one of the things that i think we should pay attention to, socially, about the disney v. desantis thing is that it is really highlighting the importance of remembering nuance.
in a purely neutral sense, if you engage in something problematic, that does not mean you are necessarily agreeing with what makes it problematic. and i am worried that we have become... so afraid of any form of nuance.
disney isn't my friend, they're a corporate monopoly that bastardized copyright laws for their own benefit, ruin the environment, and abuse their workers (... and many other things). this isn't a hypothetical for me - i grew up in florida. i also worked for the actual Walt Disney World; like, in the parks. i am keenly aware of the ways they hurt people, because they hurt me. i fully believe that part of the reason florida is so conservative is because it's been an "open secret" for years now that disney lobbies the government to keep minimum wage down, and i know they worked hard to keep the parks unmasked and open during the worst parts of Covid. they purposefully keep their employees in poverty. they are in part responsible for the way the floridian government works.
desantis is still, by a margin that is frankly daunting, way worse. the alternative here isn't just "republicans win", it's actual fascism.
in a case like this, where the alternative is to allow actual fascism into united states legislation - where, if desantis wins, there are huge and legal ramifications - it's tempting to minimize the harm disney is also doing, because... well, it's not fascism. but disney isn't the good guy, either, which means republicans are having a field day asking activists oh, so you think their treatment of their employees is okay?
we have been trained there is a right answer. you're right! you're in the good group, and you're winning at having an opinion.
except i have the Internet Prophecy that in 2-3 months, even left-wing people will be ripping apart activists for having "taken disney's side". aren't i an anti-capitalist? aren't i pro-union? aren't i one of the good ones? removed from context and nuance (that in this particular situation i am forced to side with disney, until an other option reveals itself), my act of being like "i hope they have goofy rip his throat out onstage, shaking his lifeless body like a dog toy" - how quickly does that seem like i actually do support disney?
and what about you! at home, reading this. are you experiencing the Thought Crime of... actually liking some of the things disney has made? your memories of days at the parks, or of good movies, or of your favorite show growing up. maybe you are also evil, if you ever enjoyed anything, ever, at all.
to some degree, the binary idealization/vilification of individual motive and meaning already exists in the desantis case. i have seen people saying not to go to the disney pride events because they're cash grabs (they are). i've seen people saying you have to go because they're a way to protest. there isn't a lot of internet understanding of nuance. instead it's just "good show of support" or "evil bootlicking."
this binary understanding is how you can become radicalized. when we fear nuance and disorder, we're allowing ourselves the safety of assuming that the world must exist in binary - good or bad, problematic or "not" problematic. and unfortunately, bigots want you to see the world in this binary ideal. they want you to get mad at me because "disney is taking a risk for our community but you won't sing their praises" and they want me to get mad at you for not respecting the legit personal trauma that disney forced me through.
in a grander scheme outside of disney: what happens is a horrific splintering within activist groups. we bicker with each other about minimal-harm minimal-impact ideologies, like which depiction of bisexuality is the most-true. we gratuitously analyze the personal lives of activists for any sign they might be "problematic". we get spooked because someone was in a dog collar at pride. we wring our hands about setting an empty shopping mall on fire. we tell each other what words we may identify ourselves by. we get fuckin steven universe disk horse when in reality it is a waste of our collective time.
the bigots want you to spend all your time focusing on how pristine and pretty you and your interests are. they want us at each other's throats instead of hand in hand. they want to say see? nothing is ever fucking good enough for these people.
and they want their followers to think in binary as well - a binary that's much easier to follow. see, in our spaces, we attack each other over "proper" behavior. but in bigoted groups? they attack outwards. they have someone they hate, and it is us. they hate you, specifically, and you are why they have problems - not the other people in their group. and that's a part of how they fucking keep winning.
some of the things that are beloved to you have a backbone in something terrible. the music industry is a wasteland. the publishing industry is a bastion of white supremacy. video games run off of unpaid labor and abuse.
the point of activism was always to bring to light that abuse and try to stop it from happening, not to condemn those who engage in the content that comes from those industries. "there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism" also applies to media. your childhood (and maybe current!) love of the little mermaid isn't something you should now flinch from, worried you'll be a "disney adult". wanting the music industry to change for the better does not require that you reject all popular music until that change occurs. you can acknowledge the harm something might cause - and celebrate the love that it has brought into your life.
we must detach an acknowledgment of nuance from a sense of shame and disgust. we must. punishing individual people for their harmless passions is not doing good work. encouraging more thoughtful, empathetic consumption does not mean people should feel ashamed of their basic human capacities and desires. it should never have even been about the individual when the corporation is so obviously the actual evil. this sense that we must live in shame and dread of our personal nuances - it just makes people bitter and hopeless. do you have any idea how scared i am to post this? to just acknowledge the idea of nuance? that i might like something nuanced, and engage in it joyfully? and, at the same time, that i'm brutally aware of the harm that they're doing?
"so what do i do?" ... well, often there isn't a right answer. i mean in this case, i hope mickey chops off ron's head and then does a little giggle. but truth be told, often our opinions on nuanced subjects will differ. you might be able to engage in things that i can't because the nuance doesn't sit right with me. i might think taylor swift is a great performer and a lot of fun, and you might be like "raquel, the jet fuel emissions". we are both correct; neither of us have any actual sway in this. and i think it's important to remember that - the actual scope of individual responsibility. like, i also love going to the parks. Thunder Mountain is so fun. you (just a person) are not responsible for the harm that Disney (the billion dollar corporation) caused me. i don't know. i think it's possible to both enjoy your memories and interrogate the current state of their employment policies.
there is no right way to interrogate or engage with nuance - i just hope you embrace it readily.
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Not "AFO being the final boss undoes all of Tomura's development," or "the body snatching plot line was a last minute decision," but a secret third fourth fifth sixth and seventh thing....
3. ("Weekly manga is an inherently flawed storytelling medium when it comes to telling cohesive stories, and authors are often required to stretch their main plot points thin over hundreds of chapters/several years. When you sit down to analyze or critique MHA, I sincerely feel you need to take the restriction of its medium/genre as well as the restrictions on the artist into consideration. One must also consider that this is a story that has been written over the course of a decade-- A certain degree of "mutation" between the story's beginning and its ending is both acceptable & anticipated within this medium.")
4. ("That being said, Hori does consistently do a much better job of telling a coherent story with consistent themes than people give him credit for, and credit should be given where it's due-- while there are some poorly/hastily implemented narrative elements and plot points where it can be argued that Hori decided to change gears, they are not the story-breaking sins that people make them out to be. And ultimately, Tomura's possession does work as a natural progression of the story Hori is attempting to tell and as something that builds off and solidifies the themes established throughout MHA.")
5. ("Tomura's arc is that of a victim trapped in the cycle of abuse told through a lens of fantasy. He was always a victim of AFO and always someone who had his identity abused out of him, and the body-snatch plotline is just a variation of telling that story in a way that leaves no room for argument. Tomura's arc and Izuku's arc also foil and build off each other, and a lot of the misunderstandings I've seen re: MHA's trajectory come from fans who either disregard Izuku's arc in favor of fixating on Tomura's arc (or vice versa) instead of reading these arcs as two parts of a whole-- both arcs grapple with "identity" and how you define yourself vs how others try to define you, the romanticization of self-destructive traits and how it's necessary to have good social support and people who are willing to step in and stop you from hurting yourself, systemic and individual dehumanization, adults failing to protect them when they need it, valid anger and an intolerance for injustice being taken advantage of a twisted into something intensely self-destructive, etc. Ignoring Izuku's arc and how it both reflects and intertwines with Tomura's (& vice versa) means missing out on understanding the core of both characters and what their respective roles in this narrative is. TL;DR Tomura being a victim in need of saving and Izuku being the one in a position to save him is something that has been cooking since Tomura's debut at USJ *more on this later*")
6. ("Hori started off not wanting to give his villains any humanizing qualities because he wanted them to remain "scary" to his readers-- but it's fairly clear that he developed a sense of appreciation and sympathy for his villains as his story progressed and his ability as a writer developed. As a direct result of this, his story eventually grew beyond treating the LOV as hollow tools to "scare" the readers. Hori grew, and so did MHA. The trajectory of the story changing to reflect Hori's growth should not be treated as a bad thing bc, again, this change/growth does not actually violate the initial premise of MHA in an unforgiveable way-- it actually services the natural progression of the story and its characters.")
7. ("Saving Tomura and the LOV is the ultimate goal of the series, and that goal is built off of literally everything Hori has established up to this point. You will never find inner peace or enjoy the manga's good qualities if you keep agonizing over what could have been. Reacting to the manga as a whole on a week-to-week basis will only skew your understanding of the story as a whole. Et cetera Et cetera Et cetera.")
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