The fanfiction genre is a tangled wreckage of bleeding hearts, ludicrous sexual encounters, and tear-jerking tales of abuse. Though people of all ages write fanfic, it definitely began as a teenage endeavor, and is still mostly seen as a youthful hobby. Teenagers write their favorite celebrities into strange and sordid narratives: One Direction’s Harry Styles is heavily pregnant with band mate Louis Tomlinson’s baby. The Jonas Brothers have incestuous sex on a beach under a shimmering red sunset. Harry Potter snorts cocaine to deal with the suffocating pressure of professional wizardry. But no stories are quite as extreme as #adoption fantasies.

This sub-genre produces narratives of celebrities taking fans in as their own children. The chosen star could be anyone from Simon Cowell to Camila Cabello. But each time the stories follow a similar formula: A kid endures a troubled upbringing — unloved by vodka-swigging parents, pushed around by schoolyard bullies, starving hungry and weak with loneliness. Then one day a celebrity whisks them off their feet, adopts them, and they live happily ever after. For the protagonists, this usually means indulging in everything fame and wealth has to offer: riding around in slick red Ferraris, eating pizza for breakfast, and falling asleep in soft, silky bedsheets. Now their only problem is how heavy the shopping bags get.

There are thousands of these adoption fantasies swarming the internet. But why are so many teenagers dreaming about an evening with their mom Cardi B? Or getting tucked asleep each night by Chris Evans?

For many of these teenagers, yet to have kissed anyone, adoption fantasies are a pre-sexual way to physically relate to celebrities, and to explore intimacy. We don’t just want to be around celebrities, we want to have the devoted love of a parent, cooking you breakfast in the mornings and bringing you Lemsip when you are ill.

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Now their only problem is how heavy the shopping bags get.
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Constance Penely, professor of Film & Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, and fan of slash fiction, attributes adoption fantasies to Freud’s theory of Family Romance. “The child believes that their parents are not their real parents but people far superior, even aristocratic,” she says. “You can get rid of one or both parents and substitute them for better ones.” And in a society that worships celebrity, famous people are often the best people we can think of. We don’t just love them, we want them to love us back.

We look to celebrities for moral guidance. We see this in the spiritual voyages people go on to dead celebrities’ graves, trekking to the site of Michael Jackson or Elvis’ burial much like a religious pilgrimage. It is unsurprising then that fan fictionists write stars into surrogate parents. We feed off the way celebrities lavish themselves in highlighter like glazed crispy crèmes, their jokes that make chat show hosts shake with laughter, their charitable endeavours and gleaming smiles. We try to copy them, much like a child does when they see their Mom and Dad navigating through the world.

Adoption Is A Feminist Issue, But Not For The Reasons You Think

This social aspiration for a higher class of parent suggests itself in the way adoption fantasies often focus on material wealth. In ERICA03GON’s “Adopted by Lauren Jauregui,” a character called Jacob is taken from his cramped orphanage bedroom to a lush palace, complete with a swimming pool, hot tub, and plasma screen TV:

“It was hugeeee.i. thinky jaw droped because some one whispered ‘close ur mouth or ya’ll catch flies’in my ear.” The first thing Fifth Harmony does is take Jacob to the mall where they buy him an “iphone,ipad,air,mac,computer,6paires of jeans,10 shirts 5 beanies,2leather jackets,and 7 pairs of jordans.”

No matter how you were raised, capitalist society teaches us that more is better. Even if your parents are rich, you can always imagine being richer. These Fan Fictioners’ dream of superior Mums and Dads, ones who drape them in flashy snapbacks and PS4s.

But for other users struggling with violently fractured parent/child relations, adoption fantasies are a lifeline to a different world. Writing stories where glistening, white-toothed celebrities care for you fulfills an almost necessary function of mental escape. This was the case for Wattpad user Mikey_fucking_way_ (he chose to remain anonymous so I will call him Will), who has written two adoption fantasies, one in which a teenager is adopted by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, and another featuring Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. “My parents divorced when I was young, right around my birthday. Both of them are severe alcoholics,” he says. “They never looked after me and I grew up by myself for a long time. It was fun to imagine a nicer life somewhere else. Belonging to a different family was a fantasy of mine, but I knew I couldn’t have it. So I made up a kid who got to live out my own dream for me.”

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‘Belonging to a different family was a fantasy of mine, but I knew I couldn’t have it. So I made up a kid who got to live out my own dream for me.’
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Will’s story “Adopted by Gerard Way” reflects these aspects of his troubled upbringing. His protagonist, Charlie, was abused from a young age. Staff members at the orphanage forced her to smoke and drink alcohol, and they physically attacked her. “I had about 20 little scars from having lit cigarettes pushed against my skin,” says Charlie. But new parents Gerard Way and Lin-Z lavish Charlie with love and support. When she sobs in her bedroom, her new Dad comes to console her:

“‘I know this is a lot for you right now but I hope you don’t feel too uncomfortable here’ he smiled at me. This inclined me to do something I didn’t think I’d do. I walked up and hugged him and he hugged me back.”

Taking one’s negative circumstances and morphing them into happy scenarios leaves writers with a cathartic feeling of release. “For one moment I am not in this house,” says Will. “I become Charlie on a bed being cuddled by Gerard.”

This transformative moment in adoption fantasies, where circumstances change from painful to positive, is referred to in the fanfiction community as the “hurt/comfort” affect. A FanLore entry explains the hurt/comfort mechanism as “the physical pain or emotional distress of one character, who is cared for by another character. The injury, sickness or other kind of hurt allows an exploration of the characters and their relationship.”

The release of psychological wound and emotional tension leaves characters feeling healed. Wattpad user Jenkins300, who has written multiple fanfiction stories on Ant & Dec and Simon Cowell, explains, “I like reading and writing about somebody innocent being harmed or wounded, then finally getting the loving childhood they dreamed of. It is immensely satisfying.”

What If All Adults Took Responsibility For All Children?

There is a sensual element dormant in hurt/comfort stories. In Queering Popular Culture, author Mirna Cicioni characterizes hurt/comfort as an “eroticization of nurturance,” with one partner satisfying a basic need of the other — warmth, food, or emotional reassurance. “Although not specifically sexual in themselves. . . [stories] are eroticised because they give a physical dimension to the closeness of the bond between the partners and lead to, or become a part of, an intimacy that also has a sexual component,” they write. Though adoption fantasies are about familial bonds and thus are not explicitly sexual, their place in the hurt/comfort genre means they involve physically intimate moments.

Whether the stories are a pure fantasy of being rich, or serve as an emotional outlet for the author’s complicated familial relationships, there is a physical aspect to these stories. For many of these teenagers, yet to have kissed anyone, adoption fantasies are a pre-sexual way to physically relate to celebrities, and to explore intimacy.

Stories draw attention to the tactile nature of their bond: teasing hands through hair, play fighting, pushing each other around. Zoning in on alluring aspects of the body: the long curvature of the back, big oceanic blue eyes, and thick arms. I spoke to Martha Ahrens, who used to write adoption fantasies as a child. “I was totally in love with Orlando Bloom, but I was 13 at the time and I had no idea about sex or anything,” she says. “I used to write stories about him looking after me; it was paternal but only because I was working out my feelings. In a few years I wasn’t thinking about him making me sausages and beans for tea, let’s just put it that way.”

Deep within these celebrities, fans can find home. A warm womb-like enclosure far removed from the niggling, “don’t bring your muddy shoes in here,” “you take all my money” moms and dads. Bringing its fans into a gleaming, no-rules fantasy land where you can turn up the TV loud and leave your clothes all over the floor.

But most importantly, they let fans, and authors, understand the importance of that sort of warmth, wherever it comes from.

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Costume Designer Wants To Fuel The Fire With Visuals

The Establishment speaks with award-winning designer Ane Crabtree about symbolism, feminism, witches, and Handmaids.

Handmaids attend the premiere of Hulu’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 2 at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 19, 2018 in Hollywood, California (Credit: Facebook)

Warning: mild spoilers ahead

E ven if you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel, or seen its Hulu adaptation, you’ve probably seen images of the women’s uniforms in Gilead — red robes, white bonnets, hiding women’s faces and bodies, marking these women as men’s property, not people. These costumes have been donned by activists in many public protests in the last year and are now a widely recognized symbol of resistance.

At least some of the credit for this powerful sartorial movement can go to Ane Crabtree, the costume designer for the Emmy-winning series adaptation. Ane’s been a costume designer for film and television for decades. Some of her work includes the pilot for The Sopranos on HBO; episodes of Rectify on the Sundance Channel (a great series loosely based on the true-life story of Damien Echols); and episodes of Without a Trace, LAX, Vanished, Justified, and Westworld (about to debut its second season).

Ane and I talked about the ways in which her upbringing informs her work, and the importance of color in the symbolism of The Handmaid’s Tale. Also, witches…

Peg Aloi: You were born in South Dakota, raised in Kentucky. I’m very interested to know if your upbringing in what many people would call “flyover country” informs your work in general, and maybe your work on this show in particular. In The Handmaid’s Tale we see many references to the proud liberal city Boston once was, and what it has turned into.

Ane Crabtree: I definitely think that is something that informs everything and everybody, where you grow up. I moved to Kentucky from South Dakota when I was 3, and I’ve done all my adult growing-up away from Kentucky; I haven’t lived there since I was 18. Since then I’ve lived in other places usually for about 15 years, with the exception of England, where I lived for two years. I left because I was a young kid wanting different things at a young age. But I do reach back sometimes, to use things in a creative way as an adult now. I love South Dakota. Oddly, with Kentucky, work is what brought me back and I was just there recently. In my fifties now, I want to spend time with my family and get to know it again. There was some bad stuff that happened there, personally and politically. But the landscape inspires my work in a very personal way. And a very prolific way, and also in violent ways.

PA: I think one of the most interesting costume moments in the first season is in the episode “Jezebels” [in which characters visit a brothel in Gilead]. Did you have fun with that?

AC: I did. It was funny, though; we never had a lot of time, because when you’re doing television everything is on fast-forward. “Jezebels” was something that was very well-known in the book. I had to speed through it much faster than I would have liked. It was really awesome, though; a departure in so many ways. The whole vibe was so different, where the women were dressing provocatively.

It felt as though all of a sudden you’re seeing women as sexy, which is so normal, but it felt not normal. I designed everything in those scenes, from the leads down to the 40 women working at the brothel. I really wanted to make each one a distinct character, but as I said, it was all very fast. Funnily enough, I think my fashion show experience helped me, because I had to move quickly through all 40 designs, and so it was a bit stressful.

I Grew Up In A Fundamentalist Cult — ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Was My Reality

PA: Whitney Friedlander’s interview with you for Variety discussed the color palettes and the blue dresses of the wives, which are referred to as “peacock” colors. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, the wives’ dresses are referred to as sky blue (sort of a Virgin Mary image), and in the first film adaptation the dresses are a very primary blue, sort of cobalt or royal blue, which, paired with the very bright red of the Handmaids, had this American patriotism thing going on, flag colors.

I find it so intriguing that your designs for the Commander’s wives contain a variety of colors within this palette: emerald green gowns for formal occasions, dark blue dresses for everyday, and sometimes other shades. Why is there this subtle gradation of color for them, and what kind of symbolism is contained in the color choices for these costumes?

AC: It’s a very subtle thing. I am a huge rabid fan of Margaret Atwood, and of course followed the novel for much of what we did. When we first got started with Season One, the design went into a very dark emotional version of the red and the blue in the book, which is one reason we didn’t do sky blue. Our red became blood red, and the idea for the teal blue followed thereafter. We play with color in the camera work and the use of filters in our show, and we wanted something that was hauntingly beautiful, and hauntingly disrupted. I’m a fan of the original film, and Margaret Atwood is a producer on our show so I could write to her and ask questions at any time. I followed Margaret’s story for many of the costume ideas, but I did change out the striped dresses for the Econo-wives; instead I did grey.

The original movie had that bright blue and red, as you said, and those were really perfect colors for the 1990s. But for our show, which premiered in 2016, it felt like the colors we were using were really the perfect colors for right now. There’s so much black in these colors. Being a painter that’s one way that I look at it: These are like blackened colors.

PA: The color palettes of the show’s production design often seem to arise from the costume colors, as if those points of color are the inspiration. I noticed in this season, where we see the “Unwomen” working in the Colonies, cleaning up toxic radioactive waste, there is a lot of grey in the costumes and interiors, but a lot of golden light when we see the women working outdoors. That feels almost nostalgic to me. That’s such an interesting contrast, the sunshine and all that greyness, a bit of beauty and romance amid all the horror of that place. How did you go about envisioning the costumes for these segments?

AC: When we were pitching the season, me and (production designer) Mark White came up with the visuals, and for the Colonies we looked at so many different places for inspiration. Mark and I have a very symbiotic way of creating, because we’re best friends, basically. We both adore Andrew Wyeth, and that kind of dry brushed gold you see in his paintings, that golden light that comes in winter; you know it because it’s all over upstate New York. It also occurs in Kentucky, and also in Toronto where I was living for a while. It doesn’t necessarily fill you with a feeling of warmth, there’s a coldness to it. So that straw colored shade of gold was in our original ideas for that place and affected how we chose the location.

It’s a tricky thing to ask, though: What color is radiation? Most of us are lucky enough to never even have to consider this question. I grew up with several Japanese families in my neighborhood, they were mixed families, women who had married American servicemen during the war. One of them was this amazing woman who introduced me to collecting rocks and gems, which I still do to this day. Also, in a very macabre way, she was trying to help me with understanding her story: She showed me her wounds from Hiroshima. It happened when she was a little kid and it stayed with her through her entire life. She had horrible health problems, but she was a very formidable, strong and vibrant woman. As a child, she was outside when the bombs fell and so she was exposed. So this woman’s experience found its way into the costume designs and what happens to the women over time. Fukushima, which is a much more recent historical example of this, that was also an influence, so this research all went into the costume and production design for the segments taking place in the Colonies.

This place isn’t shown in Season One, but the color blue was seen in so many places, not just costumes: a color that is tinged with sadness. So what we did was just added some grey to that for the outer layers of the costumes in those scenes. Those costumes have a lot of under layers too, and you can almost imagine it like layers of skin peeling off, which is of course what happens. You have all good intentions for things to be a certain way, but as is often the case in Toronto, there are weather changes, so I had to redesign so many things between Seasons One and Two.

‘The color blue was seen in so many places, not just costumes: a color that is tinged with sadness.’

We ended up adding more layers to the costumes of the Handmaids when they’re outdoors, and also for the women in the Colonies. The underlayers of those costumes is a sort of onion skin look, made from sheer organza that was transparent, and these went underneath these 1920s-style slip dresses, and all of this would cling to the skin, if they were bathing, for example. In one or two scenes, you can see this fabric hanging out from beneath the outer layers, you see it on Emily and Janine. One cool thing was that Lizzy [Elisabeth Moss, who plays June/Offred] saw it, and while she doesn’t wear any of those costumes, she’s just so beautifully inspired and supportive, and she said it looks like a membrane around a newborn baby. So that definitely became kind of a very meaningful icon, even though it was such a tiny part of the total design. And that idea of the onion skin, the different layers of a person and what’s left of them as they’re being literally worn away.

PA: I noticed the Commander’s wife, who winds up in the Colonies, gets to keep her blue dress.

AC: We could spent a lot of time discussing what happens to the women of Gilead; the process they go through when they’ve done something wrong, like if they’re a “gender traitor” or an educator. So for example when we see Alexis [Emily/Ofglen, who plays a professor and a lesbian, aka a “gender traitor”] and her lover go on trial, we have to think about what would they wear when we see them. Same idea for Marisa Tomei’s character: Because she was a Commander’s wife, they allowed her to keep her clothes until the very end. In our script, she was the first of the Commanders wives to go there, and in a way having that color as a reminder of who she is allows the other Unwomen to be very angry with her and it causes a chasm. It’s the way to fuel the fire, visually.

PA: I have noticed in the new season that there is a great deal of imagery that is reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. Or maybe that’s just me. Did this inform your designs at all, the idea that the Handmaids are witchy figures? Also thinking of Emily who is a sort of witchy healer figure in her time at the Colonies. And the Marthas, whose outfits feel very Puritan and Colonial-era to me.

AC: Wow. It’s mind blowing to hear this. Listen, what’s really cuckoo about it is, I have never researched any of that. I am sitting here with my mouth agape, because while I am very curious about all of that, in fact, oddly enough my grandfather on my mom’s side from Okinawa was a healer, so that’s in my family. But also, Margaret Atwood talks about one of her relatives being a sort of witch, in that she went against the grain in different ways. I had read about that in relation to The Handmaid’s Tale. Also, one of my favorite films is that one with Daniel Day-Lewis, oh what’s the name of it?

PA: The Crucible! Such a great film adaptation.

AC: I found out that my neighbor played Goody Nurse in that movie, and I never knew she was an actress. This is just so interesting and inspiring. And I have to say, sometimes when you’re dealing with creativity, there are things that are just inherent, so who knows how or why people bring their own thing to a book or piece of music or a painting. One thing I did refer to was that Old Dutch cleanser label, this beautiful image of a girl with a pair of wings, it looks very Dutch. Margaret Atwood had said this image just horrified her as a child, and so she really wanted to use that as inspiration for what the Handmaids wore.

PA: In addition to the costumes having a sort of puritanical look — well, apart from the color red, but then that’s reminiscent of The Scarlet Letter, which takes place during those times as well — you have all the imagery of the gallows, the public stoning and then the way that women in the household are treated like servants. But also, like you see in The Crucible, there’s this sexual tension with the man of the house, so basically that was all just screaming at me during the first few episodes of the second season.

AC: Again, this is just blowing my mind! I mean, maybe that symbolism was in the minds of Bruce Miller or some of the directors. TV goes so fast in production, you design and research all of it as much as you can, then you just have to run with what you’ve got. I’m sometimes embarrassed when people ask me about specific things, and I realize it’s something that was unintentional or came out accidentally, but I guess that’s how people often respond to film and TV. It’s fascinating.

‘Sometimes when you’re dealing with creativity, there are things that are just inherent.’

PA: I love that! As a film and TV critic I sometimes ask directors about things like this, and sometimes am amazed to find that some piece of symbolism or some aesthetic that I think is completely intentional was not even something they had considered. It’s really mysterious and magical to me sometimes.

Okay, one last question. There’s a lot of bad stuff happening in America now. Do you think regimented clothing or dress codes for women or other groups may soon become a reality?

CA: I think those in power are trying to take things in that direction, and I don’t think they’re going to get very far. I don’t know why I’m saying that, because we have already seen so many changes; but in my mind, I am completely optimistic. We’ve been through so many things in my lifetime. I know someone from a country that experienced severe repression of women in the late 1970s, I’ll just leave it at that without identifying the country by name. She wrote to thank me for the design of the Handmaid costumes, and she thought that I took the idea for that design from her country as a metaphor for those times of regime change. But in terms of that kind of thing happening here, I think it would take years and years, and I don’t think we’ll get there. Because I think women will just become stronger and stronger and will fight against it.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/how-fresh-off-the-boat-upends-the-asian-bff-trope-23f21e9cc23/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 21:19:30 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=2688 Read more]]>

Jessica Huang’s friendship with a white neighbor centers the Asian-American experience in a way I’d never seen before on TV.

flickr/Alpha

The season 1 finale of Fresh Off the Boat solidified Jessica Huang as one of my favorite characters on the air today. At the start of the episode, Jessica holds a dish of macaroni and cheese with bacon bits and panics that she and her immigrant family have assimilated too much and too quickly to the United States. The rest of the episode centers on this dilemma and what it means for the Chinese culture she treasures so dearly. This sort of crisis was one I had never seen before on mainstream television, particularly from an Asian American character. Now wrapping up season four, Jessica still challenges the Asian narratives I’d seen before, particularly the Asian BFF trope.

Growing up, when I saw any Asian woman or girl on TV, even as an extra, my head would snap to attention. Even if I didn’t consciously think about representation at the time, the lack of Asian characters was obvious, and made me internalize our invisibility even more. As a Korean adopted into a white family, the characters I saw on TV were some of the most intimate looks I had at Asian American family life. Living in a mostly white neighborhood, my friendships mirrored those I saw on TV — friendships like Rory Gilmore and Lane Kim’s on Gilmore Girls or, later, Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang’s on Grey’s Anatomy; I, too, was the only Asian friend among a group of white peers. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized all these friendships were of a kind. They enforced the Asian BFF trope — and warped my perceptions of my own racial identity.

Similar to the trope of the “sassy black friend,” the Asian BFF is an often-tokenized attempt to include a person of color on screen. The Asian BFF rejects her Asian heritage, and the character’s identity revolves around attempts to emulate whiteness. Lane Kim was in a band, dated white men, and was even kicked out of her home by her tough Korean mother who tried to keep her steady on the Christian path towards a nice Korean husband. Similarly, Cristina Yang’s surgical career is in defiance of her own Korean mother’s traditional wishes. Yang is a confident, rounded character but her ethnicity is rarely mentioned — her character wasn’t even supposed to be Asian in the first place.

The Asian BFF rejects her Asian heritage, and the character’s identity revolves around attempts to emulate whiteness.

In attempts to perhaps avoid stereotypes, the Asian BFF trend creates new ones about the assimilated, rebellious Asian-American woman and her persistent efforts to gain access to white culture and spaces. There is nothing inherently wrong with these character’s quests for identities separate from the ones in which they grew up. It’s downright expected for coming-of-age stories. I saw much of my own artistic drive reflected in Lane Kim, and I saw the unwavering support my friends have for my ambitions reflected in Meredith Grey. But when encouragement to break away from one’s culture and join the “American” (read: white) culture is all we see, inadvertently or not, it pushes the narrative that Asian-ness is “less than” or undesirable. According to a recent study, even on shows with Asian-Americans and Pacific-Islanders (AAPIs) as regulars, these characters rarely get storylines that explore AAPI-related issues.

Fresh Off the Boat is different. Jessica Huang, played with sharp-edged heart by Constance Wu, is unapologetically both Chinese and an immigrant, packing noodles in her children’s lunches, dressing up as Chinese Santa, and taking the family to Taiwan for the summer. Jessica’s comfort and pride in her Asian identity alienates her from her white, cliquish neighbors (who today would definitely be part of the 53% of white women who voted for Trump). At one neighborhood gathering, Jessica passes around a plate of “stinky tofu” only to have the plate return to her fuller than it started. She starts to succumb to the pressures to fit in, pretending to be interested in what these women are interested in without reciprocity. Finally, she does find a best friend in next-door neighbor Honey, who is also alienated from the neighborhood clique due to her status as trophy wife. This friendship flips the Asian BFF trope on its head in more than one way.

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First, despite Honey’s fulfillment of Western leading lady beauty standards, it’s Jessica who is the confident leader in their friendship, while Honey is often passive and meek. In one episode, Jessica serenades Honey with a rendition of “I Will Always Love You,” and when a touched Honey tries to join in, Jessica pushes her away, reminding her that “this is not a duet.” Honey stumbles away passively as Jessica continues to bask, centerstage. Jessica is not only no white woman’s backup singer, she’s also a strict soloist.

Beyond this dynamic, Honey values the parts of Jessica that she loves most about herself, including her culture. In fact, it’s this that makes Jessica realize how much Honey’s friendship means to her. At one point, worried what being friends with the neighborhood outcast will do for their floundering restaurant business, Jessica’s husband tells her she can be friends with anyone else. “Swing a cat, hit a white woman,” he says. And yet this proves harder than it sounds as the women of the neighborhood whisper that Jessica’s brownies are sliced so evenly because of communism — she will always be the perpetual foreigner to them.

Meanwhile, Honey eats Jessica’s stinky tofu with gusto, a small but symbolic act. While I’ve seen strong interracial female friendships before, witnessing a white woman take an interest in and support Asian culture without it becoming a spectacle or exoticized felt special. Instead of the familiar assimilation narrative, I watched Honey willingly enter Jessica’s space and find room for herself in the life of a Chinese woman who loves who she is and where she’s from. Yes, I certainly identified with Jessica in this moment, but I also saw myself reflected in the neighborhood women and Honey. For so long I had shunned a part of myself because I thought it was less important. But thanks to new narratives like this one, the voices of the neighborhood women have faded into Honey’s, affirming that the tofu is delicious — that the entirety of me matters.

With this foundation in place, the question becomes: Where will their friendship go and how deeply will it tackle their differences? The season four premiere centered on Jessica and Honey as they took on Best Friends Week on Wheel of Fortune. Different expectations about how long Jessica and her family will stay at Honey’s home while Jessica negotiates their lease cause conflict that comes to a head in front of the wheel. Honey explains that she told Jessica to stay as long as she wanted only because of her southern politeness, while Jessica reveals that, where she’s from, you don’t have to thank family. The episode ends on an emphatically cheesy note as the women make up, yet Honey’s unblinking acceptance of Jessica’s reasoning never diminishes Jessica’s upbringing or invalidates her explanation.

This moment illustrates the show’s potential to explore the challenges of interracial female friendship while maintaining its mainstream appeal (which gives it the power to reach a broad, white audience). It can stay lighthearted while still challenging the assumption that Honey will be an unwavering white ally to Jessica. I’m glad to see Honey eat the tofu and accept Jessica’s cultural norms, but I also want to see what she does when she’s the accidental perpetuator of casual racism, or when a rich client implies they would rather work with Honey than Jessica. At a time when white female allyship with women of color is under scrutiny, the show has a chance to participate in the conversation through the unique dynamic it has created between these two women.

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The development of my racial identity is still something I grapple with as an adult. Everything I saw for so long in books, TV, and movies showed being Asian as something to rebel against or ignore, but if friendships like Jessica and Honey’s existed back then, maybe I would have seen that part of myself differently instead of falling in line with the single story. Maybe I would have bristled when my friends told me I was “pretty much white.” Maybe they would have known better than to say that in the first place.

The existence of the Jessica-Honey friendship still means something to me today. It means there’s space that can be cleared for us at center stage. It shows how our white friends can and should support the sometimes challenging efforts to stay true to ourselves. Simply, it’s refreshing to see the lives of nice white women take a backseat to our own lives — and that they might even be off screen somewhere, forgotten for an entire episode, as we live and grow and love ourselves all on our own.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/meet-the-filmmakers-highlighting-the-complexity-of-modern-marriage-for-women-in-india-3827a5a48bd6/ Tue, 03 Apr 2018 21:01:19 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=2524 Read more]]>

Meet The Filmmakers Highlighting The Complexity Of Modern Marriage For Women In India

In ‘A Suitable Girl,’ an all-women-of-color team shines a light on the invisible lives of women in India.

Still from ‘A Suitable Girl.’ Courtesy of Smriti Mundhra

It t took me a great deal to explain that this is not under pressure; this is what I have chosen,” Amrita emphasizes while trying on her wedding shoes. She’s a cosmopolitan woman based in Delhi, India who is speaking to the camera about having to reassure her friends that she is happy about getting married. She just introduced herself to the audience as someone who has “complete freedom.”

She does, however, declare that her parents started looking for a groom for her and insisted on her giving up her career, as soon as she completed her MBA.

The contradiction comes to full focus on Amrita’s wedding day, when her expression darkens amidst the bright colors, music, and noise of the festivities, spilling into silent tears.

The moment is just one of many that reveal the complexity of marriage in A Suitable Girl, a documentary that debuted at the Tribeca film festival and was just brought to the masses on Amazon Prime.

The film, made by a creative team entirely comprised of women of color, follows the fate of three women as they search for a groom and ready themselves to leave their parent’s homes to get married, across two metropolitan cities in India.

“Having women shoot the film, especially in certain situations, was really critical because we were dealing with a very sensitive, very vulnerable time in these women’s lives,” says Smriti Mundhra, who co-directed the film with Sarita Khurana.

Both directors are South Asian, but were raised in the United States, which meant they could instantly build a rapport with their subjects. As such, the protagonists did not have to worry about being judged, or having to be presentational. At the same time, the directors were able to observe from a slightly outsider perspective, not having lived in India themselves.

What emerges is an intimate, nuanced look at the invisible lives of women.

Explains Mundhra:

“There are so few opportunities, for women of color especially, to fully explore the breadth of our experience without interjection from either patriarchal culture, even as that manifests in the film industry, or Western culture, so it was really important to us to tell this story and do this work on our terms.”

Being able to tell the story through the lens of women directors has immense consequences on the storyline. Oscar-winning The Big Sick and Meet the Patels are two recent documentaries showcasing arranged marriages in South Asian communities; both, and others like it, have been criticized for presenting women of color as caricatures. In multiple films on the topic, women of color are an afterthought to be pitied — far from being the protagonists.

A Suitable Girl eschews this narrative, choosing to explore the modern arranged marriage process for educated, working women, without going in with preconceived ideas or trying to manufacture a story to suit Western misconceptions.

Instead, the filmmakers embedded themselves in the lives of Amrita (described above), who gives up her career and cosmopolitan Delhi lifestyle to live with her husband’s family in a small town 400 miles away; Dipti, a Mumbai schoolteacher in her early thirties who is struggling to find a husband; and Ritu, an economist who works for Ernst & Young in Mumbai and has no interest in getting married, but is visibly pressured by her mother Seema, who happens to be a matchmaker.

The result? Over 700 hours of footage, shot over the period of four years.

What sets the film apart from most other documentaries: It has a particular emotional, if subtle, form of storytelling.

The process continued for another three years of editing:

“Our editor would find moments that might not have been evident for a man, such as a look, a feeling — something — that showed what was going on within. We left a lot of big, sensational stuff on the cutting room floor, because this film is about the inner lives of women, so we used those moments to tell the story.”

This makes sense when portraying a culture where women are expected to be “softly spoken” and accommodating — their individual needs and wants often silenced. It’s also what sets the film apart from most other documentaries; it has a particular emotional, if subtle, form of storytelling.

The audience is devastated to see Dipti lying on her parent’s sofa in silence, deflated by the match-making process, frustrated when Amrita looks up at her Western clothes packed away on a shelf out of reach in her new closet full of saris ––because that’s how her father-in-law prefers it––and pained along with Ritu when she is standing in the kitchen learning to cook from her domestic helper instead of joining her family who are enjoying practicing a dance to perform at her wedding. It is perhaps she, the economist, who has the most clear-sighted and astute understanding of marriage — it is, underneath the music, romance, and festivities, a social arrangement that will require her to play a certain role within its structure.

The documentary provides a fascinating portrait of modern India, where old and new clash. Dipti, the most shy of the trio, turns to internet matchmaking sites, while Ritu’s mother Seema consults a face-reader to determine the eligibility of matches for her daughter, by showing him photos of prospective grooms on her smartphone. Professional photo shoots go hand in hand with special religious ceremonies and blessings to aid in the search for a partner. The women we expect to choose their life partners themselves are matched by their parents, and those we don’t fall in love through their own choosing.

Unlike many other films in the genre, A Suitable Girl does a stellar job in presenting nuance on a topic that has long been misunderstood and misrepresented in the West.

The documentary provides a fascinating portrait of modern India, where old and new clash.

However, despite the surface of modernity, old, patriarchal structures remain strong, and these are reminiscent of similar structures in the West. For example, the way Dipti is judged by other men to be “too heavy” reminds us of how women’s bodies are objectified and judged everywhere. Countless other echoes between India and the West follow — the commodification of women, their invisible work and emotional labor in society, the curbing of their freedom and economic potential — which makes the documentary a thought-provoking watch for people of all cultures.

As Mundhra explains:

“I think that this type of coming-of-age experience — this idea of trying to find space for your own voice, and your own life and identity in a society that has decided that for you — is something that a lot of women can relate to.”

That is what makes the documentary so effective. As we follow these women, we get to know them as people and become invested in their stories.

Each woman is an individual and each of their experiences is different, despite the film’s common theme of portraying the marriage process in India. Perhaps the most heartbreaking story is Amrita’s, who feels like she has lost her identity since getting married.

As the documentary ends, we see the reality of her new life––a world’s away from the party-loving, self-described shopaholic Amrita we first met.

She talks about never wanting to lose her identity after getting married. But now, more than 80% of people she regularly encounters only refer to her in relation to her husband, likely never knowing her name, she tells the camera. “I do have a name,” she says. “You can call me Amrita.”

By bringing the invisible to light, A Suitable Girl ensures we never forget.

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]]> https://theestablishment.co/why-i-dont-trust-the-roseanne-reboot-9f8009eb704f/ Tue, 20 Mar 2018 21:04:33 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=2640 Read more]]> By David Minerva Clover

When I was a kid, Roseanne was a person who challenged the order of things. Now, it feels like she’s upholding it.

In 1988, a TV show premiered that portrayed the white American working class with a honesty and humanity that had been absent from television before, and hasn’t been replicated since. I’m talking, of course, about Roseanne. This March, ABC is rebooting the show, bringing the Conner family back to prime time (and Dan back from the dead, for some reason). Revisiting old TV shows to cash in on nostalgia is often a bit disappointing, but though I haven’t seen it yet, I fear this particular reboot is destined to be especially awful. The reasons have to do with the show’s creator and lead, Roseanne Barr, and her abominable politics.

Sitcoms follow a fairly specific format, and tend to portray mostly middle class and upper middle class families. This was true before Roseanne, and while shows like Malcolm in The Middle and Everybody Hates Chris have also offered us portraits of the working class, it is still mostly true today. When we do see poor and working class people on our screens, the portrayals are rarely realistic. Either they are sloppy caricatures, actors portraying what the comfortable believe about the poor rather than the poor themselves, or they are idealized to the point of either not seeming human or not seeming poor. These characters will often tell you they are struggling financially, but are never shown to be actually struggling. Think of Lorelai Gilmore on The Gilmore Girls. She’s a struggling single mother, but her struggle all occurs off screen before the show actually begins, and despite her rejection of her parents’ wealth, she can still afford constant takeout and new clothes.

Roseanne was different. I had watched some of it in my childhood, but only remembered it vaguely (along with my dad’s rants about how annoying Roseanne was as a person). When I rewatched the show a few years ago, I was struck by how familiar it all seemed. As a working class white woman myself, the Conners’ home looked like the kinds of homes I spent my childhood in. The furniture was old and followed no principles of interior design. The house was cluttered, and not artfully so. I gasped when I realized that there were piles of stuff on the staircase, leaving only a small space for walking. Seeing the world they inhabited made me feel seen in an unexpected way, and it gave me a newfound appreciation and affection for my own childhood home.

Moreover, the Conners themselves were shown as real human beings, who were really frustrated and overtired. Roseanne worked a factory job until she became a waitress, and Dan worked in construction (and was often looking for work). They yelled at their kids. They drank beer. They sat at the kitchen table to figure out which bills they could afford to pay this month, and which they could put off until another check came through. The constant running of numbers to keep the lights on and food on the table is such an integral part of not having enough, to see it portrayed honestly on screen made me gasp.

But the realism of the characters extended beyond simply “passing as real poor people,” because they were also multifaceted and not defined solely by their economic status. Roseanne and her husband Dan are both fat, but their personalities aren’t reduced to fat jokes or a constant struggle for weight loss, and they are shown to actively desire each other (gasp). The show even featured gay characters at a time when most shows didn’t (those portrayals were far from perfect, but at least the characters themselves were more than stereotypes).

And while the white working class is often viewed as conservative, Roseanne is shown having a more nuanced understanding of politics. In one episode, a politician going door-to-door comes to the Conner house, and she takes him to task for giving out-of-state businesses tax breaks, busting unions, and asking workers to work for “scab wages.”

I grew up in a fairly conservative, white, working class home. I’m intimately familiar with how people screwed over by the system can be totally invested in said system, and how Fox News can take over a living room. Most of the working class conservative men I was around voted Republican, and they tended to cling to patriarchal systems because they convinced themselves it was the last bit of power they had. These men were extremely uncomfortable with Roseanne Barr, her show, and everything that she stood for — her outspokenness, her opinions, her unabashed confidence. Their squeamishness around her was rooted in sexism for sure (she was so “shrill!”) and it gave me a pretty good idea of how I would be treated if I grew into a woman who challenged them. I found the whole thing intriguing and scary in equal measures.

Since Roseanne went off air in 1997, Roseanne the person has changed quite a bit, and her public persona has stayed controversial, though not always in a way that challenges the powers that be. In 2012, while she was a presidential candidate for The Green Party, she posted a series of transphobic tweets. Since then she has only dug her heels in when it comes to transgender people and issues, and she has also vocally swung to the right politically. It’s not unheard of for anti-trans “feminists” to support conservative politics when those politics align with their own transphobia, and I’m not convinced Barr’s stance on transgender issues and her political 180 aren’t related. In fact, she’s been known to share alt-right conspiracy theories and in January announced that her character, Roseanne Conner, would be a Trump supporter.

“It’s just realistic” Barr has said, implying that since many working class white people voted for Trump, those of us who didn’t are, I guess, unrealistic.

If You’ve Never Lived In Poverty, Stop Telling Poor People What To Do

This, I think, illustrates what is bound to be so very different about this reboot than the original show. When I was a kid, Roseanne was a person and a show that made the conservative men in my life extremely uncomfortable, because she challenged their supremacy and the patriarchal order of the world. By now publicly endorsing both transphobia and Trump, she’s instead protecting that order. The belief that it was the working class that elected Trump, when in fact white middle class and rich people are just as responsible (if not more so), plays right into the caricature we so often see of poor people. Poor people, we are told, are stupid and unable to look out for our own interests. We focus on excusing the bigotry of poor folks due to their “economic anxiety” and lack of education, so we won’t have to look at the bigotry of the people who are actually in power.

But Roseanne Barr is not a working class person struggling to get by, she’s an extremely well off celebrity, and one who has made the choice to support another extremely well off celebrity. That she sees this as being reflective of the working class shows, in some ways, how completely out of touch she has become. Rather than a nuanced look at poor folks who are intelligent enough to call it like they see it, question politicians, and push back against unfair systems, the reboot offers us something else: a Roseanne who falls in line.

I hope I’m wrong. Supposedly the Conner family will not be a monolith of political belief, and apparently Darlene and David’s daughter is to be “gender creative” (I sure hope she isn’t a punchline). Perhaps a strong cast will be able to carry the show and offer some much needed nuance.

But with the history of ham-fisted reboots, and the show’s star and creator choosing to side with bigotry, I won’t be holding my breath.

I often imagine myself in the company of the poet Walt Whitman. Sometimes I’m seated beside him on one of those New York City tour buses he was so fond of riding; sometimes we’re standing at the rail on the Brooklyn Ferry looking back at our wake; sometimes we’re on the Montauk shore, our legs stretched out toward the horizon, the waves leaving shards of shell and bone at our feet.

I ask him, “So, how’s America doing?” And I imagine his long sigh.

In 1871, Whitman wrote his essay “Democratic Vistas,” which articulated his hope for his fledgling nation and expressed his fears and concerns in regard to its post-war, materialistic present — and its future.

Best known for his sweeping democratic poem “Song of Myself” and now known as the “father of American poetry,” in his youth Whitman was enraptured by the physical realities of America — its diverse human bodies and backgrounds, its prairies, its seas, its chaotic urban centers and the frenzy of individuals who populated it.

Whitman was enraptured by America — its diverse human bodies and backgrounds, its prairies, its seas, its chaotic urban centers and the frenzy of individuals who populated it.
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Like other abolitionists at the time — such as Abraham Lincoln and John Brown — Walt Whitman’s words sometimes reflected the “science” and dominant worldview among the white population of his day, which assessed Black people to be inferior to whites. While Whitman also openly questioned these commonly held beliefs and advocated for slaves’ freedom, there is a strain of thinking in some circles of academia and popular culture that perceives Whitman to be a controversial figure in terms of racism.

While acknowledging the abhorrence of such racist views, I also believe that dismissing the entirety of Whitman’s work on these reductive attitudes would be a waste—and reading his work immediately reveals why. In fact, during his lifetime Whitman avoided publishing work that addressed race because, according to George Hutchinson and David Drews, it was “as if Whitman did not trust himself on racial issues and therefore largely avoided them […] he wanted to revitalize American culture and finally to be remembered as democracy’s bard.”

In America’s stunning diversity, Whitman saw an intricately beautiful mirror of the universe’s complicated grandeur. Yet, in this variety he also feared an insurmountable division. Whitman looked at the expanse of the country — its wide-ranging regions, economies, subcultures, and individuals — and foresaw the challenges we would face in becoming truly united. He worried that we would fail to join under a common “idea” of who we are, and he was haunted by the prospect that we would lack a “common skeleton.”

Emily Dickinson’s Legacy Is Incomplete Without Discussing Trauma

It is quite obvious given our last, intensely divisive and vitriolic election — and its continuing crushing fallout — that we as a people are not united by one Idea of what America is or should be. And at this point, we might be wondering how fusing 330 million polarized people could ever be possible. But in addition to expressing his concerns for our unity, Whitman also proposed a solution.

In his essay, Whitman argued that what would unite the diverse people of the United States would not be “Constitutions, legislative and judicial ties, and all its hitherto political, warlike, or materialistic experiences,” but a greater “moral identity.” And he theorized that this would be possible only through what he called our “national expressers”: “a cluster of mighty poets, artists, teachers, fit for us.”

People capable, as Transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson explained, of seeing a whole from all of the parts. Visionaries. Those who British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called “the great legislators of the world.” These people, Whitman believed, would understand and effuse “for the men and women of the United States, what is universal, native, common to all.” At a time when there seems to be the perception that everyone is pushing their own agendas and needs or wants wildly divergent things, how can we know what’s common to us all?

If we take Whitman’s cue, we might consider reading and listening to the voices of our great expressers. Voices like Walt Whitman himself and Martin Luther King Jr. Voices like Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, and Emily Dickinson. Voices like John Steinbeck, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Audre Lorde.

Whitman was haunted by the prospect that we would lack a ‘common skeleton.’
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But I can tell you that from my experiences as a writer and teacher of literature and the humanities, fewer and fewer of us have any experience with America’s “national expressers.” Perhaps the resistance and suspicion we feel toward each other, toward journalists, artists, teachers — toward very truth in general — perhaps the doubts we express in each other’s intentions is a result of us not communally sharing in the celebration of our humanities, our poetry and art, in the first place.

There is a growing trend in this country, a resistance and even hostility, toward intellectualism, reason, and the very same people who would be our national expressers — teachers, poets, writers, artists, even lecturers — as less and less of the population reads these expressers’ expressions, the words of our great teachers.

This is in part due to massive funding cuts to our humanities departments and courses. On top of that, it’s not uncommon for college students’ parents today to demand that their children not “waste their time” (and money) in such classes. And more people who actually do attend college focus solely on an area that will increase their chances of attaining a job that will pay higher wages.

If we suppose Whitman is right — if the common appreciation and understanding of our humanities is necessary for a unified country — then the less familiar people are with these voices, the more divisiveness ensues. In short, we’re experiencing exactly what Whitman feared.

Today, as I continue to process what the election of Donald Trump by one quarter of eligible American voters means for our future, as I reflect on my years of teaching college at state universities, private colleges, and community colleges, I think about my students — fresh out of high school, still in high school, retired, midlife, black, white, Muslim, statist, trans, autistic, rich, poor, formerly incarcerated, recovering alcoholics, Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, a new mother.

I think about the diversity of people I’ve had the pleasure of introducing to literature and poetry — to Whitman — and in turn, when they compose their own poems and essays, introducing them to their own voices, and when they peer review and give presentations, to each other’s.

In these classroom communities, all of us work together despite our differences. We learn from each other, laugh together, and better ourselves through each other and the voices we read. We discover new worlds that comprise our one world. It’s not that we have to agree with everything we read or hear; it’s simply that we acknowledge that such exchanges and bodies of work exist—and respect that. That we become aware of parts different from us that make up our whole. The college classroom — and especially one studying the humanities — is a place where differences become our wealth, and potentially, ideally, strengthen our moral compasses.

The Artist Behind The Establishment’s Official Love T-Shirt Believes In The Power Of Every Body

College, of course, is not the only way to read America’s great voices. But in an age of decreased interest in reading and mental solitude, increased time on social media, and fewer opportunities to participate in discussions with diverse individuals, it remains one of the surest bets—not to mention its material rewards. A college education translates not just to more money (on average $32,000 more per year), but the probability of being employed is 24% higher; those with a college education are also twice as likely to volunteer their time or work for a non-profit.

And in our ever-diversifying world, a college education also permits opportunities to commune with people unlike oneself that otherwise might not present themselves on a daily basis.

Yet, in America today college enrollment is decreasing. According to CNN, there are over 800,000 fewer college students in 2016 than there were in 2010. And as of 2014, just under 42% of American citizens held a college degree. As the system continues to fail millions of American citizens, we highlight the systematic devaluation of education, which threatens our collective morality.

This is largely, of course, due to the alarming spike in tuition rates. But it’s also rooted in a lack of fair compensation for teachers. We may be used to hearing the lament about salaries in regards to high school teachers being underpaid, but it is also true of college instructors. According to the AAUP, 70% of college professors are adjuncts, part-time, or temporary. These teachers are almost always underpaid, under or totally uninsured, and overworked as they cobble together low-paying classes from various colleges to survive financially.

Whereas the norm used to be to teach two or three classes per semester, it is becoming more common for professors to teach six or seven. There is also a growing perception in America today that college — viewed as an investment with the expected return of a high-paying job — is a waste of time and money. Not unlike Whitman’s time, there is a preference for money and material wealth over empathy and learning for learning’s sake. In turn, we are separating ourselves and our children from the voices of our shared human past that actually unite us. We are silencing our own voices.

We are separating ourselves and our children from the voices of our shared human past that actually unite us.
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A voice inside asks me how it’s possible that Mr. Trump — a sexist, racist, xenophobic, authoritarian, woefully inexperienced public leader — was chosen to represent all of us. But that voice is quickly answered: Trump doesn’t. Hillary doesn’t. These are not our national expressers — people want actual, real change. I live in Michigan, where Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary and where 48% of voters filled in a circle next to Trump/Pence, enough to for the state’s electoral votes to go Republican.

The majority of us — blue and red — are unhappy. But why is the change we hope for so disparate when we live in the same country? How could the least moral candidate on the ballot be chosen to represent us morally?

Today, in an America more diverse than ever, whether you live in De Moines or Los Angeles, never hearing the work of our “great expressers” not only depletes the richness of your life, but cuts you off from the American story — the stories of all of us; it depletes our nation’s integrity as a whole.

If Whitman were here (and he is — check your boot soles), I imagine he wouldn’t lose faith in the great American experiment. He’d certainly tell us to read his book Leaves of Grass, which in my courses next term we shall.

And I imagine he would also advise us to turn to our great expressers whether in a classroom or on our own; we must invest time and energy to ensure that we all have the opportunity for these pursuits. A college education is currently prohibitively expensive — it’s been said that a mere 17% of Americans believe they can cover the expense of college for themselves or a family member — but it doesn’t have to this way. Making college education more accessible must remain at the top of our collective societal list moving forward.

Making college education more accessible must remain at the top of our collective societal list moving forward.
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An American education wasn’t explicitly designed — by Thomas Jefferson or anyone else — to prepare us for the workforce. It was intended to prepare us to act as a responsible U.S. citizen, capable of voting in the best interest of our country and its people. Last election, millions of American people did not do this.

If Whitman were here, he might propose that it isn’t democracy that’s failed, and perhaps not even our educational institutions; one doesn’t need, of course, to be in school to read books. But we have to find a way to unify us in a deeper more fundamental way, through a shared learning of the important works of our past—and our present.

For it is only in unity that Americans can come to understand what Whitman called our common skeleton, and take instruction from our great expressers on how to build it—justly and with equality for all. Because until that happens, we’ll continue to exist as a nation of broken bones.

Every day this fall, as push alert after push alert described another powerful man’s history of sexual abuse, I turned to the women.

To the stories of victims, yes, but also to the stories and work of women whose voices, over the years, had managed to transcend the forces determined to ensure their silence. Reading Maggie Nelson’s lyrical meditations on motherhood or Michelle Alexander’s unparalleled text on mass incarceration allowed me to live in a world where women could be the final voices dictating our culture’s conscience.

I was able to carve out a small world—a refuge, rather — away from the news’ daily re-traumatization. It gave me the strength to read these harrowing stories of abuse and focus on the power of bringing these experiences out of darkness, rather than succumbing to despair.

Among the women I chose was Anne Sexton, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and guiding light for the mentally ill. Her poetry pulses with confession and feminine rage, a welcome change from the disingenuous apologies and intellectualized discussions of pain that were permeating public discourse around sexual assault.

She won the Pulitzer in 1967 for her book Live or Die, which was released in 1966. At the time, she was only the tenth female poetry winner in the Prize’s 50-year history. Her poetry illuminated the powerful complexes within relationships and psyches during a time when Western culture was beginning to acknowledge the darkest parts of its own structure. Between the Civil Rights movements and the Cold War, with the horrors of the Holocaust still reverberating through contemporary life, the West was confronting myriad monsters of its own making.

Sexton’s poetry was marked by this same energy, but turned that gaze inward.

As a result, she also had the rare luxury of receiving cultural praise and support as she produced her work; Sexton’s power was not lost on her contemporaries. She was a true poetry star. Her poems themselves spoke of marriage, suicide, love, Sylvia Plath, and, perhaps most potently, about her daughter Linda Gray Sexton.

By speaking to Linda directly, her roles as parent and artist intertwine and we can read the powerful bond between mother and daughter. The mother as protector and shepherd; the daughter as an individual and psychic extension.

In one example, the poem “Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman,” Sexton writes:

“What I want to say, Linda,
is that women are born twice.
If I could have watched you grow as a magical mother might, if I could have seen through my magical transparent belly, there would have been such ripening within…”

Her poems to Linda depicted a mother cherishing her daughter and seeing her as a woman in a world that has a tendency to abuse them.

In another poem—”Pain for a Daughter”—she writes of an unspecified daughter. It is perhaps Linda or her other daughter, Joyce, or even just the idea of a child — and that daughter’s existential burden.

“Oh my God, help me! Where a child would have cried Mama!
Where a child would have believed Mama!
She bit the towel and called on God
and I saw her life stretch out…
I saw her torn in childbirth,
and I saw her, at that moment, in her own death and I knew that she
knew.”

Sexton is able to trace her daughter’s transition into the chaos of life as well as articulate her premonitions of what was to become a lifelong grief. The personal and intimate demonstrations of love in her work touched and invigorated me. Even when Sexton wrote about isolation and terror, her words served as a potent and tangible reminder that a depth of spirit and a courting of resilience could counter that fear.

But as I read more poems, I sought out Sexton’s story, and discovered she sexually abused Linda. The tender, passionate, and illuminating words I had carried so tightly in my heart was radiating from someone who committed one of the darkest acts of humankind. I reeled from the new information. My affection towards her poetry began rotting under my skin.
The story of abuse first became public in the early ‘90s. Sexton had spent a significant amount of time in intensive therapy and all her sessions were recorded. Dr. Michael Orne—the psychiatrist who made the tapes—eventually released them to Diane Wood Middlebrook, who included the information on the abuse in her 1991 National Book Award-nominated biography of Sexton.

The inclusion of the tapes elicited concern and outcry from the psychiatric community at the time. In a New York Times article leading up to the book’s release, a Columbia professor and expert on medical ethics described Dr. Orne’s actions as a “betrayal of his patient and his profession.”

In the Los Angeles Times, Dr. William Webb, an ethics consultant for the American Psychiatric Association at the time, said, “Unless you have the explicit approval of the patient, then you are essentially operating on supposition, and supposition puts at risk all future patients of psychiatry.”

Publicizing the contents of Sexton’s therapy sessions was both unethical and illuminating. It contextualized her poems on depression, mania, and suicide and told stories of extramarital affairs. It also, crucially, revealed the abuse she committed against her daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, the very same Linda to whom she wrote that women are born twice.

It was also abuse that Sexton, at the time, didn’t believe was abuse. In Middlebrook’s biography, Linda explains a time when she attempted to establish boundaries between herself and her mother. Middlebrook wrote that Sexton “resisted the changes,” and “reported to Linda that her psychiatrist said there could never be too much love between parent and child.”

Linda lived as an avatar to Sexton’s desires.

The tender words I had carried so tightly in my heart was radiating from someone who committed one of the darkest acts of humankind.
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And yet, Linda is one of the people who believed it was appropriate to release the therapy tapes. At the time, she had already become her mother’s literary executor. She consented to revealing the truth of her mother’s past — including stories of abuse directed at her — to the world. She took to the New York Times Book Review to add context to why she chose to allow the tapes to become public. She spoke about the events not to shed light on her history of pain but, instead, because “these aspects would be critical to understanding her poetry, so clearly inspired by the events of her life.”

“Anne Sexton never spared her family — not in her art, not in her life,” Linda went on to say.

It’s her art — the confessional, depressive, feminine poetry — that also allowed American culture to keep Anne Sexton in the pantheon of poetic greatness despite the realities that unfolded during her life.

With every topple of an artistic great, with every revelation that a creative genius has used their power to abuse another, we lose something. But it is not just the joy of enjoying their art—which is where many people focus their grief—but the loss of the victim’s potential to create. And because the statistics of rape and sexual assault demonstrate how the danger predominantly affects women and trans and nonbinary people, the victims’ whose potential we lose are the very groups who remain profoundly underrepresented in art.

How many people have lost the opportunity to change the world—to shape it with their creativity—because an abuser had traumatized them and forced their dreams to give way to suffocation?

And how many people rationalized their own suffering because an abuser’s art served as justification to give up their own body, story, soul?

Linda speaks of her own abuse as cursory information to the real story, the genius of her mother’s words. She gives her own self away for the sake of a poet who writes at the altar of personal confession. The story of her life remains caged by the trauma she experienced.

In the aforementioned Times Book Review essay, Linda said:

“To speak publicly of my mother’s sexual abuse of me was agonizing. Yet as I read through the nearly completed manuscript, I began to recognize that — as with everything in my mother’s life — her daily life was inextricably bound to her work…The only way to transcend the hurt is to tell it all, and to tell it honestly.”

And yet, when she writes her own memoir in 1994, the story is of how she survived, thrived, hurt, and loved as Anne Sexton’s daughter. As much as Linda works and writes to rid herself of the pain, she is not free of its existential weight on her narrative. Sexton’s poetry may offer its readers freedom from isolation—and it may have offered Sexton herself freedom from some of her darkest impulses—but her work and her life controlled Linda’s long after she died.

Facing the realities of Sexton’s actions, I felt my heart selfishly and hypocritically grip even tighter onto the poetry I had read. It is far easier to reject the art of a man who so clearly takes up more space than needed. Rejecting one of a few women who managed to dominate a world intent on shutting women out felt like an act of self-inflicted pain.

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How many people have lost the opportunity to change the world because an abuser had traumatized them?
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When there is little room for the art of women or people of color, the exceptional artist who manages to climb to the top takes on an air of untouchability. We don’t want to examine our heroes.

Toppling a woman, however abusive she is, feels final. Like a death. Believing Sexton to be a voice I couldn’t sacrifice, though, and therefore ignoring her real-life actions, is a more vicious act than forsaking her. It reflects the scarcity mentality of a culture that props up abusers, and, more broadly, a culture that props up oppression.

Rather than looking to the countless other poets who have written work that could speak to me, I found myself wanting to justify her specific words in my life, as if they held some special power no one else could provide. I was operating in the zero-sum game oppression fools us into believing is the only way to live.

One of art’s greatest powers stems from making the invisible visible; the intangible tangible. But when an artist renders another person invisible, and their feelings intangible, the virtue of the art ceases to exist.

To pride an artist’s art over their human interactions is the pinnacle of self-absorption — it privileges that in which we see ourselves, rather than the empathy to see another human being. Before letting go of Sexton’s work, I was claiming my feelings of reflection and connection took primacy over the suffering of another human being. But the accolades for and popularity of Sexton’s poetry means she wasn’t alone in her feelings, and in turn, neither are we; as such, we do not need to identify with an abuser in order to legitimize our psychic realities.

Looking to an abuser’s art denies any other work the opportunity to move us, affect us, and change our lives. It is communing around something with hatred at the center of its core — hatred for others, hatred for ourselves — and keeps culture trapped in a horror of its own making.

Sexton’s story is ultimately one of destruction; she died by suicide at age 45.

Her abuse towards others was inextricably linked in her own irreconcilable pain, and it’s possible her art really was enough of an emotional outlet to prevent an earlier suicide or further abuse towards others. But to elevate it outside the realm of humanity and separate it from the hands that created it implies that the art itself is worth both Sexton’s mortal anguish and the anguish she embedded into the life of her daughter.

It implies that art in general is worth the pain, suffering, and abuse that may exist in its orbit. In reality, the exchange is the opposite; life is what makes art worthwhile, not the other way around. Art exists for humanity to propel itself into power. Keeping abusers in power pushes humanity further into the shadows.

By Cade Leebron

This past August, my brand-new husband and I drove in a rental car to Bar Harbor, Maine. We picked a cute restaurant without a wait for a table and sat down and were looking at each other in that glowy post-wedding way when a waitress came over and asked us for our drink orders. We ordered beer. She asked for our IDs, then raised her eyebrows at us and said, “Wow.”

Because, I assume, the birth date on my ID is in 1992 and his is in 1982. Suddenly, the wedding rings around our fingers felt cheap instead of practical, like maybe if they weren’t plain silver bands that we’d bought at a used jewelry store she wouldn’t have commented. Suddenly I wanted to never order a beer or get carded again. I wanted to get up and leave, except we’d just put in our drink orders so we were stuck. Luckily, we had each other. And luckily, we agree on some fundamental things. Like: the fact that we’re equal partners, that our age difference isn’t the most interesting thing about our relationship—and also that we both really hated this waitress.

Watching this season of The Bachelor, I wondered if this was how many of the contestants felt, too. In a twist casting stunt, the show selected a 36-year-old man, Arie Luyendyk, Jr., a race car driver and realtor, to the be the lead, while stocking the contestant roster with mostly twenty-something women. Of the remaining four contestants who visited hometowns in this week’s episode, all are about a decade younger than Arie: at the time of filming, Becca was 27, Kendall and Tia were 26, and Lauren B. was 25.

In response to these age gaps, the nation has — like the waitress I encountered with my partner that day in Maine — let out a collective judgmental “wow.” “The Major Gap On ‘The Bachelor’ Is Glaringly Obvious This Year,” reads one Refinery29 headline. “‘The Bachelor’ Arie Luyendyck Is A Decade Older Than The Average Female Contestant,” states a Newsweek article, ominously. In response to the controversy, Arie himself has even weighed in, displaying a rare penchant for humor:

Undoubtedly, though, the most vehement backlash has been reserved for Bekah. Before (SPOILER ALERT) getting kicked off on last week’s episode, the 22-year-old had to contend with very loud public outcry over her age. To take just one representative example, a New York Post article crowed, “Bachelor Arie Wary To Rob The Cradle With 22-Year-Old Nanny.” Naturally, social media, too, was rife with ridicule:

Deleted scene of Arie and Bekah M. on a one on one #TheBachelor

???@CynthiaPAgustin

Bekah: "I'm 22" Arie: #TheBachelor https://t.co/G8D6jHetFP

???@sammypryce

RosesAndRose: Does Krystal keep going one step too far? Is Bekah too young for Arie?! https://t.co/gIeI7lJLhj

???@etnow

Bachelor leaderboard: 1. Lauren 2. Becca k. 3. Tia 4. Kendall 5. The camera man 6. Chris Harrison 325. Bekah M, but after she becomes the legal age to date arie

???@LaurenOatman19

I want Bekah M to get to hometowns and then Arie sees her dad and they realize they went to high school together. #TheBachelor

???@eandgpodcast

This national backlash was also echoed by the cast of The Bachelor. Arie himself seemed stunned when he found out how old Bekah was, uselessly repeating “She’s just so young” until it felt almost fetishistic. The women waiting in the house as Bekah told Arie her age while on a date seemed to unanimously feel that as soon as Arie discovered how old she was, he would certainly send her home. Some of them seemed to think that this would be the only appropriate choice he could make. And when Bekah was finally booted from the show, it seemed at least in part to be caused by a fellow contestant, Tia, telling Arie privately that she worried about Bekah’s maturity.

There are valid reasons to question, at least, the decision on the part of Bachelor execs and producers to cast young women exclusively (especially considering Bachelorettes are always provided an array of older men).

But when people critique relationships with age differences, I suspect they aren’t actually concerned about the effects of the patriarchy. I suspect, instead, that they’re concerned with young women expressing agency in a world that demands they have none.

It’d be one thing if age-difference vitriol was directed at The Bachelor franchise. Instead, it has been largely directed toward the young women on the show — and in particular, Bekah.

Headlines like HuffPo’s “Is 22 Too Young to Marry a 36-Year-Old?” place any “blame” for the relationship squarely on Bekah’s shoulders. By showing up and being 22, she’s apparently done something that is up for public debate, despite the fact that contestants don’t know who the Bachelor will be when they sign on. (And of course, despite the fact that the Bachelor himself is in charge of doling out roses and marriage proposals, making him the final arbiter of TV love.)

Meanwhile, Life & Style described Arie and Bekah’s first meeting by saying “Our 36-year-old suitor was clearly a little too mesmerized to see any red flags.” The overarching message here is that 22-year-old women are just way too sexy for 36-year-old men to resist. Neither party has much agency in this version of the story, as though if ever these two types of people were to collide, it would set off a chemical reaction that not even Arie’s total lack of charm could stop. On a more serious note, there’s also not much room for consent—or even basic conversation—in this narrative. The young woman simply attracts the man by virtue of her youth and physicality, while the man is “mesmerized.” It’s hard to imagine, if this is how we see these young women, that a relationship could ever evolve from this power dynamic. But why is this how we see young women?

Bekah M: I'm 22 Arie: I don't think you're ready. Bekah M: (wraps hands around neck) Arie: Ok. Here's your rose. #TheBachelor

???@jtrain56

True feminism demands that, rather than relegating young women to sexy red flags, we trust and believe them. That means allowing them to choose their partners regardless of race, gender, ability, sexuality, and, yes, age. Mandating equations for how big an age difference can exist for couples (I’ve heard “half your age + 7 years” quoted as a way to find the minimum age for one’s romantic and sexual partners) serves to create a separate category of agency for women who date older men. And that category means not viewing these women as full adults. It means not trusting the choices of young women. It means telling them: Sure, date whomever, love whomever—but also that there are secret standards society can and will judge you by, that anybody has the right to step in, to comment, to sabotage.

If that sounds reasonable, contemplate how it feels when we hear that men who’ve committed sexual crimes are young men, are boys, that boys will be boys and thus should be judged differently. But just as young men, in reality, have full agency, so, too, do young women. Of course, young men who date older women also face stigma, with older women often called “cougars” while the men are lauded for their sexual prowess. This is problematic and unacceptable as well, as it reduces both parties to their age and sexuality.

Misogyny, however, adds an extra dimension to the older man/younger woman dynamic, allowing the women to be painted as temptresses, children, and all the other reductive categories they’ve been restricted to for decades (bimbos, arm candy, trophy wives, midlife crises, etc).

It’s easy to pretend critiques of these relationships revolve around men’s problematic “taste” for younger women. Presumably, nobody decent is in favor of the Lolita dynamic (nor, of course, the scourge of pedophilia). Thus, saying things like a woman is “barely legal” or that her partner “could be her father” is a quick way to reframe a relationship as sketchy and gross, even when that relationship involves two consenting, legal adults.

People may also find older men-younger women relationships questionable because of certain societal expectations placed on women. It’s an unfortunate reality that older women are often relegated to the mother/aunt/grandmother role and denied any sexuality (see: this fantastic Amy Schumer sketch), and there’s a fear that, as a result, in approving of or promoting the relationship between a twenty-something and Arie, we’re approving of this whole dynamic. We’re saying it’s okay for younger women to “win” the sexuality game, to beat out more “age-appropriate” women time and time again, and also that it’s okay for men to only be attracted to women half their age.

These arguments are understandable, and deserve a dialogue. But feminism also demands more nuanced thought processes. By deeming some women “age-appropriate” and others “not so much,” we’re really saying that we don’t see younger women as intellectual equals, or as equal partners at all. While men can dump their younger girlfriends and move on to “wife material,” what happens to the so-called bimbos? When do they become “wife material,” and when does “wife material” become “no longer sexually viable”?

And who gets to draw these lines?

These arguments also tend to conflate age with maturity, when the distinctions between the two aren’t always so clear. In fact, there’s no easy metric for maturity. For every experience (going to college, working full-time, living alone, attending a prom, losing our virginities, getting our hearts broken, etc.) that we might view as necessary and formative, there are people who grew into mature adults just fine without it. Plenty of those experiences also depend on circumstances of race, class, ability, and sexuality. Beyond that, it’s quite possible that a young woman growing up in rape culture is more “mature” than a white man who’s spent his life racing very fast cars for lots of money.

Bekah is the perfect example of how age doesn’t necessarily correlate to maturity. She’s a whole human being (or at least she plays one on TV). She’s smart, funny, charming, and not always polished. She stands up for herself in situations where it’s frowned upon. Sociologist Holly Wood, PhD, writes that in the current Tinder-affected era, “Date nights start feeling like a series of auditions for the role of girlfriend, performed for the benefit of a judge who ultimately determines whether or not his commitment is on the table.”

On The Bachelor, this isn’t just a feeling, it’s reality. Dates each come with a rose for the Bachelor to give to a woman, and being given a rose means you’re still up for the role not just of girlfriend, but of wife. The atmosphere this creates is often one of desperation, with contestants going out of their way to have “deep” conversations and to apologize for any possible slight. Another contestant (the infamously painful Krystal) found herself groveling for Arie’s forgiveness after daring to sit out a group date with him. Krystal was sent home after that conversation. Moreover, it’s hard for contestants to stand out from the pack; women with the same names have to go by their first name and last initial, which can’t feel especially dignified.

Why Do Teen Magazines Idealize Underage Girls Dating Adult Men?

In this environment, Bekah dared to tell it like it was. She informed Arie that the reason he was nervous around her was that she didn’t need him to be complete and she wasn’t going to pander. She also explained that nobody else got to define her emotional readiness for marriage or commitment, and that she had doubts and fears about their relationship but wanted to continue and see what happened. Typically, contestants tell the Bachelor that they’re all in: They’re falling in love (after 3–6 weeks of knowing this person), they’re entirely ready to be a spouse, the connection they’re building is meaningful and unlike any other they’ve had in the past. Expressions of doubt mean a one-way ticket home.

Bekah’s willingness to challenge Arie wasn’t surprising because of her youth, but because nobody on the Bachelor behaves that way. The main “story” of Bekah M. and Arie shouldn’t be a story of an age scandal, but a story of a woman who respected her own agency and emotional maturity in a scenario where we assume both will be disregarded.

I’m not just talking about The Bachelor here, but about these relationships in general. It’s problematic to assume that young women who date or marry older men are bimbos, and it’s problematic to dismiss anyone solely based on their age or their age difference with a partner. While it’s important to be on the lookout for abuses of power in relationships, it’s also important to acknowledge healthy relationships, and to see women’s agency in the many situations where it can and does exist.

Erik Killmonger (Credit: YouTube)

Here there be spoilers.

When I went to see Black Panther, I didn’t think it would make me sad. I didn’t think I’d dislike Wakanda for its imaginary role in the real-world continued oppression of Black people.

I should be able to divorce reality from fiction, and yet, the narrative hit so close to home that I found myself weighted by it, almost to the point of tears. Knowing the horrors my ancestors survived as part of the slave trade, which Wakandans in this fictional universe could’ve fought to end, horrors that led to my existence — I’d gladly never live if it meant none of that ever happened.

I didn’t expect to walk away imagining a world where the transatlantic slave trade never happened, and resenting the fuck out of Wakanda because it did.

I didn’t expect to mourn Erik Killmonger, the villain who wasn’t MY villain. He was my hero. He was the me I wish I could be — the brutal, ruthless freedom fighter who built himself from nothing to free Black people from the colonizers. He was the hero I needed, not Black Panther, inert instead of dedicated to change, and that was a realization I was not expecting.

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I didn’t expect to mourn Erik Killmonger, the villain who wasn’t MY villain. He was my hero.
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After the movie, I left the theater to the chants of “Wakanda Forever,” feeling unsettled and displaced. If Wakanda were a real place, I’d be Erik; I’d be the American monster in Wakanda because I couldn’t love a country with the means to end the transatlantic slave trade that instead chose to hide and pretend it wasn’t their problem. A nation that only fights when absolutely necessary and did not think the kidnapping, torture, murder, rape, abuse, dehumanization, and destruction of millions of people made war absolutely necessary. A nation with superior education, technology, creativity, and the financial ability to help that instead turned its collective back on those who lived outside its borders. Black people, like them. Because they were not Wakandan.

I came out of the theater angry at Wakanda.

I know it’s not a real place. I KNOW it’s not real. It’s a flawed fantasy that doesn’t align with the reality of the history of my family, my people. Still, to watch a narrative where the person with the power to change the world opts to murder his brother and desert his nephew to the poverty and oppression faced by so many Black people, all to maintain a separatist, non-interference policy, while spying and learning the atrocities endured by millions and doing nothing to stop it?

That’s a hard pill to swallow.

And to watch a narrative where the supposed villain is a man who learned the savagery of his oppressors and became a better monster than them, completely willing to sacrifice everything to change the fate of millions, while Wakanda watched and claimed that letting Black people suffer was the greater good?

How could I see this as the actions of a villain at all?

I understood Nakia, the Wakandan warrior who knew her nation wasn’t doing enough, which was why she could not, should not stay. Wakanda was complicit in the genocide of millions while looking at those suffering not with compassion, but with dismissal. Wakanda Forever really meant Wakanda First and Only. It meant pretending that ignoring genocide can exempt you from the responsibility to stop it. It meant upholding traditions that work inside a bubble, while sacrificing everyone outside of it.

I watched the judgement and disdain Wakandans had for Erik, a man who was ruthless because he had to be and merciless because to take power, mercy has no place — as demonstrated by T’Chaka taking the life of his own brother — and I thought, He is not who you should fight.

Is ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ A Subversive Takedown Of White Supremacy?

I could not love Wakanda. And, after learning more of its history, neither could T’Challa.

For if Wakanda was the marvel it is written to be, how could it have let the transatlantic slave trade happen? How could it have allowed the magnitude of suffering that continued in the many years after?

And so I was left with a bitterness I didn’t expect, and a sadness, as I wished for a past that can never happen. I was left knowing that in my heart, I am Erik Killmonger — that I, too, would want to force Wakanda to take a stand to help more than themselves.

Watching Black Panther, I had to accept that I would be an American monster in Wakanda. And like Erik, I’d want to burn it all down if that meant improving the world for Black people.

Originally published at talynnkel.com.

Here at The Establishment, we spend a lot of time talking and writing and thinking and scream-crying about the elaborate ways in which homosapiens wrong one another. (In addition to the planet, non-human animals, and maybe even extraterrestrials—there’s a LOT of space-junk out there people.)

We thought that this Valentine’s Day, we should talk about love, but Establishment-style, because the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy doesn’t take a day off.

So we partnered with the Creative Action Network — which “crowdsources campaigns around causes, inviting anyone and everyone to contribute their own designs” — to help us host an art project to talk about love in 2018…

…and turn one chosen design into our official Est. Love T-Shirt.

Out of 14 amazing submissions we chose the work of Artemis Xenakis, which you can buy below!

Here’s what Artemis had to say about her work, her life, and the beautiful aberration we call love.

“Our bodies are the vessel for how we experience the world, and the world has an ever growing fracture from the absence of love. Where love has recessed, systems of oppression take hold, diminishing humanity down to the bodies that carry us through this existence. Living under these measures, we are all at odds within our very selves, with our fellow people, and with our home planet. This is because Love needs a space to manifest, a vessel to carry its truth in the forms of empathy and true equality. Love needs to grow from the decay of hatred. Love needs to heal fear. Loves needs the full participation of people to be felt, given, and known. Love needs all bodies to be.”

We talked to Artemis to find out more about her brilliant design, her artistic process, and her thoughts on love and existentialism.

(Check out the other holy-shit, hell-yes submissions throughout this interview as well — all of which are on sale too!)

KATIE: Tell me a bit about yourself! Where did you grow up, when did you realize you wanted to create art and anything else wonderful or strange you’d like to include…

ARTEMIS:

It’s hard for me to trace back to a moment of realization with art because I can’t remember a time I didn’t draw on something, anything; a coloring book; a napkin; my bedroom door (the latter was much to my parents’ chagrin, yet they understood my drive).

My mom especially is very supportive of the Arts and Artists; she was an art docent for my classes all throughout elementary school, so I just grew up with a strong yet subconscious understanding of its importance in education and societal roles. I say subconscious because as an adult I see in retrospect how that form of expression influenced each of my interests and drives. Drawing was certainly art’s first manifestation in my creative pursuits, and it only ever spiraled from there.

Mythology was presented to me early on—in part because of my name and Greek heritage—but also because of my psychological response to these stories. When I wasn’t actively pursuing a creative work I was taking in myth and symbol from all corners of storytelling and filtering them through my passive thoughts and feelings.

And in the nature of peculiar things children do when left to their own devices, I would make art in ritualistic ways that I understood later in my early adulthood to be akin to Witchcraft practices. For instance, I loved to climb trees and carve made-up symbols in the branches that were meant for only the tree and me to understand; I would write poems that were meant to conduct any negative feelings I had and then I would take my frustration out on tearing up the paper and throwing it away. Communing with nature, directing your energy in sigil writing, banning negativity and enacting for what you want, all take creative thought and process.

KATIE: How did you develop the idea for your submission? Where did you find the heart and body and rose to collage together?

ARTEMIS:

I’m an amputee, and I’ve been trying to craft a dialogue about disability in my art for a few years now. It’s a subject that’s still otherwise in progress because I feel like it deserves an exchange of voices outside of my perspective of disability, too. This image used for “Love Needs…” is one of the first I created pertaining to the concept of just addressing what being disabled is, sans able-bodied expectations. I’ve participated in live figure drawing both as an artist and a model, and I was surprised to experience the latter with the response of people expressing that they saw me as beautiful despite being disabled.

I was so distraught over the idea that there must be a lack of self ownership over all parts of me to function; as if I adorn my aesthetic in spite of one thing that’s perceived to be unlike the rest of me.

I knew it was time to take control of this misconception and demonstrate my self-love and autonomy. It came from having to live in a culture that wants me to live in spite of myself, and learning through my process of resistance to this that there’s a multitude of reasons other people are expected to do the same.

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Ultimately, it expanded my empathy for understanding all kinds of systemic oppression. So this image roots in disability, but for this particular project I wanted to express the sentiment that we intersect at our bodies, especially for those of us that are minorities to the default and who have a common goal of having to declare our truth and demonstrate our importance. By embodying empathy for one another we can create a larger voice in response to what is considered normalcy.

For the image itself, I used illustration combined with photography that I took during my personal nature walks while living in San Diego. I love the synchronicity of nature’s cycles, and observing the intricacies of how these processes express themselves in color and form. I love getting up close to plants and using micro-focus to display them as greatly as the role they play in our Earth.

These walks I took by myself were the beginning practices of learning to enjoy my own company and make time for myself. This rose and these leaves in particular, I remember from a whimsical stroll through San Diego’s Rose Gardens. Nothing extraordinary happened during that walk, but when looking at those photos I remember it as if it were yesterday. And those leaves are naturally those colors; that vibrant red and green kissing is nature’s complimentary contrast, not mine. I just played with their tone.

As my most formal discipline is Graphic Design, I was able to combine all these elements together digitally. I feel like Graphic Design is the “Math” of the Arts, and I definitely apply a calculated approach when trying to balance the organic forms and enigmatic symbols I love, with the articulation that proper expression calls for.

KATIE: What is the role of art in actualizing social change? Do you believe that the Artist needs to play a role in undermining systems of power?

ARTEMIS

Art definitely serves as a conduit among major movements, I think largely in part because artists are usually individuals oppressed by these systems of power. Rather than focus on the trope of the “tortured creative,” I think we need to begin considering the ways our society (at least in America) diminishes the arts as a viable skill and career that sustain both the artists and the cultures we contribute to.

Authentic art can’t function under capitalism, censorship, or other forms of oppression and exploitation without becoming propaganda, and I believe authentic artists are among the first to call that out. And I do mean “Artists” as more broad of a term than I think we’re used to attributing to it; I think the upswing in progressive activism we’re seeing is a perfect example of demonstration as art.

KATIE: How do you describe your work as an artist? What mediums or themes are you drawn to?

ARTEMIS:

Drawing is more like a sense to me that I rely on for executing spatial intelligence, and the mediums I use are the moods I shift them in. I love graphite when I’m being open to interpretation; it’s something I use when I’m open to letting a piece stand alone without needing a background or any sort of detail framing it.

I love ink when I’m feeling precise and have an organized subject in my mind; even my pieces where I get messy with ink are more illustrative and balanced than most of my graphite drawings. I do very amateur photography, but I developed an inclination to use this medium when I feel like any way I attempt to hand-render a subject wouldn’t do its beauty complete justice.

I can’t draw roses worth a damn, but look how richly nature produces these all on her own. I find inspiration in the storytelling of female archetypes in ancient mythology, the lens into the old ways our fore-mothers across the world have contributed to society that often gets overlooked.

Most of my subjects involve deconstructing the traditional forms and adorning them in natural elements that have been attributed as feminine symbols. These elements also reflect the same impermanence found in all forms; the phases of the moon; the crystallization and disintegration of earth.

KATIE: What role does Love play in your life? How does it manifest?

ARTEMIS:

I’m fortunate that I have a lot of love in my life now, and have come from a supportive family. But it took a lot of discipline for me to manifest the romantic love that I have now.

I experienced a string of abusive, tumultuous, and otherwise toxic relationships from my teens to young adulthood, so I decided to take a break from commitment in my early twenties. At the same time I began cutting ties with friends that I felt were mirroring the same behavior as my exes — or, in some cases, remaining complicit to the toxic cycles those people were conducting as I was actively trying to remove myself from all that. My views on relationships were pretty jaded coming out of that initially.

But it forced me to examine how my giving qualities were being displaced to people that didn’t deserve that much of me, and give it back to my craft so that my art could benefit from my need to nurture. In doing that, I learned to give love and strength to parts of myself that I previously mistook as weaknesses. It was another process of reclaiming parts of me that got swept up in external energies.

Once I was able to give that much to my creative drive, it became a force that worked its way into every facet of my life once more. I met the love of my life in art school; we were friends for years before we began dating, and that trek to our current relationship helped serve as additional lessons I needed in understanding unconditional love.

By embodying empathy for one another we can create a larger voice in response to what is considered normalcy.

There were time-appropriate barriers that stalled the beginnings of our relationship, and I reached a point where I knew I was going to be an awful friend to him and others if I kept harboring unhealthy feelings about my attraction to him. I had to deconstruct those feelings that stemmed from ego and fear, and embrace the idea that in order to give love to someone from a genuine place, I had to let go of any expectations for how love should be received.

I learned that to love someone with pure intent is to accept them in every moment as it comes, and that I was fortunate to even have a friendship with someone as genuine as he is. I realized that if I was only able to love him platonically, I would focus all that excess desire for closeness into healthy boundaries for our friendship. I let go of all those ugly feelings, and about two months later our romantic relationship culminated.

Love only wants you to participate if you’re honest, and it’ll open up its channels when it can trust that you are.

KATIE: If you had an intergalactic megaphone and could tell the universe one thing, what would it be?

ARTEMIS:

Assuming that “intergalactic” is affirming reference to my future hope for sky-rocketing off the planet and finding respite in space, my announcement would be: “Message from the Cosmos: Nothing can see you from here!”

Hubris is humanity’s biggest downfall; we regard our human perspective as the pinnacle of existence. I appreciate Carl Sagan’s interpretation of the Universe’s timeline in his Cosmic Calendar method. It linearly maps out the Big Bang to show how minuscule human history actually is among the grand scheme of events that made it possible for us to ever exist.

We’re literally blasting through space at a rate unable to be comprehended by our limited-dimension-perceiving minds; and here we are perpetually berating each other over whose indoctrinated-book is the best, who has the most currency, power, etc.

Humanity could benefit from a healthy dose of existentialism.