sundries: media edition

[rm]

Patty and I have started watching Merlin. It's pretty terrible. It's also pretty inexplicable. The chemistry is amazing and weird (Merlin/Arthur yes, but Guin/Morgana like woah too). Inexplicable is really the only word. I get why people write porn about it, but I don't get why anyone is watching is beyond trying, desperately, to figure out why it exists. Oh, hey, look, random Eve Myles!

Argh, a week without Kings. It's not that good, but it's like nothing else out there and I've found myself missing it.

Doctor Who -- Planet of the Dead -- not the emotional punch I was hoping for. Also, yikes on the Magical Negro front. Jenny and the thief chick should have sex. I wonder what Torchwood was doing while all this shit was going on (other than being glad they weren't in London). Interesting episode structurally for how many other key episodes it referenced (including The Doctor Dances). Loved the "four knocks" premonition thing. Guess that really is John Simm in those blurry frigging photos. Anyway, marchek and I came to the conclusion that the episode was Pitch Black meets The Langoliers

Wacked out dream last night about Australia and raising funds to attend a one week acting/directing course in Sydney that Luhrmann was teaching. Buh? Was set in this weird dream universe version of Sydney and NIDA that I have. But the weirdest part was when I flew down to Sydney just for a day, because I had to (for reasons I can no longer recall), and I was fine dropping $1,500 on the ticket to do it until I realized, after getting there, it was just a one way ticket and I needed $2,322 to get back. bodlon had to come rescue me, and got subjected to one of my long pothos-induced wails about my creative destiny and everything I'm not. Oh! And when I first got to Sydney there was a teenager selling hand-crafted white leather bracelets on the dream!road by the dream!airport and I told her I was broke and wished her good luck. It was the middle of the night and she beamed at me; I had only noticed her because a woman on a cellphone walking towards me had been mean to her. Odd dream that left me oddly out of sorts.

I am finishing work and then heading home I think to write a Jack/Ianto/Andy PWP I just got hit with. Very random.

I see wank coming down the pike in TW fandom (thanks for the heads up redstapler) and wonder of wonders, it's not about me for a fucking change.

Comments

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind the Magical Negro doesn't die or suffer in the episode. And the black kid saves the day by getting the engine running. Not like in Midnight. Although it is a bit frustrating how the black couple end up with the special insight, as this fulfills something of a stereotype.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Ooh a Brit, handy. Um, do we have the "magical negro" stereotype here in the UK, because I didn't really spot a problem: usually if there's going ot be a stereotypical clairvoyant type character it'll be a gypsy, or if the writer has brains they'll skip that obvious one and make it a scatty old lady, likely with cats. The whole mystical black woman one isn't ringing bells for me but at least one of my US friends was very offended, also by the "thick Caribbean" accent, but that just said "Londoner who immigrated in the '50s" to me, and I'm wondering if she's missing cultural cues being not a Brit or if I'm being oblivious (and sorry to jump on you with questions but you seem a sensible person, hello *waves cheerily*)

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

The only reason we don't have such an awareness of the magical negro stereotype is because we have slightly better (or at least different) integration of black people in this country. I would say that your friend is missing the clues that in London there ARE people who speak like that and it's a very London accent (it makes me think of London, for example). But, because there was a long period of time where people held bigoted beliefs that black people were more 'savage' than white there is also a belief that black people are more magic, associated with tribalism and voodoo, for no better reason than stereotyping.

Now, here's the rub: We don't TALK about it. We don't even think it's there, but it lurks in the cultural background, sometimes coming out in things like fiction and television. The problems are that some black people may have more or different religious beliefs, because of their heritage from countries that adapted missionary practices in new and creative ways. Some may have a different sense of folk lore, from their parents or grand parents. And you can't try to represent that on TV without someone going 'oh magical negroe- bad', which misuses the concept (the notion being that the black person skills are used to benefit others at the expense of themselves). Equally, due to the awful skewing of the population and wealth in this country most black people are not as well off as most white people (stupid and useless distinctions that should never have been invented, I hate using these stupid chromatic terms) so if you want to depict a sensitive, accurate, realistic black person, chances are you'll be showing them to be less formally educated and less affluent than a white person. And to compensate you make them useful by giving them practical skills to assist the story, which falls into the trap of 'white people in charge, black people doing all the hard work'. But then if you make exceptions you might be doing something that is less honest and less fair.

It's a minefield. But it's one that writers, directors, actors and producers HAVE to navigate and risk getting their legs blown off if they want to try to improve this society, however incrementally, through what they create.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the slow response but thank you very much for this, made lots of things clearer to me - and i agree its worth pushing forwards despite criticism.

[natf.livejournal.com]

This is what I felt/thought about that character as well.