#yes i have passionate media opinions on a niche film and i’m RIGHT lol

[pbscore]

BRO ARE YOU SERIOUS??? 😭

Bill Skarsgard??? For the damn CROW REMAKE??

HELL NOOOOOO 😭 He looks so out of place and not at all like the character.

Where is the DRAMA? Where is the grungy gothic attire?? Where is the bedraggled look of despair and hope and longing in his eyes?? Where is the stylish eyeliner and feminine, whimsical personality of the original??

I would rather they cast a brand new actor than a nepotist actor tbh I’m tired of seeing his ass in all the movies where they need a gaunt looking white man. Brandon Lee brought so much swagger and charm to that role and a genuine rawness because he clearly understood the character. Brandon was also half Chinese and his striking features and martial arts skills are what made the entire look so ICONIC!

Bill just looks too… ‘clean cut’ for the role of a character who isn’t because of trauma and despair and rage. He looks more like a Joker type villain than The Crow ™️ and that irks me so badly because I LOVE The Crow (the books and the original movie).

#yes i have passionate media opinions on a niche film and i’m RIGHT lol #the crow #i’m sorry but the casting is just not what i would have gone with nor is it something i would have assumed #fans of the story would actually want #what’s wrong with taking a chance on new and raw actors?? i’m so tired of these nepo babies who are so mediocre at acting but are given #preferential treatment simply because of their name and their family legacies in Hollywood #pbscore

[itsclydebitches]

My response to there's not enough art with (insert thing) is to first, make it yourself. Be the change you want to see. Ok you aren't interested making art. that's fine. Support people who do make it financially. Give them money. Show everyone that you can make art that has this in it and can be financially viable. Art made on big budgets for big audiences needs assurance it can make that back. Niche art exist for that very reason. To please a smaller audience with a more specific thing.

Hard same, anon. I mentioned this in another message to someone else, but just to reiterate: I never intend to come across as antagonistic, aggressive, etc. Though I’m also fully aware that can easily happen when you have no tone of voice/body language to draw from and you’re discussing subjects that everyone is already passionate about lol. So yeah, not in any way here for insulting anyone. 

I already laid out  that same stance you hold: art should be allowed to exist, even if we end up critiquing it later. Broad-stroke censorship is definitely not the answer here. 

And I 100% agree with the idea to “be the change you want to see in the world,” with the caveat that everyone acknowledge how difficult that can be. Meaning, it’s easy to say, “If you want [X Representation] just write your own book.” So you do... and then no one wants to publish it.*** Because (as you mention with Hollywood) the major industries tend to be dominated by certain demographics and they also tend to be stuck in their ways. Change is hard and, sadly, very slow moving--so when we see a foothold in anything substantially popular, like RWBY, it’s sometimes good to make the most of it, pointing out where representation might be improved upon (which is again admittedly subjective) so that the next time someone manages it we take another step forward. 

(***Granted, we are living in a digital age where the lines between mainstream and personal publications are blurring. We can also say, “If no one will publish your book with [X Representation] just publish it yourself,” but we also have to acknowledge that self-publication will never get the traction that mainstream publishing does. Certainly not the same money, the same chance at adaptations, the same chance at impacting people, etc. We do see the occasional self-published hit, but I think of those like airplane crashes. Meaning, we THINK there’s a lot of them because only the crashes are reported on the news; no one emphasizes the thousands of planes landing safely every day. In the same way, we might THINK there’s a lot of self-published hits because those are the ones that get all the attention. No one is pointing out the thousands of novels out there with forward-thinking rep that languish.) 

Yes, there’s certainly more queer art out then there ever was before, but in my opinion it’s also a mistake to act like that’s enough. After all, there’s a reason we usually have an LGBTQ section in bookstores. The implication is that this is removed from the rest of fiction; it’s a niche interest that only a few are interested in. As opposed to, you know, an accurate representation of a huge portion of the population. I just finished A Discovery of Witches--a series I utterly adored--but that’s nevertheless an excellent example of the (still) standard storytelling setup. We got one minor gay character, which was great, but when you compare that to everything else... the het main couple, the het relationship that can’t be, the main het side couple, the het grandparents, the numerous other het side pairings... it reinforces that one type of relationship is “normal” and the other is tucked in as a “rare” treat. And this is actually what a lot of queer stories are. Not stories about queer characters. Not stories with queer characters. Just stories that happen to have one (1) queer person somewhere in the world. That’s actually something I love about RWBY now. Ilia’s initial treatment aside, we have her, the Cotta-Arcs, and now presumably Blake and Yang. That’s a ton more than you usually find in more mainstream media. 

Also, as a sort of side note, I came across a section in one of my readings that pertains to our discussion as a whole. This is from Ronald Berger’s Introducing Disability Studies where he talks about the “What’s wrong with the artist’s vision?” question. Here he’s tackling Million Dollar Baby where, if you haven’t seen it, a boxer who becomes a quadriplegic begs her coach to help her commit assisted suicide. 

Disability scholars and activists were dismayed that so many viewers and reviewers of the film seemed to sympathize with the decision to kill the disabled character, as if her life no longer had meaning. Maggie did not even have the opportunity to receive counseling or physical therapy to adapt to her new condition and consider her options for living in the world. “Disability Is Not a Death Sentence” and “Not Dead Yet” read protest signs in Chicago, Illinois, and Berkeley, California (Davis 2005; Haller 2010).

Some nondisabled film columnists, such as liberal writers Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, were equally dismayed at the protesters’ response: What’s all the fuss? Isn’t this just one artist’s view of the situation? Doesn’t Eastwood, as a filmmaker, have the right to make any film he wants? ...

Lennard Davis (2005), among others, wants people to understand that disabled people’s opposition to the film was not about Eastwood’s anti-ADA politics, or about the storyline of Million Dollar Baby alone, but about the entire social and cultural apparatus that invalidates the experience of people with disabilities. According to Davis, the issue is not simply

“that Eastwood is speaking his mind. It’s that he’s speaking the mind of a country that is largely ignorant of the issues and politics around disability. . . . The history of oppression of disabled people is unknown to most people, and so they see disability as an individual tragedy, worthy of being turned into a movie, and not as political oppression and the struggle to fight that oppression. . . . It’s a lot easier to make a movie in which we weep for the personal defeat of a person who loses a leg or two, or cry with joy for the triumph of an individual with disabilities, than it is to change the whole way we as a society envision, think about, and deal with people who are disabled. (p. 2)”

[Gestures vaguely at people more eloquent than me as I align the same broad arguments with the queer movement] lol 

#rwby #LGBTQIA #mymetas #Anonymous