Grimm: Oh Hell No

If you have been following Fangs for the Fantasy for some time, you will know that when a season finale comes around we often write a Friday Discussion about particular issues that have stood out to us over the course of a season.

So we come to the fourth season of Grimm and a terrible dilemma - there’s just so much wrong here that touching on any one issue wouldn’t give the full depth of a season that left us yelling “oh hell no” at the screen every episode.

It is the collective fail of this season that makes all of it so much worse. So let us line up some of the issues of this broken season.

Wesenrein

Our first Oh Hell No has to be yelled at the top of our lungs for some of the most appropriative awfulness we’ve ever seen - and that includes  the season in which Grimm made Hitler into a Wesen.

This season, Mornoe and Rosalie are attacked by a group that disapproves of inter-wessen relationships (he’s a blutbad, she’s a fuchsbau). The whole storyline is directly ripped off from the racist bigoted violence against people in interracial relationships. We can’t say it’s “inspired by” or that it even “draws upon” this terrible bigotry and terrible time in history - this is a direct rip off.

The Wesenrein even put burning cross-like symbols in Monroe and Rosalie’s lawn. Burning crosses in their lawn, there was no other way they could convey hatred without stealing this terrible moment from history? And then they have a trial with lots of Wesenrein people in KKK-style robes - all they need is some bleach and it could be a historical photograph.

This is appropriation. This was a direct theft of a horrendous atrocity in history. This was claiming the experiences of a marginalised group and turning it into entertainment all while nearly completely removing actual POC from the plot line. I reiterate - Oh Hell No.

Random POC Appropriation

We need another Oh Hell No here - Grimm is not good with their POC actors, despite having two prominent characters of colour in the main cast, neither Hank nor Wu really get deeply absorbed in the plot. Like so many POC on so many shows, they’re often on screen - but as sidekicks, comic reliefs and shadows for the main characters. When we do  get plot lines that actually do involve POC on Grimm in a particularly meaty manner, it inevitably means Grimm is raiding cultures of colour for woo-woo. POC and POC issues or culture will never be raised for episode after episode - then suddenly Kali! Bring on the Hindu snake people. Chupacabra, dredge up latinos everywhere! Native Americans added a third such episode this season

These characters/cultures/people only appear when Grimm wants to fill its pockets with some non-European monsters and once the show has finished play with its new toys, they’re put back in the box to be neglected again.

The International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, a day dedicated to combating these toxic forces of bigotry around the world.

This is something we’re extremely dedicated to and we believe that one of the prime methods of challenging homophobia and transphobia - or any prejudice - has to be through the media. No matter how many laws we pass, if our media continues to spread messages of hate and stereotyping, we will never be integrated into society. Media shapes our culture, media shapes our prejudices, media perpetuates the bigotries of our societies. We cannot talk about acceptance and respect if the books we read and the television we watch continues to push the same contempt, erasure and stereotyping. We cannot talk about GBLT people as valued, equal members of society if we continually decide their stories are not worth telling, if we continue to put their characters in the same limited roles and if we continue to spread hatred and derision through the media we consume every day.

Recognising the impact media has on our opinions of marginalised people and how they are portrayed in the media means we are forced to criticise how GBLT people are represented - in those few instances when they are. This is something we have done frequently on Fangs and will continue to do so in the future.

GBLT Characters on our shows: What do you expect us to Watch?

GBLT Hollow Characters: Lesbian Shark, Gay Uncle, Gay Maris

Romance Writers, Ink: Showing their Homophobic Arses

GBLT characters on Supernatural

GBLT Characters in the Parasol Protectorate

Teen Wolf: Bromance is easier than Inclusion

GBLT Characters in the Anita Blake Series

GBLT representations in Lost Girl and True Blood

Lost Girl: not as Gay Friendly as it Seems.

Lafayette and Jesus continue to depress me

Chelsea Lately, Nelson Ellis and a Whole Lot of Problems

The Walking Dead and GBLT Erasure - Two Awful Choices

Cassandra Clare proves that all Inclusion isn't Good

GBLT people and themes in the Black Dagger Brotherhood

The International Day Againt Homophobia and Transphobia isn't a Marketing Tool

Other very relevant posts:

Death of Marginalised Characters

Marginalised Characters Do Not Define The Story

Steampunk and the Nostalgic Blinkers of Victorian London

What Will You Do In A Dystopian?

Portraying Bigotry

Invisible Inclusion: Google the Minorities

Reverse Oppression, a Fad that Needs to End

Magically Diverse, Humanly Erased

Appropriation in Urban Fantasy Should Not be a Plot Point

Paranormal Steampunk and Dystopian Erasure - the Unpleasant Implications

Review of Silver Tounged Devil by Jaye Wells, Book Four of the Sabina Kane Series

 

If I had only one word to describe this book, I would have to EPIC.  Okay fair warning folks, I am a huge Jaye Wells fanpoodle.

For the first time in her life things seem to be okay for Sabina.  Her relationship with Adam is going great and she is happy. The treaty to unite the dark races is only days away from being signed, when on her way to Slade's vampire club, Sabina comes across a dead human body completely drained of blood.  Sabina sees this as vampire business and since she now sees herself largely as a mage, having killed her grandmother Lavina in the last book, Sabina keeps moving.  Things escalate when she gets to the club and a mage dies, as Pussy Willow is having her debut.

Sabina does not want to get involved but she is ordered to investigate. She quickly learns that there is a connection between the mage death and the human death and believes that this is an attempt to destabilize Slade's leadership of the vampires in New York. If that were not enough, Maisie has yet to recover from the horror that Lavina has subjected her to and her PTSD is stopping her from having a vision about the future.  No matter how she reaches out to her twin, Sabina keeps being rejected. 

The peace that she has worked so hard to achieve is crumbling around and Sabina realises that perhaps the reason is because they are up against the evil of all evils - Cain.  Can Sabina somehow unite the dark races and keep the people she loves safe from harm?

Silver Tounged Devil starts agonizingly slow and the bickering between the characters is distracting but when it all comes together, one realizes how necessary this is for the conclusion of the book.  The climax of the story is so shocking and unexpected that it is impossible to put the book down until the last page is read.  

Okay, I suppose I should add some critique, even though my mind is screaming don't attack the precious, must protect the precious.  Unfortunately, there is a deal of ableism in this story.  A side character in the story is Goldie and she is a little person. On page 136, she is referred to as a "midget", though the preferred term is little person, or person of short stature.  To her credit, Goldie Schwartz does call out the usage of the term midget but says, "And I'm not a fucking midget. I prefer the term fun-sized."  As in Green Eyed Demon, she is also called the gimp.  Obviously, this is far from the ideal and is completely unnecessary to the story. The only thing we learn about Goldie is that she is disabled and that she is into water sports.  

There's also the issue of Pussy Willow, who was formerly Brooks. After being attacked, Brooks assumed a female persona as a way of dealing with the tragedy.  Pussy Willow completely identifies as female and lives her life as a woman on a full-time basis and this is why the usage of the terms transvestite and cross dresser are not fitting.  Part of my issue is that it took a trauma for this to happen, which suggests that anyone who transgresses the gender binary is damaged in someway.  When Pussy Willow is banned from participating in the roller derby, Giguhl says:

"It's the whole penis thing." He shrugged. "Somehow the league found out she was smuggling extra equipment in her skirt.  They're refusing to bend about the whole 'only biological females are allowed on to be on the teams' thing. So I had to tell her she can't play." [pg 164]

The Importance of Critiquing Urban Fantasy

Urban fantasy is something that we both clearly enjoy.  It’s a break from the everyday with it’s fantastic flights of fantasy, and slightly warped version of our world.  What has always attracted me to fantasy is that it contains so much hope. Each time an author sits to tell a story, they have a chance to erase the problems of our current society and start anew. Unfortunately, in many cases, urban fantasy does not live up to its potential, because though authors are starting with what is essentially a blank slate, they have grown in a culture that promotes isms at every turn, which inevitably means that their fantasy worlds are as flawed as the world we live in today.

Because urban fantasy falls into the category of speculative fiction, and largely written by women, there is a tendency not to take it seriously.  This is a mistake on the part of consumers of this genre and reviewers quite frankly. The popularity of fantasy flares and wanes over the years. We are currently in an upswing, with movies like the Twilight saga pulling in large box office dollars -- if not critical acclaim -- and shows like True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle and Teen Wolf etc., airing in prime time. Fangs and angst mean big box office dollars, large conference attendance, and constant social discussions.  Whether or not you like urban fantasy, there can be no doubt that it has had a huge impact in the last six years.  

It is because of this impact that we cannot ignore the messages that it brings.  Like many, I am tempted to ignore the work of Stephanie Meyer, who needs to send her thesaurus on paid holiday, because of the obvious abuse in her writing, but to do so would be a mistake.  Years from now it will not be the dry tome that is written by an academic that will be studied as representative of our time, but the work of popular authors like Stephanie Meyer. If you doubt that, think about the fact that Lady Chatterley's Lover was highly dismissed when it was first published, and today it is considered a classic that is studied in literature classes across North America.

What do you think shapes culture more? A verbose, dense literary fiction artistic epic read by English literature professors in universities, who in turn congratulate each other on how wonderfully dense and nigh incomprehensible it is? Or Twilight? Or True Blood? A series that has been read by thousands, if not millions, turned into a TV series or a film, and watched by yet more people? Personally, I think it’s the latter that will have the greatest effect on our culture.

Urban fantasy is the mythology of our time and this means that the treatment of historically marginalised people, who are being erased or placed into subordinate roles signifies an ongoing oppression rather that a fantastical world.  What will it say to future generations of readers that GLBT people are either erased, turned into side kicks, or die routinely?  What kind racial equality is being promoted in fantasy worlds, where protagonists of color are almost solely written by writers of color, or are otherwise erased -- or placed into secondary roles -- to sacrifice or serve White protagonists?

You cannot truly change culture without addressing the media. Ultimately, we can pass 100 laws saying that misogyny, homophobia, racism, transphobia, ableism et al are not okay. We can we fight, we can vanquish a thousand bigots, and make a thousand impassioned speeches, but if everyone goes back home to books and TV full of hate speech, stereotypes,  tropes, and marginalised servants/villains or – and most commonly – to fictional worlds where we don’t even exist – then how much can you change? “Hearts and Minds” are the key here – and it’s in the pages of books and the light of the TV screen where we will reach them.

GBLT people and themes in the Black Dagger Brotherhood

Since I’ve finished this series (so far, until the next book) I’m doing a few posts to analyse various series wide tropes. Previously I’ve looked at how the series treats women, now I’m looking at GBLT issues in the series. I think this is ideal in long series because you can recognise persistent patterns that often make an individual problematic scene far far worse that (for example, one of the women being kidnapped? Not ideal. Nearly every last female love interest being kidnapped, stalked or threatened with such is a whole different level of problematic).

Ok, now buckle in folks, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Eye protection may be needed.

Let us start with what is probably the most extreme and objectionable element - in fact, it is so extreme that I have difficulty criticising beyond this because it becomes redundant. It’s like complaining that the neighbour’s dog has messed in your garden while it’s busy trying to bite your leg off.

The Omega is the big bad guy. He is the evil god that wishes to destroy all of the vampires out of spite and envy. He is evil, sadistic, genocidal - and literally an animate figure of living darkness. He’s also gay. Yes, animate living shadow is gay. But, it’s far far worse then the simple gay villain trope.

See, the Omega’s weapons in destroying the vampires are the lessers. The lessers are humans (usually rapists, murderers and similar) who are inducted to become undead by having their heart ripped out and the Omega’s blood pumped into them. And he rapes them. In the beginning of the series there was a hint that the Omega was raping his inductees and punishing disobient lessers with the same - but when we reached Lover Mine we’d given up on hinting, there’s definite rape going on. But it gets worse.

See, when the Omega is on the outs with his son (more on that in a moment) he gets a new recruit. And, yes he is raped - but, what’s this? Lash listens in and hears sounds of pleasure - why, the rape victim must be gay! Yes, the animate darkness is raping a man (who is having his blood drained and heart ripped out) and the victim likes it because he’s a gay man. Yes, just pause a moment and let that sink in. now think about how there is a pervasive idea that a gay man cannot be raped because gay men like it. But it gets worse!

Because the Omega is seduced by his rape victim, kicks out his disappointing straight son (hey, see what they did there? The gay man is kicking out his straight offspring for being straight - despite it being the opposite that happens all too often) and sets up his new “boy toy” as the head of the lessers. The rape victim seduces his rapist (that would be the animate living darkness).

Ok, take a deep breath and let that sink in, because we’re going to have to talk some more about rape here in the series - because there’s a lot of it. Including a lot of rape-as-emasculation. The Bloodletter, in his warrior training camp had the fighters spar with each other - and the loser was raped. John Matthew and Zsadist have both been raped - both consider the process emasculation - and in Zsadist’s case, he finds being raped by a man far more shameful and demeaning than being raped by a woman. These victims continue to hold their attacks as something that needs to desperately be kept secret (not being raped by a woman, however) and while many victims may feel that way, it’s never addressed or challenged. There’s never any real attempt to make it anything other than a shameful secret. And between the Omega raping his servants as punishment/to show them whose boss, Zsadist and John Matthew being emasculated by their rapes and the Bloodletter having a rape camp where the big strong men repeatedly rape other men to show how much stronger they are - we have an ongoing theme of male rape victims being seen as lesser men. Not just a theme - it’s writ large and bold and constantly repeated.

Ok, we can move away from the rape now, thank gods and move on to another problem - Blaylock and Saxon, the only 2 gay men in the series and probably the only male vampires in these books who can be considered mild. Polite, restrained. It would probably be less blatant coding if it weren’t for the constant emasculation theme and Blay’s existing to serve without even having the Ahstrux Nohtrum to justify it. Which is something else I have to touch on while I’m on the subject of service - while the rest of the cast are members of the Brotherhood, Blaylock (gay man) and Qhuinn (bisexual man actually seeking a relationship with another man) are not independent members - they’re attached to (and serve as sidekicks for) John Matthew, a straight guy. A definite secondary role.