Hey what's up hello

I’m not even gonna...like, hi. Let’s not pretend it hasn’t been ages. Also my personal life has been through The Most. I’m not even sending this from Chris Evans’ Least Favorite Bar anymore! (As people have asked: that would be the bar with no alcohol in it. I’m a shit. But also read Edith Zimmerman’s GQ interview with him from 2011 where she completely rends him limb from limb and I’m pretty sure he has no idea she’s doing it the entire time. It’s like an alternate universe where Leigh Alexander paid her rent interviewing movie stars.)

Anyway.

I saw LEAN IN: FURY ROAD last night and yikes y’all. I don’t know how to tell you this, but as a person with chronic pain, mental health problems and occasional medication-related mobility issues, I saw myself in “PTSD Is Getting In The Way of My Goals” Max and the various villains whose bodies and breath were presented as grotesqueries than “Does The Exact Same Amount of Killing As Men With One Arm Missing” Furiosa. Visibility is the floor, not the ceiling, so like...it’s cool to be excited if you’re excited, but please don’t settle for this. And please don’t crawl up my ass because I didn’t love your shitty movie (cause omfg between this and PACIFIC RIM I cannot anymore with bad writing and acting that takes itself so seriously, and there was no Idris to stare at this time).

The proooooblem is that when I was watching GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and listening to David Bautista deliver Drax’s monologue about his Dead Wife and Kids and the thought popped into my head, “this would be more interesting if Drax was a black lesbian.” And as the movie kept going, I couldn’t shake the fact that there was *no reason narratively for Drax to have not been a black lesbian*. And I can’t stop doing it now to films as I watch them – “could this character have been a black lesbian? if yes, then why the hell weren’t they?” Which isn’t to say the black lesbian experience has no specificity to it, but just...I am *so* *tired* of being asked to relate to the same high school awkward straight white boys, or middle aged straight white men, or bumbling mid-20s unlucky in love straight white men, or or or...and I don’t even want to see myself on screen, because I’d like to think I’ve learned a LITTLE from the mistakes of previous generations of white feminists, and also because that isn’t what I need. I don’t need to see another white cis person starring in media right now, even if they were bisexual, and dealing with mental health (like, REAL mental health, not Adorable MPDG Symptoms), and disabled...it’d be nice, but it wouldn’t be enough. I need to see some spaces being made and some spotlights being shown on people of color and especially black people, and I think we should start with black women who aren’t straight. Because why the fuck wouldn’t we? (So on top of everything else, w-where were the black people in the post-apocalyptic future? Why were all the Prized Beautiful Women so pale? Oh right they’re “just” “reproducing” “beauty” “standards” sure fine yup [rolls eyes while pantomiming jerking off]. (I DON’T RESPECT THAT ARGUMENT, DID I MAKE THAT CLEAR ENOUGH? CAUSE I CAN KEEP GOING, I DID THREE WHOLE YEARS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL.))

Oh hey speaking of pretend friends, that reminds me, I finally sat down and watched that conversation between bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry from a year and a half ago and let’s just all give ourselves the gift of (re)watching it. My favorite part is ~*~all of it~*~ but maybe especially the Q&A. bell hooks has even less patience for bad Q&A than I do, because she is wise and has much to teach all of us about so many aspects of life.

RANDOMS

• Total subject change, but Arabelle Sicardi (who I’ve been a fan of since Powder Doom, she was most recently the beauty editor at Buzzfeed) started a newsletter that updates ~almost as intermittently as mine, but if you love yourself/makeup/fashion/style, consider it a must-signup.
• The #BeyonceAlwaysOnBeat meme was really fun, and this was definitely one of my favorites, because I love callbacks.
• Animated GIF of the moment, shout-out to Guy Kawasaki, he knows why.
• This AU Prompt of David Rosen from Scandal and Landry Clarke from Friday Night Lights...I think this is actually viable and should be written. Someone rise to the challenge (not it).
• Quote of the day: “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.” -- Miles Davis
• Subject Line Song: Fetty Wap - Trap Queen

 

So yeah anyway. That’s enough for now. More soon.