Racism – Bitch Flicks

20 Years of ‘The Craft’: Why We Needed More of Rochelle

Rochelle was the social outcast with the other handful of social outcasts of St. Bernard Academy, sure. But how do we cinematize the Black girl outcast teenager that many of us felt like? That just so happens to be a practicing witch? Much of what can be read of Rochelle relies heavily on those of us whom she meant so much to.

This guest post written by Ashlee Blackwell originally appeared at Graveyard Shift Sisters and appears here as part of our theme week on Women in Horror. It is cross-posted with permission.

The Craft (1996) is a film that came out around the time I turned 13. A freshman in high school and firmly established as a minority within a minority in my predominantly white/European immigrant working-class suburb right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was a painful observation. I was constantly confronting microaggressions about what kind of Black person I was supposed to be, and wasn’t, from all of my peers. I was the weirdo. And I found myself socializing with other weirdos who were the pop culture nerds, especially those who liked genre films and TV (The X-Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer consumed my life for many years) as much as I did.

But my racial difference only highlighted the rise of a reaction that one particular friend, in retrospect I realize wasn’t much of one, consistently searched for from me. As if my nerdiness, introvertedness and his incomprehension that I didn’t fit his concept of a Black person was a code to crack. It was twenty years ago and I still remember this high school hallway conversation all too vividly. He just had to tell me about the Black girl in this new movie called The Craft. And how Rochelle (the Black girl, played by Rachel True) was told by Laura Lizzie (Christine Taylor) after she bravely confronts her as the victim of Laura’s harassment that she doesn’t like “negroids.” Instead of being observantly taken aback, he dished this unwanted spoiler with delight and amusement. As if blatant racism, fictional or not, was something to laugh about.

I don’t know what I expected from a 13-year-old white guy. I don’t know why I even remained casually friendly with him. But I do remember not finding it as chuckle-inducing as he did. And I additionally remember my silence. Because I couldn’t quite find the words at such a young age so quickly, not to express being offended (I wasn’t), but to question why this particular scene I just had to know about, and maybe even reprimand his emotional immaturity and insensitivity.

It was one of those moments where I knew I would never fit in. Anywhere. I would always be the weirdo.

I don’t remember when I finally saw The Craft but when I did, Rochelle’s interactive scenes with the obtuse Laura cut deep. I was flustered and empathetic to a character that was virtually invisible to an entire school population outside of her small coven of comrades, unless to be the unchecked target of racist scorn. This made her experience even that more isolating in contrast to her white female counterparts who, if they did get that brief seat at the table, were promptly dismissed for their class, burn scars, and not performing for the teenage ‘good ‘ol boys’ club. The most glaring difference; Rochelle was never going to get that seat. Along with Sarah (Robin Tunney), Nancy (Fairuza Balk), and Bonnie (Neve Campbell), all making a pact to use the dark arts to channel their angst into empowerment.

Unfortunately, Rochelle’s score to settle was not explored and displayed enough with the emotional weight it carried. It was played as superficial comeuppance for Laura’s racial intolerance. A spell was cast on her to lose what we are to assume was one of Laura’s most cherished assets and core of self-worth; her hair. But it is interesting how her straight, blonde locks were a symbol in itself of an idealized status of social capital, supposed racial superiority, and prosperity. It is interesting how Rochelle makes a sweeping statement, one so quick, sneaky, and easily missed, amongst her friends about a spell to “make me blonde.” I picked up on that 20 years ago and it’s still so apparent to the damage that these experiences inflict on women of color. These are the pieces to Rochelle we could never fully put together because the entire mold was never assembled. What’s missing is much more than The Craft could explore in its run time. And that’s more than just unfortunate.

The movie for many sparked the thirst to explore the deep intersections of the weirdo. Rochelle was the social outcast with the other handful of social outcasts of St. Bernard Academy, sure. But how do we cinematize the Black girl outcast teenager that many of us felt like? That just so happens to be a practicing witch?

Much of what can be read of Rochelle relies heavily on those of us whom she meant so much to. What kinds of conversations did young Black girls have back in 1996 and are having now about the importance of her presence in a film that at least, didn’t blend her in colorblind rhetoric? How did many us find camaraderie, empathy, and imagination in Rochelle’s broader, unseen story?

It’s been a welcomed challenge to do some unpacking and keep the discourse on Rochelle circulating. The Craft is timeless by the strength of the performances and themes. What the film conveys are ideas we carry well into adulthood, never dismissing their importance in our personal growth.

On the surface, it doesn’t necessarily do Rochelle any good for arc’s sake to supernaturally one-up the Mean Girl factor in objection to the popular Blonde girl’s accepted racist attitude, but it does bring an awareness to that other dynamic of being the wierdo — of how there are those who work to shame difference simply on the basis of skin color alone. Why is Rochelle reprimanded for, for some, being the enactor, the catharsis, of every brown teenaged girl who’s had to deal with racism and not exactly know how to combat it at such a tender age?

When True herself sat down with HitFix in May 2016, she discusses the idea that Rochelle and The Craft offered audiences in 1996 an alternative to the kind of Black characters and stories signified as Black that were being greenlit by film studios. Lamenting the fact that the scene with Rochelle’s parents was cut and her motivation for next-level witchcraft mastery was combating racial discrimination, she seemed determined to bring her very best to the material she was given. And it shows. Rachel’s government name alone sparks so many good memories for so many people. She’s proven to be a versatile actress that you’re constantly ready to embrace what she does next. Her presence in The Craft has left an indelible imprint.

Ashlee Blackwell is the founder and managing editor of Graveyard Shift Sisters, a website dedicated to highlighting the work of women of color in the horror and science fiction genres. She holds a MA in Liberal Arts from Temple University and aspires to bring intersectional horror into the college classroom.

Does ‘Pitch Perfect’s Fat Amy Deserve to Be a Fat Positivity Mascot?

It’s great to see a character whose fatness is a part of her identity without being a point of dehumanization, but the films try to make Fat Amy likable at the expense of other characters, positioning her as acceptably quirky, in contrast to the women of color, who are portrayed in a more two-dimensional manner, or Stacie, who is unacceptable due to her promiscuity. Ultimately, the underlying current of stereotype-based humor puts the film’s fat positivity in a dubious light…

This guest post written by Tessa Racked appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions. An earlier version of this essay appears on Consistent Panda Bear Shape. | Spoilers ahead for Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2.

I’ve been writing about film from an intersectional feminist perspective for a little over two years now; most of that writing is unpacking how fat characters function in film on my blog, Consistent Panda Bear Shape. Multiple patterns have been emerging from that work; there are three trends in particular that make it difficult for me to write from an intersectional and/or optimistic perspective. I don’t think, reader, that you will find them too surprising:

Fat characters existing to receive the audience’s contempt, disgust, and/or pity. Mad Max: Fury Road is a great example, where the fat characters are autocrat Immortan Joe and his villainous ally, the People Eater, and the Milk Mothers, who exist as a grotesque example of how Immortan Joe objectifies and exploits the populace under his control.
Likable fat characters having some workaround where they aren’t “actually” fat, so when the character finds confidence or asserts themselves, it can be a feel-good moment without leading the audience to question established standards of acceptable bodies on a broad social scale. Two common workarounds are embodied by Olive in Little Miss Sunshine. While her story revolves around her transgression of physical beauty standards, these standards only apply to the strict, hyperfeminine pageant world; outside that context, her body is within the range of social acceptability. Additionally, actor Abigail Breslin wore a fat suit for the role, further disconnecting Olive’s story from the lived experiences of fat people.
Fat protagonists who are “actually” fat being men, usually of the straight, white variety. Of the 62 films featuring fat characters that I’ve written articles about thus far: 41 of the predominant fat characters were male, 35 of those male characters were white, and only 3 of them were identified as queer within the text of the film. Of the 2 non-human fat characters referred to male in their respective screenplays, both were voiced by white men. (The films I write about haven’t been curated in an objective manner, so take this anecdata with a grain of salt.)

The movies that I watch utilize at least one of these patterns time and time again, if they include fat characters at all. Considering this, when I do see a film featuring a decently-written character in a plot-significant role who is played by a fat actor and isn’t a straight white dude, I start having hopes for a bold new cinematic vision wherein fat people aren’t treated like garbage. Pitch Perfect is a perfect example of the kind of film that will stoke the flames of my high expectations, featuring Rebel Wilson as Fat Amy. When it was making its way into theaters, I remember seeing this exchange all over Tumblr:

This exchange says everything about why I and many others were excited: a female character, played by someone who looks like she gets relegated to the same measly section of clothing stores that I do, being funny and unapologetic about how she gets treated based on her size. (And on a more personal note, Fat Amy is also the cover girl for an AV Club article about humanized portrayals of fat characters that was an inspiration for Consistent Panda Bear Shape.) However, I didn’t actually get around to watching Pitch Perfect until it and its sequel, Pitch Perfect 2, were already out on DVD. I’ve seen a lot of positive press around Fat Amy, but for me, the viewing experience of the two films back-to-back was overall a four-hour anti-climax to my hopes for a new approach to fat representation in a mainstream comedy.

It isn’t all bad. There are some significantly refreshing aspects to how Fat Amy is represented, especially in the original movie. Where a fat body is often employed as visual shorthand for incompetence, she proves her ability as a singer in her introductory scene, impressing Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow) with her voice despite their focus on finding women with “bikini-ready bodies” to audition for the Barden Bellas a capella choir. She is also the most self-assured of the Bellas by far. Her sense of humor is often outlandish but her deadpan delivery suggests that she gets more out of confusing the other characters than entertaining them. The majority of comments characterizing Fat Amy as fat are self-referential but, surprisingly, not self-deprecating. She casually remarks at her surprise that her “sexy fat ass” was chosen to be part of the Bellas. Fatness is part of how she sees herself, and isn’t a source of shame or something that needs to be sanitized; rather, it’s a part of her identity that she modifies appropriately to her mood and context. It felt oddly empowering as a fat viewer to hear her angrily threaten to “finish [someone] like a cheesecake.” Another detail that resonated with me was her fearlessness at calling attention to her body. She sprawls and flails. She has a habit of nonchalantly slapping a rhythm on her belly — a woman having fun with her fat! imagine! — or cupping her breasts during a performance. She inhabits her body and her personal space without apologizing or minimizing.

Beyond how Fat Amy is portrayed as an individual, Pitch Perfect also has progressive aspects to how Fat Amy functions as part of the Bellas. As opposed to what one might expect from a fat character in an ensemble cast, Pitch Perfect doesn’t put Fat Amy in a position where she drags the group down. There is a requisite joke about her avoiding physical activity (while the other singers jog, Aubrey finds Fat Amy lying down, or as she calls it, “horizontal running”), but her sloth seems less sinful in contrast to Aubrey’s drill sergeant seriousness about their shared extracurricular activity. Instead, both films focus on Beca (Anna Kendrick) as the problematic member of the group due to her lack of commitment. As a group, the Bellas have to deal with a change in their image from normatively attractive young women to one that includes singers who don’t meet stereotypical sorority girl standards. They are the classic rag-tag underdogs in a story focuses on competition. “I wanted the hot Bellas,” complains a frat brother who books the group to perform at a mixer, when shutting them down mid-song, “not this barnyard explosion.” Even the senior Bellas, thin and preppy Aubrey and Chloe, have bodies that defy expectations of femininity. It’s common to see fat female characters in comedies as a focal point of gross or bizarre body humor, but Pitch Perfect takes a more democratic approach. Aubrey struggles with stress-induced projectile vomiting, and soprano Chloe gains the ability to sing deep bass notes after a surgery to remove nodes on her vocal cords.

Although Fat Amy isn’t presented as more grotesque or cartoonish than the other characters, Pitch Perfect doesn’t extend the favor to other Bellas who aren’t straight and white, as Fat Amy is. The most glaring contrast is Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean), a Black butch lesbian (with an incredible set of pipes) who is also larger-bodied than the average young woman seen in a mainstream comedy. We first meet her at auditions, where she is immediately misgendered. She doesn’t come out as gay to her chorus mates until towards the end of the movie, although we get “hints” to her sexuality via shots of her leering at or groping other women, or other characters making snide comments about her sexual orientation and/or gender presentation. The audition sequence where we meet Cynthia Rose also introduces Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), who embodies the stereotype of the quiet Asian girl through a running gag where she says disturbing things in a soft voice that none of the other characters are able to hear.

Although all of the characters are part of the same underdog team, mining tired caricatures for humor reifies divides in the group via racism and homophobia. And while Fat Amy transgresses stereotypes about fat women, she is straight and white, which within the world of the film, puts her in an uncriticizable position to make snarky comments about Cynthia Rose’s sexuality and other uncomfortable remarks at the expense of marginalized groups (e.g. a clunky improv moment referring to her hairstyle as an “Orthodox Jew ponytail”).

The “fat positive” aspects of Fat Amy’s depiction aren’t just positioned against other characters who don’t share her privileged social identities. Stacie’s (Alexis Knapp) function in the group as the humorously promiscuous Bella complicates the praise Pitch Perfect gets for showing Fat Amy’s active sex life. Stacie’s sexuality is coded as excessive, a joke that becomes the majority of her screen time, whether Aubrey is trying to get her to tone down her dance moves or she’s referring to her vagina as a “hunter.” However, we never see Stacie involved with anyone. Fat Amy, on the other hand, is shown in the company of two hunks on her spring break and also makes comments about her own sexual prowess. So why is the line drawn between Stacie and Fat Amy, where one’s sexuality is the butt of jokes and the other’s is an empowering aspect of her character? When we see Bumper (Adam Devine) flirting with Fat Amy and getting shot down or hear Fat Amy talk about how she joined the Bellas because she needed to step back from her busy love life, we see her defying the expectations that we have for fat girls in movies, the assumption that nobody will want to have sex with her or that she won’t have the confidence to approach someone. Stacie, however, is thin and normatively attractive. The audience expects that she has no shortage of willing sexual partners and doesn’t restrain herself in the way she is expected to; thus, she is deserving of ridicule. The inconsistency between how the two characters’ sex lives are valued demeans Stacie and condescends to Fat Amy.

As Pitch Perfect 2 is helmed by a female director and writer with some skin in the game (Elizabeth Banks, who is in a supporting role in both films, and Kay Cannon, who wrote the original), one might hope that the sequel would amend the issues in the original, perhaps by giving more screen time to find some depth in characters like Cynthia Rose and Lilly. Unfortunately, the franchise loses more feminist cred by doubling down on the cheap stereotypes. Cynthia Rose is still a source for jokes about lesbians creeping on straight women, Lilly is still the quiet Asian girl, and now Flo (Chrissie Fit) has joined the Bellas, a Latina woman whose every comment is about how harsh and dangerous her life was in her unspecified Latin American home country.

Even the progressive aspects of Fat Amy’s depiction in Pitch Perfect largely erode in the sequel. The opening sequence is perhaps the most telling, where Fat Amy experiences a costume malfunction during a performance at President Obama’s birthday gala and accidentally exposes her vulva to the TV cameras and the concert audience. Typical to a comedy film, the audience reacts with disgust and terror, some even running away. Although unintentional, her body is deemed excessive and the resulting outcry nearly destroys the Bellas.

A similar scene of disgust comes later in the film, where a romantic moment between Fat Amy and Bumper (Adam Devine) causes his friends to run away in order to avoid looking at the couple. (While Bumper isn’t as outside the normative range of bodies seen on-camera, he is larger-bodied than the other Treblemakers.) The plotline of their relationship doesn’t meet the standards of a romantic partner that Fat Amy sets in the first film, where she brushes off his advances (though she raises the eyebrows of the other Bellas by having his number in her phone). In Pitch Perfect 2, she and Bumper are hooking up. He asks her to date him officially with a romantic dinner; she initially turns him down, saying that she’s a “free range pony who can’t be tamed,” but eventually realizes that she’s in love with him (for no discernible reason) and wins him back with a rendition of Pat Benatar’s “We Belong.” The main conflict of Pitch Perfect is the competition between the Bellas and the Treblemakers, which sets up Fat Amy and Bumper as well-balanced adversaries, both confident and ambitious. Fat Amy disdains Bumper’s advances and flirts with aforementioned hunks; Bumper quits school for an opportunity to work for John Mayer. However, in the second film, former antagonist Bumper has been humbled, now working as a college security guard and desperately trying to hang on to his past glory days as a college a capella big shot. It is at this point that he becomes a suitable partner for Fat Amy.

In Pitch Perfect, the Bellas achieve a competitive edge by using Beca’s mash-up arrangements instead of more traditional medley formats in their performances. This works as an apt allegory for Pitch Perfect as feminist films: there are some welcome updates, but ultimately it’s the same song. It’s great to see a character whose fatness is a part of her identity without being a point of dehumanization, but the films try to make Fat Amy likable at the expense of other characters, positioning her as acceptably quirky, in contrast to the women of color, who are portrayed in a more two-dimensional manner, or Stacie, who is unacceptable due to her promiscuity. Ultimately, the underlying current of stereotype-based humor puts the film’s fat positivity in a dubious light, compounded by the erosion of Fat Amy’s status as kickass fat girl, as well as any thematic content about female friendship.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Pitch Perfect and Third Wave Feminism

Tessa Racked can be heard as a guest contributor to film podcasts including Directors Club and Tracks of the Damned, on the Now Playing Network. They are good at modern dance, olden dance, mermaid dancing, and peppering the Internet with cleverness. You can follow them on Twitter @tessa_racked.

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.

The Problems with Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’

In ‘Pocahontas,’ Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal. … Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

This guest post written by Shannon Rose appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

For as long as I can remember, my brother who has autism and I have loved Disney movies, and they have given us a real way to connect and bond with each other over the years. Disney has had such a positive impact on my life and my relationship with my brother that it is difficult to look back and see how problematic the films are, especially with regards to Indigenous women. However, I have realized that it’s important to step back from our own attachments and examine the harm Disney has done by perpetuating damaging stereotypes. This, in turn, will help us fight for better representation in future animated films that will positively impact the next generation of Disney movie fans. In Pocahontas, Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal.

Pocahontas is an animated romantic musical drama about a young Native American woman in the 17th century who falls in love with a colonizing European, John Smith, and saves his life, bringing temporary peace between the colonizers and the Indigenous people. I always assumed it was an overly embellished rendition of history, but it is actually a heavily romanticized version of John Smith’s account of the events. This is problematic because there is a long, fraught history of European storytelling that involves a colonizing white man being saved by an Indigenous woman, who then falls in love with him and becomes a Christian, which is suspiciously similar to Pocahontas’ tale. The Powhatan Nation criticized Pocahontas for perpetuating the trope of “the ‘good Indian,’ one who saved the life of a white man.” White men have been fascinated with “civilizing” gorgeous Indigenous women, and John Smith’s story is only one of the many that have been perpetuated. Knowing this changes the context of the film. It’s no longer a story of a woman who falls in love with a seemingly unattainable man, but rather the delusions of a white colonizer who dreams of a beautiful Indigenous woman wanting to give up her life among “savages” to become a proper “civilized” European, aiding him in his desire to spread white civilization and power across the world.

Disney sells the film as having a female protagonist, but since the source material originated from a white man’s point of view, she lacks the agency to guide the story. Pocahontas is immediately “othered” as a mystical creature deeply in touch with nature, and not a complex human being. She communicates with animals, she can leap from great heights, she asks advice from a tree, and the wind leads her along her journey. All of these magical touches create distance between her and the audience. More importantly, it creates distance between Native Americans and how they are represented on-screen. When Disney made Pocahontas and her culture otherworldly, they erased the humanity of Indigenous people.

The audience is introduced to John Smith as an English man who has traveled all over the world, and has proudly killed many Indigenous people in order to spread his idea of “civilization.” “You can’t fight Indians without John Smith!” a fellow shipmate says. “That’s right, I’m not about to let you guys have all the fun!” Smith elatedly responds. Here is a man who has never hesitated to kill Indigenous people before, but when he finds Pocahontas at the end of the barrel of his gun, he suddenly has a change of heart. He doesn’t stop because she’s a woman; he stops because she is stunning. Her body is worth more to him alive than dead.

Another magical element that does more harm than good is the way Pocahontas immediately learns how to speak English, to the shock and delight of both her animal friends and Smith. Off the hook, Smith now has no need to learn her language because Pocahontas adjusts herself to accommodate his needs. The language barrier that exists between cultures has always required give and take from both sides; it makes us better communicators and strengthens our ability to understand each other in a deeper, more meaningful way. By forgoing that struggle, the white colonizer is accommodated and their white supremacist beliefs are sustained.

Part of the problem with Pocahontas is how it teaches young Indigenous girls that their worth is dependent on the men in their lives. To be seen as a princess, as royalty, they must be willing to risk their lives to defend white men and turn away from their own culture. While Pocahontas is portrayed as a heroine, did she ever have a choice? Would her story ever have been told if she had let Smith die, if she had chosen her family over him? She would have been erased from history, as far too many Indigenous women have been. Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

Disney exacerbated the erroneous long-held belief that Indigenous women welcomed Europeans and their culture to America, erasing the history of racism, colonialism, and genocide against Indigenous peoples. Disney went one step further, however, and commodified Native Americans and their culture in ways we have not been able to recover from. In early 1995, months before the movie was released, Disney spent millions marketing the film. Pocahontas Barbie dolls, Payless Shoes moccasins, and Halloween costumes can still be found today, twenty years later, giving white girls permission to appropriate Native American culture and treat race and culture as costumes. Because Disney made Pocahontas an American “Princess,” many non-Native people assumed her as one of their own. Thus, we now can claim a shared American heritage, and not have to think twice before appropriating her culture. Many of us have long struggled with our place in the U.S.’s violent and troubled history but Disney single-handedly made cultural appropriation “okay” for an entire generation of children in order to sell merchandise.

It is hard to accept that something we love is deeply flawed because their flaws reflect back on us. It’s much easier to brush those criticisms off and push it to the back of your mind. It’s important to know, though, that you can love something that is flawed (I’ve been singing “Just Around the River Bend” for a week now) and still push Disney and other filmmakers to not make the same mistakes again.

We need to amplify stories of Indigenous women, and give them the support they need to tell those stories and make them be heard to a larger audience. Indigenous women need to be writers and directors, not props in white people’s stories to make us feel better about colonizing their home. The true story of Pocahontas, where she was kidnapped and used as propaganda by the Virginia Company and whose real name was Matoaka, is tragic and should embarrass us non-Native people. It was never Disney material, but there are stories about Indigenous women out there that are. Disney just needs to look beyond source material created by white men.

Shannon Rose is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. She has her MFA in Film & Television from USC School of Cinematic Arts, and she is passionate about creating opportunities in film for diverse voices. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @femmefocale.

Call for Writers: Ladies of the 1980s

There is a deep nostalgia for the 1980s, especially the pop culture of the decade. … Stories with iconic women at their heart flourished in the 80s (‘Working Girl,’ ‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘The Legend of Billie Jean’). The emerging breed of action heroine born in the 70s came into her own in the 80s (Sarah Connor from ‘The Terminator,’ Ellen Ripley from ‘Aliens,’ Leia Organa of ‘Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back’).

Our theme week for June 2016 will be Ladies of the 1980s.

There is a deep nostalgia for the 1980s, especially the pop culture of the decade. The teen narrative reigned supreme. Tales of disaffected youth and romantic comedies were changed forever once John Hughes put his personal stamp on them in the 80s. The fashion of the era is still famous/infamous, known for hefty shoulder pads and big, stiff bangs. Stories with iconic women at their heart flourished in the 80s (Working Girl, Sixteen Candles, The Legend of Billie Jean). The emerging breed of action heroine born in the 70s came into her own in the 80s (Sarah Connor from The Terminator, Ellen Ripley from Aliens, Leia Organa of Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back).

The ladies of the 80s inspired self-identification in female audience members, from the oft-bespectacled Andie of Pretty in Pink who must make her own prom dress because she can’t afford to buy one to the androgynous car-fixing, drum-playing tomboy, Watts, who is overlooked by her best friend and love interest in Some Kind of Wonderful. Women in the 80s were allowed to be quirky, awkward, nerdy, and unsexualized, while still maintaining the lead role and/or the love interest role.

Television series Golden Girls, Murder, She Wrote, and Designing Women featured all-women casts and older women characters, as well as focused on women’s careers and female friendships. TV series The Cosby Show (now with a “tainted legacy” due to the rape/sexual assault survivors who have come forward accusing Bill Cosby) and A Different World featured a range of Black women characters.

What makes the ladies of the 1980s so iconic, so beloved, so well-remembered? Who are your favorite ladies of the 80s? Looking back with our 2016 lens, were things really so great for women in the 80s? Women in the 80s were usually love interests and even love objects (literally in Mannequin). While white women were frequently leads, women of color didn’t fare so well in the 80s, as they were often completely unrepresented or tokenized. Classic 80s films like Revenge of the Nerds and Sixteen Candles are now being critiqued for their racism and participation in rape culture.

We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so please get your proposals in early if you know which topic you would like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for these submissions is Friday, June 24, 2016 by midnight Eastern Time.

Here are some possible topic ideas:

The Terminator

Jumpin’ Jack Flash

Full House

Aliens

The Cosby Show

Sixteen Candles

Mannequin

She-Ra: Princess of Power

The Secret of the Sword

A Different Image

The Breakfast Club

Punky Brewster

Drylongso

Heathers

The Legend of Billie Jean

Working Girl

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

The Women of Brewster Place

Teen Witch

Stakeout

Gleaming the Cube

What ‘Parenthood’ Taught Me About Interracial Relationships

I remember watching the scene in the episode “The Talk” where Crosby and Jabbar have their first conversation about the N-word. Crosby looked so caught off guard; he knows this is a racist word he’s not supposed to say, yet at the same he has no idea how to talk about this racial slur and its ramifications with his half Black son.

This guest post written by Livi Burke appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

Growing up, I was often either one of the few Black kids in my class or the only one. So it would be no surprise that my attraction to good-looking white guys has always been so strong. When I was a young Jonas Brother-loving 13-year-old experiencing her first crush, I had no idea just how much impact race could have on my future relationships. It wasn’t until I got older that I learned about the unique and challenging aspects of interracial relationships.

TV series like Parenthood and The Fosters really helped show me what it would be like to be in a committed relationship with someone of a different race. Not only did I feel like I was learning so much by watching these shows for the first time, but I also loved the representation. The representation I saw was not just of people of color as a whole but also people of color coming together to love each other and start families together.

Now as much as I loved seeing my well-known love for vanilla onscreen, I did see some things in Parenthood that were not nearly as fun to watch. There were several times when Crosby’s very blatant ignorance of his white privilege unsettled me. It made me think of what would happen if I met someone who isn’t aware of their privilege. That person could make a great partner and even be a great parent but if they aren’t fully aware of their white privilege? Not a chance.

Parenthood is known for dealing with social issues, including racism. I remember watching the scene in the episode “The Talk” where Crosby and Jabbar have their first conversation about the N-word. Crosby looked so caught off guard; he knows this is a racist word he’s not supposed to say, yet at the same he has no idea how to talk about this racial slur and its ramifications with his half Black son. This scene became one of the many turning points of the show. Later, Crosby and Jasmine have a much more in-depth dialogue with Jabbar about racism and why the N-word is so hateful and offensive. This echoes conversations that many parents of color have had with their children. What made this discussion different to me was how this becomes a huge learning experience for both Jabbar and Crosby. When I watched this scene, I felt like I was seeing myself as a mom having that conversation with my future son.

In addition to showing examples of interracial families and adult relationships, Parenthood also depicted teens Haddie and Alex in a much different relationship that contained many relatable aspects. The moment that really stands out to me about their relationship is Alex’s arrest. When Alex picks up a drunk Haddie from a party, he gets into a confrontation with another high school student, whose parents press charges against Alex for the fight. As great as it was that the Bravermans helped him get the charges dropped, I know that if not for their help, Alex would have had to do time in jail. Why? Because Alex is a young Black man and racial bias is something that’s still very real in the U.S.

The biggest thing that I gained from watching the interracial relationships in Parenthood is that my future husband won’t fully understand what it is like to be Black in America. But as long as they are open to learning more about my struggles and aware of their white privilege, our relationship will remain strong. Just because our races and experiences may differ, it doesn’t mean we can’t still come together to love each other and raise a family.

Even though I didn’t exactly enjoy learning the hard lessons about race through these shows, I am very grateful that I did. I never thought that a family drama I started watching on Netflix when I probably should have been studying would become so much more than entertainment for me.

Livi Burke is a blogger, a student, and a long time coffee lover. Some of her biggest passions are writing, photography, and blogging. Her work can be seen on Thought Catalog, Coming of Faith, Bustle, and many other online publications. When she isn’t working on a new article or blog post, she is either rewatching Gilmore Girls or obsessing over her favorite Subway sandwich.

Colonialism in ‘The King and I’ and Related Media

‘The King and I’ promotes colonialist and “white savior” attitudes. … Adding romantic interest to the story, showing King Mongkut as exceedingly admiring of Anna and portraying her influence in the court as more than it was, paints Western values and morals as superior to others, justifying colonialism by making it seem as though Eastern countries “need” the West.

Written by Jackson Adler as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

“Is the King and I racist, and is it time it was put to rest?” [sic] asks Dee Jefferson of The Sydney Morning Herald. While his article is inconclusive, I strongly believe that the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as it exists now, and other Western media telling the same story, should be “put to rest.” The way that the story of Anna Leonowens teaching at the court of King Mongkut of Siam (now Thailand) in the mid 19^th century is told in the West needs to be completely redone if it is to be told, because the way it is presented is both inaccurate and harmful. There is a reason The King and I (staged on Broadway in 1951 and adapted for film in 1956) and many other adaptations of the same story such as Anna and the King of Siam (1946) and Anna and the King (1999) either are or were banned in Thailand – because they are extremely insensitive to Thailand’s history and culture, and promote colonialist and “white savior” attitudes.

To say that The King and I and related media is racist is missing the point. This is because racism is a product of colonialism, often being an afterthought justification for stealing and controlling another peoples’ wealth, labor, and resources, or as a propagandist rallying cry to begin the colonization of another people and their land. Anna Leonowens is painted as the “white savior” in these adaptations, and shown inaccurately as the main influence behind the reforms implemented by Mongkut and his son Chulalongkorn.

Though Mongkut and Leonowens did respect one another and worked closely, a romance between them does not seem to have existed, and the invention of it in the media is a tool to better depict Leonowens “civilizing” Mongkut to the extent that he might be a “gentleman” and a romantic interest – albeit in a bittersweet “it would never work” way. Interracial relationships (however problematically written) are themes in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work, such as in South Pacific, as interracial marriage was a hot button issue at their time, not nationally legalized until 1967. Under the guise of being “progressive,” these works actually do an incredible amount of harm.

Mongkut hired Leonowens (who was ethnically English and East Indian, but claimed to be Welsh) to teach his children “English language, science, and literature, and not for the conversion to Christianity.” He himself already knew English (and Latin) and was well versed in Western culture. The image of Mongkut in the media is a stereotypical “barbarian” and “foolish” despot, despite the efforts of talented actors such as Chow Yun-Fat and Ken Watanabe to show a complex and thoughtful human being and leader. Women’s rights were improved under his reign. For example, unlike the story of Tuptim in the musical suggests, he outlawed forced marriages and released a large number of concubines to marry whom they chose. He respected the minds and wishes of his wives. When they met, Mongkut and his family treated Leonowens with kindness and respect, while she was often rude, condescending, or sarcastic to them. She strongly believed herself superior to the Thai people due to her being (part) English and a Christian, even telling members of the royal family to their faces, “I am not like you.”

The myth of she and Mongkut emotionally having a romance is quickly debunked due to various instances and examples of her enacting and making plain her biases and self-righteousness. One such instance was when she was asked by some female members of the royal family which prince she would find more desirable to marry were she to choose. She replied, according to her first autobiography, that they “are pagans” (Buddhist) and as such, “An English, that is a Christian, woman” such as herself “would rather be put to the torture, chained and dungeoned for life, or suffer a death the slowest and most painful you Siamese know, than be the wife of either” [sic]. The words “you Siamese” naturally show her condescending tone and attitude towards Thai people, insulting their intelligence and knowledge of the world.

Aspects of Leonowens’ autobiographies have proved to be exaggerated or fabricated, and seem to have been made to make herself look better and Mongkut look cruel. Various members of the Thai royal family, from Chulalongkorn himself to more to the present, have spoken out against both the inaccuracies in Leonowens’ works as well all media representations. One example of this is the alleged execution of Tuptim, featured in many adaptations (though she is whipped in the musical). Much of Tuptim’s story was fabricated, and she in fact was not executed, but became one of the wives of Chulalongkorn. Indeed, according to Mongkut did not believe in executions, considering them not in line with Buddhism.

However, Western adaptations have been more than ready to depict the Thai as “barbarians” or as “foolish” and Anna as the epitome of Western graciousness and, indeed, womanhood. Adding romantic interest to the story, showing Mongkut as exceedingly admiring of Anna and portraying her influence in the court as more than it was, paints Western values and morals as superior to others, justifying colonialism by making it seem as though Eastern countries “need” the West. Of course, Anna and Mongkut never kiss and hardly ever physically show their romantic interest, as to do so would “corrupt” Anna, the white woman, and put someone “lesser than” above her due to gender norms.

The fictionalized versions of this story are not only problematic in how they are written, but also problematic in terms of casting. As of 2014, white men are still being cast as King Mongkut, showing little has changed since Rex Harrison played the role in 1946. When an Asian man is cast, even in film adaptations, it is an actor who is not Thai, playing into the Western myth that all Asians and Asian cultures are the same. Except for Korean-American actress Anna Sanders, who played Anna on Broadway for a total of three performances in two days, the role of Leonowens has exclusively been played by white women, and often portrayed as blonde or redhead, despite the historical figure being part East Indian and having dark hair. This whitewashing is ridiculous, and shows how little white Westerners have changed in their self-righteousness and feelings of entitlement toward other lands and cultures.

All in all, the story of Anna Leonowens teaching at the Siamese court, as it has been told by Western media, remain colonialist and otherwise harmful. Even if Leonowens and Mongkut had a particularly deep and romantic relationship, which they did not, Leonowens’ white savior attitudes and Mongkut’s (historically inaccurate) verbal and physical violence would make that relationship a terribly abusive and volatile one. This would not be the kind of relationship to be valued, making even the most redeeming qualities of these adaptions problematic at best. I am not advocating that Leonowens’ and Mongkut’s stories be silenced and untold, but instead that they be told with honesty. This was a king actively working to keep his country free from colonialism, and this was a woman whose colonialist attitudes — which kept her from interacting well with those who treated her with respect — were probably due to internalized racist biases and fears regarding her East Indian heritage (a heritage she worked hard to hide). This is in fact a story that needs to be told, and hopefully many more (and more accurate) adaptations will be made in the future.

Jackson Adler is a transguy with a BA in Theatre, a Bitch Flicks staff writer, and is a writer, activist, director, teacher, dramaturge, cartoon lover, vegan boba drinker, and proud Gryffindor. His day job is at a theatre (live, not movie), and he uses a pen name as a precaution, since he’d rather not risk getting fired. He is white and middle class, and has to remember his privileges. He is also aromantic bi/pansexual, and has an Auditory Processing Disorder and a Weak Working Memory (which does not excuse when he forgets that he has lots of privileges). You can follow him on twitter at @JacksonAdler, and see more of his writing on representation and discrimination in the media at the blog The Windowsill.

No Place For Us: Interracial Relationships in ‘West Side Story’

‘West Side Story’ could be read as a warning to Latinas: stay away from white men. If María listened to her older brother, obeying his wish to keep her obedient and virginal, María would be safe and free from grief. This notion is exceedingly disappointing, especially considering that there are not many Latina main characters in Hollywood movies.

This guest post written by Olivia Edmunds-Diez appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

I grew up watching mainstream movie musicals. From The Sound of Music to Grease, my five-year-old self’s dramatic play ranged from pretending to be a Nazi to swiveling my hips singing along to “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee.” Oh, the joys of blissful ignorance. But the one movie musical I was not allowed to watch as a child was West Side Story. My mother always passed it off as “too sad and too violent.” As a stereotypical first born, I knew better than to question my mother’s infinite wisdom. It wasn’t until I turned fifteen that I finally sat down to watch West Side Story, and promptly cried through the entire second half, wailing about the deaths. My mother responded with a simple, “I told you so.”

Despite my strong emotional response, I would continue to watch West Side Story over the years. It quickly became one of my favorite musicals, and I would even see it on Broadway (with my mother!) when it was revived in 2009 with Lin Manuel-Miranda adding Spanish to both the book and lyrics. It is unsurprising that I would love this musical so much, for as a Latina theatre major, how could I resist the infectious score, vibrant costumes, and astounding choreography? But it wasn’t until college that I really started to look at the musical’s content, and quickly grew displeased with what I found. My favorite colorful musical about people who looked like me became a musical about racism, sexism, and colonialism.The love story between Tony and María, that I used to admire so, became depressing. After all, María’s life goes downhill once she meets Tony.

Colorism is very much alive in West Side Story, to the point that the film casts white actress Natalie Wood as the Puerto Rican María. Heaven forbid that an actual Puerto Rican be cast! Granted, this casting choice was partly related to Hollywood wanting a big name to draw bigger box office numbers. But because this Romeo and Juliet interpretation features a white boy and a Puerto Rican girl, there is the chance that their mixed-race union could result in mixed-race children. The horror! To ease the minds of Hollywood’s target white audience, Wood was considered a great substitute to allow white audiences to delve safely into the Puerto Rican barrios. After all, María isn’t really Puerto Rican, she’s just a white girl with an on-again off-again Puerto Rican accent!

Of the two featured Puerto Rican women, María is the virgin trope to Anita’s whore trope. María’s virginity is emphasized to make her a safe choice for Tony, lest our white knight be swept into a ‘dirty’ Puerto Rican’s bed. One obvious manifestation of this is her white dress for the dance. Despite María’s wishes for a shorter red dress, like her role-model Anita, Anita ensures María’s virginity by keeping the dance dress white and at a ‘respectable’ length. Anita’s hard work pays off as the white knight Tony only has eyes for María, who visually stands apart from the crowd.

One alarming component to West Side Story is that María does not feel pretty until noticed by a white boy. This is unsurprising, given María’s wish to fit in with mainstream American culture. Living under her older brother’s protective gaze, María longs for independence. Much like Cinderella, all she really wants is a night off and a fancy dress. María is largely uninterested in boys, shunning her brother’s chosen mate for her, until she stumbles upon Tony at the dance. Suddenly, María’s independence flies out the window. Over the span of 72 hours, María gets ‘married’ in an adorable play-wedding that quickly turns serious, has sex for the first time, and becomes a widow.

Within West Side Story, everyone stands against María and Tony’s interracial relationship. Anita makes it clear that she thinks María is out of her mind, and Tony’s boss, Doc, tries to persuade Tony that his interracial relationship will never work. It is interesting that this is one clear distancing move from Romeo and Juliet, in which the Nurse and Friar Lawrence quickly come around to support the couple. But when race enters the picture, Anita, Doc, and the other characters cannot support María and Tony. In the song “Somewhere,” our main love duo sings about a magical place far away where they can be together. They plan to run away to this “Somewhere.” But it is clear by the end of the film that “Somewhere” does not exist, as María and Tony will never be free from racism.

West Side Story could be read as a warning to Latinas: stay away from white men. If María listened to her older brother, obeying his wish to keep her obedient and virginal, María would be safe and free from grief. This notion is exceedingly disappointing, especially considering that there are not many Latina main characters in Hollywood movies. West Side Story came out in 1961, and remains celebrated and remembered to this day. The take-away, then, for Latinas, is to heed our families’ advice and stay within our culture. Maybe someday, interracial stigma will dissipate. But until then, “Somewhere” seems to be the only place interracial couples can live happily.

Olivia Edmunds-Diez is a senior at Northwestern University, double majoring in Theatre and Gender and Sexuality Studies, with a certificate in Theatre for Young Audiences. She loves cats, Beyoncé, and spends her free time listening to the Hamilton cast recording on repeat. You can find her on her blog, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

Ladies and Gentlemen, ‘Master of None’ Is the Series We’ve All Been Waiting For

You don’t have to look further than the comments section on any website to see that people with more power routinely try to decide what people with less power have the right to complain about. It’s something that happens in every discussion about inequality, but it’s so rare for that to be the topic itself that I was actually shocked when it was in “Ladies and Gentlemen.”

Written by Katherine Murray.

If you haven’t had time to catch up on Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series yet, prepare yourself to be delighted.

Ever since it dropped in November, Master of None — created by Ansari and Alan Yang — has racked up critical praise. The comedy follows Ansari’s character, Dev, as he navigates his dating life and fledgling acting career in New York City. But what sets it apart is the diversity of its characters, and the insight it offers into day-to-day microaggressions related to race and gender. Master of None offers us a point of view that’s hard to find on television, and does it in a smart, entertaining way.

One of the episodes that has attracted the most attention is “Parents,” which focuses on first-generation Americans trying to navigate relationships with their immigrant parents. Ansari cast his real-life mother and father in the episode, and the story struck a powerful chord with viewers who had never before seen their own experiences as children of immigrants reflected in popular entertainment. Another episode, “Indians on TV,” highlights racist stereotypes and casting in mainstream media, calling out real-life examples, both obvious and subtle.

Master of None has received less attention for the way it approaches gender, but the first season shines on that front, too. Dev’s group of friends includes funny, smart people from many different backgrounds, including a straight white man and a Black lesbian woman who have roughly equal importance in the story. His relationship with his one-night stand turned girlfriend, Rachel, is respectful and emotionally mature – they act like equals at all times, and like each other because they have the same sense of humor, interests, and values. In the episode “Hot Ticket,” Dev agonizes over setting up a date with a really attractive waitress, only to discover that he hates her personality. It’s an idea that could have gone wrong, but the character and her awful personality idiosyncrasies are so specific that it doesn’t come off as a statement that beautiful women are X, Y or Z, so much as a statement that it’s not possible to know whether someone is a desirable date until you’ve spent time talking to them.

The most feminist episode of the first season, though, is “Ladies and Gentlemen,” in which Dev is surprised to learn that his girlfriend and female friends are constantly the targets of aggressive behavior from men. Like “Indians on TV,” “Ladies and Gentlemen” starts by highlighting broad, obvious forms of aggression, before drawing attention to subtler types of discrimination that even well-meaning people engage in.

“Ladies and Gentlemen” opens with a scene that cuts back and forth between Dev and one of his female co-stars leaving a cast party at night. Dev and his male friend, Arnold, share a pleasant conversation and cut through the park to save time. Dev’s co-star looks like she’s in a horror movie and ends up getting followed to her house by some asshole who tried to buy her a drink earlier and got mad when she turned him down. He hammers on her door demanding to know why nice guys like him never have a chance.

After Dev finds out about what happened, he hears similar stories from all the other women in his life. The stories are based on the real-life experiences of female staff writers, and they’re completely familiar to any woman watching the show, right down to the detail where you can’t post a picture of eggs on your Instagram without some strange guy showing up to harass you.

Armed with this new information, Dev and his female friend, Denise, make a citizen’s arrest when they catch a man jerking off on the subway. Dev becomes a hero to all the women at the bar, who start buying him drinks and telling him about the awful things that guys have done to them. Later on, while he’s still basking in the glow of being an upstanding feminist, one of Dev’s male coworkers stops by the table and introduces himself to all the men, while ignoring the women completely. Rachel and Denise point out the sexism of the situation and Dev dismissively tells them that they are being too sensitive and making a big deal out of nothing. He’s then confused about why Rachel is upset with him.

What follows is an amazing scene – also based on real-life experiences – where Rachel and Dev walk home together and she explains in an articulate but believable way, why it’s hurtful and offensive for him to tell her that her own assessment of a thing that just happened to her is wrong. It’s like the final scene in the Louie episode “So Did the Fat Lady,” except without being so problematic. In the end, Dev concedes that Rachel knows more about what Rachel just experienced than he does, and says he will try harder to listen, from now on.

It’s one of the single greatest moments I’ve seen on a TV show – and maybe the only one to directly address this exact, frustrating, aggravating, hard-to-articulate issue head-on. You don’t have to look further than the comments section on any website to see that people with more power routinely try to decide what people with less power have the right to complain about. That very act – that presumptuous attempt to unilaterally define the boundaries of what is and isn’t up for discussion; what we can and can’t feel offended by; what we can and can’t disagree about – that very act is, itself, an attempt to protect and reinforce the power structures we were trying to complain about in the first place. It’s something that happens in every discussion about inequality, but it’s so rare for that to be the topic itself that I was actually shocked when it was in “Ladies and Gentlemen.”

Non-traditional networks like Netflix and Amazon have opened new frontiers in terms of what a TV show can be and whose stories are profitable enough to be worth telling. Master of None is an example of the very best these new frontiers have to offer – a funny, insightful, well-produced series that broadens the range of experiences depicted on television and adds something new to the cultural discussion.

The good news is that Master of None was just officially renewed for second season, expected to show up in 2017.

Staff writer Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel’s ‘Jessica Jones’

Marvel’s ‘Jessica Jones’ is the latest, best example of white feminist fiction: excellent on sexism, terrible on racism.

This guest post is written by Cate Young and originally appeared at her site BattyMamzelle. It is cross-posted with permission.

Trigger warning for discussion of rape and rape culture.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones is the latest, best example of white feminist fiction: excellent on sexism, terrible on racism. There are a lot of great things about this series that speak directly to the ills that women face on a daily basis. Kilgrave, the central villain, is chillingly terrifying, specifically because the only difference between him and your garden variety abuser is his total power to enact his will. The examination of male entitlement in ways both large and small (by contrasting Kilgrave and Simpson for example) are excellent and poignant. But as I watched the 13 episode first season, I was struck by how callously black people’s lives were treated on the show, rendered into convenient plot devices in service of the white female protagonist’s character development. As a black woman viewing the show, it was easy to see that the active pursuit of liberation from abuse was not a struggle that this show believes includes me (an ongoing struggle for Marvel). Ironically, the best parts of the show are its treatment with its villain, while the worst are its treatments with its female anti-heroine.

While I do have several critiques of the show, there were a number of things that I thought were handled exceptionally well. Firstly, this is a show driven by women about the fears and terrors that women must navigate in the world shrunk down to a micro-level, enabling us an intimate look at the various levels of abuse women routinely endure. The contrast between Kilgrave and Simpson is genius, as it helps demonstrate the full scale of abuse that men knowingly and unknowingly enact on the women around them. The two men are flip-sides of the same coin. While Kilgrave simply takes what he feels he is entitled to by means of his powers of enhanced persuasion, Simpson initially takes a less forceful but no less sinister approach, exemplified in his treatment of Trish after he realizes that Kilgrave has compelled him to murder her. As Stephanie Yang writes in a Bitch Magazine review:

The warning signs are there early on. Under Kilgrave’s control, Simpson assaults Trish inside her own apartment. Once Kilgrave’s control wears off, he’s wracked with guilt and comes back to apologize. The problem is that Trish doesn’t want Simpson’s apology; she wants him to just leave. Trish doesn’t want to be reminded that she was attacked in her own home, or feel trapped by her own high-end security system while her attacker lingers outside. But Simpson is insistent, sitting in her hallway and talking to her through the intercom. Simpson makes his apology about his needs and his absolution, not about Trish’s needs, safety or mental health. It’s entirely understandable, but it’s still wrong.

Simpson and Kilgrave certainly have different motivation for their destructive actions. But as Jessica points out, intent doesn’t matter. Their actions and consequences are what matter. That’s an important distinction that needs to be made at a time when courts and media alike dismiss many real-life cases of abuse because the abuser “couldn’t know” what they were doing was wrong. Violence is a symptom of a culture that indulges bad behavior as being inherently and unavoidably part of masculinity, or even a romantic expression of desire and protectiveness.

I would go a step further and name Simpson’s insistent apologies to Trish as outright abusive on their face, specifically because they prioritize his need for absolution over her need to heal. Trish is the victim in the situation, and yet Simpson manages to find a way to center himself in the story of this trauma. As with Kilgrave and Jessica, Simpson’s abuse is rooted not in a cartoonish hatred of women as we are often led to believe, but rather in prioritizing his own will and desires over Trish’s.

The show’s exploration of rape and consent is also spot-on. Through interaction with Kilgrave’s superhuman abilities, Jessica Jones is able to make plain text of the subtext of rape culture. In one episode, Jessica makes plain that what Kilgrave did to her was rape. She says the word and invokes it over and over, explaining to him that by revoking her ability to consent, he violated her in a profound way that he can never make up for, nullifying any “kind treatment” during that time. For Jessica (and many other victims of sexual abuse) she was raped not only when Kilgrave forced sexual consent by rendering her suggestible, but also by forcing her to display trust and affection for him against her will. We see this idea replicated when Hope demands that she be allowed to abort Kilgrave’s fetus, because “every moment it’s in me is like he’s raping me all over again.”

The other great thing about Jessica Jones is that it is a show ostensibly about rape, that never depicts a rape. It can be argued that the entire engine of the show is powered by the actions of a serial rapist with many, many victims in his wake, and yet the show never feels the need to indulge in crude depictions of trauma to demonstrate how horrifying rape is. Instead, we spend extensive time examining the fallout; following Jessica and Hope as they try to cope with being violated on such a profound level, grapple with their own feelings of guilt and culpability and make it to the other side with their faculties intact. One of the things that made Kilgrave so scary in the initial episodes was the way the memory of him haunted Jessica, always lingering at the edge of her thoughts, out of sight, but never out of mind. It masterfully depicted the way that rape trauma is a burden that doesn’t go away once the act itself is over. In a year that’s been replete with depictions of rape in television, it was refreshing to see a show tackle the true emotional weight of sexual assault without using the violation itself to titillate.

On the other hand, the treatment of people of colour in Jessica Jones is often anti-intersectional and openly anti-black. Vulture‘s year end “Best of Television” list cites the show as demonstrating “a racially diverse cast, heavy on women,” a construction that belies that for many people, diversity means “add black men and stir.” To me, it is borderline disrespectful to call the show racially diverse when the only significant, named woman of colour character is dead before the narrative begins and never speaks a word, while the black male characters are all subjected to incredible violence in service of the white female protagonist. This force frames feminist representation as the representation of white women and yet again, erases women of colour from our popular narratives.

With Reva’s character, this is especially glaring. Her death at Jessica’s hands is essentially the inciting incident of the story; the act that allows Jessica to free herself from Kilgrave’s control. Reva is fridged to motivate Jessica’s escape and eventual confrontation with Kilgrave. As Shaadi Devereaux writes in Model View Culture:

[…] One has to wonder what metaphor is offered, that she has to kill a Black woman in order to finally obtain that freedom. She must literally stop Reva Connors’ heart with a single blow in order to experience her moment of awakening, enabling her to walk away from a cis-heterosexual white male abuser. It brings to mind how white women liberate themselves from unpaid domestic labor by exploiting Black/Latina/Indigenous women, often heal their own sexual trauma by performing activism that harms WoC, and how the white women’s dollar still compares to that of WoC. Like Jessica’s liberation is only possible through the violence against Reva, we see sharp parallels with how liberatory white womanhood often interplays with the lives of WoC. Were the writers consciously aware of these parallels, or was it just the same script playing out in their heads?

It’s disappointing that the show, knowingly or not, replicates the same cycles of abuse that routinely play out within the feminist movement, by positioning violence against black women as the justified cost of white women’s liberation. Jessica eventually enacts the same cycle of abuse against Luke Cage, her main love interest. Shaadi notes:

After killing Reva, Jessica goes on to stalk Reva’s husband, Luke Cage, in a compulsive and boundary-violating cycle of guilt. She finally sleeps with him…without disclosing how she was implicated in Reva’s death. She both withholds and actively obstructs him from finding out information about his own life, so that she can continue to get what she needs intimately from him. In dealing with her own demons, Jessica violates an invulnerable Black man and lays him a blow that no other character in their universe has the power to. Was this another nod to a complex understanding of gender, race and power, or another trope surfacing in insidious ways?

The issue here is that the show does not give any indication as to whether this is commentary or trope, so we are forced to assume the latter, interpreting the text as presented to us. Jessica makes a habit of using the black men around her, in service to her own ends treating them as interchangeable and disposable, a glaring and problematic oversight given the current political climate, and the historical context of black men being subjected to undue violence for the protection of white women. Jessica’s pursuit of Luke despite her knowledge of her involvement in what we are led to believe in the most painful event of his life replicates the same disregard for his feelings that we saw Simpson demonstrate with Trish. To Jessica, her own need to be in Luke’s orbit because of her overwhelming guilt and self-loathing, supersede his right to be fully informed about the circumstances of his wife’s death, and as Tom and Lorenzo astutely write in their review:

[…] Like it or not, she has the capacity to be a bit hypocritical about Kilgrave’s abilities choosing to think that there’s actually a right way to take people’s control away from them.

And Jessica very literally takes Luke’s control away by not disclosing her involvement in Reva’s death. She takes away his ability to choose not to be with the person who murdered his wife. Later, his choice to forgive is later revoked by Kilgrave, as he is forced to reconcile with her under Kilgrave’s control. Again, the invulnerable black man’s pain is not respected, but rather toyed with and manipulated by the narrative to serve the needs of white characters. As Shaadi again points out, the pattern becomes more uncomfortable and glaring as the series continues:

When her neighbor shares how Black people are more vulnerable to others’ perceptions, it invokes not sympathy but an idea of how she can use it for her own ends. The result is several scenes where she pushes Black men into people to create a scene of chaos, using the opportunity to go unseen as she breaks the law. Instead of challenging oppressive systems directly, she uses them to get what she wants and to center her own survival. We see that she has some guilt about it, but sis willing to do it for her survival and the survival of other white characters.

These scenes demonstrate that as people marginalized along a spectrum, we often leverage violence against others for our own survival, sometimes with full awareness. But is awareness enough? Or as long as power remains unchallenged, will we always be lured by self-priority, the hierarchy of own safety and access? Our hero is willing to take on the mindcontrol of Kilgrave, but not those dangers most affecting the two most important men in her life – both Black. She intimately understands that no one will believe her, but capitalizes on the hierarchy of who has enough humanity to be believed – against other marginalized identities. She can finally walk away from the mind of her abuser, but the gravitational pull of racism is still too much.

As a black woman, I’m left to wonder, is Jessica worse than your garden variety racist for acknowledging systems of oppression only to exploit them? And on a real world level, why is this behaviour heralded by viewers as feminist when it actively takes advantage of people that the feminist movement is meant to protect?

My last issue is less a problem with this show specifically and more a general trope in fiction. I expect that very little can be done about this considering the source material, but truly abhor narratives in which a black person’s “power” is that they cannot feel pain or be hurt. It is a direct callback to very pervasive superhumanization bias and stereotypes that still exist and are perpetuated today. As I have written before about this characterization, it feeds into the idea that violence against black people is not traumatic or dangerous as they can withstand the pain, and that this ability positions them as protectors of white characters who often also do them harm. It explains why young black boys are coded by white people as much older than they are, or why they think black people feel less pain. With Luke, we see this reflected in Luke’s fight scenes as person after person escalates the violence against him to no effect. He is easily able to trounce several men at once. Earlier, we also see him take a circle saw to his abdomen in order to demonstrate his power to Jessica. Later still, we see doctors poke and prod him with needles and other penetrating devices ostensibly to save him, but the scenes only reinforce what we have already been told; nothing can hurt him, and so violence against him is justified.

In the end, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the show. The way Jessica Jones deals with consent resonated with me on a deep level, but it also made me question why the show didn’t identify with me as a black woman, when I so easily identified with it. Hopefully in the next season we will see a more intersectional approach to the struggles that women face that treats its black characters with the same care that it affords the white women in the cast.

Cate Young is a Trinidadian freelance writer and photographer, and author of BattyMamzelle, a feminist pop culture blog focused on film, television, music, and critical commentary on media representation. Cate has a BA in Photojournalism from Boston University and is currently pursuing her MA in Mass Communications so that she can more effectively examine the symbolic annihilation of women of colour in the media and deliver the critical feminist smack down. Follow her on twitter at @BattyMamzelle.

The Rising “Tough” Women in AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ Season Five

This season seems to present a large change in representational issues by including complex characters of color that we actually know something about and care for, presenting the couple of Aaron and Eric from the Alexandria community and self-pronounced lesbian Tara, and doing away with the innate equation of vagina equals do the laundry while the men go kill all the zombies.

Our core group of survivors in The Walking Dead season five

This guest post by Brooke Bennett appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

The Walking Dead has long been plagued with criticism in relation to its portrayals of gender roles (for example, see both of Megan Kearns’s posts and Rebecca Cohen’s). in addition to relegating characters of color to the background at best, killing them to further the plot surround the white characters at worst. Further, queer characters have been completely absent within the show’s first four seasons, though some have suggested that the relationship between Andrea and Michonne during season three can be read as implicitly queer. That being said, season five is very different. In summary, season five finds our group of survivors escaping from the cannibalistic community of Terminus (thanks to Carol), attempting to survive on the road, then finally coming across the community of Alexandria, which seems to be extremely well off (and not full of cannibals thankfully). This season seems to present a large change in representational issues by including complex characters of color that we actually know something about and care for, presenting the couple of Aaron and Eric from the Alexandria community and self-pronounced lesbian Tara, and doing away with the innate equation of vagina equals do the laundry while the men go kill all the zombies. All of these areas of increasingly representation are extremely important in any examination of the show, but this post will dive deeper into the specific portrayal of the “tough” women of season five.

Michonne and Carol as “tough women” in The Walking Dead season five

Carol and Michonne are definitely some of the most intriguing (and my favorite) characters during season five of The Walking Dead. First off, thinking about Carol during season one to how she has completely changed over the last five years of the show is striking. In the beginning, she was in an abusive relationship with soon-dead husband Ed. Upon his death, as Megan Kearns points out, she becomes reliant on Daryl as the group searches for her daughter, Sophia, in the second season. The third season, once again, shows Carol (and some of the other women, especially Beth) as relegated to doing all the boring domestic chores and taking care of Rick’s new daughter Judith after Lori dies in season three. Season four presents a more active role for Carol, but season five is the most crucial to her character development. In season five, Carol constructs a persona of herself for the Alexandria community, acting like she is some innocent, helpless upper-class suburban housewife. She even tells Deanna, the leader of Alexandria, that she “really didn’t have much to offer” to Rick’s group, which is obviously not true because she’s the reason they all escaped Terminus without becoming someone’s dinner.

Carol and femininity as masquerade

One of my absolute favorite scenes of season five is when Daryl is sitting on the porch of one of the fancy houses while Carol walks outside all made-up in her housewife outfit. Daryl scoffs and tells her, “You look ridiculous.” To us this is hilarious because we agree with Daryl; we know she is not this housewife type character any longer. Carol intelligently masquerades as this feminine role in order to make those in Alexandria purposely underestimate her. In essence, this dynamic also seems to point out how gender is something we do – it’s a performative activity that we have to continuously work at because it’s a socially constructed idea. Carol performs this weak embodiment of women in order to be able to sneak around the community and do as she wishes. At one point Carol even remarks to Rick, “You know what’s great about this place? I get to be invisible again.” Carol challenges the innateness of gender by not only being a extremely strong, capable female survivor, but also by masquerading as the opposite find of woman she has become now.

On the other hand, Michonne has evolved greatly as a character as well. When she was introduced in season three, Michonne was largely unresponsive to other people and seemed very confrontational. Problematically, Michonne is used as an object of trade in relation to Rick and the Governor – the Governor claims he will leave Rick and his group alone if he gives him Michonne, which Rick actually tells Merle (of all the characters, of course the most overtly racist character is chosen) to go through with this. As the show continues into season four, Michonne emerges with actual dialogue (about time) and, once again, demonstrates how she is arguably the toughest character of the entire group. We finally learn more about her backstory – she apparently has lost a child due to the zombie apocalypse which is, significantly, similar to Carol as well (I’ll return to this connection in a bit). Michonne consistently tries to convince Rick that they need to find a new community or start their own; they cannot survive by living on the road anymore. This obviously rational thinking is invoked continuously in season five, and is in stark comparison to Rick’s questionable, impulsive choices throughout season five.

Sword-wielding badass, Michonne

One of Michonne’s most crucial scenes in season five surrounds an episode later on, when the group is in Alexandria. Significantly, Deanna (the leader of Alexandria) gives both Michonne and Rick the job of constable – they are responsible for enforcing order. Obviously, Rick has always had this role both in the post-apocalypse and in his professional career choice as a cop before the apocalypse. On the other hand, Michonne being given this role provides an alternative mode of leadership, one which looks increasingly more appealing as Rick seems to be losing his ability to lead responsibly and effectively. After Carol tells Rick that she knows Pete is abusing Jessie (a married couple within Alexandria), and likely their young child Sam, Rick immediately wants to kill Pete, no questions asked. This is certainly motivated by the obvious attraction Rick has to Jessie; he’s reacting to his feelings for her and need to save the damsel in distress, hoping to make her his own. Rick and Pete end up in a physical fight that pours out into the street, with a large part of Alexandria coming to watch and attempt to break it up, which is ultimately done by Deanna. Rick, who seems to be very distraught and hysterical, yells back at Deanna and the other residents, faces bloodied, that they are not going to survive if they don’t change the way they do things.

Hysterical Rick after beating up Pete

This is probably good advice, but Rick somehow thinks that this is an excuse to go against what the society’s leader, Deanna, has told him to do (not kill Pete). Either way, Rick goes on a rant yet again about how they are all doomed and he isn’t just going to sit by and watch this community fall apart, but, in mid-sentence, Michonne comes in and hits Rick over the head, knocking him unconscious, and ending the episode. Unlike Rick, Michonne knows what he says to be true but doesn’t go about changing the group via violence and rash decision-making. Michonne is, by far, the better leader of the two. In her constable uniform, she knocks Rick out, powerfully making the connection between her embodiment of moral law enforcement that is completely in opposition with Rick’s way of doing things.

Michonne after knocking out Rick

Overall, Carol and Michonne provide the most compelling roles of “tough” women within season five of The Walking Dead. As I mentioned earlier, both women had experienced the loss of a child because of the zombie apocalypse, which deserves further analysis as it complicates their role of powerful women characters within the show. Over the show, both Carol and Michonne are presented as being a sort of maternal figure for other children. For Carol this is seen in her relationship with Lizzie and Micah, whereas Michonne is presented this way with Carl when she helps him get the family picture so that Judith will know what Lori looks like.

Michonne as maternal figure for Carl

Carol as maternal figure for Lizzie and Micah

Interestingly, tough women being shown as maternal figures is a common theme in female-centered action narratives. For example, in Kill Bill, The Bride is a brutal, unstoppable character as she takes revenge upon those who tried to kill her. Yet, in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 she finds out that her child is alive, thus reasserting her role as mother. This can be read as reminding The Bride that she can be as tough as she wants, but at the end of the day she is still biologically female and her duties should/need to revolve around the realm of domesticity. Since Carol and Michonne are presented as maternal figures within The Walking Dead, this can complicate a reading of their toughness as being completely empowering since we are reminded of their biological femaleness. Yet, Carol’s gender performance in season five would seem to argue that gender is more socially constructed than anything. In the end, the action heroines of The Walking Dead, like other “tough” heroine narratives in film and television, cannot be taken as completely, 100 percent empowering just because the women are able to take care of themselves and display how they can totally kick some ass.

Sasha and Rosita during season five of The Walking Dead

Any discussion of strong women in season five would be mistaken not to mention Rosita and Sasha. Unfortunately, these two characters are underexplored (along with Tara, as well) at this point, though they are portrayed as being strong like Michonne and Carol are. Sasha, as Rick even comments when the group reaches Alexandria, is the best shooter, leading her to get the job of being on watch and shooting zombies from a sniper tower. Rosita originally was shown being completely oversexualized when we first met her. She worn tiny shorts and a tiny top, showing off her body, and also consistently had pig tails. For the action heroine, this fetishistic presentation is super common – think Lara Croft in Tomb Raider or Alice and Jill in the Resident Evil franchise.

Oversexualized Rosita in The Walking Dead

Oversexualized Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) in Tomb Raider

Thankfully, when the group gets to Alexandria this trope is reversed, and Rosita finally wears dons a reasonable clothing choice for the zombie apocalypse and no longer wears girlish ponytails. Other than serving a minimal role is Abraham’s sidekick, Rosita doesn’t seem to do anything else within the show. On the other hand, Sasha is a somewhat more developed character, especially in her relationship with her brother, Tyreese, and in her romantic relationship with Bob, who both die within season five – Sasha gets a pretty emotionally tough hand during the fifth season. Like Michonne, Sasha also makes some more rational and intelligent, in comparison to Rick, comments to the group. When at the welcoming dinner party, some residents ask Sasha what her favorite meal is because it would just be awful if they cooked her something else. She responds, “that is what you worry about?!” in utter shock as to the hierarchy of their priorities. Of course, Sasha is much more realistic and doesn’t buy into this cookie-cutter “fake” community of Alexandria, with its $800,000 homes (as Deanna mentions to Rick) and no longer existent lifestyle it symbolizes.

Overall, I hope Rosita and Sasha will continue to be explored an developed as season six (which just premiered Sunday, October 11 this year) progresses, alongside Tara who is also a very underutilized character within The Walking Dead. Additionally, it will be interesting to see who becomes the authoritative power in Alexandria, as the return of Morgan in the season five finale further complicates Rick’s role as authoritative leader, or the “Ricktatorship” as some critics have put it. Either way, I’m excited to see where the development of these awesome, ass-kicking tough women goes in the episodes to come.

Brooke Bennett is an undergraduate student and honors candidate majoring in English at the University of Arkansas. Her academic work revolves around horror in film and television, with an emphasis on feminist media studies, especially looking into The Walking Dead. When not in school, Brooke binge watches horror movies on Netflix and hopes to be a popular culture critic and academic in the future.

The Disappearance of Sexism and Racism in Dystopian Fiction

Certainly, teenagers strain against authority and exert their independence. This doesn’t mean they’re immune to other big issues that plague society – issues such as sexism and racism. If the novels being written for this demographic want to call themselves true dystopias based on a futuristic society in which our current way of living led to some global disaster, then the writers of the novels and the film adaptations shouldn’t shy away from some of the biggest issues in current politics and society.

This is a guest post by Maria Ramos.

If book sales and box office numbers are any indication, young adults love their dystopian fiction. So much so that the creative powers that be are intent on keeping the momentum going with more and more additions to this fairly recent genre phenomenon, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, the repetition breeds dilution of the initial idea of a dystopia as an opposite of a utopia, or perfect world.

The idea of dystopia takes into account basic and flawed human nature, hinging on the idea that power, political in this case, corrupts, leading to a small group of oppressors and a greater group of oppressed. YA dystopian fiction tends to present this oppression as a necessary sacrifice to save the rest of humanity after some global and apocalyptic disaster, often environmental in nature and with the clear message that we should take care of our environment now or suffer our own dystopia later.

The common element in a true dystopia is politics, but in these YA versions, the politics have become metaphors for the seemingly oppressive nature of adult and school rules under which teenagers often chafe. This conversion leaves the stories one-sided and shallow, expecting the reader to assume that, because this is a common problem within the young adult mindset, it is also the biggest problem facing young adults today. At best, such an assumption stems from laziness, and at worst, it’s insulting.

Take The Hunger Games, for example. Society is divided by geography and profession as each of the 12 districts supplies the capital city with a specific product or skill. The districts live in various extremes of poverty and deprivation. While some would argue that such suffering would bring out the best in some people, the situation is also ripe for the desperation that leads to an irrational fear of other, a prime motivator of racism. And yet, while the author created a diverse group of characters, including Katniss who was described as “olive-skinned,” the discrimination based on this diversity is simply missing.

The same could be said for The Maze Runner series (the first film is available on demand through Google Play and DirecTV), which provides representation of various races to include Asian and African American and yet never a hint of racial tensions either in the grove or once they’re out of it and into The Scorch Trials, the second installment of the book and movie trilogy. Possibly the worst offender of recent offerings, however, is the Divergent series, in which society is divided by faction only, with each faction based on a particular character trait. Not only is there no hint of racism anywhere in any of the three novels of this trilogy, but sexism is gone, too.

This latter is particularly hard to swallow given that the domestically abusive and oppressive male leader of one faction (while actively opposing the female leader of another) never once makes a disparaging reference to her being deficient because she’s a woman, even after his true character is brought to light and his crimes against his own family are revealed to all. There is one comment made by a male to the lead female Tris when Peter tells her she has nice legs for a “stiff,” but this is a reference to her previous faction only. No reference to her appearance as a female, only faction.

Overall, if writers and filmmakers wish to reach the widest possible audience, they’ll need to take a harder look at more than struggles with authority. By leaving out other important problems faced by today’s young people, they leave a glaring hole in the message.

Maria Ramos is a writer interested in comic books, cycling, and horror films. Her hobbies include cooking, doodling, and finding local shops around the city. She currently lives in Chicago with her two pet turtles, Franklin and Roy. You can follow her on Twitter @MariaRamos1889.