Passengers Should Have Been Brave Enough To Explore Its Dark Premise

Imagine the scenario: your high-tech hibernation pod on the spaceship you're travelling in to colonize a far flung planet has popped open 90 years too early because of a technical malfunction. Faced with the knowledge that you will be long dead when everyone else wakes up, what do you do? According to Passengers, the answer is "doom a beautiful woman to the same fate and lie about the fact that said fate was in fact your choice. Fall in love with her then stalk her across the ship when she discovers the truth and wants nothing to do with you."

In another world, this would be the perfect setup for an exciting thriller with feminist undertones about men's entitlement to women's bodies. But if you can believe it, Passengers is meant to be a story of true love, forged in the fires of intergalactic peril.

No, I'm not kidding.

Other critics have noted the sinister undercurrent of the film's very premise, but the problem with Passengers is that it tried to have its cake and eat it too. Either you're making a film about unconscionable behavior in the vast emptiness of space, or you're making a romance drama about two people effectively lost to time who find love. It takes a level of skill that this film lacks to blend the two successfully.

#GYMTW: On Black Women And The Capitalist System

Critiques of black women and capitalism without first properly locating their position with the capitalist system are incomplete, disingenuous and pointless. Discussions about capitalism and who benefits from the existing social structure cannot be flat. They must be intersectional and take into account the varied ways in which capitalism affects people at different levels of society. Everyone is against capitalism when black women demand payment of the money that they worked for, but is happy to support from the ground up, policies and legislation that would funnel wealth back into the hands of the most wealthy.

The backlash to both Beyoncé's Formation and Rihanna's Bitch Better Have My Money indicate a racial bent in the opposition to the fair valuation of labour. In the video for BBHMM, Rihanna and her women of colour #goonsquad kidnap and torture the wealthy white female wife of a white man who is later revealed to be an accountant who stole Rihanna's money. At the end of the video, it is heavily implied that Rihanna dismembers and kills "The Bitch," as he is styled. Opposition to the imagery largely centered on violence enacted on the white woman as a means to harm the "true" culprit, the white man. What these critiques did not acknowledge was their implicit assumption that the white female character was not also complicit in the theft of Rihanna's wealth. But as Lauren Chief Elk points out in her work with Yeoshin Lourdes and Bardot Smith surrounding GYMTW:

"White women are the biggest beneficiaries of white men's historical wealth. When we begin to really dissect what pay inequality means we have to look at it intersectionally. When thinking about wealth redistribution it's important for white women to look at their position to women of color, and examine how for generations they have also exploited us and gained huge advantages off us."

Many people took issue with the line "I just might be the next Bill Gates in the making" in Beyoncé's Formation, citing it as a reflection of Beyoncé's desire to simply replicate systems of oppression through capitalism pioneered by white men. But a black woman possessing the kind of capital that Bill Gates does is so far and away from what the capitalist system imagined for itself as to be a mini-revolution in its own right. As far as I am concerned, wealth transfer to black women in a capitalist system is reparations.

Meditation, Anointing and Anger in Beyoncé's #Lemonade

There's very little that I can add to the conversation about Beyoncé's latest visual masterpiece, Lemonade. The pros, cons, dos and don'ts have already been talked to death, and all the best things have been said. But truthfully I'm more interested in how Lemonade makes me feel. I want to interrogate the reactions I had to what I consider to be one of the most profound pieces of work ever created by a black woman, both artistically and economically.

I watched Lemonade, end to end, on my own. I turned my phone off, silenced my notifications, and paid attention to the journey that Beyoncé had decided to take me on. I watched in awe as black women congregated and communed with each other as Beyoncé lay bear her own feelings and tapped into universal truths about existing both black and female. I cried as a Mardi Gras Indian blessed a dinner table full of empty chairs; places set for people who could never join the offering.

Much has been made of Becky with the good hair; an attempt by white women to find something recognizable to latch onto in a sea of womanhood both public and commercial, that for the first time, deliberately excludes them. But Becky is beside the point. Because the point is that Beyoncé sees us. Beyoncé sees and acknowledges black women and our struggles, and she centered her art around affirming our hurt, our pain, our suspicion and our betrayal. Beyoncé made an (another) album about being a black woman, and the pain and joy that it can entail.


Guiding us through the stages of grief, Beyoncé weaves a story of pain, heartbreak and most of all anger, that is all too familiar to black women. Routinely, we are labelled as crazy or unpredictable without acknowledgement of the abuse that warranted that reaction. We are betrayed and told his infidelity is our sin to bear, we're mocked for our attempts to become the women the world holds in high esteem. Lemonade explores the blatant lies and half-truths that black women are forced to swallow and the pathology we are cursed to bear. But most importantly it justifies the delicious destruction born of righteous and justified anger. It allows our anger, ever stymied, always dismissed, to bubble over, froth and foment, and acknowledges it as a valid reaction to repeated abuse. As Ijeoma Oluo writes in the Guardian:

This expectation of black women to suffer in silence is passed from generation to generation. Beyoncé explores this inheritance unflinchingly: "You remind me of my father - a magician, able to exist in two places at once/In the tradition of men in my blood you come home at 3am and lie to me."

And it is this inheritance that Beyoncé rejects throughout Lemonade. She refuses to suffer in silence, and instead delves deep into the hurt and betrayal that has rended her life and her love apart, and encourages us all to do the same. She rips our generational burden to shreds and sets herself and us, on a path to redemption through shared communion. The hurt she explores here is real and familiar; an old prophecy passed from mother to daughter and back again, repeated ad infinitum until it fulfills itself. It is a battle we prepare for from the moment we are old enough to distinguish our blackness.

#Supergirl's Flimsy Feminism And The Erasure of Women of Colour in Popular Feminist Narratives

You might not have heard, but Supergirl is all about girl power. Kara Danvers is a girl and her best friend and sister Alex Danvers is a girl. Her romantic rival is Lucy Lane who is a girl and they both work at CatCo. for Cat Grant who is also proudly a girl who built a media empire. In her free time, Kara is Supergirl and many of her foes are girls. In National City, girls are everywhere.

Supergirl as an avatar for 2016 feminism exists largely at a very superficial level that mostly works. The show is bright and sunny and endearing and consciously aware that it in addition to a bunch of cynical (mostly male) television critics, it also has an audience of very young girls. The girl power message is overt and highly unsubtle, but it works when one considers that girls as young as eight aren't necessarily ready for critical feminist theory just yet. Supergirl presents complex ideas about identity and womanhood and how they interact in the larger world in a way that is digestible to young viewers, and I think that's a net benefit.

The only problem? All the girls are white.

In The Corner Of A Dark Room Under A Thick Fog of Smoke: Declarations Of Agency In Rihanna's #ANTI

Over the last decade, Rihanna has cultivated a very specific image of herself. Shifting ceaselessly from cheeky to coy to naked sexuality and back again, Rihanna is the consummate chameleon, changing for the times and evolving when she feels the need to shed her latest skin. Largely, as an audience, we have projected our perceptions onto her. Each new iteration of music, hair and fashion has left just enough room for our own desires to rush in and fill the void. But on ANTI we see exactly what powers the Rihanna machine and she lets us into her head; here is a full body of work that examines every facet of her being and lays it bare on her own terms.

ANTI is peak Rihanna. Endlessly delayed, it's no coincidence that this is Rihanna's most daring and truthful work to date. She waited until it was right; until it reflected her the way she wanted to be seen, and then gave it away for free, ensuring that no one could mistake it for sheer arrogance or braggadocio. ANTI shows a side of badgalriri we've only speculated about before, and untangles the complicated issues of her place in pop culture and how it relates to her sexuality, her blackness and her feminism.

The thing about ANTI is that it almost doesn't work. As a singular entity it makes sense: it is a declaration of her personhood on all fronts. But take it apart and it becomes mush in your hands, exploring disparate ideas all at once with through-lines that are tenuous at best. And yet, the ideas themselves are crystal clear: there is no beating around the bush. Rihanna is here now and she knows exactly why and on what terms she expects for that to happen. Gone are the pulsing club bangers she's built her career on. Instead we're treated to raw, brooding melodies that conjure images of solitary contemplation. The music exists under an eternal thick fog of smoke traced back to a blunt; truths emerging as inhibitions come down.

The opening track, Consideration, (which she co-wrote) is the brash declaration of a new direction. The heavy bass drops deep as Rihanna's voice, higher and clearer than ever before, laments. If it wasn't clear before, it is now. Rihanna is over it, and she's ready to move onto something fresh and new. She's ready to grow and make music that can evolve with her, and she's demanding the space to do so. With that, she sets the tone for the complex delicacy she's about to serve us, combining styles and sounds until she achieves that magic cocktail that hits exactly the right spot.

On Kiss It Better, she taunts an ex, making him admit that he'll take her back no matter what. As guitar riffs sing in the background, Rihanna asserts herself both to him and to us as the audience: "You're always going to come back to me so why fight it?"

Work, the first official single, is a moody dancehall inspired track full of lust and longing. The messaging persists, though here she has convincing to do. The negotiation between disregard and sentiment is delicate, and Rihanna handles it expertly. She wants us to stay, but she doesn't plan to work for it. Slurring through the lyrics, the light disdain is palpable. Should you stay? Rihanna answers "Sure I guess..." She's far more concerned with her own pleasure than she ever will be with you.

On Woo, she's back to taunting, but it's on the deliciously dark and cutting Needed Me where she turns savage. Rihanna may long for company when the sun sets, but she doesn't need it and never did. Here she pointedly cuts her man down, reminding him that she's the one doing all the giving here. She asserts her sexual agency as someone who likes to fuck and is perfectly happy getting it elsewhere should the need arise. Here is the reminder: she's not the one tied to you and she never intends to be. The rejection is unambiguous and swift: "Don't get it twisted. Everything about you is replaceable."

But on Higher, Rihanna is lit and pouring her feelings out. On the all too brief track, her voice strains high and raw as she fights to ensure she gets the words out. She's independent yes, but the moments of loneliness and need still come. She's a savage, but not a loner or a recluse. She too longs for comfort and company, and she'll take it where it comes. The Rihanna amalgam to Adele's Hello, Higher breaks open the shell of the untouchable black woman and exposes the pain too many assume she never feels.

Pose is a return to the Rihanna we know and love. While the sound is new, the lyrics recall the swagger and surety we saw in Pour It Up. Hate if you like, but have a seat while she gets loaded and works it. On Sex With Me she brags about hitting it better than anyone else. On both, she's little concerned with outside validation. Feel free to come along for the ride, but don't expect to be missed if you don't.

*****

Taken together, the disparate parts of ANTI form a cohesive whole. Here is a woman a decade older and wiser, sure of herself and the direction she intends to take her life in. These tracks open her up and lay her bare as a whole person, showing the ways in which conflict can exist in harmony. The music is daring and intimate. She lets us see the strings in a way we never have before, perhaps an effort to undo the "bad bitch" label she has inhabited for so long. It's not that she won't cut you down with a sharply chosen emoji or gif on instagram, it's that there are levels to being Rihanna, and under the surface, there exists more than the "sexy Bajan pop princess" we've come to know and love.

This is the album Rihanna wanted to make rather than the one that we expected from her, but that too shows growth. Her declarations of sexual freedom serve as metaphor for very real freedom: from commercial constraints or a continued need to prove her staying power. She's established herself as a powerhouse and her legacy is set. Now she seeks out experimentation and nuance.

ANTI may be less radio friendly and traditional, but that is the point. This is not establishment. This is her truest self in music form and it's anti-everything. There are none of her usual themes and no pop hits. Rihanna has set herself firmly in opposition to not only to her own past musical ethos, but to the very music industry itself.

About "Only" Representations of Women In Pop Culture

When it comes to women in pop culture, it's often hard to find the right balance. There are so few female characters being written into the media that we consume that inadvertently, each individual female character becomes an avatar for every other woman in that universe. She's the only one, therefore she's every one. But eradicating the smurfette principle altogether isn't all that difficult. There's an easy fix:

If you don’t want your female character to represent all women, then she can’t be the only woman around. If you want your female character to make stereotypical mistakes and avoid accusations of misogyny, then you have to have other female characters around not making those mistakes.

It's such a simple idea, and yet so many pop culture products still seem to struggle with it. And the curious thing is that it applies to all underrepresented groups in fiction. When you have several different variations of the way that men are allowed to exist in your universe and only one way that women are allowed to exist, criticisms will necessarily fall on that character, because she is now tasked with being everything to everyone looking to see themselves in that piece of media.

It's reflective of the backlash to the characterization of Black Widow in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the implication that she was was also a "monster" because she was infertile. While Black Widow's feelings about her forced sterilization and her guilt over her time as a spy are valid and reasonable, they become the representative way that all women in that universe are meant to view romance and fertility because she is the only female Avenger, and the most significant female character in the film and the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Another example is the discussion surrounding Claire Dearing in 2015's Jurassic Park and the fact that she wore high heels throughout the entire film, despite being chased by (literal) dinosaurs. In the context of the film, the fact that nothing is said of her trekking through the jungle and running from a T-Rex in 5 inch heels makes her character seems silly and prideful. And that doesn't take into account the shaming that she endured throughout the film for not being able to relate well to her two young nephews, or to make a relationship work with the cocky hero. It's implied that Claire, is silly, prideful, frigid and a terrible mother, and no other significant female characters exist in the film to individualize that supposition. Contrast this with the Ilsa Faust character in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. While running away from a gunman across a rooftop with hero Ethan Hunt, she specifically asks him to help her get her heels off so that their getaway is not compromised.

In the end, it all comes down to the danger of a single story. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche said in her famous Ted Talk, the problem isn't that stereotypes are not true, but rather that they are not the whole truth, and they don't give us a full picture of the complexities of the people around us. When you only have one of something, or in this case, someone, everything about them becomes the default of their kind, simply by virtue of being alone. It's why diversity in media is important from the top come down. When you have more than one female character, each of them becomes an individual with their own quirks and personalities that stand apart from other women. The weight of expectation is lifted, and it allows for some of them to fail, or be clichés, because there are other characters that can contradict that characterization.

A great example? Last year, two shows starring black women were cancelled: Minority Report and Extant. And while I will miss both of those shows, I'm not worried about seeing myself onscreen, because other, complex black women still exist on television on Scandal, Sleepy Hollow, How to Get Away With Murder, Empire and Blackish. Because neither of these characters is the only one, we're able to get diverse representations of black women, from severely damaged lawyers with compromised ethics, to FBI agents battling the paranormal, to loud, brash music executives who just want to leave their mark on the world.

None of them is telling the only story.

Best of BattyMamzelle: Top 5 Essays of 2015

Third time's a charm! As I'm stepping into 2016, I want to take some time to look back at what I produced last year, and to take stock of the issues that matter to me. I didn't do nearly as much writing as I would have liked last year because I was back on a 9-5 schedule, but I still manage to produce essays that I'm proud of, two of which helped me get that Bitch Media Fellowship! So here they are in descending order: the 5 essays I'm most proud of writing this year.

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

"In this episode, Shonda presents these two women, these two mothers and contrasts the way their mental well-being and mental health is approached. The black mother, who had been exhibiting signs that something might be medically wrong for some time, was treated to scorn, disdain and judgement, even by the doctors who were supposed to be treating her. The white mother, who had just received devastating news about her unborn child, was immediately coddled to the point of condescension in the rush to ensure that she was okay."

4. Rape, Consent and Race in Marvel's #JessicaJones

"On the other hand, the treatment of people of colour in Jessica Jones is often anti-intersectional and openly anti-black. Vulture's year end "Best of Television" list cites the show as demonstrating "a racially diverse cast, heavy on women," a construction that belies that for many people, diversity means "add black men and stir." To me, it is borderline disrespectful to call the show racially diverse when the only significant, named woman of colour character is dead before the narrative begins and never speaks a word, while the black male characters are all subjected to incredible violence in service of the white female protagonist. This force frames feminist representation as the representation of white women and yet again, erases women of colour from our popular narratives."

3. Viola Davis, Cultivation Theory and the 2015 #Emmy Awards

"And these women? These beautiful dark-skinned women with broad noses and big lips and kinky hair? It wasn't them. It was strategically not meant to be them. They were purposefully removed from the definition of womanhood much less anything else. So these wins? These statues? This acknowledgement of talent? It matters. It shows that when you even the playing field just a little bit; when you actually allow people of colour to compete with whiteness by creating opportunities for them to show what they can do? They win."

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

"Why is it so hard for us to imagine that this book may not be for us? That is speaks to an experience than many of us may never have? We who are lucky enough to be safe and warm with access to education and employment we enjoy? Why doesn't it occur to us that all those women that we look down on need someone to look to, to help them navigate the realities that many of us refuse to even acknowledge exist? Is it really still this difficult to understand that different women are empowered by different things and that everyone's feminism is different? Why are we so determined to find ways to create a hierarchy within the movement that values some women over others?"

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

"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."

***** ***** *****

Last year, I hoped to spend time getting my voice heard online and I think I succeed. I was quoted in the LA Times, I was a guest on the Black Girl Dangerous Podcast, I was republished at Bitch Flicks, and by some miracle I  received the Bitch Media Writer's Fellowship. For 2016, I hope to finish up grad school, write amazing things under the tutelage of the Bitch Media editors, and to get to New York to meet all the amazing writers I've learned so much from online. Here's to a productive new year.

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?

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...

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.