Things I Love: Top 5 Movies Of 2015

I had planned to try to get a couple posts done for today but with all the work I've been doing I haven't had time. But I wanted to find some way to send 2015 neatly on its way, so here I present to you, my favourite movies of 2015. They may not be the best movies, or the most critically acclaimed, (though granted, most of them are) but they are movies that made me enjoy being at the movies, and gave me the movie-watching experience that I hope for every time I step through the double doors and into the theatre. Looking at the list, I can confirm what I've suspected all year; I really like the science fiction genre, and I wish I hadn't felt so unwelcome within it as a child. Give me a killer robot or a dystopia and I'm there. In any case, here are my five favourite movies of 2015, presented in no particular order.

CREED/ROCKY VII
I initially didn't realize that Creed was a Rocky sequel until closer to the film's release. All I knew was that my bae Michael B. Jordan looked hot and ready in the trailer, and I was going to see it to make up for the abysmal Fantastic Four movie. What I got was so much better. I'm not particularly familiar with the Rocky franchise (it's about boxing, Stallone is in it, there are some stairs he runs up that one time?) so I was able to watch this film and enjoy it on its merits. The great cinematography, the great casting, the solid, emotional performances from MBJ and Sylvester Stallone specifically, but also the quiet and resonant performances from Phylicia Rashad and Tessa Thompson. The incredible soundtrack and a plot that didn't plod or pander, but told a rich, fulfilling story of a young man trying to prove his worth to himself and the world while standing in the shadow of the legacy of a father he never knew. It was amazing all around and I can't wait to see it get showered with awards.

Announcing Bitch Media's Newest 2016 Fellowship Writer: Me!

via Bitch Media

I'll cut to the chase. I'm incredibly happy and proud to announce that I've been selected as one of the four inaugural Bitch Media Writing Fellows. I almost can't believe that I get to write those words. I have been holding my breath and stalking the Bitch Media twitter page ever since I submitted my application because I was so nervous and so sure that it was a long shot. But by some miracle (and I guess, my writing...) I was accepted! It's such great news at a time when I really needed great news. When I was younger, my dad taught me a lesson that has served me incredibly well to this day: "The worst they can say is no." It's been a mantra that has given me the courage to try new things when I was afraid to fail. Even if I did fail, I'd be no worse off that I was before. I'd been saying for a while that I wanted to get serious about my writing and this fellowship was a great opportunity. After all, no one can say "yes" if I never ask. So I asked. I submitted my application, full of nervous energy and doubts, and hoped for the best. And Bitch Media said yes!

The fellowship program will be running in quarterly increments and I'll be working from April 1 to June 30. My focus will be pop-culture criticism, so I'm very excited to be able to write about what I have loved writing about for the last couple years. Mostly I'm excited to be properly edited. Like most artists, I can be a little defensive about my work, but the few times I have been well edited, I have always left the experience feeling like my writing had substantially improved. With that said, I don't have much else to add (too busy eating ice cream and happy-sobbing) so instead of rambling on, I'm including the cover letter I submitted with my application. It explains why I wanted this so badly, and why I'm so incredibly proud that I've been given opportunity. 

*****

Pop culture is political. In my opinion, pop culture has the innate potential to be either one of society’s greatest benefits or one of its greatest ills. It is a reflection of the way we as a society see ourselves and of the values that we tolerate and cherish at any given point in history, and that’s precisely why it’s so important to me.

Image and representation is an issue that’s close to my heart because of the way we see its effects ripple through society. Whether it’s the negative repercussions of poor representations of women or the symbolic annihilation of minority people through their absence in pop culture all together, popular media is an fertile breeding ground for germinating the seeds of social change and that’s why I spend so much time immersed in it; highlighting the things that improve us as a society, and critiquing the things that don’t. We have seen time and time again that attitudes that are widely represented in pop culture can have a profound effect on what a society believes to be true. Continued negative representation has successfully been used in the past to demonize entire groups of people, and justify violence against them. The repercussions of pop culture representations run deeper than we give them credit for.

This is especially true as it relates to the stories that we tell about women of colour. Mostly we don’t tell them at all, but when we do, we steep them in antiquated stereotypes that diminish their humanity and position them as disposable. As a black woman living in a Caribbean country that imports 99% of its content from the West, I’m sensitive to the connections that can be drawn between dismissive representations of women who look like me, and the corresponding way news stories are framed when we are victimized.

I’m not an American, but I’ve grown up on American media. I’ve situated myself through exposure to what I was not; thin, white, blonde and blue-eyed. I’ve come through the fire; first loathing myself because I did not exist, then questioning myself when the existence I saw did not match my reality, and finally finding myself anew when I began to understand the wider forces at play when it comes to the export of Western ideals to the global South. Through my writing on pop culture I’ve been able to explore all the ways our identities and intersections influence the way we see the world and through my current graduate study program in Mass Communications I’ve been able to explore more informed perspectives about how the media we experience is created, distributed and consumed, up to and including portrayals of rape in television; the subject of my final thesis.

Reading Bitch Media online over the last year has shown me that I’m not the only person who understands these larger functions, and being able to work with you would enable me to further develop my understanding of the importance of pop culture and write about the way it wends itself into everything we know about ourselves. I honestly believe that I would be a great fit at Bitch Media, and I truly hope that we will be working together soon. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel's #JessicaJones

Marvel's Jessica Jones is the latest, best example of white feminist fiction: excellent on sexism, terrible on racism. There are a lot of great things about this series that speak directly to the ills that women face on a daily basis. Kilgrave, the central villain, is chillingly terrifying, specifically because the only difference between him and your garden variety abuser is his total power to enact his will. The examination of male entitlement in ways both large and small (by contrasting Kilgrave and Simpson for example) are excellent and poignant. But as I watched the 13 episode first season, I was struck by how callously black people's lives were treated on the show, rendered into convenient plot devices in service of the white female protagonist's character development. As a black woman viewing the show, it was easy to see that the active pursuit of liberation from abuse was not a struggle that this show believes includes me (an ongoing struggle for Marvel). Ironically, the best parts of the show are its treatment with its villain, while the worst are its treatments with its female anti-heroine.

While I do have several critiques of the show, there were a number of things that I thought were handled exceptionally well. Firstly, this is a show driven by women about the fears and terrors that women must navigate in the world shrunk down to a micro-level, enabling us an intimate look at the various levels of abuse women routinely endure. The contrast between Kilgrave and Simpson is genius, as it helps demonstrate the full scale of abuse that men knowingly and unknowingly enact on the women around them. The two men are flip-sides of the same coin. While Kilgrave simply takes what he feels he is entitled to by means of his powers of enhanced persuasion, Simpson intially takes a less forceful but no less sinister approach, exemplified in his treatment of Trish after he realizes that Kilgrave has compelled him to murder her. As Stephanie Yang writes in a Bitch Magazine review:

The warning signs are there early on. Under Kilgrave's control, Simpson assaults Trish inside her own apartment. Once Kilgrave's control wears off, he's wracked with guilt and comes back to apologize. The problem is that Trish doesn't want Simpson's apology; she wants him to just leave. Trish doesn't want to be reminded that she was attacked in her own home, or feel trapped by her own high-end security system while her attacker lingers outside. But Simpson is insistent, sitting in her hallway and talking to her through the intercom. Simpson makes his apology about his needs and his absolution, not about Trish's needs, safety or mental health. It's entirely understandable, but it's still wrong. 

Simpson and Kilgrave certainly have different motivation for their destructive actions. But as Jessica points out, intent doesn't matter. Their actions and consequences are what matter. That's an important distinction that needs to be made at a time when courts and media alike dismiss many real-life cases of abuse because the abuser "couldn't know" what they were doing was wrong. Violence is a symptom of a culture that indulges bad behavior as being inherently and unavoidably part of masculinity, or even a romantic expression of desire and protectiveness.

I would go a step further and name Simpson's insistent apologies to Trish as outright abusive on their face, specifically because they prioritize his need for absolution over her need to heal. Trish is the victim in the situation, and yet Simpson manages to find a way to center himself in the story of this trauma. As with Kilgrave and Jessica, Simpson's abuse is rooted not in a cartoonish hatred of women as we are often led to believe, but rather in prioritizing his own will and desires over Trish's.

Where Are The Women Of Color?: On Marvel's Problems With Race

It’s no secret that Marvel has a diversity problem. With every new release in film or television, the problem becomes larger and more noticeable. However, many of those that criticize Marvel’s diversity problems, tend to highlight the wrong thing. The large majority of criticism stems from the lack of representation of “women” in the MCU, and while there’s a bit of truth to that condemnation, it’s also another conversation that falsely centers white women.

In Film

Over the course of the last 7 years, there have been 12 films in the MCU, starting with 2008s Iron Man through to this year’s release, Ant-Man, and there is at least one white woman (or a woman that presents as white) in every single one of them. Many of them are exhibited as love interests first and foremost, which is the primary point of contention of the female fan base. But while there are very few female superheroes, none of which have headlined a film thus far, women do exist in the MCU even if they play supporting roles, and nearly all of them are white.

What’s missing from the conversation is what is always glossed over and forgotten about, when we talk about “women”: Women of Color. To date, there has been exactly one WoC character of note with a name and speaking role, out of all 12 Marvel films: Dr. Helen Cho. Dr. Cho makes her appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and thankfully she is not bogged down with the usual tropes and stereotypes that surround Asian women in our media . She is not simply relegated to a love interest, and she does play an important part in the creation of Vision, but her contributions are overlooked by the rest of the characters. She is not what I would consider a “hero” in the traditional sense, and she is primarily a secondary supporting character, with no backstory or development, unlike every single other female character in the entire franchise.

There were two other female characters that appeared alongside Helen Cho, both of whom are white: Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. Both women would fall easily into the “hero(ine)” category. In fact, most of the women in the MCU do in one way or another (eventually at least), whether they are super-powered or not. With the exception of Helen Cho, Jane Foster, and (arguably) Pepper Potts, the women in Marvel films all have fight scenes in which they demonstrate that they can more than handle themselves, even if they may pull double duty as love interests. And even those who are not shown to physically fight, are all in positions of power (Helen Cho and Jane Foster are world leading scientists in their respective fields, and Pepper Potts is the CEO of Stark Industries) And whether with wit or brawn, none of them are entirely helpless (Peggy Carter, Sif, Maria Hill, Hope and Janet Van Dyne, Gamora, Sharon Carter, Frigga, & Nebula).

So really the problem for white female fans is not lack of representation, or even the kinds of representation (because most present the “Strong Female Character” archetype everyone says they’d like to see), but that there has yet to be a Marvel film lead by a woman. And while that is certainly a valid complaint, I can’t help but point out that there are exactly zero WoC (or non-Black MoC) heroes in Marvel films at all, and there have been exactly zero MCU films lead by a Person of Color thus far (and no, Gamora does not count as a WoC because while Zoe Saldana is an Afro-Latina, Gamora is not, nor does she code or present that way. And if you were thinking of a joke about her as a “literal WoC” because she’s green, smack yourself in the face for me).

"She Called Them Anti-Seed": How The Women of Mad Max: Fury Road Divorce Violence From Strength

Imperator Furiosa and the Five Wives look down upon the Citadel.

"Strong female character."

It's a phrase we hear over and over in pop culture, usually in reference to a female character in an action movie who has lots of guns. "Strong female characters" know how to fight, know how to use weapons and they best all the boys in confrontation. "Strong Female Characters" are effectively measured by their capacity for violence and their competence in the theatre of war.

But what does it mean when we equate strength with violence on a cultural level, and especially in relation to women's place in society?

In Mad Max: Fury Road, the "strong female characters" are notable specifically for their aversion to violence. The film portrays its women as emotionally strong people who engage in violence only in self-defense, and only against the system that oppresses them.

The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future desert wasteland where women have been reduced to various forms of slavery and their value is determined by what their bodies can produce. Whether it be breastmilk or babies, women's position in this world is determined by their physical utility to the oppressive system they occupy. Furiosa is the notable exception, an Imperator who has presumably worked her way up the ranks of Immortan Joe's highly patriarchal and hyper-masculine cultish new social order.

How To Be A Bad Bitch Who Recognizes The Intersections Of Amber Rose's Feminism

Amber Rose's new book How To Be A Bad Bitch dropped yesterday and already the white girls are circling, having taken issue with some of the advice Amber gives in the book. While I do think that some of the excerpts from the book are troubling (or at least, don't speak to me), it bothers me that mainstream feminism (read: white feminism) always seems to reserve this kind of intense scrutiny for women of colour. It took conservative media outlets to call Lena Dunham out for the problematic passages in her recent memoir (while feminist publications defended them) and white feminists are still passing around the deeply racist quote from Tina Fey's 2011 outing, Bossypants as a self-empowerment mantra.

Now I'm not saying that Amber shouldn't be criticized. She should. Feminism has never meant that women shouldn't be held accountable when they fuck up. Sometimes we as women make mistakes and I consider it our duty as fellow women in the feminist struggle to help course correct each other when we stray. But we need to be consistent about holding each other's hands to the fire. It's just another unfortunate side-effect of the racial divide in feminism that sees us demonize women of colour when they fuck up, but grasp at every straw imaginable to give white women a pass.

At the very least, we should try not to condescend to each other and try to give criticism in good faith. Refinery29's review of Amber's book took an incredibly nasty approach, upbraiding Rose for what they saw as feminist failings. The intro to the piece discloses that Amber abruptly cancelled a scheduled interview with the publication, and it's hard to see the harsh language as anything more than retaliation for the inconvenience.

Do You Feel Obligated To Support Television Shows With Diverse Casts?

The new fall television season is in full swing and it's been making me think a lot recently about how many new shows this season are noticeably more diverse than previous seasons. The new spate of diversity is encouraging and it's been making me consider that oft-discussed question of whether people of colour are "obligated" to support television shows and movies with people of colour leads.

Obviously there's nothing technically compelling us to watch, but ratings show again and again that black people in particular, and black women specifically watch disproportionate amounts of television, so our viewing choices obviously matter. Gene Demby of NPR's Code Switch made the case that black twitter is directly to be credited for Viola Davis' recent Emmy in and the larger general trend in diversity over the last couple seasons, specifically because we not only watch tv, but because we watch it live, and we talk about it on social media:

Among black female viewers between 35 and 40, Adalian wrote, the show [Empire] is literally the equivalent of a Super Bowl," with one episode "exceeding the rating of some NFL championship games this century."

"As a viewer of both, I can tell you that watching and laughing along with millions of strangers is kind of central to the experience of these shows. Black folks show up and watch like it's a responsibility."

So my dilemma is this: since I'm so fucking fly that my television viewing habits are winning Emmys and shit, do I have a responsibility to support shows with diverse casts in order to signal to the "powers that be" that diversity is something we want to continue? And does that mean slogging through bad shows just because I want to "show up for the cause?"

Case in point: Shondaland. I personally genuinely enjoy all of Aunty Shonda's shows (even Grey's Anatomy!) so watching is not a burden for me, but I'm also fully aware that Scandal went off the rails ages ago and How To Get Away With Murder never made a damn lick of sense, so I don't begrudge people who no longer watch. Conversely, I didn't watch American Crime because it struck me as preachy and mean, and I couldn't get past the pilot.

But Regina won her statue anyway.

For this season, my personal rule has been to at least watch the pilot of each new show starring a PoC lead or with a diverse cast. I'm allowed to drop whatever I don't like, but I have to give everything at least one chance. I struggle with the idea that really great diverse television shows will flounder due to a lack of viewership because their difference somehow makes them novel. (RIP Cristela...) But I also know that I watch upwards of 45 different shows a week depending on the season; I can't singlehandedly save every show I love.

On the other hand, this policy has led me to a lot of great shows that I might not have given a chance otherwise. Shows like Fresh Off The Boat and Jane The Virgin might have completely escaped my notice had I not committed myself  to giving television shows with a diverse cast a chance. And I'd never have become the great evangelical Jane The Virgin fan that I am today.

So far this season I've already dropped the Morris Chesnut led Rosewood and I'm waffling on whether to keep watching Ken Jeong's Dr. Ken. However, Quantico, the first network show starring a South East Asian lead, has completely drawn me in.

I genuinely believe that Scandal can be credited with the noticeable increase in the number of diverse shows that are available today. Suddenly everyone was trying to get a piece of the ratings pie that Shonda was baking, eating and selling all by herself. I mean, do you think it's a coincidence that Empire and Black-ish are on at the same time? Without Scandal's impact we probably wouldn't have Jane The Virgin, Black-ish, Fresh Off The Boat, Minority Report, Sleepy Hollow, American Crime, How To Get Away With Murder, Quantico, Devious Maids or Being Mary Jane. We showed up and showed them that we wanted to see ourselves.

So how should we approach this sudden dearth of options? How do we find the balance between supporting diverse casts without filling up on shows we hate just because the lead character is black?

Viola Davis, Cultivation Theory and the 2015 #Emmy Awards

Viola Davis accepts her Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama at the 2015 Emmy Awards.

I won't pretend I didn't cry this morning. 

I didn't watch the Emmys live last night, so waking up to the news that not only did Viola Davis win herself an Emmy (as I predicted back when she de-wigged on primetime), but two other black women, (Regina King for American Crime and Uzo Aduba for Orange is the New Black) had also left with trophies, has left me floating on a cloud of #blackgirlmagic that has lasted the entire day.

But it has also left me thinking long and hard about why these victories matter on a sociopolitical level. 

I'm currently working on my dissertation for my MA in Mass Communications and I came across a theory recently that I plan to explore in depth. My dissertation focuses on portrayals of rape and sexual assault in American primetime television, but it struck me how relevant the theory is to discussions of racial diversity.

The theory is "cultivation theory" and in layman's terms, it means that over time, people begin to believe that the television universe reflects real life. Essentially, people who watch lots of TV begin to see the social reality of fiction as an accurate account of real life. 

"The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe the social reality portrayed on television." Cultivation leaves people with a misperception of what is true in our world." -Cohen, J.; Weimann, G. (2000). "Cultivation Revisited: Some Genres Have Some Effects on Some Viewers". Communication Reports 13 (2): 99–114.

I hope you can see where I'm going with this...

#MileyWhatsGood?: Nicki Minaj Destroys The Male Gaze Via Overt Sexual Expression

Editor's Note: The author of this essay originally approached me for permission to cite one of my pieces in her college paper. After I read the final draft, I immediately asked to republish it here because it does an excellent job of distilling the very ideas about Nicki Minaj's brand of feminism that I have been espousing for some time now. In light of last night's MTV VMA's and the continued racist framing of Nicki Minaj as a "savage" and "angry" black woman threatening the purity and safety of white female celebrities like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, I thought it was timely to remind people that Nicki Minaj's praxis may be sexual and it may be loud and it may not be polite, but it is still a feminist expression for her to assert her right to protect herself from racism, sexism and misogynoir in the industry, even and especially when it is perpetuated by other women. It is a fantastic read, and I can't wait to read more from her.

*****

Nicki Minaj is a lot of things: the highest selling female rapper of all time, an artist in the midst of a world-tour for her latest album, The Pinkprint, and most importantly, an icon for women everywhere. On August 19, 2014, Nicki Minaj released the music video for the song “Anaconda” and soon the internet exploded. The video garnered immediate critique for being hypersexual, all while stacking up nearly 500,000,000 views on Youtube. But to women all over, the video, like many Nicki Minaj videos before it, was empowering andprofoundly feminist. Through the course of Minaj’s career, her overt sexuality has given her the perfect platform to subvert the male stares it beckons. Nicki Minaj feminism is dependent on overt sexuality as a device to subvert the male gaze and achieve ultimate sexual empowerment.

The music video for “Anaconda” is one that celebrates the same body-type Sir Mix-a-Lot praised in the rather unambiguously titled classic, “I Like Big Butts:” curvy derrieres and itty-bitty waists.  Nicki twerks on and around other women who all share with her curvy physique, but makes it clear that her sexuality is a mechanism via which she achieves empowerment, and not a device solely used for attracting the male gaze. The first way in which she does this comes in the fact that no men appear in the video (besides Drake, but we’ll get to that later). Historically (and still to this day), many male rappers have been inclined to feature women dancing on and around them in their music videos. They objectify them, and seemingly treat them as toys for pleasure, easily disposable and replaceable. In “Anaconda,” however, Nicki flips the script on that trope. While the women featured around her, next to her, under and over her, are all dancing and shaking in similar fashion to videos that are ultimately degrading, because Nicki Minaj joins in, she effectively reclaims a position used by male rappers to objectify. Nicki not only joins her dancers, she leads and encourages them in a way that can only empower them. Instead of becoming objects to a male rapper’s desires, Nicki allows herself and the women around her to take charge of their own sexualities, shaking and dancing together, autonomously for themselves. 

Even further than that, Nicki and company dance for an audience made up hugely in part, by women. The idea that women dancing (erotically) for themselves and for other women in an attempt to gain back some control of their sexuality isn’t new to feminism. ML Johnson argues that these sort of spaces can give way to “heterosexuality without heterosexism,” and that women experiencing these spaces can explore a world that enjoys “less restrictive gender roles" [3]. In the context of “Anaconda,” Nicki Minaj and her dancers seem to do just that, simply by taking control of how they express themselves sexually, and without a male present on screen. And, “while the centrality of the display of sexual attractiveness is generic, and, as such, not in itself raced or gendered, the specific ways in which sexual attractiveness is articulated in the pop music video is, however, mediated through and determined by common-sense notions of appropriate gendered and raced behavior [3].

In Defense of Molly Weasley: The Oft Forgotten Heroine of the Potterverse

As a lifelong Potterhead, I've read the entire Harry Potter series several times now, and I love being able to find something new about the characters each time I revisit them. Every time I reread the novels it's like coming home to a set of people who know and love you, and can't wait to make you feel welcome again. But now that the series is over, all the pieces are in place, and there's more time for reflection of the story's major themes and players, I've been bummed to see that Molly Weasley often gets overlooked in the lists of significant actors, and I want to take some time to point out why we all suck for disregarding her contributions.

Molly Weasely is a witch, homemaker, and mother of seven children. She consistently finds a way to provide for them on her husband's meager income plus a little clever magic and she never complains. She loves them fiercely and worries as any mother would. But she's also a fierce warrior who made a significant contribution to the downfall of the Dark Lord that I think gets overlooked too often: She gave Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, a place he could call home.

It's often very au courant in feminism to discount housewives as not making a significant contribution to the world and I can admit that I am sometimes guilty of that too. But rearing children is important work, and nurturing the hearts and minds of the tiny people who will later grow up to be contributing members of society isn't something to be taken lightly. I think this fact is especially significant in the Potterverse as it is Molly's warmth and love that help ground Harry as he battles his darkest demons, and tries to find his place within a larger magical plot that was set in motion the night his parents died.

In many ways, it is just as much Molly's mothering instincts as Dumbledore's council that sets Harry on the path of redemption as The Chosen One. On that first day boarding the Hogwarts Express on Platform 9 3/4, despite having four boys of her own currently enrolled, Molly makes Harry feel welcome and ushers him through his first solo encounter with magic. Over the years she sends him handmade sweaters catered to his likes and interests, and never forgets a Christmas or birthday. Picking up on the Dursleys' neglect, she invites him over to stay at the Burrow for weeks at a time every year, feeding him and providing for him out of the scant resources available to her own family. She mothers him and loves because she knows that he needs it, sometimes against his wishes. She sacrifices her own sense of safety to make sure that he is safe and cared for. And that doesn't even comes close to the fact that she raised seven children who were loyal and brave, all of whom came back to help him fight Lord Voldemort when the night was darkest. She killed one of his most loyal followers. She lost a son in his war.

Molly Weasley didn't have to give Harry anything, but she gave him everything anyway and lived to be the matriarch of a wide and happy family, safe from the threats that she had faced twice in one lifetime. She gave Harry a mother he could always come home to, and in that way, she's just as important as The Boy Who Lived.

Mad Max: Fury Road And The Great Feminism Debate

After all the hoopla, debate, and thinkpieces, I finally saw Mad Max: Fury Road last night and it did not disappoint. The movie was a masterpiece of the senses and totally overwhelmed me with how engaging it was on all fronts. By about 15 minutes in I was at the edge of my seat whispering "this is amazing. This is AMAZING!" to myself. Basically, I loved it. I'm listening to the soundtrack as I type this.

But aside from its prestige, the other reason this film has been generating so much press is because of its overt feminist themes. Early reviews praised it for it's feminism, and MRAs called for a boycott. The director George Miller noted that he hadn't set out to make a feminist film, but things had unfolded that way organically as the story progressed:

"There wasn't a feminist agenda... The thing people were chasing was to be not an object, but the five wives. I needed a warrior. But it couldn't be a man taking five wives from another man. That's an entirely different story. So everything grew out of that."

Additionally, much ado was made of the fact that feminist playwright, Eve Ensler was a consultant on set to talk about her work in the Congo. That in itself gave me reason to doubt the film's growing feminist cred be honest. Eve Ensler does not have the best track record of inclusion and her "work" in the Congo specifically was insensitive and reprehensible.

So what do I think now that I've seen it for myself?

Millennial: (Re)Define Your Line

Screencap from Millennial Podcast

It's the 1st of June. On the 11th, I'll be 25. That's a big deal to me.

Twenty-five has always been my "big number." I'm not sure why, but that was the number I had in my head that signified proper adulthood. It was the age at which I assumed I would emerge, fully formed, as a brilliant, capable and functional member of society, dutifully trekking along the path to my dreams.

But.... I think I'm starting to realize I don't actually know what my dreams are anymore.

Last week, completely by chance, I stumbled upon the link to the new podcast Millennial by Megan Tan. As of right now, there are four episodes available and I swallowed them whole. In a little over an hour, Tan takes you from her graduation to the transition to post grad millennial life, to realizing that her childhood was in fact over, to moving in with her boyfriend, to her job as a waitress, to her decision to start the podcast, to the lethargy of feeling stuck, to the realization that the only way to get stuff done is to got out and do it. 

In episode #2, Living On The Line, Tan discusses the need to find the line that takes you to where you want to be in life and stick to it; but before you can follow your line, you have to define it. That really resonated with me. It made me think of something that I always say when conversations about women "having it all" come up: You get to define what "all" means to you. And then you get to go get it. I have to define my line.

When I started college, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be a fashion and celebrity photographer, routinely published in all the great magazines. I wanted to write and see my words printed on glossy paper and my name in the masthead. I wanted to work in magazines. I was clear on that. It was all I wanted in the world, and while I was in college, I took measurable steps towards achieving it.

Now I'm not so sure.

Working in magazines is still something that I desperately want. When I first got back, I sent out resumés to all the local magazines, I offered to intern for free and I started freelancing. I did everything I could think of to try to jumpstart my glossy paper dreams. But after a couple years of stagnating and realizing that there simply wasn't a huge fashion market in Trinidad, I started to become disillusioned. I started thinking that I'd never have the chance to see my name printed on a masthead, and I started slowly chipping away at my dreams; diminishing my expectations for myself.

Now I'm nearly 25. I'm almost supposed to be a brilliant, dazzling magazine editor for whom the novelty of a masthead has worn off. But I'm not. And I've come to terms with the fact that the plan I thought I had for myself isn't what I'm going to get in this life. But it doesn't mean that my dreams aren't achievable. It just means I have to redefine my line.

Over the last two years I've managed to gather a little following online for my writing and essays on feminism. I'm not amazing and I'm certainly no authority on anything but my own experience, but I know enough to write confidently about the things I care about and have people listen. I've had my work published in a few places that I admire. I was invited to speak at a conference (though sadly I had to turn it down). I've made some strides. Not huge strides. Not amazing strides. But strides that tell me that I'm going somewhere, even if I hadn't yet figured out where that was. After listening to the podcast, I think I know where I'm going now, and I want to redefine my line.

My professional goal is to be a feminist writer and critic. I want to be paid to discuss and dissect pop culture and media from a feminist perspective. I do it here on this blog all the time, and it turns out, I don't suck at it. I want my words to mean something and I want to use them to help effect change. Maybe someday I'll write a book. Who knows?

My line is writing. As much as I love photography and plan to continue shooting, writing is what I truly feel compelled to do. So now that I've defined my line, I can make a plan. This month I'm going to make it a priority to start pitching and to get paid for publishing at least one piece. I'm going to submit to publications where I think my voice would be a good fit. And I'm going to apply to the Buzzfeed Writer's Fellowship. I'm going to start taking measurable steps to get to where I want to be.

I think I've found my line.

I'm Sick To Death Of Talking About Rape Tropes In Fiction

Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) in Game of Thrones S5 E6: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

I'm sick of talking about rape.

Forcible rape, date rape, grey rape, acquaintance rape, spousal rape, statutory rape and now fictional rape. I'm sick to death of explaining why the callous rape of women and girls in media is a very bad thing for our culture and why we should cut it out. *wags finger*

This Game of Thrones storyline is just the latest in a long line of excuses and equivocations for why the depiction of brutal and gendered violence against women is a storytelling necessity. People are sticking their heels in on both sides but to me the moral position is clear: there is nothing to be gained from lazy representations of rape in a media landscape that already devalues women and reduces them to objects and property.

Now I've read the arguments in favour of the narrative value of Sansa's rape. That it showed that Ramsay was a sadist. That it would help Theon come back to himself and help Sansa escape. That it would motivate Sansa to seek vengeance. But it's all bullshit.

What did that scene add that we didn't already know? Did the writers think that cutting Theon's penis off was too subtle to indicate Ramsay's sadism? Did they think the brutal murder of her mother and brother were not strong enough motivators for Sansa to want revenge against the Boltons? Could they not conceive of a single other way in which Theon might be able to mentally recenter himself? What about this particular rape scene added such probative narrative value that it had to be transposed from one character to another even as the original victim is excised from the story? All it was is more rape on a show already replete with rape, for the sake of having rape. None of this is new information.

And it's not that rape should never be represented in fiction. Rape is everywhere. It's unfortunately an all too real danger of the world we live in. But it's not as though there is some dearth of rape representation in media. Using rape as a narrative tool is lazy, and especially so when it's invoked this many times in the same show. We are now at three female characters (all of whom are considered major point of view characters in the novels) who have been raped in the series, two of whom weren't raped in the source material. It's just rapes on rapes on rapes up in this bitch...

'Bago Chronicles: By The Beach

Yesterday morning, I got up around 8am, made my bed and then walked my ass to the beach. Just because I could. Literally at the end of the street that I now live on, is a gorgeous beach, and I decided that since I don't start work until next week, there's no reason I shouldn't take advantage while I can. How lucky am I that I live just steps away from one of Tobago's most gorgeous beaches? It would basically be treason not to get up early and go experience it.

Basic bitches have cul de sacs. I have a beach. 🌴👙 #vscocam

A photo posted by NinjaCate (@battymamzelle) on May 2, 2015 at 6:12am PDT

I only stayed for about half an hour because go figure, the water is pretty cold at 8am. But it was really fun to be in the ocean that early. The beach was beautiful and I love the smell of the ocean, even if I detest sand more than life itself. You'd think that having lived 90% of my life on an island, the novelty of the beach would have worn off by now, but it hasn't. Perhaps it's simply the proximity that's encouraged my new enthusiasm because I am notorious sand (and therefore beach) hater.

After that I spent most of the day studying, since move or not, I'm still in grad school. I haven't brought my desk up from Trinidad yet, but my tiny little kitchen table is a more than adequate substitute. Then of course I spent a solid hour or two procrastinating by cleaning my tiny kitchen because why not? 

My appliances make me feel like a real adult. I think I want to get a coffee maker next. #vscocam

A photo posted by NinjaCate (@battymamzelle) on May 2, 2015 at 12:56pm PDT

My little appliance corner is my favourite part of the kitchen. Appliances are just something I associate with adulthood. Maybe it has to do with the whole "gifting appliances when you marry" thing, but naturally with my feminazi lesbian shitass sensibilities, I skipped the line. The microwave and toaster came with the place, which is why they look a little dingy, but I'm positively obsessed with my blender and kettle. I have been wanting to make a fruit smoothie for the better part of a year and I may have already run through my weekly supply of fruit...

I'm also a little obnoxious about collecting a variety of brightly coloured things (much to the chagrin of my HGTV-loving, everything-must-have-a-colour-scheme mother) but the kettle was the one thing we were able to agree on since the colour scheme of the kitchen is red and yellow. The only downside is that it's not an electric kettle, which forces me to risk blowing myself on the gas stove every time I want a cup of tea. Which is often. Because I don't drink coffee.

That's the other thing: this my first time using a gas stove. I've managed to master lighting the thing without burning myself, but too much television has left me absolutely paranoid that I'm going to leave the gas on one day and set the place on fire. (Victoria Grayson just did it on Revenge last week!) My mother claims that this is only a possibility if I leave the burner on which I don't do, but I don't trust the damn thing. There's a reason human beings try to avoid open flames.

All in all, I really am enjoying having my own space. It's a little lonely since I don't have any neighbours close by, and the lack of background noise just might drive me up a wall. Conversely, I'm convinced that everything that goes bump in the night is an axe-murderer/serial killer/rapist, so that's no fun... but I'm really appreciating being on my own so far. It remains to be seen if I'll feel the same way in 3 months.

#blackrock #vscocam

A photo posted by NinjaCate (@battymamzelle) on May 2, 2015 at 6:12am PDT

In the meantime, I think I'm just going to enjoy the sea breezes and the quiet. My next project will be successfully completing some of the recipes in the Naparima Girls Cookbook. Wish me luck. I'll probably need it...

'Bago Chronicles: Moving Day

I'm here! It took all of today and there's more to do tomorrow, but as of right this second, I'm officially (mostly) moved into my new studio apartment in Tobago. #OfficiallyAdulting. It's a small studio apartment in Black Rock, and it's perfect. The area itself is gorgeous and breezy. There are chickens running around by the neighbors and a few more iguana that I'm comfortable with, but all in all, it's a perfect combination of the Tobago I remember from growing up, and the Tobago I need it to be as a ~*tWeNtY sOmEtHiNg PrOfEsSiOnAl*~

#HOME #vscocam

A photo posted by NinjaCate (@battymamzelle) on Apr 29, 2015 at 5:24pm PDT

Truthfully, I'm very nervous. I've moved here for a new job and for the first time I will be wholly responsible for myself. It's mildly terrifying but also weirdly freeing. No one ever really teaches you how to be an adult and I'm kind of beginning to realize that it's sink or swim. You're never going to be ready. You just have to strike out and hope you don't end up on the street. It'll take some adjusting, I'm sure I'll manage. I have to learn how to do everything on my own again. From navigating the island to learning to cook for one, to learning how to shop for one, I'm really going to have to dedicate some time to figuring out how to live on my own. 

But Tobago moves at such a relaxing pace that I think it may have already tricked me into thinking there is no sense of urgency. I've been to Tobago many times but I don't think I ever noticed how truly gorgeous it is until now. So much of the landscape is still unsullied, and even where there is evidence of people, the green space is always there, reminding you there are more important things in life. My apartment is literally two houses down from the beach. I can see the ocean every time I pull my car out of the garage. It's a little mind-blowing. 

I start at my new position in two weeks, so I have lots of time to acclimatize. I'm looking forward to decorating and making this space my own. It's small and cozy, but more than enough space for me. I'm kind of excited to have my first place. This is the start of another chapter of my life and I'm terrified, but open to possibilities. Let's see how things go...

I think I'm going to like it here.

On The "Rape As Backstory" Trope

A few weeks ago, after I'd (finally) gotten around to finishing season one of Top Of The Lake, I posted some thoughts about the rape as backstory trope, and my distaste for it. I figured that while it could be an instance of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon gone awry, there seemed to be far too many fictional women who'd been raped or sexually assaulted in some way.

So I have this conflict: I truly, viscerally, despise the "rape as backstory" trope.
— NinjaCate (@BattyMamzelle) March 23, 2015

It's so reductive to imply that every woman's problems can be distilled down to some past sexual trauma.
— NinjaCate (@BattyMamzelle) March 23, 2015

#ShameOnShonda Is Bullshit: On Black Women, Mental Health And Intersectionality

via IB Times

This morning, there was grumbling on my twitter timeline about the storyline of last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy. A hashtag, #ShameOnShonda, had been started in protest of what was perceived as a stigmatization of mothers with post-partum depression, or PPD. In the story, a black woman had driven her two children into a lake, almost killing them, and causing a major traffic accident in which other people were also injured. Many of the doctors of the show speculated about what kind of mother she must be to have tried to harm her kids. One doctor in particular, April Kepner (pictured above), who is heavily pregnant, deeply religious and had just found out her fetus suffers from Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease) was especially severe in her condemnation of the mother's actions. In the end, it was revealed that the mother had a tumor of sorts on her pancreas that explained her behaviour and her escalating symptoms before the accident. The mother was neither "crazy" nor evil; she was ill.

To me, the episode was very clearly commentary on the differences between the relationship of black women and white women to mental health and motherhood. (Expertly complemented by the relationships of black and white women to each other on How To Get Away With Murder later that night.) I tweeted about the misinterpretation of the episode earlier today (storify below) but I wanted to expound on some of those thoughts in a longer post.

Do You Have Time To TV?: On Television Overload

Image Credit: Vulture
[click to enlarge]

Have you ever felt like there's just too much television to watch? I have, and it turns out, that's not just in my head. According to the research department at FX networks, there were "328 scripted first-run prime-time programs aired on ad supported or subscription-based broadcast, cable and streaming networks in the U.S." in 2014 alone. That's a whole lot of television. It feels like in the last couple of years, the number of "must watch" and critically acclaimed television shows has increased substantially, and the odds of missing the zeitgeist are high if you aren't paying rapt attention. How anyone could even attempt to keep up with 180 scripted show a year is beyond me, and that doesn't even take into account reality television staples like The Bachelor or American Idol.

Personally, as a teenager I never used to watch more than 2-4 hours of television a week. I kept up with 7th Heaven, One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl. That was it. But when I got to college and I started having to watch everything online, I started picking up new shows to fill in the gaps in my boredom. I wasn't tied to the television anymore, and I could finally watch whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

Being an international student in a new environment and away from everything that was familiar to me, it felt like a blessing to be able to stay inside, away from the hellishily cold tundra of Boston, and let myself be completely absorbed into all kinds of different stories, and no longer have any limits on time. I mainlined all of Lost, Ugly Betty, 90210, and Desperate Housewives in my freshman year alone. And that was before binge-watching even really became a "thing." When I discovered Hulu, it became so much easier to keep up with several shows at once, and each season I added new great shows to the roster. Some survived (Grey's Anatomy, picked up in my sophomore year) and some didn't (State of Georgia, cancelled my junior year) but there was always something new being recommended online as the new best show that I felt like I had just had to watch.

But right now, there's so much on my schedule that I spent all of the winter hiatus catching up on back episodes of pretty much everything from Homeland to American Horror Story to Arrow. Last year the fervor surrounding the imminent end of Breaking Bad left me feeling positively bullied into catching up. (I did, and it was great. #RIPHank) But conversely, it's made me realize that sometimes shows suck, and it's okay not to watch them even if everyone else still is. There's no point devoting hours of my life to television that I no longer enjoy. My new approach has been to put some shows on the "cancellation watchlist." Basically, those are shows I'll get into when they either naturally end or get cancelled. Top of that list is The Good Wife, and next in line is Shameless. Both Damages and Weeds have been on that list forever and I have no idea when I'll get around to them. For the shows that have only recently premiered, I've opted to wait out the season and watch them while they're on hiatus. Last week I finally got through Penny Dreadful (which I'll probably be dropping to be honest) and True Detective and Transparent are next on my binge list.

Since I generally prefer to align my critical focus on the intersection of feminism and pop culture, I often feel like there are certain things that I have to watch in order to be able to fully participate in conversations about how media influences our perceptions of the world. I feel like I have to be able to understand the reference points that television is using, so that I'm better able to critique them constructively. I resisted Game of Thrones for three seasons before I finally caved, but now I've realized that for some things, resistance in futile.

While I'll definitely be trimming my television schedule this year, I'm also going to be open to making room for great television. The Fosters is a show that I resisted watching because I thought my plate was already too full, but it turns out that the reason it has such a large fan base is because the show is genuinely excellent. (Seriously, go watch it. Right now) The same goes for Reign and Chicago Fire. And while I don't think I really ever have to get to everything that ever premieres on television, isn't it kind of awesome that there are so many options now? There's something for everyone, and there is a lot of choice. I can't really say that's a bad thing.

What about you? Do you ever feel bogged down by your television watching schedule? Have you ever dropped shows because you weren't interested anymore? Have you ever picked up shows because you felt left out of the conversations about them? Are there any shows you're planning to catch up on? Any shows you're sad to see go? Tell me about it in the comments.

Best of BattyMamzelle: Top 10 Essays of 2014

It's that time again! The new year is upon us, but as is tradition, I wanted to take some time to look back at some of the essays I wrote last year that I'm particularly proud of or that I thought made a significant impact, in the spirit of feigned introspection. Quite a lot happened in the feminist blogosphere last year, and while I didn't write about all of it, I'm proud of the contributions I did make. Back in November I started my Masters Program in Mass Communications, and one of the things I've learned is that media is so important to the way we perceive the world. So while some might think my focus on "pop feminism" is trivial, I know that it's one of the most important battlegrounds of diverse representation in culture. So here, in descending order are the ten essays I wrote in 2014 that I consider to be my best, even if I am a little late to publish!

10. This Year In White Feminism: Greatest Hits of 2014 (Parts One & Two)

The point of this post is simply to show that anti-intersectionality is a continued pattern of disregard for women of colour, and that when we bring this to your attention, we aren't making it up. White feminism loves to ask for receipts. It loves to gaslight and diminish us. It loves to pretend that our concerns are irrelevant or insignificant. Hopefully this list will serve as a reminder that black women, native women, poor women, trans women are feminists too, and we'd like to be allowed to be part of a movement that claims to advocate for our well-being.

9. Let's Talk About Robin Thicke's Manipulative Ploy To "Get Her Back"

It's lovely that Robin Thicke thinks his marriage is worth saving, but this is not the way to go about it. This entire album, the track names, the hashtag; if this is in fact a sincere effort to "get her back" it's basically a how-to on abuser dynamics. Rather than allowing Patton the time and space to decide whether or not to reconcile in private, with this album, Thicke has effectively enlisted the public to get on his side and pressure her into going back to him, and make her the villain if she refuses. "Oh, but he wrote a whole album about her! He's really sorry!"All while he rakes in the cash, and she loses her resolve to stay away from a man who cheated on her, publicly embarrassed her and ruined a decades long relationship.

8. In Defense of Kim Kardashian (And Her Vogue Cover)

Kim Kardashian might have become famous because of a sex tape, but she stayed famous because she parlayed that notoriety into "respectable" business ventures. She's a business woman; a fact that too many people seem far too reluctant to acknowledge. You don't have to like her, but you do have to respect her and her tactical acumen. Kim Kardashian is in the business of being a celebrity, and it's a game she and her family play very well. We created the demand for a celebrity just like her by continuing to consume what she creates. We don't get to then turn our noses up at her because she got good at getting us.