'How to be a fan of problematic things'

[cigfran]

And thanks for pointing out the pinkskin thing - I KNEW there was something about that that pissed me off, and I couldn't put a finger on it. That was bugging me.

My very white eyes never even saw this, my very white skin felt no irritation.



Thanks for the much-needed headslap.

[Altair]

My very white eyes never even saw this, my very white skin felt no irritation.

Thanks for the much-needed headslap.

The worst part was when the Andorian would use "pink-skins" on the bridge, when helm officer Travis Mayweather (a black guy) and communications officer Hoshi Sato (an Asian woman) were in the same room. I was like, "Really?? UM, turn around and take a look--no really, TAKE A LOOK!!"

[SunflowerP]

Most notably, the events preceding a rape scene I wrote could be interpreted by some as "she asked for it."

I'd posit that it's impossible to write about rape without some asshat reading "victim asked for it" into it. If that victim is a) a woman, and b) has been shown as having sexual agency and desire, the asked-for-it asshats might outnumber those who don't read that into it.

And it doesn't help that in other parts of the story, the character who commits the rape is a central character likely to be empathized with.

<nod> Yeah, that increases the possibility still further.

<has cognition shift> Oh, and the fact that (unless my cognition shift was in complete error) you're not talking about Joe Schmoe and Jane Boggs, but personifications of the numinous, makes it that much trickier. You can write Joe Schmoe as "mostly-decent guy who's crappy at respecting boundaries; people are complicated", but it's really tough to extend that to archetypal beings.

Sunflower

[SunflowerP]

The worst part was when the Andorian would use "pink-skins" on the bridge, when helm officer Travis Mayweather (a black guy) and communications officer Hoshi Sato (an Asian woman) were in the same room. I was like, "Really?? UM, turn around and take a look--no really, TAKE A LOOK!!"

I'm not, as a rule, a gambler, but I'd take bets that the scriptwriter(s) involved in this were white liberals who pride themselves on being "not seeing color".

Sunflower

[Nyktipolos]

What really boggled me about Trek was that Vulcans had the EXACT SAME range of skin colors as humans.

Okay, they're all white - annoying, but not too surprising. But the /token black Vulcan/ - I could NOT deal with that. It's like .. really?

And thanks for pointing out the pinkskin thing - I KNEW there was something about that that pissed me off, and I couldn't put a finger on it. That was bugging me.

I was kind of thrown for a loop when I watched the latest Star Trek movie, or watched other Star Trek shows and seeing how white the casts were for the aliens, when the only series I've really watched from beginning-to-almost-end was Voyager, so I guess I assumed Vulcans were naturally darker? Which obviously didn't last for long once I saw the other shows/movies...

[dionysiandame]

Problematic all over the place Julie Taymor's take on
Titus.

Though it would have to be treated carefully and with a limited audience focus and parent permission, that movie would speak to many kids.

I LOVED this movie and I think I did see it in my late teens.

My husband convinced me to start watching Game of Thrones, which was somewhat enjoyable to me until we got to the "savages" the poor perfectly white young maiden would have to join and they were ALL some flavor of minority; so THAT'S where their casting directors put all those bothersome Asians, Arabs, Latinos, and Blacks who showed up and didn't fit "the vision."

I was angered by it I just left the room and told him he could watch the rest of the series by himself.

I think I tend to like questionable characters more than anything else. My love of Draco Malfoy would make Ms.Rowling pretty frustrated.

[SunflowerP]

I kind of think of the article Lokabrenna linked as a companion piece to And we shall call this "Moff's Law".

Speaking of companion pieces, this one came into being a couple of months back, and I didn't think of posting a link in this thread until DionysianDame resurrected it.

Sunflower

[MadZealot]

Oh, BULLSHIT. The point (at high school and uni-undergrad level) isn't to come up with something utterly new and brilliant, it's to learn how to do the process by which new perspectives can come into being. If sciences were taught the way your teachers describe, they'd be all about history of science, and there'd be no labs.

Sunflower

I was going to read the entire thread before deciding if I'd jump in, but this this this this.
In retrospect it seems like lit classes taught me nothing other than how to regurgitate the instructor's favorite "interpretation." If you offered up something different then you must not have been listening or taking good enough notes. The process of analysis.

[MadZealot]

The worst part was when the Andorian would use "pink-skins" on the bridge, when helm officer Travis Mayweather (a black guy) and communications officer Hoshi Sato (an Asian woman) were in the same room. I was like, "Really?? UM, turn around and take a look--no really, TAKE A LOOK!!"

Maybe they were supposed to be racist... you know, "all hoomies look alike," or something.
Never saw the show.

[MadZealot]

--the film version of Gone With the Wind: I got into a heated argument with someone who told me I was "ridiculous" for not accepting that it was a classic and loving it. I tried to watch it once; I lasted the first 5 minutes before I almost put my fist through my TV screen. No thanks.

Gaah. Horrible. For more reasons than one.

--Any movie about Africa or slavery...starring white people. See Amistad, Cry Freedom, etc., etc.,...

For me it's 'caricature acting'. I see this in movies/shows trying to depict black or latino "tough guys." Every attempt at being 'authentic' in portrayal results in epic fail... it's more of a cartoonish stereotype. You can tell some white dude wrote the dialogue.