(no subject)
Mar. 13th, 2018 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckWe ended up watching last night's Legends of Tomorrow episode, and I... I have no idea what alternate universe history we were looking at. Memphis in 1954 appeared to have no racism. I didn't particularly want racism in the ridiculous time travel story about people trying to save the universe, but I couldn't accept the story as presented. My suspension of disbelief didn't stumble on ghosts or on Elvis having a magic guitar. No, it was something else.
None of the people native to 1954 Memphis seemed to notice that some of the time traveling characters weren't white. I have no idea how to tell the story they wanted to tell while still acknowledging the realities of the place and time, but... I know people who remember 1954. Handwavingly ignoring racism isn't quite the same as ignoring, say, sewage in the streets of medieval cities. Partly because most of us agree that the sewage existed and that we don't want it back.
We've still got the racism. It's not quite the same, but it's not gone. Taking it out of a story set in living memory is a punch in the gut to anyone who's still affected by what happened then.
Just... They ended the episode with an interracial couple (white man, black woman) dancing and kissing in a church otherwise full of white people. Not one of whom batted an eyelash. I didn't want an unhappy ending. I just wanted a happy ending that didn't do the historical equivalent of changing the laws of physics. Earlier bits of the episode had similar issues.
I think that part of the problem is that we, culturally, have difficulties with the idea that a person can be good in one aspect of their life and really horrible in another. My MIL can consider herself-- and in many ways be-- a compassionate Christian and still vote for Trump because she's terrified of the Other and doesn't want them to exist in her world. It's actually pretty damned easy to live those contradictions. I'm sure each of us (yes, including me) has some that we don't notice.
If all you've ever seen is sandstone, it's never going to occur to you that granite might make a better wall.
None of the people native to 1954 Memphis seemed to notice that some of the time traveling characters weren't white. I have no idea how to tell the story they wanted to tell while still acknowledging the realities of the place and time, but... I know people who remember 1954. Handwavingly ignoring racism isn't quite the same as ignoring, say, sewage in the streets of medieval cities. Partly because most of us agree that the sewage existed and that we don't want it back.
We've still got the racism. It's not quite the same, but it's not gone. Taking it out of a story set in living memory is a punch in the gut to anyone who's still affected by what happened then.
Just... They ended the episode with an interracial couple (white man, black woman) dancing and kissing in a church otherwise full of white people. Not one of whom batted an eyelash. I didn't want an unhappy ending. I just wanted a happy ending that didn't do the historical equivalent of changing the laws of physics. Earlier bits of the episode had similar issues.
I think that part of the problem is that we, culturally, have difficulties with the idea that a person can be good in one aspect of their life and really horrible in another. My MIL can consider herself-- and in many ways be-- a compassionate Christian and still vote for Trump because she's terrified of the Other and doesn't want them to exist in her world. It's actually pretty damned easy to live those contradictions. I'm sure each of us (yes, including me) has some that we don't notice.
If all you've ever seen is sandstone, it's never going to occur to you that granite might make a better wall.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-14 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-15 08:15 pm (UTC)Eurgh, yes. I get what you're trying to say - there's a degree of wanting that escapism, right, but also, failure to acknowledge the big messy ugly pieces can come off as just as jarring or worse.
I think that part of the problem is that we, culturally, have difficulties with the idea that a person can be good in one aspect of their life and really horrible in another.
Also this. We seem to really enjoy binary options, the purity/clarity of which seems to be the primary appeal, and it makes it difficult for us to want to understand how people and things exist and function in the in-between.
no subject
Date: 2018-03-16 03:23 pm (UTC)That is, true/false is easier to guess than multiple choice. No one wants to flunk life.