Tag: representation matters

Stitch @ Teen Vogue: Kelly Marie Tran on “Raya,” Internet Harassment, and Fandom

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Raya’s key traits are present in Kelly, too, even though the context is different. Kelly, who has faced more than her fair share of trolls and racist critics, is an actor who continues to push forward in the face of adversity and negativity. While she’s gotten to see the positive impact of her presence in these films and how a new generation of usually underrepresented fans have embraced her, she’s also been subject to a long and very public harassment campaign from a certain faction of the Star Wars fandom.

Who’s got two thumbs and interviewed Kelly Marie Tran just in time for Raya’s home release and as a very fitting end to this year’s API Month?

THIS STITCH!

Thread Collection: When Representation DOESN’T Matter (8/4/2018)

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Originally posted as a thread on Twitter on August 4, 2018

Fandom about shows/films with white queer characters: “You have to support it because it’s a win for ~all of us~ and #RepresentationMatters”

Fandom about shows/films with queer characters of color: “I don’t know why, but just don’t feel like this is something I’m interested in”

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse and Miles Morales: Spider-Man: When Authenticity Matters

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INT. MILES’ APARTMENT – BEDROOM MILES MORALES draws HOME-MADE STREET ART NAME-TAGS at a desk, headphones on, singing along to a song he’s too young for (”Sunflower”), but he doesn’t quite know the words yet.

It’s no secret that part of what launched Into the Spider-Verse into the stratosphere and gained it tons of love from critics and audiences alike was how, for an animated movie starring superheroes and a cartoon pig from another dimension, real and relatable a film it was.

Spider-Man is one of the most relatable superheroes out there and when he’s not relatable, you know he’s not being written well. Even in the recent Spider-Man video games, little and large things alike serve to make you feel like you get insight into Peter Parker’s familiar life. Sure, he’s a superhero that swings across the skyline saving folks from all kinds of crime, but he’s also a nerd who loves his aunt and gets distracted by cool weird things and makes bad jokes.

Peter has had decades of being written to be relatable. Recently, he almost always feels like an authentic example of a millennial trying to make it work in New York.

Miles… hasn’t exactly had that.

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#NowWeRise – Children of Blood and Bone Blog Tour (Moodboard + Blogging Bits)

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You know, I think this might be the first time I’ve ever done a blog tour?

When I got the email about possibly doing something for the release of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone in its release week, I kind of like got all giddy. What a great opportunity to do something fantastic in order to celebrate one of my favorite books of 2018!

In Tomi Adeymi’s Children of Blood and Bone, the Ìwòsàn Clan is the clan of the Maji of Health and Disease. As a result of this totally awesome “Discover Your Magic” graphic, that clan is… my clan, but my majj power isn’t that of healing, it’s of inflicting disease.

My maji power (Cancer) is the magical equivalent of Typhoid Mary.

Which I find fitting because of my relationship with illness.

I’m honestly always sick.

Or suffering from something.

Right now, I’m actually pretty sure that I might even have the chicken pox. (Though… probably not as I was vaccinated as a child and I think that’s supposed to stop that from happening.)

So for me, there’s something absolutely captivating about the idea of maji whose power centers around causing illness instead of healing it.Read More »

My kingdom for a Bond-of-Color

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Image found here

I’m not going to call myself a James Bond expert or anything so very trite, but I did spend most of last year (and a huge chunk of this year) both having intense opinions on the James Bond film franchise to anyone that would listen and writing an in-depth article series for The Mary Sue about the movies. It’s pretty fair to say that I get the film franchise better than the average non-Bond blogger.

That’s why I’m pretty uninterested in the idea of casting yet another vaguely attractive white guy in the role.

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Fantastic Beasts & Invisible Diversity in the Harry Potter Series

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For a body of media that seems fixated on different avenues of oppression, the Harry Potter series is seriously lacking when it comes to actual diversity and oppression that doesn’t revolve around magical beings. Seriously, just about everything’s a metaphor for some form of oppression or some facet of a marginalized identity.

If you’re looking for allegories about human rights and racism shown through a lens of magical humans and magical species, cool. That’s what you’re getting.

If you’re actually looking for nuanced interpretations of how race, power, and privilege intersect and affect each other in a world of magic, maybe look somewhere else.

J. K. Rowling’s world isn’t going to be it.

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