viola and octavia and tavis
this is worth every second of watch.
Outstanding. And, like Jasika says, watch the whole thing.
I can’t speak on the specific race issues involved, being a clueless white person, but I can definitely relate on other angles. For instance, the exact same thing happens WRT GLBT characters.
Some in the community have got it into their heads that any portrayal of an “effeminate” gay man, however complex and richly drawn, is a negative stereotype, and should never be brought to life. Yet doing so—eliminating all those characters—would not only diminish the number of gay characters in total, thus limiting visibility, but also erase the very real identities and experiences of men who might fit that description. Like it or not, queens do exist, and they’re good and bad and boring and mean and talented and thoughtful and every other thing that a normal human being is. Eliminating portrayals of them just because of the queeny aspect doesn’t help anyone, and actually furthers the oppression they get—not just from the larger world, but within their own community. (Sad but true: many queens are hated on by “straight acting” types who are convinced that the very existence of queens, much less those who are living out-and-proud lives, makes the entire community “look bad.” Same sort of thing happens with many femme lesbians hating on the butch ones, or trying to pretend that butch women don’t exist.)
But of course, the real problem here is not these characters, the actors who play them, or the real-life people who may resemble them. The problem is that there are so few characters who are different than that. Ire aimed at these characters is aimed in the wrong direction. It should be aimed at cowardly producers who aren’t willing to take the risk of having multiple kinds of minority characters. Though, I do get the reticence, from a business perspective.
Unfortunately, muggle audiences have specific ideas in their head about what minority folk are, and thus are more comfortable with characters who fit into that prefab mold, and are more likely to avoid material with characters who don’t. Which means, as far as the bean counters are concerned, such non-prefab characters should be avoided.
For example: most everyone has the idea that fat women are gluttonous, lazy, loveless and tragic. At best, they imagine we’re knee-slapping comediennes. A fat woman who is different from this—one who is happily partnered, serious, not a food obsessive, etc.—doesn’t fit what people think she should be based on her size. The character thus sparks cognitive dissonance, which a lot of people simply don’t like to feel. And, rather than take the risk of challenging audiences to reshape their mental image of fat women, it’s easier (and more lucrative, from the perspective of the bean counters) to either not include fat women characters at all, or to ensure that they somehow fit in the preexisting type. Quick: name all the fat actresses you can think of. Now name the ones who are known for doing something other than comedy. (At the moment, I can think of only one: Camryn Mannheim.)
And for fat women, feel free to substitute any other minority who gets rare play in pop culture. Chances are, you only see a couple of types, and that’s because majority audiences are comfortable with those types, and avoid material that has something other than that.
BUT.
As Davis was saying, eliminating those characters (assuming that they’re otherwise well-drawn, and not caricatures) doesn’t help. It doesn’t help the actors who are looking for work, it doesn’t help the real-life people who may resemble them, and it definitely doesn’t help broaden the public perception of minority groups as a whole. The solution to broader and more complex visibility isn’t to reduce visibility overall by eliminating these characters. The solution to greater visibility for a wide variety of fat women, for instance, isn’t to put Melissa McCarthy out of a job, y’know?
(There’s considerably more to say about this issue—particularly a point about audiences not being able to relate to protagonists with whom they don’t share race, gender and orientation—but I’ll leave this here for now. Bottom line: WATCH this video, because it’s brain-expanding.)
- Posted 3 months ago
- Reblogged from sugarbooty with
- 70 notes
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- pop culture
- racism
- feminism
- glbt
- fatphobia
- gay men
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#no matter how i feel about the movie (i haven’t seen it yet) #it’s great to listen to them discuss the limited...
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Wow, great talk about race, artistry, and the entertainment industry.
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SUCHHHHH A GOOD INTERVIEW, UGHH!! Someone PLEASE put me in a room with these women; I want nothing more than to talk...
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so fantastic and important from start to finish, and tavis smiley usually plucks my nerves (tbh he still does because no...
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Outstanding. And, like Jasika says, watch the whole thing. I can’t speak on the specific race issues involved, being a...
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Main fandom is Primeval, for which I make dorky vids and write trashy fic.
Also into: Game of Thrones, Leverage, Warehouse 13, Fringe, Criminal Minds, Sherlock, LOTR, BSG, Lost, Sanctuary, Downton Abbey, The Hour, Being Human (UK), Eureka, Alcatraz, Grimm and Lost Girl. Among other nerdy entertainment delights.
