Queer-Coding, Bad-Bat-Takes, And Why The Joker Isn’t That Important to Batman

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Content Warning for stereotypes built from homophobia and transmisogyny that are present in the Joker’s portrayal across the years.

joker post header
The art in this header is Alex Ross’s 2015 piece “Mind if I Cut In“

“In some ways, the Joker is a dark reflection of who Batman is. The loss of Bruce Wayne’s parents could’ve driven him to that edge, to where he could’ve become the Joker himself. But instead, he fought against that. Batman’s trying to bring order to the world. The Joker’s trying to bring chaos to the world.”

—–Dan Didio, Superheroes Decoded, Part One: “American Legends”

If the word “camp” is applied at all to the eighties Batman, it is a label for the Joker. This sly displacement is the cleverest method yet devised of preserving Bat-heterosexuality. The play that the texts regularly make with the concept of Batman and the Joker as mirror images now takes a new twist. The Joker is Batman’s “bad twin,” and part of that badness is, increasingly, an implied homosexuality.

—–Andy Medhurst, “Batman, Deviance, and Camp”

Despite what many comic book writers, editors, and some comic historians currently, the idea that the Joker serves as Batman’s darker “other half” is one that hinges on incredibly modern interpretations on the character that go hand in hand with ham-fisted attempts to squash them into these roles.

It’s also, not very accurate.

Didio’s comments in the first half of Superheroes Decoded are, at this point, the party line. They’re part of this attempt to reframe the Joker as necessary to the Batman’s mythos to the point where neither character can survive without the other, framing them as codependent and lost without one another. While I can see some validity in that statement where the Joker is concerned, I don’t see the point in making heroes that can’t exist without that one villain to torment them.

I especially don’t see the point in making Batman one of those heroes.Read More »

Stitch Does Stuff in February 2019

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Stitch does stuff in february 2019.png

What am I going to do in February 2019?

Well, for the first two-weeks of the month… probably not that much.

I’ll be visiting my elderly father in the USVI for a multi-purpose visit (he hasn’t been well, I won’t be able to visit for his birthday in April, my brother is getting his babies christened while his family is there, and doing research for a couple of stories I have set on the island) between the 4th and the 13th.

While I’m in the USVI, I don’t have internet access unless I get a ride to the local library or hang out at an internet café downtown where the tourists hangout. (I could go to the university to use their wi-fi/computer labs since I already need to ask a question of the librarians for a project I’m doing, but it is weird to hang out at a school I haven’t attended in like eight years.)

Despite the fact that I’ll have my big laptop with me, I probably won’t have that much time to work so I’ll be using my time from today up until my flight leaves to write and schedule as much as possible for the time period. Some content is already scheduled on my website and Patreon as well as some tweets to make up for the fact that unless I borrow my bro’s phone, I won’t be able to communicate with y’all.

Therefore, everything on this list is tentative because it depends on how the trip goes and how much free-time and writing headspace I can grab during the trip so I’m not playing catch-up any more than usual following my trip.

Wish me luck, folks!

Website

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread: Obsidian Butterfly

Strap yourselves in for another ridiculously long installment of my Great Big Anita Blake ReRead. I’ve got stuff to say about everything the novel did really well, what it still sucks at, and the one thing I wish I could carve out of the book with my bare bloody hands.

The Cruel Prince review

I should finish up with Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince some time during my trip. As I love fucked up fae stories? I have to review it.

Spiderverse and Miles Morales: A Spider-Man Novel, When Authenticity Matters

I’ve talked a ton about a) why I think Brian Michael Bendis kind of sucks at writing Black characters and b) why representation of marginalized people matters. In this piece, I’m going to talk about what Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Jason Reynolds’ Miles Morales novel so different from what we’d gotten on Miles before and how, some level of authenticity is important when we’re dealing with representation.

Queer-Coding, Bad-Bat-Takes, And Why The Joker Isn’t That Important to Batman

Despite what many comic book writers, editors, and some comic historians currently, the idea that the Joker serves as Batman’s darker “other half” is one that hinges on incredibly modern interpretations on the character that go hand in hand with ham-fisted attempts to squash them into these roles.

It’s also, not very accurate.

In Retrospect: The Authority Volume 1 (Issues 1 -12)

In a new blog essay series, I look at media I loved in my nerdy past and talk about what I loved, what I wished it did differently, and how it needs to change/how it may have already been updated. In this inaugural installment, to celebrate the awesome updates made in The Wild Storm comics out now, I talk about the first twelve issues of Wildstorm’s The Authority before Mark Millar got his gross little hands on it.

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Black Women in the Way

Few things inspire more misogynoir than a Black female character that fandom thinks “gets in the way” of a ship involving two white characters.

Updates and Junk

  • PCA 2019 Planning Post
  • Updated Who I am/What I do Post

Patreon

Ships ‘n Shit: Team Kill Dracula

One of the best ships to come out of Netflix’s Castlevania series is the OT3 relationship between dhampir Alucard, occasionally tipsy supernatural expert Trevor Belmont, and snarky Speaker Sypha Belnades

Stitch Loves Villains: Mariah Dillard

I’ve been promising a piece on Luke Cage’s Mariah Dillard since season one of the show. Now, I think I’ve got my angle. Since she’s a villain I love, I’m going to focus on that aspect of her character under my Stitch Loves Villains umbrella.

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread: Narcissus In Chains

  • Snippet ($1 Tier)
  • Draft ($3 Tier)

In book #10, the Anitaverse gets really gross. This is the start of the badness. I recommend preparing yourself with a stiff drink because this book is bad.

Urban Fantasy 101: Magical Negros in the Genre

  • Snippet ($1 Tier)

I’m experimenting with topics for upcoming UF101 posts and I’m trying to see where I can go when talking about magical negro figures in the genre. I wind up scrapping a ton of UF101 pieces or putting them on the back burner/forgetting about them, but I think I’ve hit on something with this one.

Worldbuilding Wednesday: Nobles

A lot of the fantasy I’ve been reading (and some of what I’ve been reading) focuses on nobles in various groups. I want to talk about fixating on class and navigating writing wealth when you don’t have much/and keep tweeting #EatTheRich on a regular basis.

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preference

  • Snippet ($1 Tier)
  • Full Draft ($3 Tier)

At some point this month, the draft of “What Fandom Racism Looks Like: The Problem With Preference” will be up. Before then, I’ll be putting up one last snippet!

Urban Fantasy 101 Notes

  • Vampires Are People Too – “Show, Don’t Tell” is good advice when it comes to making sure readers get what you’re trying to put across when it comes to talking about the humanity of supernatural beings. What happens when the author only tells us that these characters are supposed to be sympathetic but… don’t show them.
  • Hate Crimes – I keep coming across UF books with hate crimes/hate groups in them and I want to talk about what these crimes look like and why, if you’re going to use hate crimes and set up vampires and other supernatural beings as minorities, maybe… be more original? (I just have a bone to pick with how the allegories for race/disability/etc layered on these dangerous preternatural beings don’t even try to aim for originality when it comes to oppression.)

Women of Color in MCU Live Action Properties: Nakia

Am I going to write 2000 words about how Nakia was the best character in Black Panther and deserves to be loved? Yes, yes I am.

This month there won’t be an Audience Participation poll because I won’t have time to work on a piece and tweet reminders at the beginning of the month. Next month though, I’ll be back on track with it. I plan to have March’s post scheduled to go up on March 1st at midnight and I already know what I’m putting up for TWO poll options next month!

The Usual Support Links

Ko-fi:  ko-fi.com/A477I4N

PayPal: paypal.me/ZinaH

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/StitchMediaMix/

CV: stitchmediamix.com/zina-h-cv/

Book Wishlist: link: https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/UXW2K0AOL5YK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_RWWByb2JFWTRJ

I hope your February is awesome!

I’ll be posting pictures from my trip on twitter (@stichomancery) or instagram (@stitchmmix) whenever I get a chance/some service downtown or when we head to the island all the wannabe expats hang out on, but expect mostly radio silence for half of the momth! (I’ll share video and audio too, but that’ll probably go up when I’m in the airport on the way out.)

I appreciate y’all a ton and I can’t wait to get back and share my island with y’all as well as the stuff I do manage to get written this month!

(And then in March, it’s BLOG ANNIVERSARY AND GIVEAWAY TIME!

Stay sweet, pumpkins!

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Convenient Excuses

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If you’re new here, start at the introduction!

wfrll - misogynoir - convenient excuses

A 2011 article on pop culture website Oh No They Didn’t entitled “Fandom and its hatred of Black women characters” opens by asking readers “What do Martha Jones, Tara Thornton, Guinevere, and Mercedes Jones have in common?”

The short post details the various ways that fandom goes out of its way to diminish the awesomeness of Black female characters, but for this section, I’d like to look at the excuses fandom gives for why they don’t like –and frequently, actively hate – Black female characters.

Livejournal user flint_marko, the author of the ONTD post, provides a handy list of insults that fans use to excuse their hatred of these female characters that includes:

  • They have an attitude problem.
  • They’re lazy.
  • They’re mean.
  • They’re stupid.
  • They’re ungrateful.
  • They’re selfish.
  • They’re sluts.

When I say that fandom hates Black women, this sort of thing is a prime example. All of the examples that flint_marko gives are things that fandom has used to excuse disliking or hating Black female characters throughout the years.Read More »

[Small Stitch Reviews] Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London #7)

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Note: This short review contains some spoilers for the previous book in the series.

lies sleeping cover

Lies Sleeping, the seventh novel in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, is so good that I stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning – on a day I had to wake up at 5:30am – to finish it. Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is one of my all-time favorite urban fantasy series and the list of things I love about it would take up several single spaced pages in one of my notebooks.Read More »

Stitch Takes Notes #1 – Kohnen Pages 19, 25-26

Stitch

Stitch Takes Notes is an ongoing and flat out random feature now up on my website wherein I share the non-urban fantasy notes I take for various academic/academic-adjacent books I’m reading.

stitch takes notes

I’m a huge fan of Screening the Closet: Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television, Melanie E. S. Kohnen’s book on whiteness and queer representation/visibility in Western media.

Everything about this books speaks to my own (more informal) work on race in fandom and I want to shake it at a bunch of people. I’m largely reading it for fun – as opposed to reading it because I need it immediately for a piece – and I’ve been taking notes on it and putting it into my context/the context of fan-studies in a totally sweet Batman notebook.

I’m not going to put all of my notes out there because then you’d probably wind up with half of the book quoted online because of how much of it I find valuable, but I wanted to put some of my notes up so that y’all can see the connections I’ve been making from the book.

So here are some notes and quotes from when I was going over pages 18-19 and page 25 of Kohnen’s brilliant book:Read More »

Sporking For A Good Cause: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Shutdown (Anita Blake 22.5)

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sporking for a good cause

First things first here is a list of charities that you can (and should) donate to in order to help people directly affected by the government shutdown here in the US. Many of these people aren’t going to get paid even once the government re-opens and right now they’re suffering greatly. If you can donate, you can help someone get a little bit of financial security in these trying times.

Now, some backstory:

In October 2013, the US government was shut down for several days as a result of the Republican congress really hating the idea of letting the United States people get anything close to universal healthcare.

In response to the shutdown and ostensibly for her readers impacted by the shutdown as government workers, Laurell K. Hamilton posted “Shutdown”, a short story (or, more likely, a deleted scene from  the novel that had come out in July of the same year, Affliction) about the werewolf alpha Richard Zeeman introducing his newest human lover to Anita Blake and her main-shapeshifter squeeze, the wereleopard alpha Micah Callahan. This 7200-word story is a quick and frustrating look into the life of one of Anita’s former main lovers.

As Hamilton posted this story with good intentions and reuploaded it with the threat – I mean, promise – to figure out a sequel or original short story if the shutdown continues – with good intentions as well, I am sporking it with the best intentiions at heart. I would appreciate it if my followers/readers donated to one of the charities or organizations I linked to at the beginning of this piece.

So, now that you’ve (hopefully) donated to an organization that’s going to help folks impacted by the government shutdown, let’s start the sporking (for a good cause). The usual trigger warnings for any conversation about the Anitaverse apply here as I’ll be talking about the consent issues in the short, internalized misogyny, kink/sex shaming, and sexual violence. So read carefully if you can!

Note: If you prefer to listen to your sporking, here’s the MP3 narration I did! Don’t forget to donate, you nerds!
Read More »

Ships ‘n Shit: Symbrock

Stitch

Ships n Shit - Symbrock.png

 

One half of the ship is a down and out reporter who’s having a hard time of things.

The other is a hungry-for-brains symbiote, an extraterrestrial blob that thinks violence is both the question being asked and the answer it deserves.

I’m talking about Eddie Brock and Venom, a ship made for monster fuckers in fandom and folks who just really liked the idea of dating someone that basically lives in your body. Fandom has thought of the Venom symbiote as a site for particularly fucky content for years now, and it wasn’t just because of that intensely (and accidentally?) erotic panel between the symbiote and Hawkeye.

(Though that panel helped.)

In the comics, Eddie Brock’s relationship with the symbiote is… fraught. More fucked up, than funny.

In Venom however?

The film manages to balance funny and fucked up and from it, fandom gets… fucky.

Which I am entirely here for.

Now, let’s talk about the characters involved in this ship in a little greater detailRead More »

Fleeting Frustrations #4: What’s the Deal With Reverse Harem Romances?

Stitch

fleeting frustrations 4

There are only about three thousand books that come up when I search for “reverse harem” so let me start out by letting y’all know that I do get that it’s a small part of the overall genre and makes up a teeny tiny percentage of the books published.

But the point of my Fleeting Frustrations pieces is to air a grievance, and on this site: no grievance is too small, too petty, or too focused on a niche within a specific genre for me to air it like laundry on a line.Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like – When White Characters (Somehow) Aren’t White

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wfrll - removing whiteness

Let’s keep this short and salty: did y’all know that there are people – thankfully a minority in their respective fandoms – that will claim a white male character or actor isn’t white for some reason or another.

Well, if you didn’t know before reading that sentence, I’m willing to be that you’ve figured out what you’re gonna learn today in this installment of “What Fandom Racism Looks Like”.

One of the weirdest things I’ve ever come across in all of my years of fandom is this relatively recent thing where fans of a white male character – usually one half of a powerhouse ship involving two white characters – somehow get it into their heads that said white male character isn’t actually white after all.

I don’t get it. Read More »

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Introduction

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wfrll - misogynoir - intro

The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman. – Malcolm X, from a speech he gave May 5, 1962 at the funeral of Ronald Stokes.

Fandom hates Black women – real and fictional.

Fandom can’t stand Black female characters, the actresses that play/voice them, or the Black women who go hard for characters that look like them.

Misogynoir is alive and well in fandom spaces and few people seem willing to acknowledge it or listen to Black women talking about this specific form of racialized misogyny in fandom.Read More »

The Great Big Anita Blake ReRead: Blue Moon

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Content Warning: This installment talks in detail about sexual violence, abuse in relationships, and false rape accusations on top of racism, rednecks, and my usual rage over the series.

blue moon - us 1998 cover
Blue Moon‘s 1998 US Cover

First published in 1998, Blue Moon is the ninth Anita Blake novel and the second in the series to take Anita outside of her normal territory in St. Louis.

While I previously said positive things about how the series takes Anita out of her comfort zone by removing her from her base of operations and her main allies (back in Bloody Bones), sending Anita to Myerton, Tennessee was not the greatest idea because it wasn’t necessarily executed well and relied on stock portrayals of prejudiced southerners to provide a lot of the background characters and minor villains.

After werewolf alpha (and Anita’s ex-boyfriend) Richard Zeeman is falsely accused of and arrested for rape in Tennessee while on a research vacation, Anita takes the initiative to travel down south to keep Richard’s werewolf-y secrets from coming out. The only problem, is that Richard’s pack and family aren’t very fond of Anita and neither is the master of Myerton, a vampire with more power than common sense.

Throw in pack politics, the ghost of the rapist Raina, a bunch of rednecks, and a mystical conspiracy to find the mythical Spear of Destiny and you’ve got one big ole book.

Strap in folks, we’re about to talk about what Blue Moon does decently, what the book gets wrong, and what parts of the book should’ve been killed by magical fire in the woods of Tennessee.Read More »

[Book Review] Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (Reluctant Royals #2.5) by Alyssa Cole

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Note: I received a copy of this novella from the publisher as part of my participation in the blog tour for Pure Textuality  in exchange for an honest review. (Pure Textuality is also hosting a giveaway of a paperback of the first novel in the series! Yay giveaways!!)

Book Cover - One Ghosted Twice Shy by Alyssa Cole.jpg

SUMMARY

Alyssa Cole returns with a fun, sexy romance novella in the Reluctant Royals series!

While her boss the prince was busy wooing his betrothed, Likotsi had her own love affair after swiping right on a dating app. But her romance had ended in heartbreak, and now, back in NYC again, she’s determined to rediscover her joy—so of course she runs into the woman who broke her heart.

When Likotsi and Fabiola meet again on a stalled subway train months later, Fab asks for just one cup of tea. Likotsi, hoping to know why she was unceremoniously dumped, agrees. Tea and food soon leads to them exploring the city together, and their past, with Fab slowly revealing why she let Likotsi go, and both of them wondering if they can turn this second chance into a happily ever after.

 

REVIEW

At this point in my life as a romance reader, I can safely say that I love Alyssa Cole’s writing more than I love naps. If you know anything about me, you’ll how much time I spend sleeping at the most ridiculous parts of the day and how much napping is part of my “routine” Me saying that her writing is better than the naps I take at least once a day? Now, that is a serious claim to make.Read More »

[Snippet] Little Wolf, Big Red

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Originally posted on Patreon at the $1 tier back on October 6, 2018.

little wolf, big red

Red walks into her grandmother’s kitchen to find a werewolf at work cooking dinner. It’s not what she’d been expecting to happen during her vacation from work.

Red isn’t expecting the wolf that she finds in her grandmother’s sunny kitchen. It’s not like she’s never seen a werewolf before, this part of the country is lousy with them. However, Red has never seen a werewolf in her grandmother’s house before. Not with how… complicated the relationships are between her grandmother and the local packs.

Hell, Red has even worked with a few werewolves at the zoos she’s been working at across the years. They’re the best people to have at your side when dealing with the natural wolves that many zoos have, and they can handle the heavier predators.

The werewolf bending down in front of the oven doesn’t look like any of the werewolves that Red has worked with before. For one thing, Red thinks to herself as she watches the werewolf straighten up to a not-so intimidating height, this is the shortest werewolf Red has ever seen. She barely comes up to Red’s shoulders and she seems like such a tiny little thing. Read More »

Stitch Does Stuff In January

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stitch does stuff in january 2019

I’m starting 2019 out right: by planning to write a bunch of stuff that I might not get to do because I always overshoot like it’s my job.

I’m aiming for big writing goals while learning how to use my time wisely and manage my writing time better.

Will this work? Who knows.

Will y’all get good content out of this no matter what happens? Definitely.

So here’s my January 2019 to-do list.

One thing I’m doing that’s new is posting my fiction goals (original and fan fiction) which aren’t set in stone and are moving from month to month because they’re primarily me adding words or doing revisions on existing work. Usually I keep it private because of how often i miss my goals or write unrelated things…

But I’ve realized that y’all might not know I’m always working on some kind of fiction and I’m trying to change that because my fiction writing is important to me and I want it to be important to y’all as well on some level.

Let’s get started.Read More »

#flashbackfriday: Black Panther Fandom Racism Bingo

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Originally posted back in March 2018 after realizing that the MCU fandom never actually stopped its anti-black nonsense. Best way to play? Spend some time scrolling through the unfiltered Black Panther tags on AO3 with a drink in your hand and drink every time you land on something in one of the squares. Repeat drinking is encouraged. (The original, archived inspiration.)

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I’m back with another “fandom racism” card, this one more explicitly for the Black Panther fandom. I think this one can be used for scrolling through tumblr tags or AO3 as a drinking game, but I like my liver a bit too much to play it and see how it goes.

If you can’t read the bingo squares, here’s what they say (though the order may not match) and some handy links to explanationsRead More »