I remember someone saying "there's no such thing as a good racism allegory" and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I'm someone who typically thinks anything can work if given the right circumstances, but then I really started thinking about it and I believe they're right
Because if you want to talk about racism, you should just talk about racism
(This is unpolished and ramble-y, so strap yourselves in)
Racism is deeply ingrained into our society, no matter where you live. Imperialism and colonialism has ensured that no corner of Earth has been left untouched. Choices from hundreds of years ago are still being felt today. There's practically no end to the discussion of its effects on the world and its people
So, why should anyone feel the need to dress it up in cat ears?
I've consumed a lot of media where writers have consciously echoed in part some aspect of racism in their fantasy story: Bright 2017, Dragon Age, RWBY, the MCU, Harry Potter, Detroit: Become Human, etc. The biggest thing they have in common is that the narrative is told to side with the victims, but it somehow always ends up against them
It always sides with the status quo
It's confusing, maddening even, because the narrative oft goes out of its way to show how horrible the system is and how these folk don't deserve their treatment, so why are we going back to normal as if it's a good thing? Why are the people actively working to improve the system decried as annoying at best and monstrous at worst?
Then you look at the people who write these storylines. The beliefs they hold, the people they vote for, which charities and organizations they give to, and it all makes sense. Centrists (at best) trying to look progressive are the ones who need to dress racism up in cat ears and rainbow freckles. They set aside the long, brutal histories and crushing systemic realities to play pretend that racism is Not That Bad and is only done by Those Bad Individuals
That's why Velvet's ears are tugged instead of culled. That's why the Mantle drunkards say mean things to Blake instead of attempting to assault her. That's why everything surrounding the SDC's labor practices is so vague as to be useless while the biggest evidence of their malice is hand-waved away by a writer who says the victim "had it coming" as if someone can deserve being branded by being too much of a brat
These stories aren't meant to make the audience question why our society works off the bloodied backs of the exploited or demands we take good, hard looks at ourselves and how we've been duped into believing so much garbage about entire swathes of people. They're meant to satisfy the people who only feel bad that these things are happening because they (white folk) look like the bad guys. It's a self-congratulatory wank about how "I'm not like THOSE guys, therefore I'm a good person!"
And then there's the characters meant to convey this story in the first place: always inoffensive, mostly aimless, "not like the other girl" types that pander to that delicate palate. Blake - a conventionally attractive, pale skinned girl in fashionable clothes - used to be passionate about equality but only in the right way, and demonizes anyone who does not conform to this mindset despite having no reasoning to back it up while never once demanding better of the privileged people around her even when they do racially insensitive things
The biggest downfall of these racial allegories, be they about cat girls or orcs or elves or robots, is that they do something that marginalized folk have been forced to endure since the dawn of time: literal dehumanization. There are tangible differences between humans and whatever the allegory is, which undermines the very fundamental fact that black/asian/queer/neurodivergent/disabled/whatever folk are unapologetically, undeniably, exceedingly human. By dressing up their plights in cat ears or spottled blue skin, you're creating theater not for the people who actually live through these struggles as a means of connecting with them and providing them a safe outlet for their feelings, but giving the people who benefit from passively allowing the system to enforce said struggles a pat on the head for not being the grand wizard
I don't really know where I'm going or how to end this, so I'll just sign off with if you're going to talk about racism, just talk about racism
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Question for ppl who've read the Doom Patrol comics: Is the emphasis on fathers/fatherhood as prominent in any of the comic runs as it is in the show?
I'm on my...like, 4th or 5th rewatch now and I just got to the end of S1 and I'm sitting here like. Man. This show is so very deeply about fathers, specifically shitty fuckup fathers and their children. And I'm wondering if that's something like Jeremy Carver's Supernatural influence seeping and oozing through or if that's important in the source material too.
I love the show deeply and so I'd love love love to get my hands on the comics eventually but rn I have zero knowledge on them
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what does it mean if when walking to the psychiatry a young man appears and goes do u know where this place is (dentist office) and i go no and he says my gps doesnt work (sus thing nr 1) and asks for my help and i let him use map on my phone and he says hes gonna take a pic of it but doesnt (not necessarily sus bc its just a straight line 1 minute distance) and i say i am in a hurry (already late bc of the train) and he says me too but then brings up the name of some historian lecturer at the university and im like ok?? And he says did u go there im like yeah he says what did u study i say law he says my brother studies law there (ok??) and he says his name i say mine and hes like whats ur instagram i go uhhh hes like whats ur number im like hmm hes like ok let me call my phone from ur phone and im like oh fine im only gonna be more late than i already am and he laughs and hes like ok now type in ur number on mine and i do bc hes nice enough and then when making the contact on his phone hes like whats ur last name and im like my first name is enough he says ok and then when we start walking again bc we stopped he literally. Has to just walk straight intot he closest building door ??? Like thats where the dentist office was. Sus????? Hes like oh help me find this place btw whats ur number and then he finds the place immediately. Is this the first step of trafficking or is this how kids meet these days
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