So, what was the show that made you realize how racist fandom was? We all have that one show/movie/book that made us realize that this “geek haven” we thought was for everyone really wasn’t.
Mine was Young Justice. Now, I’d read a lot of fanfic before YJ (mostly white slash, and I never thought too much about it) I was still becoming comfortable with my sexuality, so slash was pretty comforting for me. I read a lot of Merlin/Arthur, but I noticed that there wasn’t that much fic for Gwen or her brother Elyan. I pushed it out of my mind.
Then Young Justice happened and with it, Kaldur’ahm. And he was EVERYTHING fic writers loved. He was strong and compassionate, had an interesting backstory, had a difficult love life, etc…
I was expecting TONS of fic for this guy, he was great! But Kaldur didn’t really get a lot (or any) appreciation compared to the rest of the cast. He was judged harshly. Fans would crap all over him due to the mole situation (Alpha) while giving other characters a pass for doing things that were worse (often times, those horrid things were done TO Kaldur) I’m still pissed abot Miss Martian leaving Kaldur in the desert to go coddle Superboy. Like really? And all people wanted to do after that episode was cream “OMG SUPERMRATIAN!!!!”
When Kaldur became a double agent, and pretty much led the charge in the fight against the light, most of the fandom responded with a resounding “Meh.“
And the more I looked into this instance, and others in ther fandoms, the more upsetting it became. Those same patterns were repeated in EVERY fandom regarding black characters.
That was my wake up call.
What was yours?
Okay so while I’d been in fandom spaces before and seen fandom racism from a sort of outsider POV in the years before YJ aired, that was also my first direct experience with fandom racism.
The erasure was everywhere. Either they were erasing Kaldur as a character, erasing his potential relationships with other characters (I’m so mad that SB/Kaldur never became a big ship), or straight up erasing his blackness.
I mean –
During season two when we saw Black Manta’s office area with the tribal masks, there were people going around and saying that he wasn’t Black, he was atlantean. And um… Black Manta’s history as one of the most terrifying Black villains in comics apparently means nothing.
There were people who kept writing him as the “team mom” and rendering him unshippable because they had desexualized him so much. Then there were the “I view Kaldur as ace/aro and that’s why I ship him with no one” people.
Ugh.
My first big fandom was Harry Potter, and by the time I moved to Glee fandom I was still a pretty uncritical fan –I was uncomfortable with people’s treatment of Santana and Mercedes but I don’t think I really realized why back then and they weren’t leading characters so I chalked it up to that.
Then I joined the Teen Wolf fandom and THAT was an eye opener. I was so excited to have a brown Latino lead in a YA fantasy show! He was a thorough deconstruction of most of the toxic stereotypes that brown and Latino characters are usually boxed in, his role models were a brown woman (working class single Latina mother who also stayed far from damaging tropes) and a black man (who, despite falling in the Magical Black Guide trope, was a successful vet, a great boss, a powerful supernatural figure and one of the moral edges of the show).
He was asthmatic, coded as mentally ill, a trauma survivor, hard-working, sweet and compassionate, hopeful and determined. His canon love story with Allison was excellent, his chemistry with his sidekick was amazing. He was everything fandom could have wanted in a lead. But he was brown, and the virulent racism in the Teen Wolf fandom was impossible to miss.
Scott was condemned and demonized for taking care of a wounded dog, for falling in love with a girl, for trying to get away from his abusers (Derek and Peter), for trying to do well in school despite trauma and Hero Duties, for being traumatized and terrified, for trying to stop other kids for going through the same trauma, for buying textured condoms for his girlfriend, for saving lives, for taking people’s pain at his own detriment, for being boring, for being too good, for being innocent, for being alive and a lead and brown.
He, a brown boy who was assaulted, threatened, persecuted, tortured and abused by white grown men and women, was called “A White Savior” and “Racist Against Werewolves”. The mentally ill brown Latino actor who plays him was called white, dumb, homophobic, talentless, told to kill himself, etc. etc. etc.
The murder of a Black boy to further a white man’s plot was used as shipping fodder for a white m/m ship, Deaton was accused of being evil from the get-go, people called for Scott to be killed and replaced with Derek and Stiles as leads, Danny’s existence as a an openly gay brown character and Posey’s honest support for Isaac/Scott to become canon was ignored as the fandom rallied for Sterek to become canon.
“Scott is a bad friend” became one of the most popular tags in TW fanfiction. Scott is, to this day, still described as portrayed as “a dog” in fanworks. Despite being a pacifist at heart, despite being a 16 y/o boy, despite being forgiving and compassionate and self-sacrificing at every turn, Scott was portrayed as selfish, abusive, misogynistic, homophobic, violent, predatory… Not to mention dumb: despite being in AP classes and shown to be exceptionally smart at ever moment, Scott was called stupid at every turn while Lydia and Stiles were hailed as “geniuses” (which might be canon for Lydia but wasn’t for Stiles at all).
People who don’t watch the show really believe that the white sidekick is the lead of TW instead of Scott, that’s how pervasive the erasure of his character has been.
pacific rim
X-Men Evolution. The reaction to Amanda being racebent into a Black girl and the love interest of a fan favorite really opened my eyes as a kid, although the Buffy fandom was no better.
The Devil Wears Prada fandom where there was this popular fic that turned the protagonist’s best friend into a dog.
Also, Uhura hair!fail on LJ’s Spock/Uhura community.
Mine was definitely Supernatural. Dean Winchester, badass hunter who was a hoe. Who scoffed at the idea of romantic relationships. Who was a man no woman could tame because he wasn’t that kind of dude. He was the idolized and precious white dude the thirsty white fangirls masturbated to. Then it was revealed in an episode of season 1 that actually, tough guy, looks down on love guy had actually been in love once. And not only had he been in love, he had fallen in love with a black girl. He was so in love with her that he broke their one family rule, the rule to never ever tell an outsider about their hunting life. The rule according to Sam Winchester was “we do what we do and we shut up about it.” Sam didn’t break that rule even for Jessica who he was in love with.
So the fandom finds out that Mr tough guy Dean Winchester had been in love with a black girl. But it got worse. That very black girl broke up with him because she thought he was full of shit. The shock that it wasn’t “love em and leave em” Dean Winchester who broke up with her and that Dean was still heartbroken over her made them lose their fucking minds. It certainly didn’t help that Dean ended up jumping into bed with her at the first opportunity he got again and was shown laying in bed with her and talking about his genuine feelings with her.
Lets just say my high school self with previous zero exposure to fandom found out that white fangirls hate black women and even more so, when we’re occupying a position they deem to be reserved for them exclusively in any natrative.
Till this day, that episode is still the shows highest rated episode. No matter how much hatred the fans spews, they can never take that fact away.
Another is the fact that Dean Winchester has never been in love with another person the same way ever. He flirted with the idea and had several short term flings that ended in disaster. But he has never fallen in love with another person the way he did with Cassie. And that is the truth no matter how hard the delusional destiel shippers try and insist he has with Castiel. 😂
I will never forget how much they bashed and insulted the poor actress who played Cassie. They said she was a bad actress. They said the entire storyline of the episode was forced and ridiculous. And that is quite the statement to make with a straight face on a show that had a killer scarecrow. Funny how the episodes revolving around poc are the ones fandom deemed to be ridiculous.
They insisted they were not racist and used every excuse under the sun but admit they were in shock over their prized white dude being in love with a black woman. When they’re not erasing her from Dean’s life and history, they only bring her up in a positive way when they are trying to use her to prove destiel is real and not a figment of their imagination. They insist that since the love of Dean’s life was named Cassie and Castiel is called Cas, it’s the writers way of hinting to them that Dean is also in love with Castiel. So basically, she is reduced to shipping fodder for their white dude on white dude slash.
It’s truly one for the books.
Reblogging because I sometimes forget that Supernatural did that.
The Moment you realized Fandom was racist…
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