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dreamycloud1 · 5 years

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So I’m going to slam dunk my feelings on 13 RW season 3 here. I know I’m late. I know it’s controversial as hell. I want to so I’m going to.

Justin Foley deserves everything good in this world and more. I know this has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot at all but I wanted to say it. During the assembly I bawled like a baby for like 15 minutes straight. Adding him as a survivor didn’t progress the plot at all, they honestly could have left that out but they didn’t and I just felt so many things at once that shit hurted. Then Jessica and him talked it out and they mention it a few more times and Justin is soo loved and accepted and did I say loved and he has a family who wants to have him in their lives and wants to help him work toward being the person he wants to be. I’m so proud of him.

Tyler, he was so strong this season. I’m so happy they gave him a chance to share his story. They broke the stigma behind male victims and I’m really glad they addressed it. They also shredded toxic masculinity everywhere this season with Clay, Tyler, Justin, Zack and everyone else.

Calony were so cute this season. Caleb and Tony, just roll with it. Tony spends the whole time rightfully freaking out about his family and Caleb still won’t stop supporting him. Tony finally gets a stable and nontoxic on-screen relationship and good god Caleb is so good for him. Then Caleb meet his parents and they have dinner with the Jensen’s and I just love them both and hope they make it through S4 happy. (Tony’s gonna be in deep shit, just wait for my theory y’all)

I can talk about the other characters but this post is already a long long ramble might as well not make it any longer than needs be, if y’all want to hear my thoughts on a specific character/scene/etc just ask.

Now here’s the deep doo doo. Montgomery Sr la Cruz and Bryce Walker.

I know the story goes: Monty is gay and Hispanic and he was demonized and Bryce is rich and white and praised.

I don’t exactly agree with this narrative. I 100% agree this is the facts but nothing ever makes sense without context. I feel like a lot of people think the context of this situation is the writers wanted to portray Bryce as some redeemable rapist because he’s white and wanted to make Monty unredeemable because he’s Hispanic.

However I’d argue that neither of them were ever meant to be redeemed. The entire season was about Bryce Walker. Honestly up until this point the entire show revolves around Bryce Walker and his direct or indirect actions. I don’t think the writers ever intended Bryce to seem redeemed. We see that with the literal plotline, no one feels remorse for Bryce’s death. Even at the end when we find out that (SPOILER ALERT 🚨) it was Alex all along. Obviously a lot of circumstances lead up to that point but on the end it was Alex who pushed Bryce off that edge. Even Alex’s dad accepts the lie that Ani made. He knows Alex had to be the one to do it or at the very least that he was there. However it’s easiest to blame it on Monty and let it be because both of them did terrible things and I feel like the show reflects the mindset of many people. I doubt most any of us would feel sorry if every rapist turned up dead tomorrow. I know a few will disagree but that’s my take.

As for Monty being gay and Hispanic and being a rapist and a ‘murderer.’ I can not and will not speak to him being Hispanic, I see the terrible connotation in him being a Hispanic man and convicted of rape but otherwise that’s all I’ll say on the matter. However I am gay so I feel like as another gay man I can talk about my feelings on Monty being gay. I don’t think this is a hate crime or homophobia. Honestly I think it’s more diverse. Just because your gay doesn’t mean your exempt from raping someone. I don’t feel they made Monty gay for the express purpose of being homophobic. The same outcome would have come about if his victims had been Courtney or Casey or any self/identified female on the show. It still would have ended with his straight female lover being angry that Ani framed him for murder. I think a lot of people say they want diversity but the second a person with diversity is portrayed in negative light people automatically assume it’s because of their diversity instead of thinking of their diversity as just another part of them.

Monty wasn’t a Gay Man Who Was A Rapist he was a rapist who happened to be gay and his victims were the subject of that. It’s not homophobia it’s just the truth. Gay people are rapist and that can happen and does happen. The writers did a great job with Tony and I don’t think they would become some homophobic assholes just to Monty. That’s just my take on it at least. I think it was so out of proportion and seemed like Bryce was ‘redeemable’ because 1. They had to have some kind of content to actually make a season out of 2. They wanted the viewer to feel conflict. Wether you actually did or not (I didn’t, I think Bryce deserved what he got and rape is irredeemable) that is the basic want of a TV series is to make you think about the message it sends and 3. Because Monty had very little screen time to develop and build on to. We know of Monty what we’ve seen past seasons and that’s about it because this season wasn’t about Monty it was about Bryce. However they only framed Monty in the plot because he was the easiest but out of plot it’s because they needed a basis for season 4 and angry lover who thinks their SO could really actually change (COUGaniCOUGH) is a great idea. The gang has to deal with Winston threatening to go to the cops and also they he cops finding the guns they dumped.

#13 reasons why #13rw #13rw s3 #monty

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celestius · 6 years

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Sam Wilson: Captain America by Nick Spencer and random thoughts on diversity and politics in current comics

Although I´ve had Spencer´s Sam Wilson: Captain America run (where the Falcon takes over the mantle of Captain America after Steve Rogers rapidly ages) downloaded on my tablet for some time, it took seeing Nick Spencer live at the Boston Fan Expo for me to actually start reading it.

First off, let me briefly address the question of diversity in the realm of comics. On one hand I´ve always believed that some agendas simply need to be intentionally pushed or they will never take off, and waiting for the change to develop „organically“ is a little too optimistic. A good example would be voting rights for women, which would hardly miraculously naturally jump out of thin air if it weren´t for an aggressive push from groups like the suffragettes. Anti-SWJ people criticizing an intentional push towards strong female/non-white characters refuse to see the fact that for years, being a girl or a person of color meant having basically no role models at all. All it takes to how tilted the distribution of race was across scifi/fantasy is to look at cosplay and ask ourselves for example how many characters could a black guy cosplay. Thanks, Lando Calrissian, for being basically the only choice for some fifty odd years. After such a long stretch of basically ignoring any other race than white, some noticeably forced changes are perhaps necessary.

On the other, Marvel can definitely be seen as often pushing it a bit too far with simultaneously replacing Cap, Iron Man, Spider Man, Thor and Ms. Marvel with female/non-white counterparts, especially in cases like Iron Man where it sort of seems out of the blue, or making characters gay in spite of their previous history (not okay). What I´m essentially trying to say is that I am all for a shift in paradigm IF it doesn´t disrupt the quality of the storytelling. And that brings us to Sam Wilson.

In the „All New“ Marvel line-up, Sam Wilson is probably the most natural replacement of an originally white superhero with a non-white counterpart (maybe with the exception of Miles Morales who was also built up very gradually in the former Ultimate universe), so I was very excited for his tenure as Captain America.

And boy did Nick Spencer deliver. After only 20 or so issues of Sam´s total run as Cap (meaning it´s back to being the Falcon again), I have to say he might have been my favorite Captain America. And that´s taking into account that I absolutely loved Bucky Cap AND I love Steve Rogers. I guess Captain America is just a gift that keeps on giving :))

Nick Spencer´s run is VERY different from your regular superhero comics. While Ed Brubaker´s run on the title is probably still the best Captain America work of all time, Spencer brings back something that has not been present in comics for quite some time – explicitly expressed politics. And of course, the immediate kneejerk reaction of many fans (source: GoodReads) was to say “Jesus, don´t bring your politics into my superhero comics!”. But let´s look at this rationally. It would have been fine to say this if every other comics suddenly dealt with political/social issues instead of stories about punching people through a wall. However, that´s not the case at all, so why should there not be one that does? It´s such a rare occurrence that to me, it´s honestly a million times more interesting than “bad guy breaks out of prison, attacks superhero, loses, ends in prison, repeat”.

What´s more, Spencer doesn´t just examine politics in general, he puts forth a very clear political stance (just like his Sam Wilson, who publicly announces his opinions and immediately gets reviled for it) – democratic, left wing and (obviously) with a focus on the struggles of minority communities. Spencer does a top-notch job of capturing the spirit of our times, with hashtags (#notmycaptainamerica), crazy alt-right tv show hosts (Fake news! Give back the shield!) and increasing fear and racial hate in the western world.

An interesting sidenote – many right-wing/conservative readers could conceivably take offense at Spencer´s portrayal of them (often as crazy gun-totin´ patriotic rednecks) if not for the mind-blowing fact that the villains from the first issuse, the Sons of the Serpent (nationalist psychopaths that kidnap or assault illegal immigrants from Mexico) were seriously defended on Fox News as „misunderstood patriots“. It´s very hard to take your case seriously if many of your accepted representatives on TV actually DEFEND obvious villains in a superhero story.

But let´s get back to Sam. What makes Sam Wilson´s journey as Cap so compelling is not only that he has to live up to the legend that is Steve Rogers, but also that as any member of an ethnic minority, he is automatically expected to represent his whole ethnic group. I find the fact that white people are the only group on Earth in which individuals do not reflect the whole very interesting. If you´re let´s say a Muslim, ANYTHING you do will subconsciously be a case in someone´s (be it positive or negative) opinion of millions of people who share your religion. You are Indian, come into a store and are unpleasant, it´s an Indian thing. You´re a black guy that sells drugs, oops, you just made all blacks look bad. On the other hand if a white guy shoots 200 people from a balcony, hardly anyone is going to think „oh, the whites are at it again!“.

Sam´s awareness that everything he does has an implicit impact on the public perception of the whole black community makes for a very interesting (and very destructive for the protagonist) read. The comics tackles the issues of immigration, unelected policing (neighborhood watches), racial profiling and my favorite sociopolitical topic related to race – the question of adequate response to legally sanctioned injustice. What do you do when the law is not there to help you, but to work against you? What do you do when peacefully protesting it achieves nothing at all, when breaking the law is the only statement you can make? Although I don´t condone violence, I can´t help but sympathize with black rioters every time a cop is let off the hook for unjustly murdering a black „suspect“ (ideally on camera). How should people act if they don´t feel like the law rightfully represents them and why should they then obey it in turn? This difficult issue in particular is magnificently analyzed in the final story arc of the run, with all the pain of knowing „so desperately that you are right, yet to fail all the same“ (#ThanosWasRight).

Although Spencer tries to give a voice to the whole of the political spectrum (with some ultra leftwing activists thrown in the mix), it is clear where his sympathies lie. But that´s what I find so endearing about his run – it doesn´t try to say that everything is a little bit right or worse yet, avoid the politics entirely – but that even though there is room for discussion, it is not a bad think to have convictions. Even if those convictions put you against your country and get you flagged as un-American and unpatriotic.

#SamIsMyCap

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