My other #LegendaryMax thought is that I dont really know why Jamila is a judge on this show. She's so far from ballroom that her presence constantly leaves me questioning.
And I think there's also something frustrating about the House of Ninja there and the roster present. Cause they are skilled, but during the Grand March to have a judge opine about ballroom for everyone left me kinda, hmmm.
Cause ballroom is for everyone straight up, but also it is an art and sport created by black and Hispanic queers. It's our thing, and I get real frustrated when people want to constantly assure white folks and others they can take part.
It makes me ask, in some ways, do black people get to have closed practices. Do we get to have things that are just fucking ours. Why do we have to share it all the time.
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Just thinking about our fascination in American fantasy about people being from special lineages, secret princes, etc. And how as we push against that it's worth looking at the different ways this trope can exist in subversive and conservative wats
The main way I'd point this out is: there are stories where the importance is in the blood and stories where the importance is on your ancestors and whike similar those are quite different.
In the former case we have what's essentially eugenics. Due to ypur genes you matter. There was no world in which you wouldn't matter, and in a world born out of manifest destiny and white supremacy this concept is really dangerous.
So I finally finished High & Low:The Movie. It was a great time, and there's a lot to digest about it. I think the major thing on my mind rn is how it looks when asians (Japanese in this film) create a world of gangs as compared to Americans.
This largely a reactive thought as I think about a tweet made yesterday on the orientalist nature of Asian gangs in American works. The emphasis on "honor", dragon iconography, traditional motifs, swords over guns, etc.
And what High & Low demonstrates is just how glaringly orientalist this image is. Since out of the many gangs in its setting you have some that look like pretty boy hosts, high school delinquents, visual key parkour enthusiasts, and SOOOOOO much black influence.
I am due to learn more about theories of harm reduction, but I really want to do so reading texts by black and indigenous women.
In part cause one thing I want to learn how to resolve in myself and grow is to understand where violence is placed in these models. Cause I understand that a major principle is that the state can't and shouldn't have tools of violence in anyway.
Though what happens when a community decides that violence is necessary. Say, in the case of deciding to just off some cops that slew a black woman in her sleep.
So I just started up How to Make It in America (taking a break from Girls), and immediately this show screams New York in a way Girls doesn't.
Part of it stems from how our characters are living in realistic apartments, they're hustling, and the City has an energy to it that screams fashion, hip-hop, and a Neverending hustle.
Which immediately draws difference between Girls where all the characters have aspirations but they have no drive or hustle.
To do a short thread on Miss Sherlock for a second. It is some amazingly fun television, and makes the greatest case for what's fun about the episodic format.
The ability to put in thirty minutes and get a really rewarding mystery that has an actual resolution and payoff(something lacking from so many serialized dramas) is great.
Plus, each case is a good time because you can get very different tones easily. One episode is a straight up murder mystery, another starts as simple vandalism to become an art world conspiracy, and I just finished one with a missing bride.
Though I’d definitely say rn Girls is in line with my theory. Since the way the show embodies whiteness in New York is largely inauthentic to NYC. Unlike Sex and the City where the characters are of certain class and status in Manhattan that is overwhelmingly white
The characters in girls are just not at that point. Where they are in their lives should have them engaging with so many PoC it’s not funny.but in Girls PoC only emerge to act as props for the characters to just be white too.
Then insofar as both shows represent New York City, Girls is not in New York. It feels so disconnected to the city beyond the character’s fascination with it in their Rent-addled imagination. In this way the show, much like the cast, engages in blatant gentrification.