Tag: this

lesbianwaves:

as i said before there’s a lot of dudes in black sails who constantly retell james flint to you, but none quite as much as silver, none with quite as much charm and poetry and self-attributed authority and self-manifested intimacy as silver, which i think makes him uniquely insidious in his thematic role within the show’s exploration of erasure and distortion of narratives

he’s not evil by any means he’s arguably not even malicious he’s just there and careless and deeply overconfident and that’s all it takes

lesbianwaves:

lesbianwaves:

before black sails i don’t think i truly noticed how rage in media is portrayed, as amoral at best, as invalidating of social stances, as all equal and all equally indicative of a Bad irrational character, rage is for the villains or rage is something someone good succumbs to and then has to repent for, there is no such thing as rightful anger, doesn’t matter what systemic horrors you’ve suffered, if you shout you’ve already lost, if you shout you’re just as bad as your oppressors, and that is horrifying  

on rage still: i remember a post that essentially talked about how great it is that flint is allowed gay anger, and i was thinking about how there’s even more to that than being allowed to be angry, he isn’t degraded by it, defined by it, moved into a new box because of it, ideals are not invalidated by it, by which i mean all of this happens but not in the narrative of the show, it happens in the narrative various other characters within the show weave about james flint, around him, and you see them do it, and you see the threads and the craftsmanship in detail, and you see it affect flint himself, but it’s not the show’s, the show is the creation of it and not the narrative itself, the show is as usual the story of the story, the show tells you look, this is happening, this is how it happens, this is how in stories villains are queercoded, this is how in history gay people are invisible or monsters

closet-keys:

friendlyangryfeminist:

Abusers are really good at is making you feel like your anger is worse than their abuse.

This is so important. Many survivors have spent months or years not being allowed to express anger or being made to feel ashamed for experiencing anger. 

So if you know a survivor, and you tell them that they “can’t” or “shouldn’t” be angry, that will almost certainly be triggering, and it’s really cruel. 

Telling survivors that they need to “get past” their anger or to “be the bigger person” or “holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot coal” or “anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die” or that “healing is only possible with forgiveness” or that “forgiveness will set you free,” or that “being angry means the abuser still has control,” or that experiencing anger makes the survivor as bad as the abuser, or whatever else– that’s culturally imposed abuse apologism and if you want to be an ally, you need to unlearn resorting to those platitudes when trying to comfort survivors. 

It’s okay to experience anger. It’s literally the natural reaction to boundary violation, and when someone’s boundaries have been repeatedly violated and broken down for years, it’s important for a person’s health to be able to experience and express that anger. It honestly really is. 

proud mary report:

whetstonefires:

This is a Good Film. It is not ‘Taraji P. Henson doing a good job in a mediocre film.’ (For one thing the whole cast did great.) The reviews are bogus and it is a scandal how underpromoted this movie is. Watch it!

Thing is, and I let the critics off slightly for this but am still judging them, it’s…not really an action film. As such. It has like three action scenes, and they’re appropriately improbable and very nicely done and not at all sexy, except in the same way anybody killing a lot of people quite competently can be.

I was led to expect Atomic Blonde with a black lead. This is not that.

There are a lot of plot elements familiar from the action genre and ultimately I would say it counts as one, especially as the fast pace is driven by threat of a mob war, but like 90% of this film is a psychological drama about guilt, trust, found family, the logistical consequences of solving your problems with violence, and crime as a trap that takes the kids no one is protecting, and won’t ever let them leave.

(Incidentally, there are five white people with speaking parts in this movie: three mobsters two of whom are killed by Mary, a shop girl, and a drug addict who provides plot-critical information.)

It’s character-driven, it’s intensely sincere, there are several scenes with hella subtext about power as a function of demographics. By Hollywood standards, it’s remarkably realistic. Everyone is very human and that hurts because it excuses nothing. It’s a power fantasy about freedom that could not have been told in this way about anybody but a black woman.

I have seen the ‘assassin who orphaned kid takes them in’ trope done so many times, and I have never believed in it even half this much. It’s not the absolute pinnacle of cinema, but it shouldn’t have to be. It’s a good movie.

lesbianwaves:

the “i will be it” moment and what follows it is empowering but also deeply tragic in view of how much embodying that darkness destroys him, like, he cannot handle doing one actually monstrous thing without unraveling beyond repair, ceasing to function and nearly giving up on life entirely because purpose runs out and runs away from him, despite the fact everyone thinks him it and despite the fact he arguably deserves to be a force if he so chooses, james flint cannot actually choose so, he cannot sustain being monstrous, because he isn’t