#the weight of representation isn't placed on one character- so why not have some evil ones for a variety of reasons

[jesncin]

I really hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but why did you decide to make Lex Luthor, whose motivation is basically racism and xenophobia from my understanding, a person of color? This isn’t like, a criticism, more just, I really like your JL remix stuff and you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one

I understand the curiosity! But I have to point out that "you usually have cool reasons for the stuff you change, so I was surprised by this one" made me laugh, haha. Long answer coming because I have a lot of feelings- but the point in the very end is worth it, trust me.

So for one, Lex is Afro-Greek in my version. This comes from the popular headcanon that STAS/DCAU Lex is Black (and his design is based on a Greek man). His character design, skin tone, and Clancy Brown's enigmatic performance became unintentional perceived representation for Black fans (and even DC writers). And now in the Harley Quinn show, that's become canonized! For why they like it, that's not my place to say as a non-Black person- so I listen!

I don't agree that Lex's motivation is "basically racism and xenophobia"- his themes are much broader than that. It's the desire to be the Man of Tomorrow, his jealousy of Superman, the way his intellect alone is a match against Superman's strength. Sometimes that jealousy is expressed through bigotry, but it's all a means to an end for Lex. My approach is: if Lex being Black is something we want to integrate more into his character, what opportunities does that open up narratively? Because there's rich potential for him and the characters connected to him.

When discussing MAWS I talk a lot about how when you're writing a bigoted marginalized character, there needs to be specifity with where that internalized bigotry is coming from. So a change like that for Lex Luthor could, for example; discuss how privileges like wealth can assimilate otherwise marginalized people into the kind of power that harms others in their community.

The ripple affect this has on a character like Superboy/Conner is that we get to see how -even though they're both Luthors- Conner is profiled, othered and further marginalized as a Kryptonian and a Black homeless teen because he doesn't get to benefit from any of Lex's privileges. This is just part of the many reasons why I think Conner would be infinitely more interesting if he didn't look like Kal El despite being a clone. You get to see a new intersection of how the Kryptonian identity intersects with Blackness on Earth. The potential ripple effect for a character like Lena is also really fun! What if she's struggling with her own model minority pressure when she's making up for her brother's crimes? It's all very compelling!

And MOST importantly, in a 3 trillion IQ Lex Luthor-style move-making Lex Luthor Black means that some version of Matt Fraction & Steve Lieber's Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen arc exists in my au. Which famously hinges on the twist that LEX LUTHOR AND JIMMY OLSEN ARE DISTANTLY RELATED. THEREFORE!!! We have now found a convoluted way to have Wacky Renaissance Artist Jimmy Olsen connected to The Manifestation Of Black Excellence Evil Edition Lex Luthor in this au.

[i-make-fun-of-spn-characters]

I feel like Jack as a character is largely interesting/good, but the way people react to him makes me deeply uncomfortable. Like i guess you could forgive a teenager you never actually agreed to be in charge of for accidentally killing your mom, but i don’t think that should be a societal expectation. Like that’s Dean’s MOM, i don’t think Jack deserves to die obviously but why should Dean HAVE to forgive him? And the common defense that Jack is a literal baby (so he can’t be held responsible for his actions) is so weird bc… no he isn’t??? He literally isn’t a baby. And I’m okay with Dean forgiving him too, but it’s so weird that people act like it’s unreasonable to have any negative emotions about the person who killed your mom. And that’s not even getting into how many people blame Mary for her death when she did absolutely nothing wrong.

Yeah I agree with everything you said.

It is not fair to expect anyone to immediately forgive someone for killing their mom (or really expect that at all...). I would also add to this that the person Dean COULD not and WOULD not forgive...

was NOT Jack!!!!!!!

It was Soulless Jack, who cast the blame for what happened onto Mary and said it was "regrettable". So more disturbing for me than this tendency to treat Jack as a baby who isn't responsible for his actions... is this inability to see the distinction between the REAL Jack and Soulless Jack, when their differences are READILY apparent!! Jack—the real Jack—would NEVER have spoken to Sam and Dean about Mary's death the way Soulless Jack did. He would NEVER have hurt people because Dumah told him to—he would have thrown her into a wall in a fit of righteous rage and said "You're hurting people!" THAT is the REAL Jack!!! We see that we have the real Jack back when he comes back, and one of the first things he does is break down in tears and apologize genuinely for Mary. So when Dean can't forgive and he's full of rage in the aftermath of Mary's death... the person all that anger is directed at ISN'T Jack. It's a thing wearing Jack's face—devoid of the real Jack's strong moral compass and love for others which continuously counterbalanced his naivety and allowed him to parse when he was being manipulated and used by evil forces, tempered his anger, and made him who he was.

I do think part of what makes fans so angry with Dean is the lead up to this and how Dean and Jack interact in general since season 13... and some of that frustration is fair, but some of it also really... is not.

I've said before (in tags) on @dontfeedthestansaftermidnight that a lot of fandom interacts with Dean as a representation of love and belonging within the narrative instead of just as a human being. So it doesn't matter how [insert character] behaved toward him/what they did or how Dean's hurting or what's going on with him. He needs to be actively loving everyone all of the time—unconditionally—or he isn't doing his job. Only Dean's feelings need to be placed under a microscope and analyzed and judged because only his feelings (and how he displays them or doesn't) carry the weight of judgement and what it means to be loved and accepted.

Dean is kind of like... well—he's the doors and walls and windows of the Winchester family house, and he's the hearth, and almost everyone wants a piece of that warmth and that sense of belonging. This is especially apparent in the Carver era, but it ultimately prevails from the very beginning to the bitter end of the series—that Dean's love is kind of... different. It's tangible and transcendent, and it's wrought with some serious trauma that gives it sharp edges, but it's something truly special and even... coveted? What Cas said about Dean in that speech in 15x18 wasn't wrong at all—it was a testament to the power of Dean's love within the narrative.

So yeah—I think the reason we tend to see Dean judged for how he interacts with Jack isn't just because Dean is being a jerk sometimes, but also because of the power of his love specifically within the narrative, and what him specifically "rejecting" someone means to fans.

We all see Jack as a sweet kid, who deserves to be accepted, and Dean—the representation of love and belonging—really struggles to love him? Or at least in the way Jack (and Sam and Cas and most fans) would like—and that's... tough for people to accept. It makes them angry.

I think that Dean loves Jack and I think Dean believes that Jack is a good kid and I think that Dean believes that Jack deserves to be loved... but I also think there is something that makes it really difficult for Dean to give Jack the love everyone (including Dean!) would like Dean to to give Jack.

I personally think maybe Dean feels out of place in terms of how he's expected to love Jack (as a son) versus how he would prefer their relationship to look. Like—Dean taking Jack fishing when Jack is dying... to me it feels more like Dean giving Jack the thing he knows Jack really desires—the relationship he knows Jack really wants to have with Dean. I can't shake the feeling that for Dean, Jack brings up a lot of really traumatic things, and Dean knows that isn't Jack's fault (but that's hard to remember), but it also changes how Dean wants their relationship to be and the boundaries he wants to set. I think it's very significant that just one episode before Jack was born, Dean stood in Mary's dreams and told her that he had to be a mother and a father to his little brother and that that wasn't fair, and in the next episode, he loses Mary and Cas, and is saddled with someone else's child. Sam begins urging him to put aside his grief and accept a parenting role over Jack immediately. Dean's very first response to that is that he doesn't want to be Jack's mother. And I have to wonder... is that so unfair?

I think Dean has an obligation to treat Jack with decency and respect (and sometimes he fails to do this), but despite his place in the narrative and his transcendent love... Dean is actually just a guy—not the actual god of love... so while Dean's love and how it's viewed is really beautiful... it also isn't fair to Dean that these expectations of his feelings (which he can't fully control—only his actions can be controlled) are placed on him? And look—Jack isn't his son. He isn't obligated to be Jack's mother or his father and he isn't obligated to love him as a son. Dean wasn't the one who swore to love and protect Jack—that was Cas. Cas adopted him, and then immediately died, and... I don't even ship destiel, but not because I don't think there's something to it—there's some obvious implications here with what happened with Cas lying (again) to Dean and tricking (read: cheating) him right before all of this happened too—rejecting Dean's gift (the mixtape) and his request for them to work as a team in the process.

So Jack is like... well—he was literally designed by the writers to be a person that Dean would struggle to love. He represents pretty much every defining trauma of Dean's life. He represents Dean's parentification, the loss of his mother (twice), the abandonment of his father, the trauma of losing Cas over and over, Cas's secrets and betrayals, Sam and how he was unfairly and cruelly tainted from birth—slated for an evil purpose—and how Dean had to be the one to deal with that most closely (besides Sam himself). Jack also represents Dean—he is the child forced to grow up too fast, and that is also Dean (and this last one absolutely sets the groundwork for a lot of their interactions and similarities in terms of self-sacrifice and being weaponized).

Mary being blamed for her death is also gross and I don't feel any need to comment any further on that and all the problems in fandom that this relates to.

[the-warlock-syndicate]

I think you are missing the point a bit. WALLE is a story about environmentalism yes, but it is also a critique which focuses on systems. Nobody is morally evil in the story. Auto is the closest, but he is an AI, and not a sapient one either, he is more an anthropomorphic representation of the societal system represented by the ship.

The point they are making is that nobody needs to be evil, or a villain, in order to be shaped by the society around them. The systems shape behavior which shape outcomes. When broken out of that system, the actions people can take change drastically, and several human characters do this.

In short, the movie isn't trying to make fat people out to be evil or intrinsically lazy, and it is inaccurate to suggest it. A film that hates fat people can be written off as a bad film. What this film is doing, is a step more complex, and worthy of further analysis.

The fat people are visual shorthand. We have a central thesis, that societies are made up of sociological systems, and that people can be shaped, influenced by, or trapped within those systems without being morally evil. It pushes back against individualism which would paint the passengers as all individually culpable for being fat and morally evil for not slimming down.

However, in a story about environmentalism, which seeks to draw the connection between sociological systems trapping people in inaction, and the end result of inaction on the climate, it first needs to educate its viewers on systems in the first place. So let's show another sociological system which encourages inaction, and then depict a easy visual shorthand for the consequences. Hence the real concern of the conversation, system encourages inaction, inaction leads to fat people. The way that fat people are implicitly seen as the negative outcome to scare kids is the commentary on how society sees fat people, and subtly reinforces societal stigmas.

A couple notes. First off, there is kind of an interesting choice here. The station clearly has artificial gravity, and some degree of facilities which could be used for exercise in the pool. So visually, we can note that were it not for the sociological system in place keeping people inactive, the obesity wouldn't be a problem. But the film itself then tries to hedge that sentiment a bit, and states in the dialogue that extended exposure to space leads to bone loss, with a diagram showing bone structure diminishing in a cartoony way, and subsequent generations on board the space station getting more obese. Which indicates a bit of cognitive dissonance there. And introduces new questions. Why do you have bone loss when you have working artificial gravity? Why do you have hoverchairs to support the weight of people if you can simply turn down the gravity or turn it off? What is actually the source of the obesity, because it is implied to be a result of people's laziness, but then also have an environmental component by virtue of being in space, that nobody has control over any ways.

A strong Doyalist might suspect even that this is just a society with a different culture and values, and that in universe, fatness is just a fact of life that cannot be avoided anyways, and viewers of the movie are projecting moral judgements onto the characters which they likely don't see as worthy of consideration at all.

In the end though, consider that this is a movie for children. It is, by necessity, not that deep. Given a task to draw a comparison between social systems and environmentalism, and social systems and some other bad, yet easily recognized visual outcome that could stem from inaction, the writers chose obesity. Because it is the obvious choice, and the one that literal children are most likely to understand.

That it is the obvious choice says a lot about societal treatment of obese or disabled people, but honestly, it doesn't say anything we haven't already heard.

It is interesting though. I cannot really think of another way they could have done it, without scrapping the idea and going for a full rewrite. You have your central thesis, systems change peoples actions, and this societal system of inaction leads to poor environmental outcomes in the past. To allow viewers to understand the cause and effect, you then show an example of a current social system of inaction leading to poor outcomes in the present. The example should be easily visually recognizable, culturally linked associated with inaction, and also so simplistic and obvious that a child could understand, by virtue of being a children's movie. I honestly don't think there are a lot of other ways of doing that which fill those criteria.

Still troubling though.

it was kind of fucked up for wall-e to be that way about fat people now that im thinking about it