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angelfireeast · 7 years

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SLEEPING ON DIVERSE TV SHOWS Sleeping or just fakes?

After the cancellation of several big diverse shows over the past few months I’ve seen many posts saying STOP SLEEPING ON DIVERSE TV SHOWS. I’m starting to think that sleeping on diverse tv shows isn’t the problem. There is just bunch of fakes on Tumblr who talk the big SJW ‘I’m all for diversity’ but really have no interest in actually watching anything with diversity in it. They don’t really want to watch anything other than white leading characters and the only gay characters they want to see are white gay men or hot white gay usually young women.

Just think of many different, creative, interesting and wonderful diverse tv shows we’ve had of late. Pitch something for the sports fans, Still Star-Crossed fulfill every period piece romance soul’s heart, Sense8 it’s got it all! The group turns family all wakes of life, gay, lesbian, trans, white, black, brown, mental health (depression), action drama you name it. The Get Down: music, coming of age story, all black cast, LGBT story, did I mention the music! Rosewood: crime show, Dr. Ken: comedy. The list goes on and on Sweet/Vicious, Underground, East Los High. Thinking even further back Almost Human: sci fi police drama exploring deep issues like slavery/free will/race issues in the form of robots & humans. There has been some really, really, really good shows made with good original ideas, doing something other that the standard cookie cutter tv series made with talented actors, great production values, and good writing. But in the end, they all get canceled for ‘low ratings’ and the excuse of it costs too much to film these shows. Then we get the ‘don’t sleep on this next show’ posts and ‘I wish we had more diversity on shows’ and ‘oh yeah I was going to watch that but it’s cancelled now’ and fan casts of diverse casts for shows getting reblogged and the posts about the idea of including POC and LGBT characters as such a great idea. Yet no watches every time a next and exciting show comes along...

Going back even further Rush Hour (Asian male lead, Black male lead, Mexican/Puerto Rican female lead and black supporting male with recurring female Asian character) and Selfie. Asian man as the lead in a romantic comedy as the romantic love interest to a white woman. How many shows are on tv with Asians women or men as the main leads right now? Elementary, Fresh off the Boat, Agents of Sheild that’s all I can think of. Rush Hour was not the greatest show ever but when was the last time you remember an Asian man and Black man co-star as leads and the leading lady not be white? Actually, have no white person headline the show? I can’t think of a time when that happened. Yes, some shows make it through and seem to be making a go of it, B99, Blackish, Fresh off the Boat, and Elementary. But so, so, so many get canceled and at higher and higher rate it feels like.

Let's also consider what happens in fandoms with diverse casts. People flip out when a black woman is treated as a romantic lead because they just can’t imagine themselves in her role. Look at Iris West on The Flash there is a whole crackship that was invented the moment the casting when was announced just to make a white woman (Caitlin Snow) to ship with the white male lead (Barry Allen). If you look in the fandom some of these crack shippers try to cut Iris out of her role on the show taking things from the comics and giving it to the white woman their want to ship with the white man. Even giving Iris’s comic book children to Caitlin Snow, making videos of grand moments of love between Iris & Barry literally cutting Iris out and pasting Caitlin over her. There is not one thing Iris has that fans don’t want to take and give to Caitlin. These shippers are fine if Barry is with any other white women they ship those ships but they have an unnatural hatred for Iris. Why? Because she’s black. People say they want diversity but when they get it and they don’t have a clear self-insert character they lose interest and even become enraged and turn nasty as the people I’m talking about here. A lot of hate directed at Iris West is people demanding the right to see themselves reflected in media - white fans demanding the right to see themselves reflected on screen by white woman who is then the hero’s lover/soul mate/hero herself. These people don’t get how stupid they sound demanding one of the few black women as respected loved leading lady be removed the screen because they don’t have enough white women to see themselves EVERYWHERE ELSE. I’ve seen this damn for white girls to see themselves on tv BS more than once in the Flash fandom. It’s just so absurd.

I think that has lot to do with a lot of people who think they aren’t racist until there is a black woman in a leading role instead white woman and suddenly people don’t know what to do with themselves because suddenly when tested they are big racist. It doesn’t come out pure racist hate like what I’m talking about above. It comes out as ‘I just don’t like her. I don’t have a reason I just don’t like her’ and for others, it just is a complete lack of interest in anything without white lead to be self-insert. These people don’t think they are racist but they grow up in a racist society full of white privilege that they are so used to everything being white and their way that can’t put themselves in a mindset of not having everything be 100% white even as they sit and claim to want diversity. So shows like Pitch and Still Crossed don’t appeal to white women who claim they would love to see woc in leading roles. Yeah, leading roles but just not this leading role or that leading role. Maybe the best friend to the white lead. When black men are the male leads it still troubles people, just look at the star wars fandom, but they will just pick any white man and project onto his character. Men of color are less of a problem because the fandom just pushes them aside to replace with white character male or female (like Supergirl, Star Wars and others).

For Elementary managing to make it through not getting canceled it has all the diversity Tumblr fake SJW claim to want. A woman is leading role, treated as equal, not reduced to love interest or sex symbol. A woman who isn’t white! Mental illness and addiction storylines have given constant dues within the story, Trans character played by trans actor. Diverse cast with New York full of diverse people as opposed to *cough*BBCSherlock*cough*superwhiteLondon*cough*. Yet what do I see all over Tumblr? People attacking the show as anti processive because if it was really processive it would have made Sherlock and Watson gay together in a romantic storyline. Vile hatred directed at female Watson existing, racism at Asian woman playing Watson, people who just want to ship two white men together and are pissy about Elementary existing so Elementary is the only Sherlock Holmes drama to be left out graphics and posts about the many SH movies and tv series. And so, so, so many people who say...’Oh I just don’t want to watch Elementary even though it has everything I claim to want into tv shows. All the fan casts I reblog and rants about more women and poc in starring roles...but for some reason that I can’t put my finger on I just don’t want to watch it’s just not my cup of tea.’

So I’m tired of fake people with their fake calls for diversity. Beyond tired of people who call for female lead comic book movies and diversity in comic book movies only to turn and try to BP against WW and JL against BP and so on. People who bitch and bitch and bitch only wanting diversity but it turns out to be very the select diversity. I really think there is less sleeping going on and more fake people who don’t realize that racism is driving their viewing choices. Part of me thinks if they would simply turn the shows on they would see how amazing they are and would watch. But another part of me thinks of DCtv fandom and thinks no these are people who don’t get racism is a thing you work on every day to destroy because it’s so built into everything you have to choose to see it, acknowledge your own failings and do better. People can’t acknowledge they might not be perfect.

#still star scrossed #iris west #pitch #almost human #Sense8 #the get down

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thepenandcamera · 7 years

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Last week, I was undulating between two emotions: pride and disappointment. For one, my film I CAN I WILL I DID screened at the Asian American International Film Festival in New York to a sold out crowd. It was invited back for an encore screening the following week and picked up its third festival award (this time the Audience Choice Award). In addition to that, we received invitations to two mainstream film festivals. I am beyond thrilled! I want to thank my facebook friends, film collaborators and blogging community for the kind congratulatory words that were sent my way. Filmmakers bare their souls for everyone to see and make themselves vulnerable to scrutiny and pain. An audience that is moved by what you have to say, is everything.

To hell with self-promotion. In the spirit of wanting to be a more honest artist, I want to share about something that we all go through in some shape or form. Let me tell you about the time ICIWID received the opposite of accolades. Rejection is a bitch.

We’ve been sent a number of festival ‘thanks, but no thanks’ already. This is normal, because festivals have their unique sets of criteria when it comes to programming. One committee might exclusively look for high concept social dramas and another for fun horror flicks or family friendly comedies. Many operate on star power and most have a tendency for nepotism; your film will only be viewed if you know someone who works with the festival. The odds of you getting in are always stacked against you.

This particular rejection, however, came from the San Diego Asian American Film Festival, the same one who seven years ago gave me the George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award for my film school thesis short films. At that time, I was over-the-moon happy about the support and thought of this festival as a home to showcase all of my future works. AA fests help push their own to the foreground, after all, especially female Asian American directors who are essentially unicorns in media. So after I won that award with them back in 2010, I sent them my first feature film SOMEONE I USED TO KNOW, but right out the gate, they oh-so graciously declined it. I was perplexed. They were the only Asian American film festival in North America to reject us. I was stunned, but in the end, I figured okay, I will try again. They must really think that “The script is contrived, trying way too hard to be hip (in the dialogue and in the situations, like those of drugs and sex), and hinging on a laughably unbelievable revelation.” That was verbatim from a feedback email with the festival director. Okay then. Although I didn’t author the screenplay, it was still my first feature film, so it still sucked not getting some love from them. But I thought, you just wait and see, San Diego.

Applying this year with I CAN I WILL I DID, I figured to have a winner on my hands. This film was crewed by 50% women and led primarily by POC, a rarity in a sea of movie sets with pay gaps for women and minorities. It’s suitable for a broader mainstream audience. It has a diverse cast, featuring an especially positive representation of a Korean gal who happens to be a wheelchair user in the female lead role. It does not follow the white savior trope; he actually has to save himself. And, to top it off, it is spearheaded by an all Asian American team. And the final clincher of confidence: I believe it’s a genuinely heartwarming film with a positive message. Maybe not a great film, but good at least, okay at the worst. Asian American support worthy for sure.

They’ve rejected me again.

SDAFF is not a top tier festival but it still stings, because these are supposed to be my people. The one festival that I thought would be most supportive of my career, the one that had championed me as a young filmmaker back in the day, didn’t think my film fit into their programming yet again. This time I didn’t even bother getting feedback. I know that I can’t let that sting grow into a painful burn by barraging myself with questions of self-doubt (“Did they have a problem with my casting a white actor in the male lead role even though everyone else was of color? Did they expect flashy martial arts scenes? Was the dialogue too dense?”). Now I know that no matter what I submit, there are movies and filmmakers they just deem way better and fitting their criteria of AA stories. I can’t pull an anti-affirmative action/Harvard stunt and demand entry just because I thought I checked off all the marks on their list. I get it. It’s not personal. I’m just not their type. I’ll take Sex and the City’s Miranda Hobbs “He’s just not that into you,” for three hundred, thank you. That is the valuable lesson. I should never expect that my community will support my work just because I, Nadine Truong, made something. They don’t show up for you just because you’re a woman or a minority. It’s just something that is or is not.

Here’s my plea to my fellow artists. Your product of creativity matters. Every application that gets turned down, every critique that blemishes the intention of your vision can cause any sensitive artist to spiral into a vortex of self-loathing. These no’s remind us of the time, when a boy or girl you thought was super cool in kindergarten, didn’t want to play with you. They trigger painful memories of not feeling good enough for your parents. They make you relive the excruciating heartbreak you couldn’t prevent after having invested blood, sweat and tears in a romantic relationship. Rejection pours salt into a wound that refuses to heal completely.

But here’s the thing: The laws of the universe favor the concept of balance. There’s always a form of rejection that follows a period of praise. This teaches you that you must know your worth regardless of success or of failure. Although there’s always something to improve, you must remember that you are already enough. It makes sense. After a big high comes a big blow. Your “good” is not when you’re feeling high. Your good is when you’re feeling steady. Learn to sit with the sadness that befalls your heart when someone does not appreciate what you’ve made. It eventually will fade. You are courageous. Acknowledge your bruised ego, then lean into it. It will heal. Then go back into the arena and create again.

So who else is working on their next manuscript?

On Joy and Rejection Last week, I was undulating between two emotions: pride and disappointment. For one, my film…

#festivals #Writing Craft/Creativity

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