#the care put into the depiction of and prioritization of queer characters/characters of color

[dontgofarfromme]

I'm sort of eh on movie/TV show adaptations a lot of the time bc they rarely live up to my standards, but I do think that the Great Cities duology could be extremely fucking cool to watch if adapted with whatever mindset Sense8 was created with.

[i-did]

Do you know when the racism and ableism accusations against Nora started? Because back when I was active in 2016/2017 and don't think they were a thing, or were very low-key. Was it something she said or are people just basing it off the things she wrote in the books?

From what I remember, the first time I heard the blanket statement of “Nora is racist/fetishizes gay men” blanket statement was early fall 2019 (which is so ironic for the fandom to say on so many levels lmao). There wasn’t a catalyst or anything, just she went offline 2016 and no new content was coming out and the aftg fandom is such an echo chamber that… an accidental smear campaign happened.

 Before then, I would see occasional “Nora used ableist slur” which… is funny (not that ableism isn’t serious) to me people care more about that than Seth saying the f-slur. IMO this is because with Seth, it clearly shows the character thinking it and not the author who is writing about what will be an end game mlm relationship. 

But anyways! Long story short, it's the fact that she’s an ace/aro woman who wrote a mlm book, and based off of the events in canon. There is no “Nora called me/someone else a slur” it’s “Nora wrote a book where slur(s) are used” and “the Moriyama’s are Japanese.”

Below I put my own opinion on these claims and go into more detail:

CW for discussions of: racism, ableism, mlm fetishization

Fetishization: (and mentions of sexism at the end)

To one question in the EC about her inspo for aftg she jokingly responded how she wanted to write about gay athletes. On other parts of your blog you could see she was a hockey fan and an overall sports fan (anime or otherwise) but I've seen this statement taken out of context and framed as “she's one of those BOYXBOY” shippers. Considering how… well-developed both Andrew and Neil’s relationship is, and it takes them until like the 3rd book and there is a whole complex ass plot going on around, you can see how that's just. Not really true. And considering the fandom is like… 85% women (queer women but still women) and I've gotten into a discussion with someone who is a woman and called Nora a fetishizer and was ignoring my opinions as a mlm, and I really just wanted to say “well what does that make you?” it's a very ironic high horse. She didn’t write 3 all 3 books to put Neil in lingerie pwp or crop-top fem-fatal fashion show, fandom did. 

Also, I talked to an ace/aro friend about this, and she talked to me about how AFTG spoke to her very much so as an ace/aro story. Neil is demisexual, Nora didn’t know of the word at the time of reading it, but she did get an anon asking if Neil was demi after, and she said “had to look it up, and yep, but he doesn't really think about it” (paraphrased). Obviously it would have been cool if andreil were canonly written as wlw by Nora instead, (which would have increased the amount of wlw rep and demi rep) but tbh I don’t think tumblr would have cared about it nearly as much and everyone would just call Neil a cold bitch–like people do with Nora’s other published book with a main character who's a woman. Plus they're her OC’s, not mine. 

The fact is that 50% of all LGBT+ rep in literature is mlm, mostly white mlm, and not written by mlm. I’m not going to hold her to a higher standard than everyone else, she already broke a shit ton of barriers in topics she discusses that otherwise get ignored. I’m grateful to these books for existing even if it's a mlm story written by a woman. I still will prioritize reading mlm written by mlm–and vice versa with wlw– in the way I prioritize reading stories about POC written by POC. But credit where credit is due, this is a very good story, and a very good demi story. 

Ableism:

To me, AFTG is a story about ableism and how we perceive some trauma survivors more worthy than others. Neil and the foxes using ableist language shows how people actually talk. Neil thinks shitty things about Andrew, like the others do too, and thinks he's “psycho”. The story ultimately deconstructs this idea and these perceptions of people. Wymack, someone who says the r-slur (which is still not known by the general population as a slur even in 2021 much less the early 2000s when the book was beginning to be written and what the timeline is based off of) is a character who understands Andrew better than most of the others do, and gives him the most sympathy and understanding despite using words like the m-slur and r-slur. Using these words isn't good, but it is how people talk, and this character talks. Wymack is a playful “name caller” especially when he’s mad, the foxes think Andrew is “crazy” and incapable of humanity and love because of it. They call his meds “antipsychotics” as an assumption and insult in a derogatory way, when really antipsychotics are a very helpful drug for some people who need them. Even Neil thinks these things about Andrew until he learns to care about him. All the foxes are hypocritical to am extent, as people in real life tend to be. Nora herself doesn’t use these or tweet them or something, her characters do to show aspects of their personality and opinions and how they change over time.

Racism:

As for the racism, I've seen people talk about how racial minorities being antagonists is inherently bad, which I think lacks nuance but overall isn't a harmful statement or belief. However, Nora herself said she wrote in the yakuza instead of another gang or mob because she was inspired for AFTG by sports anime, (which often queer-bait for a variety of reasons). I haven’t seen a textual analysis acknowledging the racist undertones surrounding the Moriyama’s as the few characters of color who are also major antagonists, but instead just “Nora is racist”. Wymack having shitty flame tribal tattoo’s is just… a huge 90’s thing and a part of his character design. Her having a character with bad taste in tattoo trends doesn’t mean she's racist. There is the whole how Nicky is handled thing, but that's a whole thing on it’s own. The fandom… really will write Nicky being all “ai ai muy spicy, jaja imma hit on my white–not annoying like me–boyfriend in Spanish. With my booty hole out and open for him ofc.” and as a Mexican mlm I’m like … damn alright. 

I think there is merit to the fact that she writes white as the default* and unless otherwise stated a POC a character was written with the intent to be white is another valid criticism, as well as the fact that the cast is largely white, but everything Nora is accused of I've seen the fandom do worse. That goes to the debate of, is actively writing stereotypes for POC more harmful than no representation at all? And personally I prefer the lack of established race line that lets me ignore Nora’s canon intent of characters to be white and come up with my own HC’s over the fandoms depictions of “zen monk Renee with dark past” “black best friend Matt who got over drugs but is a puppy dog” “ex stripper black Dan who dates Matt” vague tokenism. I HC many of the upperclassmen as POC and do my best to actively give thought behind it and have their own arcs that also avoids the fandom colorism spectrum of “darkest characters we HC go to the back and fandom favorites are in the front and are the lightest.” 

*I however won't criticize her harsher or more than… everyone else who still largely does this in fanfiction regarding AFTG as well as literature in general. This isn't a Nora thing, it's a societal thing, and considering the books came out in like 2014 I'm not gonna hold her to a higher standard than the rest of the world. She's just someone who wrote her personal OC’s and self-published expecting no following. I don’t know her race and I’m not gonna hold her to a higher standard than everyone else just because. 

The criticisms I've seen have always been… ironic IMO, and clearly I have a lot of thoughts on it. I think most people say those things about Nora because they heard them, and it's the woke thing to say and do and don’t critically analyze their actions or anything, but just accept them. 

[freevoidman]

I remember, after Clover died, the fandom exploded. Because here was Qrow opening up to another guy, they were shown to be very close, and the ship gained ground. A lot of crew members shipped the pairing as well (I have an entire post that is FILLED with screenshots of the animators and even some of the VAs liking the pairing), which gave a lot of fans hope. After all, Arryn and Barbara ship BB, and THAT’S gonna be the canon wlw ship, so clearly Qrover is going to be canon too, right?

And then Clover got brutally murdered. Hell, his death is honestly one of the worst on-screen depictions of a character dying. A lot of fans noted that the lighting in the scene was pink, purple, and blue colored, which... I don’t think I need to spell out what that kind of implies. 

Regardless of whether the lighting is a stretch or not, Clover’s death felt... cruel. Undeserved. A lot of people were unhappy with how that fight happened, and even as a long-time watcher, I still can’t fully understand why it played out in such a way.

Unfortunately, Volume 8 really doesn’t make it much better. Don’t know if you care that much about spoilers, but I’ll put the rest under a readmore just in case.

Clover’s death gets reduced to barely anything for Qrow. He keeps the pin, and I think talks about it once after he gets put in Gay Baby Jail with Robyn. Instead, a majority of the “Clover is dead” pain gets put onto Harriet. She is the character who is most visibly upset by Clover’s passing, to the point where she becomes extremely volatile (which also plays into some nasty-ass stereotypes) because she, apparently, had a god damn crush on Clover!

It felt like backtracking. It felt like the writers realized how many LGBTQ+ fans liked Qrover and had to IMMEDIATELY course correct and give him a post-mortem female love interest. Harriet loved Clover so much and is so distraught as his death, to the point where she pulls some super unethical shit because, well, she’s grieving Clover! A man she barely cared about in V7 and even said they were more like coworkers, but sure! She totally had romantic feelings for the guy!

This isn’t even mentioning the BB shit that got pulled in V8. Before Atlas, I recognized the ship and, while it wasn’t my cup of tea, I was more than willing to let it slide and let people get pulled along with the clear baiting going on. After V8, I was fucking furious, because the way the writers are doing ship bait (and arguably queer bait to a certain extent) is fucking with the actual writing of the show. 

I’m not even kidding, there were multiple moments where emotional character moments were either ignored or drastically altered in order to give it a BB angle. They are actively prioritizing ship bait over giving natural character conflicts and interactions, and it’s infuriating! It’s genuinely one of the worst aspects of V8. A lot of people were happy with V7 and were looking forward to V8, but by the end of the season, I’ve seen it be compared to V5, and with good god damn reason.

I'm gonna smack a hornet's nest today.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: How the TV Adaptation of I Love Dick Recenters the Female Gaze

Still from I Love Dick

Reviews of I Love Dick, the new Amazon Prime series co-created by Transparent creator Jill Soloway and playwright Sarah Gubbins, have been mixed. Critics seem confused by an indie-spirited, women-run series adapted from an experimental book directly to a streaming service, particularly since it’s about a flailing filmmaker (Kathryn Hahn as Chris Kraus) doggedly pursuing an artist-cowboy named Dick (Kevin Bacon), with the begrudging support of her husband Sylvere (Griffin Dunne). At Indiewire, Ben Travers calls it “the most confident television experiment of the year” — but then gives it a B+. At The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz robs us of the review Emily Nussbaum never wrote, asking of Soloway’s intersectional feminism, “if a woman in Australia has an orgasm, does a woman in Mexico sneeze?” But perhaps most perplexing are the reviews that are confounded by the show’s clear grappling with big ideas. “TV is a subpar medium for the transmission of ideas,” concludes Ruth Curry at Esquire, and at Variety, Maureen Ryan wonders, “is the show about ideas, or is it about people who care about ideas?”

As TV critic par excellence Nussbaum has reminded us elsewhere, we don’t seem confused by television shows’ grappling with ideas when those ideas come from men. But I Love Dick is a show about women’s ideas, and how women are discouraged from having ideas, and what happens when one woman lets her fantasies drive her art. Because once Chris accepts Dick as her muse and begins writing letters to him, her abandon transforms the women around her. I Love Dick dramatizes women’s creative processes from their own perspectives: Chris on the floor putting her letters together, Devon (Roberta Colindrez) writing a play about male beauty, Toby (India Salvor Menuez) creating viral performance art, Paula (Lily Mojekwu) replacing Dick’s bland abstract art collection with highly specific pieces by women of color.

Still from I Love Dick

In a keynote she gave at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, Soloway spelled out her vision of the female gaze, positioning it in opposition to — but not as the opposite of — the male gaze Laura Mulvey articulated in 1975. Soloway’s female gaze emerges from three components:

“A way of feeling-seeing … a subjective camera” created when the director, the cinematographer, the actors, and the other artist-technicians on set “prioritize their bodies over tools, over equipment, over time.”

Depictions of how it feels, as a woman, to be the object of the male gaze.

Filmic moves that return the gaze, that say, “I don��t want to be the object any longer. I would like to be the subject, and with that subjectivity I can actually name you as the object.”

This theory helps me understand what Soloway and Gubbins have achieved — and it is an achievement — with I Love Dick. In the fifth episode, widely regarded as the series’ best, Chris asks the camera (and Dick), “What if we all started writing you letters?” This moment opens up the story from its focus on the love triangle between Chris, her husband Sylvere, and Dick to the subjectivity of the show’s three other female artists, Devon, Toby, and Paula. When Toby runs down her own list of achievements beside Dick’s, claiming her place as an artist and scholar, her insistence that “we should be able to study beauty too” hit me in the gut.

Still from I Love Dick

Although Lily Mojekwu is powerful as Paula, and Solindrez’s Devon owns the camera with what Soloway calls the character’s “queer cowboy masculinity,” Toby became my favorite character for the precision with which she continually and explicitly recentered the female gaze, refusing to be paternalized by Sylvere or by Devon. In the pilot — the only episode directed by Soloway — the framing of the shots as Sylvere approaches and talks to Toby formalizes the female gaze Soloway laid out in her TIFF talk. We see Sylvere seeing Toby, sexualizing and infantilizing her with his male gaze. But he is removed from the frame as Toby rejects his assumptions about her and actively mocks his research project, finally telling him, in the following episode, “You’re awful.”

I Love Dick is a masterpiece of female vision and artistic agency. It’s also fun as hell. Kathryn Hahn’s bottomless neurosis as Chris Kraus is the human woman Jessica Chastain missed seeing at Cannes. Hahn’s body, her mess, her hair, her mouth, her mania, her misdirection, her absurdly sexy desperation — it all shows us that while Dick is Chris’s muse, Hahn is Soloway’s. Chris distractedly running a stove lighter over her crotch makes visceral how our culture sees women’s desire as a problem — one Chris doesn’t know how to solve. Have I ever seen the gigantism of a woman’s desire onscreen before? Maybe. But unlike X-Men 2’s Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Chris’s a-directional desire doesn’t kill her, and unlike Unfaithful’s Connie (Diane Lane), it doesn’t kill anyone else. I Love Dick insists that a woman’s desire isn’t a disaster.

Still from I Love Dick

Following female desire might be the first step in understanding why two lesbian feminists — Soloway, a filmmaker, and Gubbins, a playwright — made a show called I Love Dick. Is the show saying that women’s interest in dick makes us weak? Is Soloway dramatizing the point she made in her TIFF talk, that catering to the male gaze keeps women “busy with that half of me that is reaching for approval”? Was Chris screwed as an artist the second she married Sylvere for his health insurance?

I can’t answer these questions for sure — no critic can. But let’s argue about what I Love Dick means, not whether it means anything.

I Love Dick is now available on Amazon Prime.

The post How the TV Adaptation of I Love Dick Recenters the Female Gaze appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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