Danika Kimball – Bitch Flicks

On Racism, Erasure, and ‘Pan’

Even less surprising is their casting choice, where they have once again whitewashed a Native American character, hiring Rooney Mara to play the part of Tiger Lily. Apparently, most Hollywood executives and casting directors live in a fictional land called Neverlearn. … There has been a long standing Hollywood cliche that states, the only color Hollywood executives see is green. This excuses the industry from their role in helping maintain white supremacist patriarchy…

This guest post by Danika Kimball previously appeared at Bitch Flicks and is reposted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Hollywood has a history of recreating the same stories over and over again. I mean, in recent years audiences have seen remakes of Carrie, Cinderella, and about 18 Spiderman films (18 too many, in my opinion). So it came as no surprise when Warner Brothers announced that they would be making a new version of Peter Pan, entitled Pan. Even less surprising is their casting choice, where they have once again whitewashed a Native American character, hiring Rooney Mara to play the part of Tiger Lily. Apparently, most Hollywood executives and casting directors live in a fictional land called Neverlearn.

Raise your hand if you’re sick of it.

Director Joe Wright reportedly intended the film to be “very international and multi-racial,” but if the characters we’ve seen in this adaptation of Pan are indicative, he very well means “whiter than bleached snow.” Really, if he wanted the film to stand out from the rest of the Peter Pan films, he might have made it a point to create a non-racist one, as it would be the first of its kind to do so. I mean let’s not forget the disgusting racism present in the beloved 1953 Disney classic.

But fear not!

The studio apparently did an exhaustive search in finding the right girl to play the role of Tiger Lily, auditioning both Lupita Nyong’o and Adele Exarchopoulos before choosing Mara for the part. Though both of these actresses are phenomenally talented, name-checking starlets born in Kenya and France respectively hardly counts as an “exhaustive search,” especially when you cast a conventionally attractive white woman in the role at the end of the day.

Though certainly not the first film to completely screw up its casting choices (ahem — Stonewall, Aloha, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Native whitewashing is particularly problematic. Fashion editors, photographers, and designers frequently appropriate Native culture, sport red face, and hypersexualize women. Though women are sexualized overall in entertainment mediums, the objectification of Native women presents a whole new set of problems. While one in four women is the victim of sexual abuse on average, that number more than doubles for Native women.

Furthermore, when was the last time you saw a film featuring Native Americans that didn’t use a harmful stereotype like “the violent savage,” “magical Native American,” or one who is drunk in a casino? Why are sports teams still using Native American caricatures as their mascots, despite overwhelming public dissent? How is Columbus Day still a thing? Why do we call celebrities our spirit animals?

To the naysayers that argue that Warner Brothers couldn’t find a good Native actress to fulfill the role, please allow me to call bullshit.

2002’s Whale Rider cast an unknown actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who went on to receive a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Similarly, Quevenzhané Wallis was cast as an unknown talent in 2012’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. That year she became the youngest actress to receive a Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards.

Laverne Cox and Peter Dinklage are both testaments to the fact that casting great actors in roles that they authentically embody pays off in the long run. How inappropriate (not to mention ridiculously offensive) would it have been for HBO to continue the practice of “shrinking an actor” in order to depict the role of Tyrion Lannister? Consider the backlash that both Jared Leto, Eddie Redmayne, and most recently Elle Fanning have received for being cast as trans characters, rather than trans actors who could authentically play those parts.

Why on earth is Warner Brothers so hesitant to adopt a more progressive and culturally sensitive casting choice? What more do Hollywood executives need? Casting marginalized actors is not an impossible task, and their hesitation to embrace diversity on screen has real-life consequences.

The film Miss Representation touches on this idea. Adopting the mantra of Marie Wilson, director of The White House Project — “You can’t be what you can’t see” — the film argues that media representation is important. Without visible role models to look to, young people, especially girls and people of color, will be dissuaded from joining certain fields. Marginalized groups continue to be underrepresented in STEM, politics, leadership, and law enforcement, fields that are currently oversaturated with white men.

This opinion is shared by those who it most severely affects. A recent graduate from Arizona State University, Edilh Gallardo, shared her experiences in pursuing an education with her alma mater, emphasizing that pursuing higher education as a minority can be difficult because “a lot of our children don’t realize the opportunity is there.”

Her sentiments are part of the reason why representation in television film matters so much. If the only representations you see of your race or gender on TV are terrorists, criminals, and savages, rather than doctors, lawyers, or leaders, it might be difficult for you to imagine yourself in those positions later on in life.

There has been a long standing Hollywood cliche that states, the only color Hollywood executives see is green. This excuses the industry from their role in helping maintain white supremacist patriarchy because they are allowed to say, “We’re just giving the people what they want.” It’s clear in films like Pan, Tonto, and Aloha that Hollywood has no qualms with telling the stories of women or minorities. They have no problem with disenfranchised characters, but it has become apparent in recent casting choices that Hollywood is not ready for disenfranchised actors. This kind of transgression is irresponsible at best, and damaging to our cultural fabric at worst. So for the sake of actors, films, and the future of the industry, I hope eventually someone will start listening.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on Twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

#OscarsSoWhite: The Fight for Representation at the Academy Awards

But beyond academy membership, changes need to be implemented on every level, from writing to directing to acting. Speaking in a roundtable on Oscar Diversity, Lara Brown notes that in order to diversify the entertainment industry, women ought be present in a variety of roles. Brown, who directs the Political Management Program at George Washington University believes that women ought to be present in every aspect of the filmmaking process.

This guest post is written by Danika Kimball.

In recent years, moviegoers, critics, and activists have been increasingly outspoken about Hollywood’s apparent diversity problem. Most recently, the battle over identity and inclusion came to a head with the January unveiling of Oscar nominees, where for the second year in a row, all 20 of the acting nominees were revealed to be white — a point which was not glossed over at the 88th Academy Awards.

During last year’s academy awards, April Reign, an attorney who manages BroadwayBlack.com, began using the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in an attempt to express her frustration at the state of diversity in Hollywood. The hashtag has since gone viral and catalyzed a vital conversation. Reign explained to the Los Angeles Times:

“It happened because I was disappointed once again in the lack of diversity and inclusion with respect to the nominees. … And we see, despite all of the talk since last year, nothing has changed and it looks even worse this year.”

The lack of diversity and inclusion at this year’s academy awards was not glossed over, as Chris Rock opened the program with an biting monologue highlighting the academy’s representation issues — renaming the Oscars the “White People’s Choice Awards.”

“If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job,” he added later, “Y’all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.”

The Academy Awards are just the most recent of many instances that show if you’re looking for an accurate depiction of ethnic and gender diversity in the American workforce, Hollywood is the last place you should be looking.

Recent studies by USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative recently released a brand new study, which offers an unflattering overview revealing the true extent of the ways in which Hollywood is failing diversity practices. Dr. Stacy Smith, who led the team responsible for these findings, said in a recent interview, “The prequel to OscarsSoWhite is HollywoodSoWhite. … We don’t have a diversity problem. We have an inclusion crisis.”

Their report evaluated every speaking character across 414 films, television, and digital stories released in 2014-2015, covering 11,000 speaking characters who were then analyzed on the basis of gender, racial/ethnic representation, and LGBT status. Researchers also analyzed 10,000 directors, writers, and show creators on the basis of gender and race, and 1,500 executives at different media companies.

Their analysis? “The film industry still functions as a straight, white, boy’s club.”

Other studies performed this year have had similar findings. As reported by NPR, a 2015 UCLA study of Diversity in Hollywood confirms the gender and racial imbalances in film and television, behind the scenes and in front of the camera, which compares minority representation to their proportion of the population.

Darnell Hunt, who co-authored the UCLA study, notes that at every level in Hollywood, women and people of color are underrepresented, although people of color have made slight gains in employment arenas since the last time the study was performed.

Despite the fact that ethnic minorities “make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population,” they are represented in leading Hollywood roles a mere 17 percent of the time. And as far as Hollywood executives are concerned, the UCLA study notes that “the corps of CEOS and/or chairs running the 18 studios examined was 94 percent white and 100 percent male.” The study also notes that behind the scenes, directing and writing positions still remain largely white and largely male.

Ana-Christina Ramón, who co-authored the findings notes that the findings are not surprising by any means, but the statistics carry an important message to studios about the profitability of diversity. She tells NPR:

“We continue to see that diversity sells. … And that’s a big point that needs to be then relayed to the studios and the networks.”

She’s not wrong, as her studies prove, films with diverse casts enjoy huge profit margins in the box office, the same for which can be said with television. But it seems as though, despite these statistics, gatekeepers in the entertainment industry (who are white men by and large) believe that the best way to keep their jobs is to surround themselves with people who look like them.

The study also notes that diversity has won out in television, as shows like How To Get Away With Murder, Grey’s Anatomy, Empire, Fresh Off the Boat, and Master of None have proven to draw in high amounts of viewers. The reason? Author Darnell Hunt argues that the answer to that question lies in the general amount of risk associated with each genre.

Television shows are produced in relatively high numbers each year, and budgets operate on a fairly small scale, but for studios produce relatively few films each year and budgets for those can cost upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars — making it imperative to higher ups that these films are successful.

Social media has also changed the landscape of television, as viewers now have social capital to effect change. Ramón tells NPR, “Every viewer has really the power to influence the network directly, especially through Twitter.” To show the power of social media in television, she sites the ABC show Scandal, where viewer opinion changed the arc for a show which was on it’s way to being canceled.

Scandal’s success has prompted even more diverse programming to appear on television, with another Shondaland series How to Get Away With Murder making its television debut just two years later. Television executives are beginning to recognize that shows with a Black female lead are profitable.

For television and film alike, the statistics are sobering, and change ought to be enacted quickly in order to bridge the gross lack of diversity present in all forms of entertainment media. But it looks as though change is in the making. Following this due criticism, it appears as though the academy is increasing measures to diversify their membership. Earlier this year, the academy’s board of governors unanimously voted to double the number of women and people of color in its roster by 2020.

“I think the way [diversity increases] is to have more women in those behind-the scenes in writing, directing, and studio executive roles, because you have to make women more integral to the story, not just the side arm candy to the man’s story.”

In February, the New York Times published, “What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood (*If You’re Not A Straight White Man),” which featured interviews with 27 women, people of color, and LGBTQ people in the entertainment industry, highlighting their “personal experiences of not being seen, heard, or accepted.”

Actress, director, and producer Eva Longoria shared:

“I didn’t speak Spanish [growing up]. I’m ninth generation. I mean, I’m as American as apple pie. I’m very proud of my heritage. But I remember moving to L.A. and auditioning and not being Latin enough for certain roles. Some white male casting director was dictating what it meant to be Latin. He decided I needed an accent. He decided I should [have] darker-colored skin. The gatekeepers are not usually people of color, so they don’t understand you should be looking for way more colors of the rainbow within that one ethnicity.”

Wendell Pierce added his experience while in the casting office of a major studio:

“The head of casting said, ‘I couldn’t put you in a Shakespeare movie, because they didn’t have black people then.’ He literally said that. I told that casting director: ‘You ever heard of Othello? Shakespeare couldn’t just make up black people. He saw them.’”

In a similar fashion, Emmy winner Viola Davis mentioned the importance of creating unique roles for women and people of color, as expressed in her acceptance speech earlier this year:

“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. … I always say that Meryl Streep would not be Meryl Streep without Sophie’s Choice, without Kramer vs. Kramer, without Devil Wears Prada. You can’t be Meryl Streep if you’re the third girl from the left in the narrative with two scenes.”

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

Carrie Fisher Talks Mental Health

Over the past decade, Carrie Fisher has been outspoken about her struggles with bipolar disorder and addiction. Her admissions are profound for a Hollywood actress of her caliber, especially when you consider the ways that society stigmatizes mental illness.

This is a guest post by Danika Kimball.

At the ripe age of 19, Carrie Fisher landed the role of a lifetime playing the iconic Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope. Nearly forty years later, a resurgence of hype surrounding the Star Wars franchise, the heroine once again finds herself in the spotlight. The actress, who recently reprised her role as Leia in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has been beloved for decades. But Fisher shines for reasons other than her acting as well.

Fisher recently made headlines when she rightfully criticized ageist and sexist comments on her appearance, as well as condemned the toxicity of beauty standards. But her candor shouldn’t come as a surprise. Over the past decade, Fisher has been outspoken about her struggles with bipolar disorder and addiction. Her admissions are profound for a Hollywood actress of her caliber, especially when you consider the ways that society stigmatizes mental illness.

Fisher was seemingly destined for fame, the daughter of Hollywood royalty Debbie Reynolds and vocalist Eddie Fisher. She began her career early, lighting up the big screen in films like Shampoo, The Blues Brothers, and When Harry Met Sally. Remarkably, just two years after her debut performance in Shampoo, she earned her most notable role as Leia, reportedly beating out Jodie Foster and Amy Irving for the part.

Fisher’s road to stardom has been a rocky one. By the time Return of the Jedi was being filmed, Fisher had begun self-medicating with sleeping pills. After a four year drug binge post production, Fisher was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In an interview with Diane Sawyer, Fisher notes:

“I used to think I was a drug addict, pure and simple — just someone who could not stop taking drugs willfully. And I was that. But it turns out that I am severely manic depressive. … I thought they told me I was manic depressive to make me feel better about being a drug addict. It’s what you think. If you could just control yourself … You had an indulged childhood … You were a child of privilege … I don’t know, that’s what I thought. You’re just a drug addict.”

While frank about her mental illness for over a decade, Fisher’s openness about her addiction took time. Hollywood and the media at large are both notorious for their lack of empathy and understanding of mental illness, often perpetuating dangerous myths about mental illness. Yet, Fisher gives honest testimonies of the trials and triumphs of battling addiction and bipolar disorder, fully disclosing the realities of her mental health conditions. In her 2008 memoir, Wishful Drinking, Fisher tells her life story with ease and wit, owning her status as “the poster child” for bipolar disorder, stating:

“One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. … At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of.”

Celebrities of Fisher’s stature play an important role in destigmatizing mental health issues. Being outspoken about her struggles, as well as her successes, exemplifies to many that being diagnosed with a mental illness doesn’t mean people should feel shame or silence themselves or that an individual can’t achieve success in any given field, although bad days may be present. While there is still a long way to go in removing the stigmas associated with mental illness, Fisher and others like her help pave the way for thoughtful discourse about mental health.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

Image by Riccardo Ghilardi via the Creative Commons License.

‘Monster’: A Telling of the Real Life Consequences for Violent Women

Throughout her life, Wuornos experienced horrific instances of gendered abuse, which eventually lead to a violent outlash at her unfair circumstances. ‘Monster’ vividly documents the life of a woman whose experiences under a dominant patriarchal culture racked with abuse, poverty, and desperation led to a life of crime, imprisonment, and eventually death.

This guest post by Danika Kimball appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

American film audiences love the idea of violence, especially in regard to justice. From Bruce Wayne’s masked forays as Batman, to Frank Underwood’s signature House of Cards sneer, pop culture and media landscapes are bombarded with the image of a vigilante bringing matters into their own hands to enact justice. But what is almost more widely revered is the concept of a woman taking matters into her own hands, as it defies societal norms on numerous levels.

We see this depiction in numerous films. To the audience’s delight, heroine Beatrix Kiddo takes vengeance on her abusers in the Kill Bill series, and Furiosa defiantly defends her right to redemption from evil doers in Mad Max: Fury Road. But sometimes, females who resort to violence aren’t celebrated, and there is perhaps no greater depiction of this than Charlize Theron’s embodiment of Aileen Wuornos in the widely acclaimed dramatic film, Monster.

Monster is a film based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, who was one of the first female serial killers in the United States. Wuornos, an impoverished former prostitute, was executed in Florida in October 2002 for the murder of six men, each of whom were her former customers. She was only the second woman in Florida and the tenth women in the United States to receive the death penalty since the landmark 1976 Supreme Court decision that restored capital punishment.

The film made an impact on most for its graphic depictions of murder, but upon re-watching the film 10 years later, the portrayal of Aileen’s life in Monster was a cruel visualization of the impacts of patriarchy, poverty, and the ways in which the criminal justice system fails violent women.

In the opening scenes of Monster, we see Aileen as an adult sitting under a busy highway overpass, replaying her life story. We see her as a young child, dreaming of being an icon like Marilyn Monroe, wealthy, loved, and the center of attention.

Her fantasy fades as she walks into a gay bar with the five dollars she had just earned from a John which she was determined to spend before she ended her life. It’s here she meets a woman named Selby, a person she would later devote to protect at any cost.

The pair eventually find solace in their shared loneliness and fall in love, which pushes Selby out of her compulsory heterosexuality. Aileen, finally having someone to care for, takes it upon herself to be a provider for Selby. The film follows Aileen’s struggle to support her newfound family, her efforts in making sure that Selby is happy, and the struggle to maintain her own dignity.

After being raped and brutalized by a client, Aileen kills him in self-defense, vowing to quit prostitution. She confesses her crime to Selby, as Selby has been angry with her for not supporting the two of them.

Aileen’s efforts to find a job prove to be difficult she has no marketable skills, and no job history outside of her years of prostitution. Any prospective employers reject her, some openly volatile, accosting her for wasting their time. We see throughout the film that everyone in Aileen’s life believe that no man will ever pay her for anything aside from her body.

With nowhere to turn, Aileen returns to a life of prostitution, each time killing and robbing her Johns more brutally than the last, as she is convinced they are all trying to harm her.

In this context, it becomes difficult for a viewer to see her actions as evil. Aileen’s actions almost appear to be rational, even moral decisions, when viewed through the lens of extreme gender and class oppression. We see this in her explanations to Selby later, where she implores that she is helping to protect the other women in the world, who might also be victimized these men. She says,

Who the fuck knows what God wants? People kill each other every day and for what? Hm? For politics, for religion, and THEY’RE HEROES! No, no… There’s a lot of shit I can’t do anymore, but killing’s not one of them. And letting those fucking bastards go out and rape someone else isn’t either!

Eventually Aileen’s murders catch up with her, and she is arrested at a biker bar. While speaking to Selby on the phone, Selby reveals incriminating information over the phone while the police are listening in. As her last display of protection, Aileen admits she committed the murders alone. During the subsequent trial, Selby testifies against her in the courtroom hearings. Aileen is executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

Part of what makes Monster so honest and relevant to feminists is the way that it recognizes and points to the patriarchal conditions in place that frame and constrain women’s choices, sometimes leading to a life of crime.

Throughout her life Aileen has been victimized, raped, and violence is a part of her day-to-day existence.

Emily Salisbury, a professor at Portland State University’s Criminology and Criminal Justice Program, suggests that patriarchal conditions are often a huge part of the reason for women’s participation in criminal activity and subsequent incarcerations. She remarks,

With the work of feminist scholars such as Mita Chesney Lynn, Kathleen Daly, Regina Arnold, Barbara Owen and many others, new ideas about female offending were established. The qualitative life history interviews that these scholars conducted with girls and women suggested that their lives leading up to criminal justice involvement were extremely complex and disadvantaged, with unique daily struggles…such as struggles with child abuse, depression, self-medicating behavior, self-hatred, parenting responsibilities, domestic violence and unhealthy intimate relationships. It’s argued that these problems create unique pathways to crime for women.

Many of the struggles listed are applicable to Aileen’s incarceration. In a documentary called Aileen Wuornos: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, director Nick Broomfield speaks to the infamous murderer, where she expresses that if her life leading up to adulthood had been more ideal, she wouldn’t have entered a life of crime in the first place. Family members and close friends remark throughout the film that she was the product of homelessness, violence, abuse, prostitution, poverty, incest, rape, and mental illness.

Throughout her life, Wuornos experienced horrific instances of gendered abuse, which eventually lead to a violent outlash at her unfair circumstances. Monster vividly documents the life of a woman whose experiences under a dominant patriarchal culture racked with abuse, poverty, and desperation led to a life of crime, imprisonment, and eventually death.

Though on-screen depictions of violent women are portrayed as empowering, as is the case with vengeful Furiosa in Mad Max, or the cathartic revenge plot for Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill, Aileen Wuornos’ story tells a different story for violent women. Monster illustrates that all too often, violent women’s pasts are rifled with oppression, and in defending themselves, they face consequences from legal systems that have proven to fail them in the past. For Aileen, violent self-preservation ended in demise.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

‘Stonewall’ Under Fire

The director missed an important opportunity to bring visibility to a highly marginalized and forgotten about group of people with ‘Stonewall,’ but instead he made a film that was more easily digestible for a mainstream audience. It comes as no surprise then that members of the queer community have had such strong negative reactions to the film.

This is a guest post by Danika Kimball.

Throughout his career in Hollywood, Roland Emmerich has built a career on destroying the world with mutant lizards, global disasters, and aliens. Many critics who have seen his latest film Stonewall, have come to the conclusion that he has created “yet another disaster movie” by masking a violent protest led by radical queer women as a coming of age story for an attractive white male. Some reviewers have gone so far as to say, “There are not enough bricks in the world to throw at Roland Emmerich’s appalling Stonewall.”

The film has been under fire since the release of its trailer in early August, with hundreds of thousands of members of the queer community boycotting its release. Rightfully so, given the erasure of trans womyn of color, butch lesbians, drag queens, homeless queer people, sex workers, gay, bi, and pansexual people who actually put in the grunt work during the riots.

Image Courtesy of USC

Emmerich’s erasure of the Black transgender women who incited the riots is a disappointment in and of itself, but when you analyze the statistics for LGBTQ representation in film, the numbers are even more bleak. Professors at the University of California’s Annenberg School of Communication analyzed 100 of the most popular films in 2014 and found that out of 4,610 speaking characters, only 19 total were either gay, lesbian, or bisexual. There were zero transgender characters.

The director missed an important opportunity to bring visibility to a highly marginalized and forgotten about group of people with Stonewall, but instead he made a film that was more easily digestible for a mainstream audience. It comes as no surprise then that members of the queer community have had such strong negative reactions to the film.

Emmerich has responded to the harsh criticism in one of two ways. In an interview with BuzzFeed, he claimed that putting the character Danny at the forefront of the drama was a conscious choice to appeal to both gay and straight people. Later on he remarked that he put a white gay male in the film because he himself is white and gay.

Other times, the director has responded to criticism with a well-intentioned “Kum bah Yah” sentiment, trying to tug at the heartstrings with a “we are all in this together” speech.

Roland Emmerich responds to Stonewall backlash

Though his comments are certainly well intentioned, Emmerich exemplifies an attitude that many cisgender white gay males share: the idea that all queer people share the same oppressions. But it’s harmful to assume that there is a blanket of oppression over the entire LGBTQ community. In focusing on how all queer people suffer from the same oppressions, Emmerich ignores the ways in which race, class, ability, and gender identity intersect to create different levels of oppression.

Emmerich’s experience as a cis white man is very different than the trans women of color who should have been represented in the film. This fact makes the erasure of the Black trans leaders who were at the core of the Stonewall riots all the more problematic, and impossible to stomach.

Reactions to Emmerich’s Facebook post

Another thing I found interesting about Emmerich’s sentiments on Facebook is his emphasis on LGBT homeless youth. The only seemingly positive headlines surrounding the film seem to be because of Emmerich’s activism in this arena. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Emmerich expresses that one of the driving forces in the film centered on the story of homeless gay youths who fought bravely in the Stonewall riots. While homelessness in the LGBTQ community is a problem that needs to be addressed, it’s troublesome that it’s being filtered through the lens of someone who believes all queer people are going through the same struggles.

In the year 2012, the homeless population was at a staggering 633,782 people throughout the United States. Mental health issues, addiction, physical health issues, and domestic violence were among the main reasons contributing to this number, according to research conducted by Professor Kelly A Schwend of Bradley University’s Department of Nursing.

LGBTQ individuals represent a significant portion of that number. According to the Williams Institute, 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBT, 43 percent of clients served by drop-in centers are LGBT, and 30 percent of outreach clients identify as LGBT. These individuals experience a higher percentage of violence, abuse, and exploitation compared to their heterosexual peers. Transgender people are particularly at risk due to a lack of cultural acceptance, and are often turned away from shelters, making them susceptible to even more abuse and violence.

Other studies suggest that Black people represented nearly 40 percent of the U.S. homeless demographic, a startling number when you also consider that according to the U.S. census, Black people make up only 13.2 percent of the U.S. population as a whole.

All of this information paints the picture that Black trans women are in all likelihood the most susceptible to experience violence and homelessness at some point in their life. Black trans women were also the most active in instigating the riots in the first place, so tell me again why these women are underrepresented in the film itself?

From his actions in erasing these women from his film, a historically dramatized narrative, it becomes hard to argue that he is concerned about anyone who isn’t a cisgender white gay male. Again, this isn’t to say that Emmerich wasn’t well intentioned in pointing out the problem, but reinforces the idea that he might not be considering intersectional points of identity when doing so.

Emmerich expressed to Vulture that he believed the film represented the diversity of the Stonewall clientele (around 70 percent Black/Latin@) “very well,” but if the trailer and reviews are any indicator we’ll be seeing more what we see in all of Hollywood: a white man in the foreground, and the people of color behind him. I mean, the still from the climax of the movie speaks for itself.

All in all, Stonewall was a film with great potential, but this fictionalized version of the story changed the narrative from one that was about violent, radical resistance, to a watered down coming of age story for a young cisgender white man. Once again, a gay white male becomes the face of a movement, and historical narratives of the rest of the queer community are erased.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.

On Racism, Erasure, and ‘Pan’

Apparently, most Hollywood executives and casting directors live in a fictional land called Neverlearn.

This is a guest post by Danika Kimball.

Raise your hand if you’re sick of it.

But fear not!

Though certainly not the first film to completely screw up its casting choices (ahem—Stonewall, Aloha, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Native whitewashing is particularly problematic. Fashion editors, photographers, and designers frequently appropriate Native culture, sport red face, and hypersexualize women. Though women are sexualized overall in entertainment mediums, the objectification of Native women presents a whole new set of problems. While one in four women is the victim of sexual abuse on average, that number more than doubles for Native women.

To the naysayers that argue that Warner Brothers couldn’t find a good Native actress to fulfill the role, please allow me to call bullshit.

2002’s Whale Rider cast an unknown actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes, who went on to receive a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Similarly, Quevenzhane’ Wallis was cast as an unknown talent in 2012’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. That year she became the youngest actress to receive a Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards.

The film Miss Representation touches on this idea. Adopting the mantra of Marie Wilson, director of The White House Project–“You can’t be what you can’t see”–the film argues that media representation is important. Without visible role models to look to, young people, especially girls and people of color, will be dissuaded from joining certain fields. Minority groups continue to be underrepresented in STEM, politics, leadership, and law enforcement, fields that are currently oversaturated with white men.

There has been a long standing Hollywood cliche that states, the only color Hollywood executives see is green. This excuses the industry from their role in helping maintain white supremacist patriarchy because they are allowed to say, “We’re just giving the people what they want.” It’s clear in films like Peter Pan, Tonto, and Aloha that Hollywood has no qualms with telling the stories of women or minorities. They have no problem with disenfranchised characters, but it has become apparent in recent casting choices that Hollywood is not ready for disenfranchised actors. This kind of transgression is irresponsible at best, and damaging to our cultural fabric at worst. So for the sake of actors, films, and the future of the industry, I hope eventually someone will start listening.

Danika Kimball is a musician from the Northwest who sometimes takes a 30-minute break from feminism to enjoy a TV show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl or on Instagram @drunkfeminist.