the show must go wrong

Culture matters

Sometimes I hear people say that racism/sexism/etc in culture isn’t important or worth criticizing. ”Oh it’s just a book,” they say. ”It’s just a crappy TV show.” ”It’s just a commercial.”

This argument always baffles me. It’s like if you put poison into a fish-tank and then say “Oh well I didn’t poison the fish, I just poisoned the water.” The fish lives in the water, dumbass; it’s completely submerged in and surrounded by the water. I’m pretty sure that poisoned water is going to affect the fish.

Similarly, we all live constantly immersed in this miasma of information that we call “culture.” People are not born prejudiced. We don’t emerge from the womb knowing that all black men are scary thugs, that all Latinas are spicy sexpots, that all Indians are violent savages, that all women are weepy and frail, that all gay men are depraved pedophiles, and that all people in wheelchairs are objects of pity. We learn these things, usually starting at a very young age, and we often learn them from our culture — the books we read, the movies we watch, and the constant barrage of advertising that we don’t really pay attention to but which still manages to seep into our brains, and which shapes the way we think about the world, for better or for worse.

If you want to save the fish, you need to purify the water.

(via sersi)

#culture #representation #sociology #queue

∞ 04/21/12

3,291 notes

via sunisup

A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%.

Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.

The academy calls itself “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization” of “the most accomplished men and women working in cinema.”

-L.A. Times finds ‘Oscar voters overwhelmingly white, male’ (via bigbardas)

The Times found that some of the academy’s 15 branches are almost exclusively white and male. Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of every academy branch except actors, whose roster is 88% white. The academy’s executive branch is 98% white, as is its writers branch. Men compose more than 90% of five branches, including cinematography and visual effects. Of the academy’s 43-member board of governors, six are women; public relations executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs is the sole person of color.

(via somerset)

#oscars #lol median age of 62 #representation

∞ 02/26/12

106 notes

via Los Angeles Times

And yet a woman’s weight is seen by American culture as an outward manifestation of her personal worth. If she is overweight (a tricky term that I hate – over what weight?), she has failed as a woman. If she is overweight and not actively seen to be doing something about it (exercising for sixty-eight percent of her waking hours, eating three pieces of lettuce and a tomato for every meal, going to a nutritionist, going to a gym, going to a personal trainer, hiring a personal chef, getting costly and dangerous surgeries to butcher the shape of her stomach, publicly demeaning herself and her body so that the world knows she understands it’s not good enough), she has failed as a woman. If she is overweight and feels like eating a hamburger instead of a salad one day, she has failed as a woman.

Everybody, Every Body: the Media’s Erasure of Fat Girls (via wewantrevolutiongirlstylenow)

(via rawwomen)

#fat #representation

∞ 02/22/12

2,093 notes

via sparkamovement

Pro-tip: white privilege doesn’t mean white people have perfect lives.

ethiopienne:

It means that white people do not have to deal with institutionalized, systemic racism in addition to their everyday problems. It means institutionalized, systemic racism does not cause white people’s everyday problems.

It means when white people go home and turn on their TVs after a long, hard day at work, they can rest assured knowing that they will not only be guaranteed to see people who look like them on the screen, but they will never have to actively search to find a positive depiction of people who look like them.
It means even when white people buy their groceries with food stamps, they don’t have to worry that they’ll be followed around the supermarket for “no reason.”

You think you have no white privilege because you’re poor? Think again. You think your white privilege disappears because you’re not a cisgendered heterosexual? Think again. You think your white privilege disappears because you’re disabled? Think again.

It means that all problems white people face are not exclusive to white people. People of color face those same problems, too. But in addition to any problem white people face, people of color must also bear the burden of dealing with an entire social, cultural, political, economic climate that works against us each and every single day.

And here’s the thing about the effect of racism on PoC’s everyday lives: it’s not like adding one more little thing. This isn’t simple math. Racism isn’t just a “minus 1” on our radar. It informs, guides, and shapes the way every other problem is handled.
Think about it. When white people are pulled over by the cops, their biggest fear is jail time. When black people are pulled over by the cops, our biggest fear is that they’ll kill us and we won’t even get 30 seconds on the 5:00 news.

(via offbeatorbit)

#priviledge #race #representation

∞ 02/02/12

760 notes

via ethiopienne

thusfarwest:

First Nation Stereotypes

Wab Kinew on George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight

(via swintons)

#!!! #yes #first nations #aboriginal #stereotypes #representation

∞ 01/28/12

113 notes

via thusfarwest

zoom

Hollywood is a business. And I don’t fault it for that. It’s a business about money and advertising, and we don’t translate in the foreign market. And a lot of people want to indict Hollywood for that, but I don’t think it’s just an indictment on Hollywood; it may be more of an indictment on people who go to the theatre to put their money down – to see what? You see a film with a predominantly black cast and you don’t see it as inclusive, but you see a film with a predominantly white cast and it is. Why?

I want to be a pioneer; I want to take on the responsibility and the weight of something bigger than myself, which is more diverse storylines, especially for African-American actresses. But I can only do what I do. I certainly can’t change Hollywood’s complete perception of black actresses – I need help.

Hollywood is a business. And I don’t fault it for that. It’s a business about money and advertising, and we don’t translate in the foreign market. And a lot of people want to indict Hollywood for that, but I don’t think it’s just an indictment on Hollywood; it may be more of an indictment on people who go to the theatre to put their money down – to see what? You see a film with a predominantly black cast and you don’t see it as inclusive, but you see a film with a predominantly white cast and it is. Why?

I want to be a pioneer; I want to take on the responsibility and the weight of something bigger than myself, which is more diverse storylines, especially for African-American actresses. But I can only do what I do. I certainly can’t change Hollywood’s complete perception of black actresses – I need help.

(via unimpressible)

#viola davis #race #representation

∞ 01/28/12

2,258 notes

via viola-davis

radical-cunts:

Sister Citizen: Shame Stereotypes and Black Women in America with Melissa Harris-Perry

MSNBC commentator, columnist for The Nation, and Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, where she serves as founding director of the Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South, Melissa Harris - Perry examines black women’s political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images in her new book, Sister Citizen. With wit and family anecdotes, Harris - Perry elaborates on how the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links black women together in America.

(via leatherpumpkin)

#amazing #melissa harris-perry #race #representation

∞ 01/25/12

712 notes

via youtube.com

You know

anedumacation:

I GET the historical argument

I do.

If you’re making a highly historically accurate movie about 14th century Scotland or something, I could see why you might argue against casting people of color. Might be kind of strange to see a brown dude in Braveheart, so yeah, fine. I get you.

But fantasy?

This is an escapist genre. The entire damn premise is that the laws of the universe are turned on their head. So why are there certain premises, certain assumptions about how our society has always worked, that you can’t leave behind?

Why is your imagination so damn limited?

You can accept a guy moving things telepathically with his brain, but you can’t accept the idea that there might have been black people in Britain a long time ago?

You can accept that there is a weird-ass planet that has winter for nine years, that there are mystical magical dragons in this land, but you see noproblem with the fact that all the good guys are written to be white? And all the bad guys are coded as scary and ethnic? The best that the bad guys get is to be the noble savage?

You can accept the premise that there is an entire race of little people with hairy feet, kind-hearted and silently heroic, and you don’t stop to ask yourself why every single one of them is white? Why the author wrote the story so that all the good guys are white and all the bad guys are black and brown and yellow?

Seems to me that you’re not trying very hard, if you’re not asking these questions.