit sometimes fails to do so, and if that those failures are not examined critically, then harmful information will be mindlessly spread around.

As a pansexual woman, I am always looking for content that portrays strong, sapphic characters. I am also always on the fence about using tragedies to create humor. I am stuck between knowing that some people use humor to cope with trauma and wondering if people should be laughing at atrocities. That is what drew me to But I’m a Cheerleader. I enjoyed the film, in spite of its flaws, but I do have to say I was a bit hurt and disappointed. I am Latinx, and I have been teased about my dark facial hair in the past. Hearing Jan get torn into for her unibrow and mustache while the pretty, white women around her did nothing was really upsetting. Moreover, as someone who is undecided about particularly dark humor, I really do feel that Babbit was tactless in her making of this film. Still, there were elements that I truly loved. As mentioned in the title and the introduction, this film is beautifully camp. The 1950′s aesthetic that the straight people emulate obscures the setting of the film, and the garish colors tell a story all on their own. The gay men are forced to wear bright blue, and the lesbians are forced to wear pink. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, outside of the program wears brown, obscuring their own identities and showing just how they all fit in together. The set design is also used in a really stunning way. Every once in a while something, typically something that represents sex or genitalia, is placed in the background to remind viewers that the sexuality of the participants will never be erased.

When it comes down to it, But I’m a Cheerleader has heart, and it has a great message. It is immensely funny, and the characters are shallow but lovable. The film’s best attribute is that it shows that anyone can be gay or straight, regardless of our assumptions based on how well they perform gender norms. The criticism shown above should not discourage anyone from watching the film. Rather, it should encourage people to watch it while being able to recognize and accept the ways in which it can be hurtful. It can have harmful stereotypes, unhelpful ideologies, and tactless jokes, but it also has love, bite, and an abundance of humor.

References:

Cavalcante, A. (2017). Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences' Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. Communication, Culture & Critique, 10(3), 538-555. doi:10.1111/cccr.12165

Dixon, W. W. (2015). An Interview With Jamie Babbit. Post Script, 34(2).

Duggan, L. (2003). Equality, Inc. In The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy (pp. 43-66). Boston: Beacon Press.

Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2017). Feeling Fear, Feeling Queer: The Peril and Potential of Queer Terror. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(7), 561-568. doi:10.1177/1077800417718304