#‘‘teenagers literally do not have the ability to think critically about their media and recognize harmful tropes” what the fuck are you on

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Five years ago, the women on this site who treated me like trash over loving Labyrinth and shipping Jareth/Sarah were almost always obliviously consuming Radfem propaganda, or were out and out Radfems/Terfs themselves.

They were the types of people who casually threw the word “pedophile” around against grown women who shipped an adult Sarah with Jareth, aka literally one of the most popular ships for women in fandom for 30 years.

Pretty much invariably, these women had serious sex-negative anxieties, which included a severe paranoia about any and all kink and fetish, and porn in general. I saw a lot of shocking, fear-mongering propaganda surrounding sexual expression. Pretty much invariably, their method of approach involved immediate personal shock-value attacks on anyone they perceived to be “bad.”

Today, you can look at the way some people react to other popular so-called “problematic” ships and recognize the same toxic, fear-mongering rhetoric coming from women who consider themselves regular, trans-inclusive feminists. Sometimes it even manifests in the words of very well-meaning people (including myself here), who feel the need to talk about specific issues that pertain to their own experiences of trauma and oppression.

The people who shit on Labyrinth often seem to not really be able to comprehend that the Goblin King, like the film itself, is canonically a representation of a teen girl’s psyche, a soup of fears and anxieties and desires and dreams. He’s not a literal human adult preying on a literal child, and to read the film that way seriously undermines the entire point of the film. 

When I (and people of many fandoms) say “This is fiction, calm down,” I’m not just saying it’s not real so it cant hurt you and you can’t criticize me. I’m trying to call attention to what fiction actually is - artistic representations of feelings and experiences. The Goblin King is Sarah’s fiction. Therefore, he can be anything she or any woman who identifies with her wants him to be, including her lover when she’s grown and ready for such a thing.

I once took an alarming dive into Beetlejuice fandom to see what content was there (the cartoon was a favorite when I was little). Chillingly, what you’ll find is an extremely wounded fanbase, with a sharp divide between the older women who had long been shipping BJ/Lydia because of their love for the cartoon series (and whom were previously the vast majority of the Beetlejuice fandom), and a massive amount of young people riding the wave of the musical fad who had decided that the entire old school Beetlejuice fandom was populated by literal pedophiles. 

I saw death threats. Suicide baiting. Constant, constant toxic discourse. It did not matter how the BJ/Lydia fandom dealt with any particular issues that would exist in their ship, in fact I’m certain that the people abusing them cared very little to even consider if they were trying to handle it at all. The only thing that mattered was that they were disgusting subhuman scum asking for abuse. If you have at any time reblogged recent Beetlejuice fan art or content from fans of the musical, you have more than likely been engaging positively with the content of someone participating in toxic fandom behavior.

Nobody is really sticking up for them, either, as far as I saw. It’s really hard to imagine how painful it must be to have such a large group of people explode into into your relatively private fandom space to tell you that you are evil, vile, and deserve constant abuse, and also you are no longer allowed into the fandom space to engage in it’s content. But I think there’s something very alarming indeed about this happening specifically to the BJ fandom, and I’ll explain why. 

The pop-culture characterization of Beetlejuice, which is heavily influenced by the cartoon series to be clear, has always in my mind been a vaguely ageless being who matches with the psychological maturity of whatever age Lydia is supposed to be. He’s more or less like an imaginary friend, a manifestation of Lydia’s psyche. In fact, I would argue that i think most of us who grew up with the cartoon or it’s subsequent merchandizing before the musical ever existed probably internalized the idea as BJ and Lydia as this ageless, salt-and-pepper-shaker couple beloved by the goth community, similar to Gomez and Morticia. In each version of canon he may be a creepy ghost in the literal sense, but any adult who is capable of identifying literary tropes (even just subconciously) would read cartoon!BJ as an artistic representation of a socially awkward outcast girl’s inner world. Lydia’s darker dispositions and interests, which alienate her from most others, are freely accepted and embraced by her spooky magical friend. BJ/Lydia in the cartoon were depicted as best friends, but to my memory there was always an underlying sense that they had secret feelings for each other, which I identified easily even as a small child. In fact, their dynamic and behavior perfectly reflected the psychological development of the show’s target demographic. They are best friends who get into adventures and learning experiences together, who have delicate feelings for each other but lack any true adult romantic/sexual understanding to acknowledge those feelings, let alone pursue them.

Though I haven’t seen the Musical yet, I’ve read the wiki and I would argue that it embodies this exact same concept even more so for it’s own version of the characters, in that Beetlejuice specifically exists to help Lydia process her mother’s death.

This is not a complicated thing to recognize and comprehend whatsoever. In fact, it looks downright blatant. It’s also a clear indicator of what BJ/Lydia means to the women who have long loved it. It was a story about a spooky wierd girl being loved and accepted and understood for who she was, and it gave them a sense of solidarity. It makes perfect sense why those women would stick with those characters, and create a safe little space for themselves to and imagine their beloved characters growing and having adult lives and experiencing adult drama, in just the same ways that the women of the Labyrinth fandom do. That’s all these women were doing. And now, they can’t do it without facing intense verbal violence. That safe space is poisoned now.

Having grown up with the cartoon as one of my favorites and been around goth subculture stuff for decades, I was actually shocked and squicked at the original Beetlejuice film’s narrative once I actually saw it, because it was extremely divorced from what these two characters had evolved into for goth subculture and what they meant to me. It’s not telling the same story, and is in fact about the Maitland's specifically. In pretty much exactly the same way two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood can be extremely different from each other, the film is a different animal. While I imagine that the film version has been at the heart of a lot of this confused fear-mongering around all other versions of the characters, I would no more judge different adaptations of these characters any more than I would condemn a version of Little Red in which Red and the Wolf are best friends or lovers just because the very first iteration of LRRH was about protecting yourself from predators.

I would even argue that the people who have engaged in Anti-shipper behavior over BJ/Lydia are in intense denial over the fact that BJ being interested in Lydia, either as blatant predatory behavior a la the film or on a peer level as in the cartoon (and musical?) is an inextricable part of canon. Beetlejuice was always attracted to Lydia, and it was not always cute or amusing. Beetlejuice was not always a beloved buddy character, an in fact was originally written as a gross scumbag. That’s just what he was. Even people engaging with him now by writing OC girlfriends for him (as stand-ins for the salt-and-pepper-shaker space Lydia used to take up, because obviously that was part of the core fun of the characters), or just loving him as a character, are erasing parts of his character’s history in order to do so. They are actively refusing to be held responsible for being fans of new version of him despite the fact that he engaged in overt predatory behavior in the original film. In fact, I would venture to say that they are actively erasing the fact that Musical Beetliejuice tried to marry a teenager and as far as I’m aware, seemed to like the idea (because he’s probably a fucking figment of her imagination but go off I guess). The only reason they can have a version of this character who could be perceived as “buddy” material is because...the cartoon had an impact on our pop cultural perception of what the character and his dynamic with Lydia is. 

We can have a version of the Big Bad Wolf who’s a creepy monster. We can have a version who’s sweet and lovable. We can have a version that lives in the middle. We can have a version who’s a hybrid between Red and the Wolf (a la Ruby in OUAT). All of these things can exist in the same world, and can even be loved for different reasons by the same people.

I’ve been using Beetlejuice as an example here because it’s kind of perfect for my overall point regarding the toxic ideologies in fandom right now across many different spaces, including ones for progressive and queer media, and how much so many people don’t recognize how deeply they’ve been radicalized into literalist and sex-negative radfem rhetoric, to the point where we aren’t allowed to have difficult, messy explorations of imperfect, flawed humans, and that art is never going to be 100% pure and without flaw in it’s ability to convey what it wants to convey.

This includes the rhetoric I’ve seen across the board, from She-Ra to A:TLA to Star Wars to Lovecraft Country. We don’t talk about the inherent malleable, subjective, or charmingly imperfect nature of fiction any more. Transformation and reclamation are myths in this space. Everything is in rigid categories. It is seemingly very difficult for some of these people to engage with anything that is not able to be clearly labeled as one thing or another (see the inherent transphobic and biphobic elements of the most intense rhetoric). They destroy anything they cannot filter through their ideology. When women act in a way that breaks from their narrative of womanhood (like...not having a vagina), then those women must be condemned instead of understood. Anything that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable is a mortal sin. There is an extraordinary level of both hypocrisy and repressive denial that is underlying the behavior I’m seeing now. Much like toxic Christian conservatism, these people often are discovered engaging in the same behaviors and interests that they condemn behind closed doors (or just out of sheer cognitive dissonance). As an example, one of the people who talked shit to me about Labyrinth was a huge fan of Kill La Kill, which to my knowledge was an anime about a teenage girl in like, superpowered lingere (hence why I stayed the fuck away from that shit myself). Indeed, they even allow themselves plenty of leeway for behavior far worse than they condemn others for, and create support systems for the worst of their own abusers. 

Quite frankly, I’m tired. Instead of talking about theoretical problematic shit, we need to start talking about quantifiable harm. Because as far as I can tell, the most real, immediate, and quantifiable harm done because of anybody’s favorite ships or pieces of media seems to consistently be the kind that’s done to the people who experience verbal violence and abuse and manipulation and suicide baiting and death threats from the people who have a problem.

#Beetlejuice #Labyrinth #toxic fandom

[threequeensss]

why taka’s ultimate isn’t useless

spoiler warning for trigger happy havoc and taka’s free time events!

HIHI SORRY FOR THE LONG INTRO SKIP TO THE SECOND PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT ,, ok lol so i only make an original post like maybe once a year AT BEST so here we go,, anyway, i’ve seen a lot of posts on tiktok, instagram, etc. saying that taka’s ultimate makes the least sense or that it’s a “useless” ultimate. maybe it’s because he’s my favorite DR character overall (which may be surprising if you don’t know me considering how barren my blog is of taka content), but after thinking about it a lot, i personally disagree with that and here’s why. (side note: i know the original translation of his ultimate is shsl public morals committee member, this is an analysis of his ultimate overall, not just the way the english dub titles it, so it can be applied to any translation :) )

most criticisms i’ve seen surrounding his ultimate is that it’s not a real ultimate or that it doesn’t have any practical use. a moral compass one’s means of distinguishing right from wrong and to follow the morally “right” path. taka is the ultimate moral compass, meaning he quite literally acts as a moral compass, guiding his peers. on the surface level, we see this through him scolding the other students for having dyed hair (leon), heavy makeup (mukuro presenting as junko), or for students sharing a room (aoi and sakura). sure, at first glance, this may seem like a silly or pointless ultimate, but if you talk to taka during free time, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s so much more than monitoring halls and scolding his classmates for acting like teenagers.

let’s talk about why taka behaves the way he does and why his ultimate is, in my opinion, perfect for his character. we can trace this back to his grandfather, a disgraced prime minister of japan and a “genius.” his grandfather abandoned his morals as one of the most influential people in the world, effectively shaming the ishimaru name and sending the family into enormous debt that would haunt them even after the former prime ministers’ death. through the way taka explains it and how upset he gets when a well-meaning makoto calls him a genius, unwittingly implying that taka and his grandfather are similar, it becomes abundantly clear that his grandfather’s scandal tears him up inside every day. he’s ashamed to be related to such a morally questionable individual and wants nothing more than to repair his family’s reputation, to step out of the enormous shadow his grandfather cast. 

taka’s way of doing this is for everything about him to be inherently “good,” so that the ishimaru name is no longer associated with scandals and disgrace. this is why he sacrifices any sort of self-indulgence (only wearing his uniform, staying away from popular media, etc.), to remain as seemingly “good” and unquestionably “morally upright” as possible. being a model student and leading the public morals committee are the most immediately accessible ways for him to begin repairing his family’s reputation, alongside guiding his classmates (whether they asked for it or not). this isn’t meant to be a commentary or judgment of the way he interacts with others, but he’s definitely not critical of others just for the sake of it. he genuinely wants to make the world a better place due to his trauma and his own ambitions, which i’m about to delve into next. 

ok so. now that i’ve dumped enough info that hopefully explains his personality and motivations, i’m going to talk about why i believe his ultimate is useful and deserves to be recognized as a legitimate ultimate by the fandom. the most obvious cases are when he takes on a self-appointed leadership role at the beginning of the killing game. if i remember correctly (i haven’t played thh in a hot minute), it was taka who had the idea of the morning breakfast meetings, and he was also the first to suggest that everyone announce their secrets at the beginning of chapter 2 to undermine monokuma’s motive. the latter example was unsuccessful given the events that proceeded, but it was him using his ultimate and position as a leader to the best of his ability. 

i understand that this next part is debatable as to whether or not it applies to his ultimate since it’s his untapped potential more than anything, but i personally believe it’s a central part of it so,, here we go! i feel like it’s pretty much agreed that despite being “super high school level,” an ultimate shouldn’t be a skill that someone can just drop after graduation. it should be able to be applied to the real world and society as a whole, hence why they’re at hope’s peak academy. it may seem like taka’s ultimate doesn’t hold up in the real world, since he’s the president of a high school club, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. taka already plans to use his ultimate after graduation to become prime minister and establish a meritocracy. 

taka has a vision of a society where it’s an equal playing field for everyone so that individuals can build their lives through their own effort, so the history pertaining to his grandfather can’t repeat itself. (this part is meant to analyze taka’s ambitions and the reasoning behind them, not meritocracies as a whole!) he has been so badly burned by immorality and the concept of geniuses (side note. his disdain for geniuses and ambition to create a society without them reminds me SO MUCH of edelgard’s ambitions from fire emblem. anyway sorry abt that) that he has chosen to take it upon himself to one day reinvent society. he wants to use his experiences and sense of justice, or moral compass, to better the lives of other people. if he has proven to effectively use his ultimate within whatever situation he’s in and has a dream pertaining to his ultimate that will take him far beyond his high school years, then i don’t think it’s fair to call it “impractical” or “useless.” 

taka’s ultimate title may not have the same immediate wow-factor as the ultimate programmer or ultimate pop sensation, but it’s not meant to, taka regards himself to be an average man ! he acts as a guide for those around him and truly wants to make the world a better place. all of these examples can be traced back to his ultimate, which in my opinion, is SUCH an interesting concept and has too much potential to be called useless. 

if you’ve made it this far, tysm and i’m sorry. if anyone has any thoughts at all, please don’t hesitate to share!! i’m the only taka stan i know lol

#kiyotaka ishimaru #ishimaru kiyotaka #danganronpa #danganronpa thh #thh #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #trigger happy havoc #danganronpa 1 #analysis

[high-five-of-teenager-trashblog]

Discography Discussion: Wolf & Sheep

While Wolf & Sheep is my favorite album, I think it’s also the most recognizable one in H.O.T’s discography. No other album they’ve done has as many well-known tracks. In this discussion, we’ll be diving into the most teenage-geared album in the history of H.O.T.

The Wolf & Sheep Album

H.O.T’s second album Wolf & Sheep came out on July 5th, 1997. It’s the only album (besides the OST for Age of Peace) to be released outside of September - which also makes it the shortest time between albums. It’s also the only album besides Outside Castle that features the members on the cover. In case you’re trying to figure out who is who, I assume (from their features that are usually depicted in artwork of them) it’s the order they generally are in when they’re on stage (facing the audience from the stage), meaning from left to right it’s Woohyuk, Kangta, Tony, Heejun, and Jaewon. Compared to We Hate All Kinds of Violence, this album is bolder in its statements and was a continuation of their ability to criticize and uplift their young target audience.

Wolf & Sheep

“Wolf & Sheep” is the title track for this album, and was their first attempt at targeting society - not just their teenage fans. Like other hard-hitting tracks in H.O.T’s discography, this one was composed by Yoo Youngjin.

Lyrics

It’s an aggressive song with lyrics about wolves attacking and taking sheep. The song is mostly metaphorical, and about people with power taking advantage of people without it. However, that’s only a surface-level understanding of the song. Usually, Yoo Youngjin usually writes about topics (and problems) that are prevalent across multiple societies and time periods, but sometimes he does write about particular events. “Wolf and Sheep” is about an event in the future that has already happened, but didn’t actually happen. The song starts with Woohyuk announcing, “The year 2000, June 28, they who had been foretold arrived.” This song was released in 1997, which was three years before that date. But it’s written in the past tense - in both Korean and in the English translation of it. However, when I looked up the date itself (June 28th, 2000) and ones similar to it, I didn’t find anything that matched or were of significance.

The closest thing I could come up with happened on June 28th, 1950.  (Source) During the Korean War, there was a massacre on that day at the Seoul National University Hospital by the North Korean army. (Source) Here are some lyrics that could support this: “All the sheep’s family were turned into the hunted..the sheep’s cities were turned into battlefields...50 years of peace was broken on that day, and everything was destroyed in their hands...What sin did I commit to deserve all this pain?” (Lyric Source)

To add to this, I found a blog on Daum that supports my theory. This blog also adds that the album was announced on June 28th, 1997, but its release was delayed because Heejun hurt his shoulder. Considering that this is the most research I’ve had to do for any H.O.T track, it’s nice to see someone else support this theory.

Music Video

The music video for “Wolf & Sheep“ is the first H.O.T MV to be filmed outside of Korea. It features the members riding around in LA with cuts to them performing the track on stage. I know it’s not a big deal, but my personal favorite part is at the end when they’re running down the beach and someone does a flip and knocks into the camera. There is an alternate version of the music video that’s basically the same, just edited together differently.

Another point of interest

Interestingly, the track and the MV are both echoed later in “I-Yah”. While “Wolf & Sheep” was about destruction and loss of life for an event that might not have existed, “I-Yah” was about a specific event that included destruction and innocents who lost their lives.

Both tracks have the members wearing outfits that are supposed to look intimidating.

Both songs are arranged similarly, and have a point where Kangta wears a white and sings solo while the aggressive music momentarily becomes calm before he crescendos it back to anger.

Also, both are their only two MVs (from their main album discography) filmed outside of Korea. They were filmed in the U.S., but on opposite sides of the country, with “Wolf & Sheep” filmed in L.A. (the west coast), while “I-Yah” was filmed in New York City (the east coast). Which I find interesting, as both are clearly about events in Korea, yet filmed abroad.

(If you want to know more about “I-Yah”, I did a Discography Discussion about it)

Final Thoughts

While this track was quite ambitious for the group, promotions for it didn’t last long as it was quickly banned for the use of profanity. (In all fairness, there is a lot of it.) However, that was not the end for this album.

If you pay attention to their discography, you’ll notice a pattern. Usually when they release an album, they will show the hard-hitting title track first that is about a serious issue (such as “Warrior’s Descendant”). Usually the track will do well and set the tone for the rest of the album. Then, the next track will be a happy/inoffensive track (such as “Candy”) and will get a lot of love from the public - which was especially useful when a title track got banned. This pattern is why they’re able to get away with having an (at times) violent and profanity-heavy discography while still being considered to be family-friendly.

After H.O.T debuted, there were quite a few groups who claimed to be like H.O.T at the time of their debut, but when their first hard-hitting song didn’t get as much praise as “Warrior’s Descendant”, their follow up track would be something light. These artists would then stick to singing inoffensive songs for most of their discography. Perhaps if companies (including SM) didn’t panic and drop to making groups strictly as pop groups reminiscent of the music industry before Seo Taiji & Boys, the K-Pop industry as we know it today would have been very different. Even to this day, there isn’t a K-pop group that has reached the heights H.O.T did with as high of a percentage of critique songs for their title tracks (let alone the rest of their discography) - the closest being B.A.P, to my knowledge.

In my opinion, this pattern is most visible with the Wolf & Sheep album due to the track they released after “Wolf & Sheep”.

Full of Happiness

The next song to be released on the album was “행복”. The literal translation is “Happiness”, but sometimes you will see this song being called “Full of Happiness” because that’s the feeling this song gives. They lyrics are about meeting someone who was very kind in the past, and hoping the meeting will go well. This song takes the feeling of happiness that was given to someone, then giving it back as strongly as (or stronger than) they received it. However, the music video was about a tennis player feeling happiness winning a match after not being able to do so at the beginning.

There are a lot of adorable details in this music video.

1. Woohyuk and Tony play fighting until the other members have to hold them back.

2. The other members stealing a table umbrella to shade Jaewon. My favorite part is watching them sneak around Jaewon’s back. Considering that it was a really hot day, I think that’s such a sweet gesture.

3. Heejun and Kangta play fighting.

4. Heejun smacking Kangta with a tennis ball, then fleeing while hanging onto his hat.

5. When the tennis player wins, H.O.T are in the crowd and celebrate.

With this in mind, I would like to remind everyone that this was the track media used when Jaewon was discharged from the military and all of the members reunited to call themselves H.O.T for the first time since disbandment.

Go! H.O.T.!

The first track on the Wolf & Sheep album is “Go! H.O.T.!” It’s a hype song about the group that lists each member and something about them.

Sexy Guy is a Kangta (Hey - Handsome!)

Wit Guy is a Heejun (Shinning Shinning!)

Mood Guy is a Tony (Hey - Funny!)

Wild Guy is a Woohyuk

Maknae Jaewon is a Shy Shy ! Guy Guy!

If you watch any live performance of “Haengbok”, you’ll see a part of this song sandwiched in the middle with the camera focusing on each of the members. Each performance is different, such as in one Jaewon does a flip and in another he pulls a comb out of nowhere and runs it through his hair.

H.O.T’s Haengbok vs Super Junior’s Haengbok

SMTown used to release an album during the winter and summer seasons that brought together a lot of their popular artists. These albums would usually have one main song that everyone sang, then the rest of the tracks would be either split by group or just put different people together. On the summer 2007 album, Super Junior did a cover of “Haengbok”.

When I first heard it, I adored it because I thought it was a fun, new take on a song I loved. Well, everyone seems to agree with that notion because when someone does a cover of “Haengbok”, they’ll usually do the Super Junior version, not H.O.T’s (even though it will often be labeled as a cover of an H.O.T song or say Suju cover, original by H.O.T). The two songs use different instrumentals, choreography, and even how the song is sung is different when you compare Tony and Woohyuk’s parts to the Super Junior version.

I assume the reason for this is that it’s newer, but also that it’s easier to copy and perform. Whereas the original is so H.O.T and feels older, so I don’t think a lot of groups could pull it off. With a track like “Haengbok”, each person performing it has to be vibrant, impossible to confuse with someone else, and have their own style of performing.

We Are the Future

The tone of the last major track on the album is not heavy like “Wolf & Sheep” or light like “Haengbok”, but instead is a mix of the two.

“We Are the Future” is a high-energy dance track with lyrics about teenagers recognizing that they are the future, not the adults who are oppressive.

We're still in the shadows of the adults, We're still not free-

They fuss and bother us about this and that all day,

of course we can't do anything except get tired-

When are they gonna stop feeling satisfaction by forcing us to their ways?

One day goes by, and another day goes by,

we get more and more tired, feel like we're gonna collapse!

And yes, before you ask, this is another song by Yoo Youngjin.

Unlike “Wolf & Sheep”, which mainly rages about injustices that have been done, “We Are the Future” has a message of hope as well. The message is that you are the future, and you can change the world (and your life).

Within me, a new world is squirming to grow,

and now I will grow it and develop it on my own!

We are the future!

Throw it away! From now on, I tell you,

I'm the master of my life-

I'll believe it, I'll believe it, I'll be fine and strong on my own!

To add to this message, the MV shows a girl jumping off a roof, students getting hit by their teacher, a teenager shoplifting, and a student being bullied. These scenes are displayed between clips of H.O.T dancing and singing.

Compared to “Wolf & Sheep”, this displays scenes of reality that a lot of young people in Korea probably were familiar with either through seeing it happen to their peers or they themselves were going through it. This track is one of the reasons why H.O.T is called “The Nations First Idols” - they sang to people who were going through these issues. Unlike later groups, H.O.T never sang songs that were out of touch with their listeners.

Aside from the fact that this track is really catchy, I think it still resonates with people because they lyrics are about things that young people experience everywhere. For example, even though corporeal punishment was banned in Seoul back in 2010, it still happens sometimes in Korea (and in other countries as well).

But let’s be real, if you’re someone who isn’t at a good place in your life and you aren’t happy with where you are (or who you’re around), this song could apply to you too.

Other Songs of Interest

Free to Fly - This track also has an MV, but depending on the source, it’s a bit different. It’s cheesy 90s breakup song. If you didn’t know the lyrics you would probably assume it was a love song by how it sounds. I think this MV is part of the problem because it shows the guys being cute and saying sweet things - the audience awing over them doesn’t help either, hahaha. Yoo Youngjin must have been in a mood because “Tragedy” (which is also a track on this album), has the same kind of vibe.

The End of My Inferiority Complex - You’ve probably heard this track before because the beginning of it is at the beginning of the MV for “Haengbok”. This is the last song on the album that Yoo Youngjin had a hand in. It’s a teenage relationship drama told in one song. It’s about a guy who sees his girlfriend likes his friend more than him because his friend is all that. Since his friend has been so good to him, he feels like it would be best to breakup and let her be with his friend. However, at the end there’s a twist because when he goes to end things with her, she says:

You’ve got it all wrong,

That*s not the message I meant to give you,

I think I went too far in trying to express my feelings-

I was only so frustrated at you because you were so unconfident,

so unsure of yourself next to your friend-

Don*t be stupid, don*t fool yourself-

Hold me now, I love YOU! 

It was the 90s so it makes sense that this would be the conclusion, but I want to call BS on it.

Lost 12th Birthday - This is probably one of the catchiest songs in K-Pop, and I find that it’s pretty easy to sing if you don’t know much Korean. Whenever it’s a member’s birthday, they’ll usually sing this instead of the normal Happy Birthday song, and you can usually hear fans sing it during birthdays as well. It sounds really cute and kind of nostalgic...until you look at the title of the song and find out what the lyrics are about.

This song is about someone getting in trouble, so their parents decide to not celebrate their 12th birthday. It goes on to talk about how on kid’s birthday, they went home after church to find their friends waiting for them to say, “ A joyous day a pleasant day you beloved birthday. Today I genuinely congratulate your birthday. (Happy Birthday to you)”. The kid resolves to be better afterwards and study harder. (However, considering that the lyrics at the beginning talk about how scared the kid was of their parents, I don’t think the kid is completely at fault. >.>)

Since the perspective changes during the song (Your birthday is just like my birthday. I want to be born again by your side today. So as I light you 12th birthday candle today. I want to find the memory I lost a short while ago), it’s also possible to interpret it as, “I had a bad 12th birthday, so I hope you have a better birthday than I did”.

K-Pop boy groups nowadays can make hit songs about how much money or awards they’ve gotten. H.O.T, meanwhile, has a bop about not getting to celebrate turning twelve. (Why am I fan of these guys again??)

Other Points of Interest

This was a glorious era of cringe and stupidity for the group. From Heejun dyeing his hair purple and getting banned from broadcast (part of the reason why his hair was covered during this time) to poorly written/acted dramas, Wolf & Sheep promotions had it all.

H.O.T in Joseon

H.O.T Does Math

H.O.T Become Aliens

Behind-the-Scenes of Haengbok

H.O.T Pretend to be Animals

Conclusion

Wolf & Sheep was a successful follow up to We Hate All Kinds of Violence. It was more ambitious in its critiques of society, while managing to be uplifting at the same time. Many things that were in this album parallel other tracks later in their discography. It was released right at the start of the Asian Financial Crisis, so perhaps it can be looked upon fondly as being right before Korea was hit by it. With this in mind, I want to share one last quote:

I thought about it occasionally, in what state I would be as an adult-

Could I always live like this? Oh baby-

I'm gonna make a world of my own on my own,

Don't force the same way of life on me.

Within me, a new world is squirming to grow,

and now I will grow it and develop it on my own!

WE ARE THE FUTURE!!!

If I could sum up this album, it would be with this: The future is yours, so don’t let the past keep you from making the present better.

Links Lyrics iTunes Spotify

#H.O.T Discography Discussion #H.O.T. #High-Five of Teenager #kpop #k-pop #old kpop #Moon Heejun #kangta #lee jaewon #Jang Woohyuk #tony ahn

[g12stem4g8sy2122]

The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individual

Being a Media and Information Literate Individual In this Digital Age, it is very crucial nowadays because in this generation some teenagers nowadays prefer playing games than reading books. The purpose of being a media and information literate individual is to engage in a digital society where one needs to be able to understand, inquire, and think critically. In the 21st century the value of being a media and information literate is essential because in this generation technologies around us are evolving such as cellphones, computers, television and other mediums for information. Being a media literate person gives us the opportunity to express ourselves and communicate, it gives us advantage as a student for our studies, to gain more information that can be used in our future.

You can be a pioneer by inspiring or persuading others to use it as well, so that they can obtain knowledge, and you can help to promote your country or anything else you want to promote, because all you have to do is promote your country's culture for us to gain global notice. Traditionally, information literacy and media literacy have been considered independent areas. It is a method that combines these two fields as a set of competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitude) required for today's life and job. Being literate in media and information will provide us an advantage in today's society, particularly in terms of delivering and getting information, as we will be able to identify the majority of false and correct information in various types of media, particularly in the media.To become media literate, you must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use that information effectively, rather than memorizing facts or statistics about the media.

#MILEntry1

[illusionsofcontrol]

are there any tropes you wanted to stay away from with each character or the setting of danganronpa? its a pertty formulaic thing but you made it probably 10x more interesting than the usual game. maybe its because of the depth in charcters or the stakes but wh just seems more engaing than most real dr games! i love your works btw!

I'm really honored that you feel that way about my story! Thank you!

I should warn that my response is going to be somewhat critical of Danganronpa. I want to clarify that I still enjoy the games and it's perfectly fine if anyone disagrees, but these are my opinions and I feel they are important to my response.

First off, I guess I'm not sure if there's any setting tropes I mind in DR. The settings are actually pretty unique to each game and tie into the murders decently. WH obviously has a different setting, but that's more to fit the story rather than avoiding DR tropes.

There are, however, a lot of character tropes I intentionally avoided in WH:R.

Singular Buff Character Who Dies in Chapter 4

WH:R has two buff characters (formerly named Jerome and Ryan) and without going into spoilers, they may or may not have anything to do with Part 04. I don't know, this trope is just so overdone that I saw Gonta's design and instantly predicted that he'd die in Chapter 4. I thought it had to be a red herring, but no. That indeed happened just as expected. I don't want people to be able to predict deaths just by looking at a character design.

Girls Must Wear Skirts

Fun fact, there are only three female Danganronpa characters who don't wear skirts. They would be Aoi Asahina (wears shorts, much like an athletic swimmer would outside of the pool), Hiroko Hagakure (Yasuhiro's mom, wears jeans), and Ruruka Ando (Confectionary girl from DR3, wears very, very short shorts-). Unless there's someone I'm forgetting, every other DR girl wears skirts. Now, I'm aware that this is because most Japanese school uniforms require girls to wear skirts. But given how... bizarre everyone's outfits already are, do all the girls HAVE to wear skirts??? Given the weird fanservice of the games, I feel like it's more to make the girls reveal more skin/slim figure idk :/

I'm getting carried away here. Anyway, WH:R doesn't take place in a Japanese school so I made sure that the women aren't all wearing skirts. And while we're on the subject...

Sexual Fanservice

I'm not against it, but I personally feel like sexual fanservice in a Murder Mystery game (especially involving teenagers) is really uncomfortable. Every game has certain female characters designated to making fanservice moments (DR1: Aoi, DR2: Akane, Mikan, v3: Miu) (Junko for all three I guess-) (Also yes I'm aware that Mikan's fanservice is part of her character/backstory but it doesn't change the fact that the CGs are there for shameless fanservice. They could've drawn the scenes where her back was to the screen or something and conveyed the same message but they made sure to show Everything.)

There's also plenty of designs that are overly revealing; obviously anyone can wear what they want and a large chest is not inherently sexual but it's pretty clear to me that a lot of the revealing designs are for fanservice. Once again, these are mainly teenagers, and the older I get the more it unsettles me.

Anyway, I really wanted to avoid doing sexual fanservice for WH:R. Even though all characters but one are adults, it's just not something I want to write in a story like this. It's not my style.

The Rat

I mentioned this in a previous post, but I ended up avoiding the Rat Character trope. It's not that I dislike it, but I quite enjoyed having the characters all mean well (except for the Puppetmaster, of course.)

(But if I were to have a rat character in WH:R, they'd be the Super Diamond Level Griefer haha)

Resident Dumbass

Yasuhiro, Kazuichi, Kaito, and Akane come to mind (yeah the middle two aren't actually dumb but they tend to fall into this trope regardless). Having to do an entire minigame just to convince Yasuhiro that Kyoko wasn't a literal ghost comes to mind... Idk, I guess I just feel like characters like Kazuichi and Kaito are actually smarter than that but because it's "funny" they have to say illogical stuff throughout the games? Perhaps in a game with voice acting it can be a funny aside, but in a novel that kind of stuff would just slow everything down.

I don't know, it's not like everyone in WH:R is super smart, but that's a trope I tried to avoid.

Rude Characters (?)

Okay this isn't really a trope but Danganronpa tends to always have abrasive characters, but given that WH:R has a main cast of friends, it wouldn't make much sense for there to be much rudeness. I guess Ryan would be the closest to that but he still genuinely cares about the group.

This isn't a bad trope, it's just more natural to exist in Danganronpa because the characters there start off as strangers.

Conclusion

I can't really think of other tropes at the moment. Maybe if I think of more I'll reblog this. But I want to clarify that most of these "tropes" are avoided because of personal preference and differences in media, not necessarily because they're inherently bad.

This next part isn't exactly answering the ask, but I'm assuming that I get these asks from people who are interested in making their own fangans. So here are my two cents.

I've seen fangans that are made out of love for DR and I've seen fangans made out of spite and dislike for some aspects. Both reasons are valid (mine is mostly the former with a slight hint of the latter that's grown over the years). Kodaka's writing is definitely flawed; however, making fangans purely out of spite is dangerous. I don't want to name names, but there is one fangan in particular where the writer admitted to hating Danganronpa and only focused on adding what they wanted. But they neglected the most important part: having a solid story and cast.

Whether or not you love or hate Danganronpa, if you're writing a fangan, it is important to consider the many subjective reasons people are drawn to/away the series. I'm a firm believer that every story has something to teach a writer; even if the lesson is simply "I really don't like these tropes", considering why is insightful.

It mostly boils down to style, in my opinion. Danganronpa has a much different tone with its wacky characters and dialogue and scenarios, but that's Kodaka's style. My style is more grounded in reality, with each character having their own depth that comes up in the main plot and not just in Free Time Events. This is because my stories are more character-driven, and I personally dislike important character information that is sidelined to bonus content. I'm the kind of writer that never makes an OC that's not part of a story, cuz my style has every character play an important role.

(However, one can argue that in a visual novel, having more character depth in Free Time Events adds greater meaning because the player gets a special insight from choosing to interact with certain characters. In a regular novel, there isn't really that kind of interaction. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the media you're working with is also important.)

I think one of the biggest lessons I learned while writing WH is that forcing yourself to imitate any writer's style when trying to take inspiration is going to fall flat. It's kind of apparent in the beginning of WH, but I used to be feel like I had to follow the Danganronpa style even when I had my own desires for the story.

In reality, every writer is different and has their own quirks that they enjoy but other writers might not. There are many things I dislike about Kodaka's writing, but I know those things are definitely appealing to other people. Likewise, I know my style is not for everyone. It's fine to try and branch out if you want, but one has to recognize what one is comfortable with.

This lesson is still hard for me to absorb sometimes because I don't have much confidence in my storytelling abilities, but I'm gradually accepting that this fangan is my own. I am doing my own spin on the Danganronpa story and that's okay.

And honestly, that's what every fangan should be; a writer's own spin on the Danganronpa plot concept. So while here are the tropes I made sure to avoid, that doesn't mean other writers need to do the same. Figure out what works best for you and what YOU want to see in a Danganronpa story.

(Holy crap this was so long I'm so sorry-)

#ask

[fionnaalexis26]

“The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individual”

Media and information literacy enables people, as users of information and the media, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of information and media. Media literacy emphasizes the ability to understand media functions, evaluate their performance, and use them for self-expression, while information literacy emphasizes the importance of access to information and the ethical evaluation and use of such information. It recognizes the main role of information and the media in our daily life. It focuses on freedom of expression and information, as it enables citizens to understand the roles of the media and other information providers, evaluate their content, and, as users and producers of media information and content, express informed criticism. Technology is essential for daily lives routines mostly that we are going through in online class because of the pandemic. Its advancement is parallel to the media. Information can be transmitted and any time of the day it will spread. Media these days is important on our daily basis, especially teenagers and those social influencers that use media as their work or to inspire others with like vloggers, etc. Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. It helps with acquiring our knowledge into what we find in web-based media, talk with others like for our family, relatives, and partners and it might be a redirection also by using online media. Also, it helps with keeping one educated concerning what's going on in the world to revive in news in our overall population or our environmental factors.

 Being media and information literate best significance is the idea of media into a source. A source of information and ready to interpret the data through the media. To turn into a media educated isn't to retain reality about media but instead to learn and become information literate as an individual should have the option to perceive when data is required and have a capacity to locate, evaluate and utilize effectively the required data as a guide for them. Information and media competence enables individuals, as information and media users, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of media information and messages who can recognize and identify what is fake news and what they are not. They are also expected to be able to process and understand the information provided to them and possibly also explain it to others.

 I think being a media and information literate individual has infinite value if one becomes an asset and a translator of current info into media or possesses a clear understanding of the info in the media and can work with others using or sharing info. Being media and information literate needs certain skills such as critical thinking. Being a media and information literate individual is allowing us to increase our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. It allows us to be competent and knowledgeable of our understanding of how it works. Being media and information literate is so much helpful in our society and it also helps the progress of each individual’s abilities and the progress of our economic and social status. It can give us an idea of what we can do to make it possible for what we have. It can help us to provide good comfort and support our effectiveness in communicating with your loved ones. The value of media will depend upon how people use it and how to make an effort online. Being a media and information literate individual allows oneself to be able to properly interpret information and use media as a medium to accurately spread correct information. It increases our ability and proficiency to effectively communicate and know which information is true and right to be shared. As dutiful citizens, we must know our rights and limits.

#MIL

[ellajane-gabutan]

Media and information literacy enables people, as users of information and the media, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of information and media. Media literacy emphasizes the ability to understand media functions, evaluate their performance, and use them for self-expression, while information literacy emphasizes the importance of access to information and the ethical evaluation and use of such information. It recognizes the main role of information and the media in our daily life. It focuses on freedom of expression and information, as it enables citizens to understand the roles of the media and other information providers, evaluate their content, and, as users and producers of media information and content, express informed criticism. Technology is essential for daily lives routines mostly that we are going through in online class because of the pandemic. Its advancement is parallel to the media. Information can be transmitted and any time of the day it will spread. Media these days is important on our daily basis, especially teenagers and those social influencers that use media as their work or to inspire others with like vloggers, etc. Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. It helps with acquiring our knowledge into what we find in web-based media, talk with others like for our family, relatives, and partners and it might be a redirection also by using online media. Also, it helps with keeping one educated concerning what's going on in the world to revive in news in our overall population or our environmental factors. Being media and information literate best significance is the idea of media into a source. A source of information and ready to interpret the data through the media. To turn into a media educated isn't to retain reality about media but instead to learn and become information literate as an individual should have the option to perceive when data is required and have a capacity to locate, evaluate and utilize effectively the required data as a guide for them. Information and media competence enables individuals, as information and media users, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of media information and messages who can recognize and identify what is fake news and what they are not. They are also expected to be able to process and understand the information provided to them and possibly also explain it to others. I think being a media and information literate individual has infinite value if one becomes an asset and a translator of current info into media or possesses a clear understanding of the info in the media and can work with others using or sharing info. Being media and information literate needs certain skills such as critical thinking. Being a media and information literate individual is allowing us to increase our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. It allows us to be competent and knowledgeable of our understanding of how it works. Being media and information literate is so much helpful in our society and it also helps the progress of each individual’s abilities and the progress of our economic and social status. It can give us an idea of what we can do to make it possible for what we have. It can help us to provide good comfort and support our effectiveness in communicating with your loved ones. The value of media will depend upon how people use it and how to make an effort online. Being a media and information literate individual allows oneself to be able to properly interpret information and use media as a medium to accurately spread correct information. It increases our ability and proficiency to effectively communicate and know which information is true and right to be shared. As dutiful citizens, we must know our rights and limits.

[karylle065]

"The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individual"

Media and information literacy enables people, as users of information and the media, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of information and media. Media literacy emphasizes the ability to understand media functions, evaluate their performance, and use them for self-expression, while information literacy emphasizes the importance of access to information and the ethical evaluation and use of such information. It recognizes the main role of information and the media in our daily life. It focuses on freedom of expression and information, as it enables citizens to understand the roles of the media and other information providers, evaluate their content, and, as users and producers of media information and content, express informed criticism. Technology is essential for daily lives routines mostly that we are going through in online class because of the pandemic. Its advancement is parallel to the media. Information can be transmitted and any time of the day it will spread. Media these days is important on our daily basis, especially teenagers and those social influencers that use media as their work or to inspire others with like vloggers, etc. Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. It helps with acquiring our knowledge into what we find in web-based media, talk with others like for our family, relatives, and partners and it might be a redirection also by using online media. Also, it helps with keeping one educated concerning what's going on in the world to revive in news in our overall population or our environmental factors.

Being media and information literate best significance is the idea of media into a source. A source of information and ready to interpret the data through the media. To turn into a media educated isn't to retain reality about media but instead to learn and become information literate as an individual should have the option to perceive when data is required and have a capacity to locate, evaluate and utilize effectively the required data as a guide for them. Information and media competence enables individuals, as information and media users, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of media information and messages who can recognize and identify what is fake news and what they are not. They are also expected to be able to process and understand the information provided to them and possibly also explain it to others.

I think being a media and information literate individual has infinite value if one becomes an asset and a translator of current info into media or possesses a clear understanding of the info in the media and can work with others using or sharing info. Being media and information literate needs certain skills such as critical thinking. Being a media and information literate individual is allowing us to increase our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. It allows us to be competent and knowledgeable of our understanding of how it works. Being media and information literate is so much helpful in our society and it also helps the progress of each individual’s abilities and the progress of our economic and social status. It can give us an idea of what we can do to make it possible for what we have. It can help us to provide good comfort and support our effectiveness in communicating with your loved ones. The value of media will depend upon how people use it and how to make an effort online. Being a media and information literate individual allows oneself to be able to properly interpret information and use media as a medium to accurately spread correct information. It increases our ability and proficiency to effectively communicate and know which information is true and right to be shared. As dutiful citizens, we must know our rights and limits.

[ellajpacudan]

“THE VALUE OF BEING A MEDIA AND INFORMATION LITERATE INDIVIDUAL”

Media and information literacy enables people, as users of information and the media, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of information and media. Media literacy emphasizes the ability to understand media functions, evaluate their performance, and use them for self-expression, while information literacy emphasizes the importance of access to information and the ethical evaluation and use of such information. It recognizes the main role of information and the media in our daily life. It focuses on freedom of expression and information, as it enables citizens to understand the roles of the media and other information providers, evaluate their content, and, as users and producers of media information and content, express informed criticism. Technology is essential for daily lives routines mostly that we are going through in online class because of the pandemic. Its advancement is parallel to the media. Information can be transmitted and any time of the day it will spread. Media these days is important on our daily basis, especially teenagers and those social influencers that use media as their work or to inspire others with like vloggers, etc. Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. It helps with acquiring our knowledge into what we find in web-based media, talk with others like for our family, relatives, and partners and it might be a redirection also by using online media. Also, it helps with keeping one educated concerning what's going on in the world to revive in news in our overall population or our environmental factors. 

Being media and information literate best significance is the idea of media into a source. A source of information and ready to interpret the data through the media. To turn into a media educated isn't to retain reality about media but instead to learn and become information literate as an individual should have the option to perceive when data is required and have a capacity to locate, evaluate and utilize effectively the required data as a guide for them. Information and media competence enables individuals, as information and media users, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of media information and messages who can recognize and identify what is fake news and what they are not. They are also expected to be able to process and understand the information provided to them and possibly also explain it to others.

I think being a media and information literate individual has infinite value if one becomes an asset and a translator of current info into media or possesses a clear understanding of the info in the media and can work with others using or sharing info. Being media and information literate needs certain skills such as critical thinking. Being a media and information literate individual is allowing us to increase our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. It allows us to be competent and knowledgeable of our understanding of how it works. Being media and information literate is so much helpful in our society and it also helps the progress of each individual’s abilities and the progress of our economic and social status. It can give us an idea of what we can do to make it possible for what we have. It can help us to provide good comfort and support our effectiveness in communicating with your loved ones. The value of media will depend upon how people use it and how to make an effort online. Being a media and information literate individual allows oneself to be able to properly interpret information and use media as a medium to accurately spread correct information. It increases our ability and proficiency to effectively communicate and know which information is true and right to be shared. As dutiful citizens, we must know our rights and limits.

[deng1234567-blog]

“The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individual”

Media and information literacy enables people, as users of information and the media, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of information and media. Media literacy emphasizes the ability to understand media functions, evaluate their performance, and use them for self-expression, while information literacy emphasizes the importance of access to information and the ethical evaluation and use of such information. It recognizes the main role of information and the media in our daily life. It focuses on freedom of expression and information, as it enables citizens to understand the roles of the media and other information providers, evaluate their content, and, as users and producers of media information and content, express informed criticism. Technology is essential for daily lives routines mostly that we are going through in online class because of the pandemic. Its advancement is parallel to the media. Information can be transmitted and any time of the day it will spread. Media these days is important on our daily basis, especially teenagers and those social influencers that use media as their work or to inspire others with like vloggers, etc. Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. It helps with acquiring our knowledge into what we find in web-based media, talk with others like for our family, relatives, and partners and it might be a redirection also by using online media. Also, it helps with keeping one educated concerning what's going on in the world to revive in news in our overall population or our environmental factors.

Being media and information literate best significance is the idea of media into a source. A source of information and ready to interpret the data through the media. To turn into a media educated isn't to retain reality about media but instead to learn and become information literate as an individual should have the option to perceive when data is required and have a capacity to locate, evaluate and utilize effectively the required data as a guide for them. Information and media competence enables individuals, as information and media users, to interpret and make informed judgments and to become capable creators and producers of media information and messages who can recognize and identify what is fake news and what they are not. They are also expected to be able to process and understand the information provided to them and possibly also explain it to others.

I think being a media and information literate individual has infinite value if one becomes an asset and a translator of current info into media or possesses a clear understanding of the info in the media and can work with others using or sharing info. Being media and information literate needs certain skills such as critical thinking. Being a media and information literate individual is allowing us to increase our ability to communicate efficiently and effectively. It allows us to be competent and knowledgeable of our understanding of how it works. Being media and information literate is so much helpful in our society and it also helps the progress of each individual’s abilities and the progress of our economic and social status. It can give us an idea of what we can do to make it possible for what we have. It can help us to provide good comfort and support our effectiveness in communicating with your loved ones. The value of media will depend upon how people use it and how to make an effort online. Being a media and information literate individual allows oneself to be able to properly interpret information and use media as a medium to accurately spread correct information. It increases our ability and proficiency to effectively communicate and know which information is true and right to be shared. As dutiful citizens, we must know our rights and limits.

[mariagelynsblog-blog]

The Importance of being a Media and Information Literate

MIL - also known as Media and Information Literacy recognizes the primary role of Media and Information in our everyday lives. The purpose of being an Information and Media Literate is to engage in a digital society where one needs to be able to use, understand, inquire, create, communicate and think critically. It is important to have the capacity to effectively access, organize, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms. Information and Media Literacy enables people to interpret and make informed judgments as users of information and media as well as to become skillful creators ad producers of information and media messages in their own right. To become a Media Literate is not to memorize facts or statistics about media but rather to learn, to raise the right questions about what you are watching, reading, or listening to and to be an Information Literate a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information because you are a medium of spreading significant information in the community. Being Media and Information literate is not just for yourself to understand but for you to spread the information to others. As we all know that teenagers nowadays are into SNS (Social Networking Sites) where most teenagers learn and understand on what is happening to their surroundings and being able to know, they share what they read. Through sharing (the information in SNS), people are able to communicate and spread awareness to everyone. With this kind of mindset for such digital users, it can help others know that being into social media is not just a disadvantage, but it has a great role for everyone to be a Media and Information Literate. There are advantages and disadvantages of media being a media information literate individual. The disadvantage of this is sometimes your ideas or opinions can affect other people and the advantage is sometimes it motivates and inspire other people. As of 21st century were in everything is being digital, we must be responsible for our own knowledge and on how we educate ourselves. According to Jeff Wilhelm (2000), "technology has everything to do with literacy. And being able to use the latest electronic technologies has everything to do with being literate". As we are in a century were technology is being part of everthing and we dont want to be called illiterate.Also, by means of speed spreading of information technology is the best of it. People are no longer limited to the desktop computer. People now use mobile technologies since its very accessible to every one. Media and Information Literacy therefore is about helping any one to become competent, critical, and literate in all media forms so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them. It also promotes entry to information and knowledge, and building knowledge societies. It also produces careful and critical thinkers. In other words, Media and Information Literacy will help you become a brilliant receiver and sender of information in media and in any other platform. For the purpose of the MIL media are defined as sources of credible and current information created through an editorial process determined by journalistic values whereby editorial accountability can be attributed to a specific organization or a legal person. To the extent that media are an important part of every society’s communication system, their institutional make-up can mesh with a variety of non-media information providers, such as libraries, museums, archives, Internet information providers, other information organizations and citizens who produce their own content. In other words, mil will help you become a brilliant reciever and sender of information by means of media and in any other platforms.

[stretchjournalemerson]

Revisiting Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Intersectional Feminism in 2019

By Allison Hoag

Over twenty years after the series first premiered, Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains not only as a popular show in the public consciousness, but also as a hotly debated text in the academic sphere. What exactly is it about this demon-fighting, vampire-slaying, teenage girl that has captivated audiences for so long, and why has Buffy spawned so much controversy both publicly and academically? Most importantly, how should Buffy and its various implications about gender, race, and “otherness” be read in 2019?

It is undeniable that Buffy is a somewhat exclusionary narrative that directs our sympathies solely towards its overwhelmingly white and privileged characters. Any feminist inclinations this series espouses are emblematic of the equally exclusionary white feminism. However, even within these constraints—focusing only on feminism impactful to socioeconomically privileged white women—Buffy scholarship continually debates the extent of feminist messaging in the series. In 2019, surface-level white feminism alone is often not seen as enough to define a text as feminist. More and more, people are embracing Kimberle Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality as a lens through which to evaluate texts. Crenshaw suggested that both feminist and anti-racist movements exclude black women, who face the most discrimination because of the intersection of their race and gender, arguing that “feminism must include an analysis of race if it hopes to express the aspirations of non-white women” (166). This term has since expanded to include class, ability, gender identity, and sexuality in feminist critiques.

Recently, the feminist debate over Buffy has been revisited after a somewhat shocking blog post by Buffy creator Joss Whedon’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, that suggested Whedon is not the “loveable geek-feminist” he presents himself as (Cole). Despite the flaws of its creator, is there still a way for Buffy to be viewed as a feminist show? Is this a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked? In light of these revelations, I intend to reexamine Buffy through Crenshaw’s intersectional lens, focusing less on surface-level feminist readings of this series, but instead shifting the focus onto specific storylines to explore how Whedon addresses topics of gender, race, love, and rape.

***

It is not without reason that critics and fans alike have showered Buffy with feminist praise since its debut in 1997. Not only does this series make Buffy the “subject of traditionally masculine storytelling tropes…, [but] she does it all as a tiny, blonde former cheerleader…the embodiment of the girl her genre usually kills first” (Grady). Buffy takes the idea of a “strong” woman quite literally and manifests a teenage girl with superhuman strength who “must stand against the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness,” as the introduction to each episode reminds us (Whedon). Buffy seems to be a show rife with positive female role models for the impressionable teen and pre-teen girls that make up its audience: Buffy is selfless and strong (physically and emotionally); Willow is kind, intelligent, and stands up for what she believes is right; Cordelia is bold and unafraid to go after what she wants; Tara is loving and is constantly helping and caring for her friends.

Buffy often addresses topics that many members of this teen audience may face, largely through its (sometimes heavy handed) metaphorical use of vampires and demons, as well as online predators (“I Robot…You, Jane”), drinking at parties (“Beer Bad”), and drug addiction (“Wrecked”). Seemingly less metaphorical, however, is its feminism. Throughout the series, Buffy repeatedly defends the whole of humanity against vampires, demons, and the like, maintains positive relationships with the other women in her life, is independent, and has (mostly) healthy romantic relationships. The overt “girl-power” theme of this show is quite clear. However, in its final season, Buffy “raises the explicit feminist stakes of the series considerably” (Pender). While in previous seasons, the metaphorical misogyny of the villains Buffy faces could be debated, season seven’s “big bad” is, “of all the show’s myriad manifestations of evil, the most recognizably misogynist” (Pender). Dubbed “Reverend-I-Hate-Women” by Xander (“Touched”), Caleb can only be defeated if Buffy teams up with and shares her power with all potential Slayers across the globe, an act that takes “female empowerment” quite literally in the series finale.

But how did Buffy get to this point? Buffy wasn’t even initially intended for the pre-teen and teenage girl demographic who would become its main audience. Knowing that this show was originally aimed at a male demographic, “it seems evident that producers did not intend to market a feminist show” (Riordan 292). Not only do some of the feminist statements in Buffy feel painfully forced, but upon deeper exploration, much of this show’s “feminism” is only surface-level and disregards Crenshaw’s notions of intersectionality.

Mary Magoulick, a folklorist and Professor of English, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Women’s Studies at Georgia College (“Mary Magoulick”), explores some of the downfalls of “feminist” shows that were primarily created by men for predominantly male audiences in her article, “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy.” Magoulick argues that female heroes like Buffy that are “conceived of and written mostly by men in a still male-dominated world…project the status quo more than they fulfill feminist hopes” (729). An integral part of Magoulick’s argument is the idea that “Buffy [is] less concerned with building or celebrating a world than surviving a hostile one” (745). Although Magoulick acknowledges that recognizing the hostility women face in the world is an important part of feminist conversations, Buffy is widely praised for its progressive presentation of women, not for “presenting the troubling reality women live in” (750). Buffy continually expresses her desire to escape from her responsibilities as the Slayer and lead an average life; yet, she continues fighting vampires and demons, largely due to the pressure from her Watcher, Giles. The idea that Buffy cannot escape her situation because of a social institution—the Watcher’s Council, dominated by men and put in place to control women—provides strong textual support for Magoulick’s claim that Buffy is “reflective of current social inequities and gender roles” (750).

Ultimately Buffy escapes her duties as Slayer, sacrificing herself in the season five finale, only for her friends to later resurrect her, bringing her back from what they believe to be a hell dimension. However, Buffy confesses to Spike, “I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not…this is hell” (“After Life”), making him promise to never tell her friends. After coming back to life, Buffy almost immediately returns to her predetermined social position and initially deals with being brought back into her personal version of hell alone, wanting to protect her friends from the truth. Not only does this arc present the feminist concept of emotional labor as something inherently expected of women, but it also more directly begs the question Magoulick poses regarding the entirety of the series: “Is survival in hell, albeit with occasional victories and humor, the best [women] can imagine?” (748).

***

Magoulick promotes an argument first raised by Elyce Rae Helford that “[Buffy] is laudable for allowing women unusual space to voice and act out anger” while also sending strong implications about what kind of women are allowed to express anger (733). Of the Slayers introduced throughout the series, Buffy is the only one who is allowed to act upon her anger, and most of the time this anger is expressed towards the vampires and demons she fights, not people in her personal life. However, Kendra—a Slayer who is also a woman of color—has her anger framed in a much more negative way. Despite the lack of people of color in Buffy—or possibly because of the show’s few characters played by people of color—race and racism have become prominent topics in Buffy scholarship. A closer examination of direct and indirect racist implications in Buffy reinforces the idea that any feminist tendencies in Buffy fall strictly into the category of white feminism, and the show cannot be considered an example of the intersectional feminism pushed for in 2019.

The intersectional failings of Buffy are further explored by Kent A. Ono, a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Utah who researches representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation in print, film, and television media (“Kent A. Ono”). In his article, “To Be a Vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Race and (‘Other’) Socially Marginalizing Positions on Horror TV,” Ono argues that Buffy “conveys debilitating images of and ideas about people of color” (163), claiming that “the valorization and heroification [sic] of a white feminist protagonist is constructed through an associated villainization and demonization of people of color” (164). Here, Ono quite literally means demonization. Most of the vampires and demons that appear on this show are played by white actors, so it is not necessarily a question of casting people of color as villains, so much as it is a question of who these villains are intended to be.

As previously established, the writers of Buffy can be somewhat aggressive with their use of metaphor; therefore, it is inarguable that, on Buffy, a vampire isn’t just a vampire. Ono argues that “the marginalization of vampires on the show takes the place of racial marginalization in the world outside the show” (172). In contrast, Magoulick presents a non-racial reading of the teenage vampires as “representative of gangs” (745). Considering the show’s overarching plot, especially the first few seasons Magoulick references when Buffy is still in high school, both of these interpretations are equally valid, and both can be supported by textual evidence. Given the history of representation of people of color on television, it is particularly disturbing that two of the major metaphorical interpretations of vampires on this show are as people of color and as gang members. It is not unreasonable to believe that Whedon and his writers were familiar with racist representations on television that were prominent in the 60s and early 70s, especially because some of these representations still exist twenty years after the show was created. With this understanding, it could be argued that vampires were equally intended to represent people who were racially marginalized and gangs. Ono argues that because the villains of Buffy were the ones chosen to represent people of color, “Buffy…indirectly and directly shows violence by primarily white vigilante youths against people of color in the name of civilization” (168), evoking images of violent white supremacy that are present throughout American history and to the present day.

However, there is a reason Ono describes the “vigilante youths” as only primarily white (168). Kendra, the previously mentioned second Slayer portrayed by Bianca Lawson who is featured in three episodes over the course of Buffy’s second season, is a black woman. Although only appearing in three episodes, Kendra is credited as “offer[ing] the most complex development of a black female character in Buffy” (Edwards 95). While this is technically true, it is important to note that her arc was fairly straightforward, and any character development is as a result of a somewhat racist narrative of acceptance only after assimilation. However, because she is one of the few examples of a prominent character who is a person of color and essentially the only person of color who works with Buffy, I will be examining her in some detail.

Ono argues that because she takes the responsibility of being the Slayer far more seriously, Kendra is a threat to Buffy, causing Buffy’s own racism to emerge. Ono specifically cites “[Buffy’s] discomfort with Kendra’s language…When Buffy uses the word wiggy and Kendra asks what that means, Buffy responds with a racist comment…‘You know, no kicko, no fighto’” (174). However, Buffy’s comment is indicative of a much larger issue in the show’s production team. “By casting Bianca Lawson, a black actress, in the role of Kendra, the second Slayer, [Whedon] makes character a sign imbued with cultural meanings about gender, race, and race relations” (Edwards 87). Kendra is marked as other not only by her skin color, but also by her heavy Jamaican accent, and she is not accepted by Buffy and her friends until she begins to assimilate, sending the message that people of color are responsible for changing themselves if they want to be accepted by white America.

It is important to note that Bianca Lawson’s casting wasn’t accidental. The script specifically delineates Kendra as an “ethnic young woman” (Edwards 91). Whedon has admitted that he did not make any efforts to hire people of color behind the scenes (Busis), so there is a possibility that the overwhelmingly white writers’ room and crew did not detect the racist treatment of Kendra. However, that in itself poses a major issue, not only socially, but also with how we’re supposed to understand the treatment of the few people of color and the metaphorical “people of color”/vampires throughout the series. The absence of people of color behind the scenes could also at least partially account for the Ono’s observation that “no person of color acknowledged as such on the series has been able to remain a significant character. All characters of color…have either died or have failed to reappear” (177).

Although she was killed off after only three episodes, as a black woman, Kendra represents the black women facing discrimination based on both race and gender that Crenshaw advocated for in developing her theory of intersectional feminism. Kendra’s treatment in Buffy is indicative of both the white feminism that will often ignore racist representations in a text because of its slight feminist messaging, and the necessity of including intersectionality in the evaluation and creation of feminist texts.

***

Buffy is filled with incredibly disturbing scenes. We watch Willow get skinned alive by a demon (“Same Time, Same Place”), Buffy’s own mother attempt to burn her at the stake (“Gingerbread”), and a demon stalk and murder sickly children in their hospital beds (“Killed by Death”). However, “Seeing Red” (2002) remains one of Buffy’s most upsetting episodes. Spike corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom and violently attempts to rape her until she is finally able to fight him off. In a recent interview, James Marsters (Spike) described his opposition to the scene, inadvertently pinpointing the reason this scene is so difficult to watch: “My argument was that, actually, when anyone is watching Buffy, they are Buffy…the audience, especially the female audience, they are not superheroes, but they are Buffy” (Marsters). This scene is particularly upsetting not only because of the content, but also because it presents many women’s worst fears—if an injured Buffy, who is still exponentially stronger than an average woman, can barely fight off Spike, what hope do they have of fighting off their attacker? Additionally, Spike is not presented as a violent vampire here: he is presented as human, making this scene more realistic and horrifying.

Wendy Fall, a doctoral candidate at Marquette University and editor of Marquette’s Gothic Archive (“Graduate Research”), discusses this scene at length in her article “Spike Is Forgiven: The Sympathetic Vampire's Resonance with Rape Culture.” She suggests that because James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney the Vampire (1845) is the first English-language vampire narrative that conflates an attack and rape scene, it established a “three-part strategy [gaslighting, silencing the victim, and emphasizing the assailant’s goodness] which encouraged readers to overlook Varney’s sexual violence, and thereby increased their sympathy for him” (Fall 76). She argues that although Spike’s attempted rape technically avoids Rymer’s narrative because he does not attempt to bite Buffy and is never even seen as a vampire, “The more problematic nature of this attack…is in what happens next, when the show adopts similar narrative schemes to Rymer’s to reinforce sympathy for Spike after his attempted sexual assault” (Fall 76).

Fall points out that there are only three more episodes in season six following Spike’s attempted rape, followed by a four-month gap between seasons, prompting the audience to forget how violent and serious it was (77). Not only are Spike and Buffy not seen together for the rest of the season, but they are separated because attempting to rape Buffy acts as a catalyst for Spike’s quest to get his soul back. This gives the audience time to develop sympathy for Spike as they watch him go through painful trials as he tries to recover his soul, while diminishing the severity of the attempted rape in their minds—because, surely, someone willing to go to this extent to obtain their soul and be a better person would never have acted as violently as he did.

Fall argues that Buffy also follows Varney’s narrative strategy of silencing the victim because “the show’s writers seem unwilling to allow the characters to have further discussion on the topic; Buffy never tells anyone the full story, and after this scene, she rarely mentions it again” (78). Fall further claims that “they had access to a strong female character and the opportunity to address her experience of trauma, but they opt not to pursue it” (78). Surely, at least part of the reason we never see Buffy attempting to deal with the emotional aftermath of someone she trusted trying to rape her is because the larger narrative suggests a degree of victim blaming that cannot coexist with holding Spike accountable for his actions. Prior to this scene, Buffy and Spike had been having a consensual sexual relationship, and Buffy attributes the start of this relationship to her “bad kissing decisions” (“Smashed”), so “when Spike attempts to rape her, it seems like an inevitable consequence of her poor decisions” (Nichol).

Finally, Fall suggests that Buffy completes this pattern when it “adopts a narrative strategy that redirects attention away from sexual violence by emphasizing the assailant’s positive contributions” (80). Not only does the rest of season six focus on Spike’s attempt to regain a soul, but the early episodes of season seven also show Spike as psychologically damaged as he comes to terms with the harm he caused as a vampire, putting Buffy and the audience in a position to want to pity Spike when we next see Spike and Buffy interact. Fall suggests that this plotline goes further than simply asking the audience to excuse the fact that this character tried to rape someone. She argues that “the vampire narrative’s memory-altering strategies are also deployed to reinforce rape culture, mostly in the cases of assailants who have sufficient financial power to reframe their own narratives to emphasize their better deeds” (Fall 83). This narrative is everywhere, especially after it became widely acceptable, even expected, to report on the #MeToo movement. It’s unfortunate that this supposedly feminist show perpetuates and validates this narrative that has successfully allowed so many rapists to escape legal scrutiny; Brock Turner’s swimming career comes to mind as a relatively recent example. While Fall ends her article on a relatively hopeful note, providing research stating that articles—like hers—that challenge rape myths can make people more likely to believe survivors than assailants (83), arguments for forgiving Spike still abound.

In 2017, Alyssa Rosenberg, an opinion writer for the Washington Post who covers culture and politics (“Alyssa Rosenberg”), made a case for why both Buffy and the audience should have a more forgiving view of Spike. In her article, “On ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” we fell for the Slayer along with Angel, Riley and Spike," Rosenberg specifically addresses this scene as a “horrifying…illustration that Spike’s gestures are not the same as moral reform” (Rosenberg); however, she identifies it as “the catalyst for a quest that ends with Spike…earning back his soul and sacrificing himself to save the world” (Rosenberg). Rosenberg’s argument falls flat in a way many rapist-apology narratives do. She directly acknowledges the horror of the narrative, both literally in the scene and also in the audience’s minds as they grapple with the fact that this character who is supposedly trying to reform himself can still do something this violent; yet, she quickly glosses over it. Rosenberg immediately dives into how trying to rape Buffy influenced Spike to become a better person, without addressing how it affected Buffy—the actual victim. She highlights that Whedon’s integration of the narrative tactics Rymer introduced to get the audience to want to forgive Spike were effective.

Rosenberg argues that although Spike “commits some of the show’s cruelest acts…he sacrifices the most in an attempt to atone for his sins” (Rosenberg). She additionally characterizes his arc following his attempted rape of Buffy as “a journey that encourages us to think about the conditions under which even someone guilty of heinous acts can perform genuine penance and achieve real redemption” (Rosenberg). Interestingly, her choice of the word “penance” invokes a religious underscoring that implies that once he has performed this penance, Buffy, and by extension, the audience who identifies with her, have no choice but to forgive him. Additionally, none of the “penance” Rosenberg describes is directed towards Buffy. Spike undoubtedly goes through physically and emotionally painful trials as he attempts to regain his soul; however, this is not so much penance as it is a self-centered act. Spike believes that getting a soul might make Buffy finally love him, eventually “becom[ing] a legitimate romantic interest after the near-rape incident” (Nichol).

Rosenberg claims that Buffy “explored where evil and misogyny come from and urged us to fight them,” while simultaneously “ask[ing] those of us who loved Buffy and identified with her to contemplate grace and forgiveness” (Rosenberg). She technically is not wrong here, Whedon absolutely positions us to want to forgive Spike. However, I would venture to argue that the question up for debate is not so much the question Rosenberg poses of are we put in a position to forgive him, as it is, should we be put in a position to forgive him. Buffy is intended to be a role model for the pre-teen and teenage girls who watch the series. Yet, here, it sends a very damaging message: if you have a consensual sexual relationship with someone without loving them, you’re responsible if they attempt to rape you; but even if someone tries to rape you, you should easily forgive them and possibly begin a romantic relationship with them because they may change.

***

In the past few years, the public feminist conversation has shifted towards embracing Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. This has therefore influenced the ways we read all texts, even texts such as Buffy that were created after Crenshaw’s paper was first published but before intersectionality was a major concern of the feminist movement. Additionally, the #MeToo movement has revealed the prevalence of the abuse of power by men in all sectors, but notably in Hollywood. Joss Whedon admittedly “didn’t make a point of hiring female directors…[or] people of color’” (Busis); explicitly equated a woman unable to have children with the Hulk—yes, that Hulk (Yang); and, as recently as 2015, refused to call himself a feminist (Busis). The combination of these two public paradigm shifts, closer examinations of Whedon both personally and as a creator, as well as Kai Cole’s disturbing essay about her ex-husband has many people questioning what Whedon’s work can add to the cultural conversation surrounding feminism in 2019. Is the problematic nature of Joss Whedon a matter of separating the artist from the art, or, because his intentions while making this art are being called into question, are the two inextricably linked?

Joss Whedon has made his name creating and writing shows featuring strong female characters. However, he does not seem to understand that “having a girl beat up guys is not equivalent to a strong female character when they always, constantly depend on men” (Simons). Yet, he has still managed to create a career and profit off of television’s lack of actual strong female characters, catering to a largely underserved audience who hoped to see any sort of feminist ideas in fictional television. “Whedon’s openly feminist agenda, frequently mentioned in interviews, has provided an interpretive framework for much Buffy scholarship” (Berridge 478). Whedon pushes this narrative and the public’s perception of him as a well-meaning feminist, while refusing to be labeled as such “because suddenly that’s the litmus test for everything you do…if you don’t live up to the litmus test of feminism in this one instance, then you’re a misogynist” (Busis). It’s upsetting for fans of Buffy to realize that its creator feels that unless he is overtly espousing feminist ideas, his writing will be seen as misogynistic—which, it has been, he’s been criticized for both his Avengers: Age of Ultron script (Yang) and his rejected Wonder Woman script (White).

Although his public persona is that of a feminist, a closer look at his work and his personal life tells a very different story. In a commentary DVD extra for the second season of Buffy, Whedon discusses writing the script for the initial confrontation between Buffy and Angelus, saying “It felt icky that I could make him say these things. It felt icky and kind of powerful. It was very uncomfortable and very exciting for me to do it” (Nichol). This short piece of commentary is a perfect metaphor for Whedon’s career. He’s trying to be seen as “more” of a feminist by claiming he had no idea how he could write a scene where his heroine is eviscerated by her (newly-evil) boyfriend after having sex with him. However, he’s actually taking what could’ve been a moment to discuss the prevalence of slut shaming in our culture and refocusing it on himself.

Not only has his work contained misogynistic and offensive language toward women, but according to his ex-wife, Kai Cole’s, guest blog on The Wrap, he has also had several inappropriate affairs “with his actresses, co-workers, fans, and friends” (Cole). Aside from cheating on his wife, as creator and producer of several prominent series—at least in terms of his actresses, co-workers, and fans—it could be argued that he objectively had more power in these situations. This begs the question of exactly how consensual these affairs were and how much, if any, (possibly unintentional) coercion may have been involved. Furthermore, Cole says he wrote her a letter trying to excuse these affairs, explaining that he “was surrounded by beautiful, needy, aggressive young women” (Cole), and blaming them, rather than taking responsibility for his actions. This pattern of blame is unsettlingly close to the blame Buffy endures for her relationship with Spike.

***

Despite the shortcomings of both this show and its creator, Buffy was, and remains, a prominent series in the lives of many of the pre-teen and teenage girls who have watched and grown with Buffy and her friends since its 1997 premiere—this author included. However, as we become more educated on certain cultural topics, we—especially those of us in positions of power and privilege—are often forced to reconcile our love of certain texts with their more problematic aspects.

I began this essay with a very different conception of Buffy than I have now. Admittedly, I bought into the allure of this series’ surface-level feminism and girl power when I was watching it for the first time. Sure, it was sometimes overtly problematic, but the positive aspects seemed to outweigh the negatives. I thought that this essay would reveal the surface-level feminism of Buffy ran much deeper than I originally realized—not the opposite. A closer examination of Buffy has revealed that the issues with this series are far more serious than its creator’s personal failings. Reading Buffy as a cultural text exposes a series of disturbing messages. Moreover, even when it does put forth feminist ideas, they often fall under the more exclusionary sect of white feminism, completely ignoring Crenshaw’s proposed intersectionality, which had been published nearly a decade before Buffy’s premiere.

The question of how Buffy should be read in 2019 is a question that has been repeated a lot recently: Can the Harvey Weinstein’s films still be appreciated? What about The Cosby Show? Or shows affiliated with Fox Broadcasting, and, therefore, Roger Ailes? While some argue that these men and any texts or media associated with them should be “cancelled,” others call for a separation between the artist and the art. However, I would argue that, at least for Buffy, it is not so much about separating the artist from the art as it is about recognizing the art for what it is—its limits included.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my mom for proofreading all 4,500-odd words of this and catching the many mistakes I missed. I would also like to profusely thank Mary Kovaleski Byrnes for her support, guidance, and the much-needed periodic confidence boosts.

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Simons, Natasha. "Reconsidering the Feminism of Joss Whedon." The Mary Sue, edited by Kaila

Hale-Stern and Dan Van Winkle, Dan Abrams, 10 Apr. 2011, www.themarysue.com/ reconsidering-the-feminism-of-joss-whedon/.

“Smashed.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 9, UPN, 20 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/7728e9d5-e05d-4be3-ac93-d8792a018e54.

“Touched.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 7, episode 20, UPN, 6 May 2003. Hulu,www.hulu.com/watch/ba2c6e7c-b015-47d2-8c62-4f16be64c579.

Whedon, Joss. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The WB and UPN, 1997-2003.

White, Adam. "Five time Joss Whedon, self-proclaimed 'woke bae', blew his feminist credentials." The Telegraph, edited by Martin Chilton, The Daily Telegraph, 21 Aug. 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/joss-whedon-5-times-blew-feminist-credentials/.

“Wrecked.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 6, episode 10, UPN, 27 Nov. 2001. Hulu, www.hulu.com/watch/661f80ab-5cdc-426f-a494-283b03cf2ca6.

Yang, Jeff. "Is Joss Whedon a feminist?" Editorial. CNN Wire, 8 May 2015. EBSCOhost, www.cnn.com/2015/05/08/opinions/yang-joss-whedon-feminism/index.html.

#culture #television #buffy the vampire slayer #feminism #gender equality #allison hoag #stretch2019

[garden-of-succulents]

Ask I got: So with your post on your writing and Kent its like yeah I usually love a lot of your stuff but whenever Ngozi's line about "Kent getting all he wanted and not getting to grow and Jack getting all he feared and growing" I'm just kind of shocked you agree with that cause I mean you know Kent didn't want Jack to OD and I bet losing Jack in anyway was one of Kent's biggest fears.

plus like here the idea of growth ends up being tied to being out or closeted. Jack's maturity and self acceptance ends up being reflected through how open he is, the high point of his arc and growth as a player ended with him coming out to the world. Which unfortunately bounces back and frames Kent as immature and ties that immaturity to being closeted. [SOME BITS TRIMMED FOR LENGTH] And then make him an antagonist and frame all of his interactions with Jack/Bitty and all of his victories as negative just kind of burn my tongue

even more so when fans intentionally or not run with all that framing and end up connecting all of Kent's issues with his choice to be closeted for his career condemn his choice and point to it as evidence of immaturity or lack of self love or warped priorities, when that choice isn't just the norm but literally the only one any NHL player has ever made at this point and a choice millions of us make each and every day for our own safety, success, and happiness.

My reply: People criticizing the link between immaturity and closetedness are really on point, I think. When I was supporting N's comments about "Kent got everything he wanted, and didn't grow, while Jack got what he didn't want, and grew", I didn't know the full content of 3.26, especially the fact that Jack was going to come out on television and that Kent's teammates were going to be pretty LGBT-hostile.

I mean, I do think that Kent is immature, especially in the sense that his social and emotional development is stunted, and that his immaturity is the result of his decision to go into the NHL and be a professional player from age 18, while Jack's relative maturity is the result of his time in rehab and at Samwell. However, I don't think Kent is uniquely immature in the NHL, and his immaturity isn't linked to him being queer—I think, rather, that immaturity is a result of the incredibly toxic masculinity an NHL career demands, and the effects of that toxic masculinity. Jack's unique because his talent, family history, and financial privilege have given him the advantage of being able to fight that toxic masculinity in the way few professional hockey players have been able to.

So, I'm from Alberta. Small town with a hockey rink and not much else. Major oil-producing sector. Grew up around hockey players. I did part of my practicum as a mental health therapist at a university counselling centre in Vancouver where they had a really strong athletics program, and I had hockey players on my caseload. And the hardest thing for me to communicate to people from elsewhere about hockey culture is how relentlessly, insistently hypermasculine it is. Everything you've heard about a "man box", everything from The Mask You Live In or Men's Work or I Don't Want to Talk About It. That's what gets pushed by coaches, by commentators, by everybody—toxic masculinity is how you play. Dominate, suppress your emotions, overcome pain, win at all costs.

I am honestly saying that the entire feeder system for men's professional hockey is fucked up on a very fundamental level. From elementary school-aged kids getting up at 4am for practice and doing hockey every day and having no social lives outside of hockey, to teenagers leaving home before they're developmentally ready to be away from their families, having substance abuse issues at a grossly disprortionate rate to their peers, shortchanging their educations, and earning very little money. The system produces top players by getting them to focus on hockey at the expense of everything else, which includes their social and emotional development.

I'm talking about basic shit like "realizing when you are feeling an emotion and being able to identify what emotion it is". The inability to do this is called alexithymia, and it often comes from growing up in an invalidating environment where your emotions are never recognized, acknowledged, or accommodated. I'm talking about stuff like "not being able to tell someone about your basic wants and needs"—something that is really hard when the least expression of emotion is seen as "weak" or "gay".

So when I say that Kent "hasn't grown" or is "immature", I mean that things went so bad at the Epikegster because these are skills he hasn't developed. When he spits out, "I miss you," it comes out like it's the absolute limit of what he's capable of saying. His entire sales pitch to Jack has been in terms of money, power, and dominance—You'll be on a great team; you'll earn lots of money; you'll be better than before. It's not until he's at the end of his rope that he admits to wanting Jack back because he misses him. And therefore he doesn't see why he's failing at persuasion; he doesn't realize that Jack has an emotional attachment to the Samwell players, that his priorities for joining a team aren't just about prestige and money.

Because here's the thing about toxic masculinity: there are the things Kent really feels and wants, and the things he is allowed to admit he feels and wants according to toxic masculinity.

Acceptable masculine interests according to toxic masculinity:

Money

Power

Violence

Dominance

Competition

Prestige

Sex

Unacceptable masculine interests according to this system:

Emotional intimacy

Intellectual curiosity

Artistic expression

Play

Authenticity

Personal fulfillment

Safety

According to the system, Kent was only allowed to want to be rich, famous, and successful. Those were the only things he could admit to without being lambasted in international press outlets, because hockey media is sooooo fucked up.

Jack's OD emotionally devastated Kent Parson—and he would have been pilloried for letting it show. In that moment, he wasn't expected to feel anything except humble, grateful, and happy. So that's how he acted. Being closeted is such a secondary concern here.

So in some ways "immature" is the wrong word because Kent is an incredibly mature public figure, polished and good at keeping his mouth shut; he's mastered the art of being what he's expected to be, at being what will let him succeed at his chosen profession. It's kind of like how PTSD is a disease, a dysfunctional set of behaviours, in a peaceful, prosperous society, but it's what keeps you alive in a warzone. It's why I don't counsel hockey bros as a chosen profession: I don't respect their athletic and professional achievements enough to work with them every day. I don't think it's worth winning a trophy if you were never home and ruined your marriage and failed to look after your children, and I'm not good at honouring a belief system that says it is worth it.

But I would define "maturity" as the ability to understand your own needs and fulfill them; to live your own reality and express it in a way that satisfies you.

The ways Jack "grew" were when he admitted that something was wrong and accepted convalescence and treatment instead of skating through the pain. When he got to know himself as an intellectual and artistic person as well as an athletic one. When he made space in his life for empathy and play. Because when you see NHL players being criticized on a personal level, what's it for? For having "big personalities", for being "unprofessional" and "unserious", for being "girly". For celebrating too much, dancing too freely, being political, intellectual, for questioning power hierarchies, and for putting their personal welfare ahead of their teams' success.

(Hockey players' compliance to power hierarchies is valued above all things, but that's a different rant)

Jack's moment of maturity wasn't kissing Bitty on the Stanley Cup ice; it was a year earlier, in his own room, when he understood how he felt and acted on it, and communicated it to Bitty, thereby achieving an emotional intimacy that was more important to him than hockey. In that same room, Kent struggled so badly to understand what he wanted and why, and to express it to somebody else, that he backfired in his intended aim, injured his friendship with Jack more deeply than ever, and hurt the person he wanted to express love for.

So the dichotomy of closeted/out is super new in the comic, and super new to analyses of Kent. A lot of what we've been talking about, and the theories we've evolved, have really not been based on 3.26.

And yes, like you, I'm really leery of letting that be a consistent part of the analysis. We don't know why Kent isn't out yet (my personal theory is that it was strategic) and I'm way more willing to say he's immature because of the way that interaction with Jack went to shit, than to say he's immature because he's doing the smart thing and surviving in a homophobic-as-fuck industry.

And, as always, a lot of my fic about Kent is about him developing those things his industry wants to punish him for having--why I write about him escaping to music festivals with queer pagan poets, respecting and supporting female athletes, caring for helpless animals, developing strong aesthetic tastes and artistic hobbies, finding spirituality, fighting back against his hierarchies, admitting his problems, or quitting to raise a baby. Because I want him to develop too. But I think the draft sent him to the desert in more ways than one, and it’s a struggle for him to thrive.

#stuff i wrote #kent parson #omgcp #coming out discourse

[mariagelyn-blog]

Essay on the importance of MIL

The Importance of being a Media and Information Literate MIL - also known as Media and Information Literacy recognizes the primary role of Media and Information in our everyday lives. The purpose of being an Information and Media Literate is to engage in a digital society where one needs to be able to use, understand, inquire, create, communicate and think critically. It is important to have the capacity to effectively access, organize, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms. Information and Media Literacy enables people to interpret and make informed judgments as users of information and media as well as to become skillful creators ad producers of information and media messages in their own right. To become a Media Literate is not to memorize facts or statistics about media but rather to learn, to raise the right questions about what you are watching, reading, or listening to and to be an Information Literate a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information because you are a medium of spreading significant information in the community. Being Media and Information literate is not just for yourself to understand but for you to spread the information to others. As we all know that teenagers nowadays are into SNS (Social Networking Sites) where most teenagers learn and understand on what is happening to their surroundings and being able to know, they share what they read. Through sharing (the information in SNS), people are able to communicate and spread awareness to everyone. With this kind of mindset for such digital users, it can help others know that being into social media is not just a disadvantage, but it has a great role for everyone to be a Media and Information Literate. There are advantages and disadvantages of media being a media information literate individual. The disadvantage of this is sometimes your ideas or opinions can affect other people and the advantage is sometimes it motivates and inspire other people. As of 21st century were in everything is being digital, we must be responsible for our own knowledge and on how we educate ourselves. According to Jeff Wilhelm (2000), "technology has everything to do with literacy. And being able to use the latest electronic technologies has everything to do with being literate".As we are in a century were technology is being part of everthing and we dont want to be called illiterate.Also, by means of speed spreading of information technology is the best of it. People are no longer limited to the desktop computer. People now use mobile technologies since its very accessible to every one. Media and Information Literacy therefore is about helping any one to become competent, critical, and literate in all media forms so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them. It also promotes entry to information and knowledge, and building knowledge societies. It also produces careful and critical thinkers.In other words, Media and Information Literacy will help you become a brilliant receiver and sender of information in media and in any other platform. For the purpose of the MIL media are defined as sources of credible and current information created through an editorial process determined by journalistic values whereby editorial accountability can be attributed to a specific organization or a legal person. To the extent that media are an important part of every society’s communication system, their institutional make-up can mesh with a variety of non-media information providers, such as libraries, museums, archives, Internet information providers, other information organizations and citizens who produce their own content. In other words, mil will help you become a brilliant reciever and sender of information by means of media and in any other platforms.