This was too long for a tweet, so I
decided to put it here. In the past few days I have found two
articles about the movie Lucy that have been very striking to
me. Most every article, tweet, and FaceBook post about the movie has
said it's terrible, so that part really is not up for debate. Here's
the thing; I've been criticizing theMarySue.com both for it's
#SolidarityIsForWhiteWoman nature and having a definite case of
#LenaDunhamSyndrome. If you're not up on your hash-tag activism, I'll
explain. The first one refers to the idea that mainstream feminism is
only concerned with the problems of middle-to-upper class White
American women. The second is a phrase I coined to describe the
common excuse White writers use for not including people of color in
their work, that being “I don't know any of 'them' so I can't write
'them', address 'their' issues, ask one of 'them' what 'their' life
is like,” etc.
Lucy is drawing a ton of
criticism for its plot, writing, and direction. Thankfully ScarJo has
escaped this criticism, because she is too good for the human race,
and if we displease her she may forsake us for the race of Celestial
Angels from whence she came. Much of the criticism centers around the
films depiction of race, especially when concerned with the origin of
our species. Critics have also had problems with the film's depiction
of humanity's highest evolved form being a blonde White woman (the
vast majority of humanity is not that.) These are interesting talking
points that a female-centric geek blog would do well to focus on,
right? You would think so, but this is the article that The Mary
Sue ran: “Today in Female-Led-Movies-Obviously-Don't-Make-MoneyNews, Lucy Beat out Hercules This Weekend.”
A pretty inoffensive title to a
entirely inoffensive article. The article, written by Victoria
McNally (@vqnerdballs) uses a snarky, sarcastic tone to convey the
idea that even a bad female-led movie can make money. It ends by
saying there's no good financial reason that Hollywood studios aren't
making female-led superhero movies. Both of these points are entirely
valid ones that I agree with. Then I read the article that The
Huffington Post ran about Lucy, and well, it goes like
this: “Lucy: Why I'm Tired of Seeing White People on the BigScreen.”
A provocative title, and one that that
has brought a ton of grief to the author's twitter account (Olivia
Cole, @RantingOwl) begged me to read it. The article describes in
detail the many race-related flaws with Lucy and with the
Hollywood thought process regarding race in general. Ms. Cole is a
White woman, and she manages to deftly communicate many of the same
issues that people of color have been complaining about in regards to
the entertainment industry for decades. As Ms. Cole has acknowledged
on her twitter account, it is sad that these issues are only now
coming to the attention of many White Americans because a White
person has brought them up.
Please understand , I have no problem
with the idea of Ms. McNally's article; my main problem with it is
it's shallow. If you look at most articles published on The Mary
Sue, you will see that many of them are equally shallow,
homogenous, and toothless indictments of pop culture. One would think
that such a site would be more aggressive in getting its point
across, not just for White women but for all women. But that's not
the case. Ms. Cole's article that appeared on The Huffington
Posts's Entertainment site, had far more bite and, in essence,
did far more to expose the issues of all women than any article on
The Mary Sue has to date. If you kept the articles the same
but switched the sites, what effect would it have? There would be
little to no effect on the HuffPo site, but The Mary Sue would
be revolutionized and do much to show that it is a site for all geek
girls of all colors. It is an easy cure; The Mary Sue, if it
is not going to make a concerted effort to have a more inclusive
staff, at the very least would do well to hire more writers like Ms.
Cole.
If you like or hate this article,
let me know on Twitter, @DonCoyote
