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adiva_calandiaI'm staring at every piece of fiction around me in detailed consternation.
For instance: the longer I look at Heroes, the more it worries me and encourages me at the same time (difference is ambivalent, my readings say, capable of being positive and negative at once).
Encouraging things include the fact that two of the most important recurring characters are Indian and Japanese. Also encouraging is that the recurring Japanese characters speak Japanese to each other. I wish Mohinder would speak Hindi sometimes; English can't be his first language with his accent. Also encouraging is that we have at least one new hero who's not white -- maybe two, if the clips at the beginning of the premiere are to be trusted.
Discouraging is that the recurring black character wasn't in the season 2 premiere, and that he was introduced in the first season in such a way as to play on the audience's stereotypical perception of black men as criminals. Also discouraging is that a high school in San Diego appears to be predominantly white -- I count one black girl and one Asian girl on the cheerleading squad, and another Asian girl in the background of the gym class. Why does a potential love interest have to be white? Why do the writers/casting directors/audience members assume that he'll be white? Season one had three interracial relationships (Isaac/Simone, Peter/Simone, DL/Nikki), and the potential for a fourth (Hiro/Charlie).
Ambivalent is Hiro's subplot. I have no idea what to think about that, having heard convincing arguments on both sides.
Heroes ought to be a celebration of difference, like X-Men. And abstractly, it is -- but it has some real internal inconsistencies. Well, praise chaos, as the man said (Roy Cohn in Angels in America).
It's easy to identify prejudices in another's work, though -- that's why we have editors, because it's too hard to find our own problems in our own work. Which is why, I think, the representation problems in Milliways go largely unnoticed.
For instance: the longer I look at Heroes, the more it worries me and encourages me at the same time (difference is ambivalent, my readings say, capable of being positive and negative at once).
Encouraging things include the fact that two of the most important recurring characters are Indian and Japanese. Also encouraging is that the recurring Japanese characters speak Japanese to each other. I wish Mohinder would speak Hindi sometimes; English can't be his first language with his accent. Also encouraging is that we have at least one new hero who's not white -- maybe two, if the clips at the beginning of the premiere are to be trusted.
Discouraging is that the recurring black character wasn't in the season 2 premiere, and that he was introduced in the first season in such a way as to play on the audience's stereotypical perception of black men as criminals. Also discouraging is that a high school in San Diego appears to be predominantly white -- I count one black girl and one Asian girl on the cheerleading squad, and another Asian girl in the background of the gym class. Why does a potential love interest have to be white? Why do the writers/casting directors/audience members assume that he'll be white? Season one had three interracial relationships (Isaac/Simone, Peter/Simone, DL/Nikki), and the potential for a fourth (Hiro/Charlie).
Ambivalent is Hiro's subplot. I have no idea what to think about that, having heard convincing arguments on both sides.
Heroes ought to be a celebration of difference, like X-Men. And abstractly, it is -- but it has some real internal inconsistencies. Well, praise chaos, as the man said (Roy Cohn in Angels in America).
It's easy to identify prejudices in another's work, though -- that's why we have editors, because it's too hard to find our own problems in our own work. Which is why, I think, the representation problems in Milliways go largely unnoticed.
