Could The Force Awakens Be The Biggest Faux-Feminist Flop of All Time?

For some, last night the wait was finally over at the Star Wars: The Force Awakens world premier. As people got out, reviews started to pour out on various leak sites and with more and more leaks and spoilers, my anticipation for this film started to dwindle. I expected a truly progressive piece of sci-fi fantasy film to hit the big screen and now it seems like we were played and sold a hallow shell of social justice values with no real heart. The film, as all the spoilers indicate, was just “progressive” for the sake of being “progressive”, like it was lazily crafted by going down a checklist of features and thrown together with no real effort.

There’s no way I can continue this review without spoiling stuff, so if you want to save your disappointment for the theater, turn away.

BB-8 WAS PROMISED TO BE FEMALE, TURNS OUT TO BE A MALE DROID. 

Everyone was stoked when they first saw the lovable bleeping soccer ball roll across the screen in the first teaser. We finally got a new droid design to fawn over and expectations went even further through the roof once some media outlets confirmed that BB-8 was Star War’s FIRST female droid. Turns out however, that was a blatant lie by JJ as a ploy to sell more toys to an already starved market of female Star Wars fans. I guess even in 2015, a galaxy where female robots are more than the sex drones built by men is still too far away to be portrayed.

REY IS ONLY STRONG BECAUSE THE PLOT NEEDS HER TO BE. 

Turns out Rey is the main character of the film and a force sensitive one to boot. However, her story is devoid of any reason for her powers to activate that she ends up being just a Smurfette troupe that can wield a lightsaber. Not only do we get no explanation of her powers, but they randomly just turn on and she can use them flawlessly because the plot needs it to happen. Unlike other great characters in other shows and films (Supergirl, Jessica Jones, Furiosa), Rey lacks a depth needed to make her powers meaningful. It’s the weakest feminist fan service I’ve seen in a movie since people were praising The Other Woman because she simply did terrible things to a terrible dude. This doesn’t make Rey a bad character, or not a deserving hero for young women to look up to, but just someone who was poorly written and a HUGE missed opportunity.

THERE IS NO FINN AND REY ROMANCE.

In fact, there is almost no Finn at all. We were promised a scifi interracial romance between a strong female warrior and lightsaber wielding ex-stormtrooper and got none of that. Finn’s entire character is nothing more than a comedic relief token black character that white Hollywood can hold up and say “Look, we care about you too!”. The romance is never there, the action is never there, his presence is never there, partial due to the fact that he is injured early in the film and spends the rest of his screen time in a coma. All the propaganda, all the manufactured white extremist rage, it was all a hoax. There is nothing between Finn and Rey and that is that is what makes my heart sink the most about this film. Knowing deep down that at the end of the day, the racists won and we were fooled.

HAN SOLO IS KILLED, LEAVING LEIA TO SUFFER HIS LOSS.

Look, I hate the misogynist space pirate as much as the next girl and frankly think he should have been killed off way sooner than this, but to wait all these years and then have him killed by his son because he was trying to be a “good father” wreaks of MRA influenced bullshit. Han was never a good person, it’s why dudebros love him. I furious while watching the OT and having to be subjected to him constantly cat calling Leia every ten minutes ONLY TO HAVE HER GIVE IN AT THE END, but in the end I just accepted Han was a piece of shit. Then the retcons came, Hat shot second, etc. Now we are supposed to believe he has a heart of gold. It’s bullshit propaganda. Nothing more. Han deserved to die, but not like this, not as a martyr to creeps everywhere.

He deserved to die alone and cold on some outpost, dying from space chlamydia while Leia moved on, cut her hair short and realized she didn’t need that bantha poodoo to be complete.

PHASMA COULD HAVE BEEN BLACK, BUT WAS JUST ANOTHER WHITE PERSON.

Look, I’m just as excited about Phasma being a bad ass female trooper that doesn’t need boob-plate as everyone else, but in a movie that promised to be “less white” they sure skipped a lot of chances to diversify up the cast. Not like it mattered much I suppose, Phasma is another let down and only on the screen for minutes and only serves as a plot device to make Finn run away from his job as a trooper. I was expecting a Boba Fett and I got a Silver Barbie. Just there to look pretty and serve no real function to the story. Bravo Abrams, you sure shook up the status quo of White Hollywood.

I’m sure there is mountains of more wrong with this film, but I’m just filled with too much rage and sadness to even process it right now. Right now I just need a glass of wine and to go read some good Star Wars fiction, because this missed the spot like a trooper firing at Luke.

The Burning Man Wall Joke Is Just Another Jab At Those Who Can’t Afford To Live Here

It’s that time of the year again. The time when all the colonial minded millennials raid their grandfather’s war-chests for their stolen feather headdresses and brave the “bad” areas of town to pay some displaced minority to put their hair into dreadlocks, all for the largest music festival on Earth, Burning Man.

Usually ranting about this event feels hopeless because there is nothing left to say about this playground of misogyny or it’s endless fields of naked men scouting for their next victim. But just like everything else in the city of privilege, it can always get worse.

The video starts with the same feel and tone as any other kickstarter video you’ve seen but then degrades into a Trump style rant about blocking the city off so they can continue to enjoy it for themselves.

In practice, kicking these people out sounds great, but part of what got this city into this mess was our unwillingness to think of how our population affects the cities around us. Kicking these people out and building a wall would only push the worst of the worst further into Oakland, one of the cities most vulnerable to the forces of gentrification. Real people are already losing their homes to this very real problem, families led by single mothers are being forced out and onto the streets and into dangerous situations everyday just to make room for more young men with more money than sense. Even if this whole video is just satire, it reflects this city’s very real attitude to those already suffering from their willful ignorance of those who don’t fit into their little club.

We need to build walls around attitudes, not cities.

Walking Out On Vacation: How One Joke Can Ruin Everyone’s Experience

I’d like to think I’m a pretty tough person thanks to my experiences in this electronic jungle of harassment, queer-phobia, and sexism that is the internet. Sometimes however, something happens and you just have to throw your hands up, walk away and contemplate over a bottle of wine just how we can come so far with recent changes in our social and political ecosystems and yet STILL have dehumanizing pieces of cinematic garbage such as the reboot of the a trashy movie classic, Vacation.

I’m still not even sure why I decided to give into the peer pressure of my friends and go out to see a film at the last minute only to settle for what we all knew was going to be 99 minutes of literal and metaphorical human waste on the screen, but I did walk away with two lessons.

1. Sometimes we make mistakes and 2. I’m never getting that ten dollars back.

I think the worst part of this entire experience is that I can’t even tell you, the reader, what is wrong with the entire film because it was so offensive that I had my my fight or flight mentality triggered, decided to cut my losses, and leave the theater not more than fifteen minutes in. I’ve been forced to sit through lots of terrible things in the name of blogging, critiquing, and being a entertainment reviewer, but I saw no discernible rhyme or reason to willfully subject myself to any media that thinks it’s OK to mock and bully genderfluid people before you can even open up your box of sour patch kids.

The scene in question went down like this, remember this is not more than fifteen minutes into the film. The oldest of the two brothers gets set up as a character who is constantly bullied by his smaller brother for having a more feminine personality and alluded to being a teen outside of gender norms. His brother, then decided to torment him over this by defacing his guitar and shaming him by writing “I have a vagina” on the side. When confronted with his progeny’s behavior, the father tries to defuse the situation by teaching acceptance and outing their child as someone within the genderfluid spectrum but ends up making things worse because his haphazard approach (replacing the word vagina with penis on the guitar) ends up just enticing more bullying. This leads to the scene ending with an awkward and ignorant talk about genderfluidity and his brother saying saying “ewww, don’t get your gender fluid on me”.

It’s at that point when it hit me, there is nothing in here that is going to be redeemable and it’s time to just walk away. My friends who stayed confirmed this, saying the movie just continued in this direction downhill, a very steep, sexist, racist and unfunny hill. A hill that has a hotspring of human sewage waiting at the bottom of it.

I have to wonder what the writer’s room looked like when this script was being fleshed out. Maybe just a giant chalkboard filled with profanity and a bunch of dudebros asking themselves which would be more funny, social interactions that lead to suicide or more fart jokes and then some how deciding that THIS was the high road in the bottom of pissbaby canyon.

Maybe I’m just being too hard on something that had no chance of being a decent movie in the first place but in a post-Caitlyn Jenner world, a little sensitivity and compassion for the those who deal with this behavior everyday is not a too much to ask for. How many people who don’t abide by the gender binary will have to suffer before people understand that bullying is not OK and encouraging it or glorifying it in any way only leads to perpetuating the kind of toxic culture that will lead to a higher body count of troubled queer community kids dead in the streets.

I guess for every step forward, we just end up taking two steps back and that is why it’s so important to have people who are willing to speak up about this, to stand up and say “No, that’s not ok, try again”. Being a culture critic isn’t just a job, or a passion, it’s a civic duty.

Amazon Prime Day: An Example On How Systemic Oppression Can Backfire

     Amazon thought it could just release onto the world another shopping themed Holiday but it seems that the throwaway consumer culture has finally become it’s own ouroboros. Eventually the systemic forces of greed used to control impoverished masses by convincing them they need to throw away every cent on the latest impulses caved in to it’s capitalistic influences and became it’s own competition.

The failure of Amazon Prime Day is a perfect example of how creating a entitled, consumercentric, possession focused slave class can backfire when you fail to deliver to their ever growing, unrealistic “needs”. When you focus so much on product before people, your model eventually becomes unsustainable and collapses, leaving nothing behind but failure and 55 gallon drums of sexual lubricant.

Hopefully this latest failure in the experiment that is the colonization of the internet through the patriarchal financial institution can serve as a warning sign that it’s not too late and society can turn back before these companies run by the greediest 1% of the white male ruling class turn this world into their destroyed playground.

An update about my hiatus

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Due to unfortunate circumstances my beloved pet has fallen ill and has needed multiple surgeries. We’ll be getting back on track here soon enough, but in the meantime if you’d like to help rebuild my kittie, we’re accepting donations through paypal at FakeComicGeekGirl@gmail.com.

-Paca

Reactions In The #GamesSoWhite Tag Show A Deeper Problem In Geek Culture.

I rarely try to venture into the discussion of video games and it’s cultural impact on us all, there are already a lot of great voices in that arena working on those topics, but when I saw the #GamesSoWhite hashtag trending, I let curiosity get the better of me. I hoped to find an actual attempt to discuss racial diversity issues in fantasy but once again all I found was hateful racist, misogynist trolls defending their desire to be terrible, lazy people.

A lot of the responses from those against the notion of putting effort into creating an inclusive video game industry try to push the burden of change on those who desire to see equality, not realizing the difficult barriers they have created by refusing to even have a discussion about how their privilege has effected those who are not themselves. Others try to exclude themselves from blame by saying the free market of ideas will prevail and if people really want more PoC in games, then they will magically appear out of thin air because of demand. This school of thought fails to take in account for the fact that we are not in a free market of ideas, there are indeed invisible systemic forces working to keep marginalized groups from being represented fairly in media and pretending there isn’t will not help. For these people, their own privilege is like water surrounding a fish. The fish doesn’t even realize the water is there, it just accepts the forces and influences of the tide.

From avoiding harmful stereotypes, to carefully crafting interesting stories that tackle tough subject matter, creating socially conscious pieces is not easy work but it’s work that has to be done. Creators shouldn’t be afraid to look outside their sphere of experiences and look for others to help them craft their visions to include the views of groups who previously have been left out of the discussion. As we saw with the recent movie Mad Max, it’s possible to create a fantastic piece of art with tough subjects treated correctly.

Gaming and geek culture in general still has a long way to go and the the road to change is littered with trolls and bigots. But in the end, they are just that. A tiny, loud portion of an otherwise fantastic community that together is working to push out these hate mongers and create a safe space for people to explore and expand a wonderful and diverse art form.

Comique Con: First Ever Comic Convention With All Women Creators

It’s always a wonderful feeling whenever you hear news of events that celebrate women in male dominated industries. That breath of fresh air that change is actually happening thanks to some brave people working towards more inclusive spaces in media.

Comique Con 2015 in Dearborn, Michigan has been crowdfunded and is now looking for sponsors and volunteers. The convention will be a one day celebration of women who create and collect comics and a tribute to this form of storytelling. It is also great to hear about women in geek culture without it being solely a reference to cosplay.

This is especially positive after Denver ComicCon’s “Women in Comics” panel ended up being all male. That obviously was just for business and trying to satisfy some of the outcry from women about our misrepresentation in the industry and it’s lack of diversity but genuinely shows that the ComicCon organizers are not listening. So I guess it’s time for us ladies to show them how it’s done and run a convention ourselves.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Comique Con, you can visit their website here: http://comiquecon.com/

And don’t forget, with all these events coming up, now’s a great time to help support your favorite content creators. Even if you can’t support them directly through Patreon, Kickstarter or Tilt, spreading the word about these projects by retweeting and sharing helps raise awareness of these awesome people!

Thoughts on Harley Quinn in Convergence

DC’s Convergence storyline was just finished this month. I have been waiting to write about it in a small series and to break it up into a more digestible format because there are so many issues to go through and contains many problematic themes in it’s writing. The first issue I would like to discuss is Convergence: Harley Quinn #1. Part of the Convergence arc, we meet up with Harley as she is has been recovering awhile from her traumatic relationship with the Joker. There is nothing new about the abusive relationship that her character has been subjected to since her introduction. In this issue we get to see the effects of it in the beginning as she is clearly being haunted by the memories and experiences with the Joker but trying to deny it. She even attempts to hide her pain by joking that she can’t even be nice to a guy without him trying to kill her.

Harley is allowed caffeine and as a part of her rehabilitation she goes to the hospital to visit a cop she injured. They end up becoming a couple and he “takes care” of her, implying a control over her in return for keeping her in line and not on the streets. It’s in these pages that we are first exposed to the writers desire to convey to the reader that the women in this story clearly need strong male characters around to keep them from “misbehaving”.

Shortly after we are shown a scene where she thinks the Joker is there and in a moment of ptsd she thinks the Joker is in her apartment. After screaming for her partner Louie, he comes to her rescue by aggressively grabbing her and trying to talk her down from her attack. The episode must not have been too bad for Harleen as she then decides to reward Louie with sex, which is all to please to take advantage of despite her shaken and disturbed condition.

As the action escalates, Poison Ivy and Catwoman bust into Harleen’s apartment demanding the old her back. Louie resists them, trying to maintain a sense of his male control over the situation but Poison Ivy manages to give her an injection that results in changing her back to her previous state. She then is projected to traumatic echoes of past experiences including the Joker and her partner Louie. We get to see how unstable the Joker has made Harley Quinn throughout their relationship and how she will now be unleashed onto the word again. It’s a story that walks a fine line between empowerment and victimization of her character. While on one hand, Harley is strong enough to be a survivor of this style of abuse over and over again, but we are left asking ourselves if there is any other way the writers could convey her strength as anything else but a side effect of the psychological abuse she has had to endure.

Conversations With Culture Part One: Trauma and How Stories Like The Killing Joke Project it.

     With the recent release of promo photos featuring Jared Leto as the Joker for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, flashbacks of the trauma inducing The Killing Joke story came back to share the comic spotlight once again. The Killing Joke, for those unaware, was one of the more popular Batman based graphic novels, winning multiple awards and creating a controversy about the treatment of Barbara Gordon. This same controversy reared it’s head again with the variant cover of Batgirl #41 which rehashed Barbara’s traumatic ordeal of humiliation by the Joker.

       In this story, the Joker forces his own traumas onto Barbara Gordon in an effort to deal with his own mental health issues by proving that anyone, even Commissioner Gordon, could be pushed to insanity under the right circumstances. Unknowingly, Alan Moore created a societal commentary on how men reenact their own insecurities and force them on the women in their lives, leading to the creation of very real abusive power structure that promotes a lot of the real world violence against women today. On top of these stories being an excellent example of the Women In Refrigerators trope, it teaches the young male reader that the quickest way to obtain their own empowerment is by keeping a women in a subservient state and disposable.

   The Joker in The Killing Joke has flashbacks to his life before his creation as a villain. We see him with his pregnant wife, struggling to make ends meet and to pursue his career as a comedian. He made the decision to leave a well paying job for an unsure future at the expense of his wife and future child. The pain the Joker experiences is not only in losing his wife, but in the light of his own survival re-experiences the trauma. The Joker then experiences his original ordeal a second time as he survives his brush with Batman and comes out of the chemicals, finally becoming the villain we know him as. Stating that “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy,”the Joker admits that his plan of humiliating Barbara Gordon was to get to her father. However, after the mind rape of Commissioner Gordon and the sexual assault of Barbara Gordon, both come out in a better state of mind than the Joker.

     Despite making it out better than the Joker, we are shown Barbara as an emotional, traumatized wreck as she wakes up on the hospital, while after the events, Commissioner Gordon, while shaken, remains calm and steadfast in his desires to bring Joker in by the book. Not only do we see Barbara as weaker, but we see her ability to physically function has been taken away by a man. This is extremely problematic for her character and results in issues she has to deal with for years to come. Of course she becomes the Oracle eventually, but this is essentially reducing her to a secretary in the superhero world.

     The Joker successfully enacted his traumatic past by creating a trauma for Barbara and thus rendering her unable to be the person she physically once was. Just like our society today, where men actively work to cripple women in both their everyday life and the fields of work they persue. She is used in the Joker’s story arc as a tool for manipulating her father’s mental health. This is one of the main examples in well known stories that makes a woman out to be a prop and dehumanizes her character as an individual. On the variant cover of Batgirl #41, in case the viewer is not familiar with the homage that the scene is referencing, we see the Joker humiliating Batgirl (again) by drawing across her face with lipstick while she is bound in a sexualizing pose. Thankfully due to enough people speaking out this variant was not released, so Batgirl escapes the clutches of dangerous tropes this time but it does not change the fact that it did happen and that it took an outcry from fans to change it.

Misogynist Trolls Don’t Get It, We’re Here To Stay

Remember when all those man babies threw a fit when they learned that Thor would be recast as a female in the new reboot of the series? Trolls lined up to spread their hate filled bile across the internet but it looks like it was all for not. The sales reports are in and Feminist Thor is outselling dudebro Thor by a mile.

It’s an encouraging sign of the times and how they are changing. Much like how indie game developers and certain brave women in the tech world are winning the war against the harassment campaign known as Gamergate, the forces of change are winning against the intrenched misogyny of the comic world one step at a time.

Some are even going so far as to call the label these recent changes under the tag “comicgate” as it to make it sound like a vast Feminist conspiracy to make the world a better place. Which, come to think of it, wouldn’t actually even be that bad of an idea.

I’ll be tackling more of this “comicgate” stuff and the books involved in it in another update, but for now I leave you to bask in the man-boy salt that is their tears over so many kick ass women taking over geekdom.

Oh, and if you’d like to help donate to the Feminist conspiracy to make the world a better place, you can visit my project here.