Eye of Newt, Knees of Bees

So many people seem to be loudly subscribing to this tribalistic "us vs them" version of identity politics that has them projecting a whole lot of their own issues onto media. There's an awareness of how political TV shows are despite the fact that media literacy is at an all time low. So many people are assigning moral value onto media works and so many people have been conditioned into thinking that portrayal somehow equals endorsement.

And because portrayal equals endorsement to certain types of people, portrayal always ends up getting the short end of the stick, whether or not its endorsement. You know, censorship, moralism, fascist thinking and all that stuff.

So yeah, I expected the backlash because this is the bullshit one always has to deal with if you like your shows with a bit of complexity to them.

But it pisses me off that the Claudia seance is being cheapened into another political soundbite about how "the writers just wanted an excuse to be racist."

Do I think people are allowed to be hurt by portrayals of racism in a show? Of course I do. I've been hurt by it since I was old enough to understand what race was. I'll probably be hurt by it until the day I die. It's valid to be upset by something and never want to watch it again. There are plenty of shows I haven't finished because they were too triggering for me.

Do I think that being upset by something gives me the right to assign values onto writers I know nothing about for simply doing their jobs and telling a story? No, the fuck I don't.

Writing about racism doesn't make you racist any more than writing about murder makes you killer. And the fact that lately, so many people can't grasp that is scary to me.

You tell a story about race, you tell a story about racism. Because racism is alive and well. And even if we manage to create a post-racism society, racism will have been alive and well. They're a package deal.

I want people to be able to tell stories about race. I want every kind of depiction about race there is. The good, the bad and the messy. We've been invisible for too long.

And if you think thoughtful media portrayals of racism are just a writer's excuse to be racist and not a portrayal of issues and inequalities that can and have played out in the real world because of the systems of oppression that underpin them, you're clearly unable to separate a fictional story from your own personal baggage and I have nothing to say to you.

These terrible takes about Claudia are extra irritating to me as someone from an African country, who grew up on multiracial and multicultural shows and studied post-apartheid and postcolonial literature at university, media that had racism as a recurring theme, because the narratives, like IWTV and TVL, were about racist structures and the people who lived in them.

It's so fucking painful to realize that the majority of these would be lumped under "generic racist propaganda" on this stupid US-centric website because for some reason people think that a piece of media having racism in it makes it politically incorrect propaganda, unfit to be enjoyed, studied or consumed. Without realizing what an oppressive, imperialistic, white standard that is.

"I'm a good person who only consumes media that is 100% non-racist, non-sexist and politically correct."

Congratulations. I can't go a week without experiencing some form of oppression, from other marginalized people even, because internalized marginalization is a thing and my parents and grandparents grew up in systems where racism was valued. In fact, racism is valued to this day in certain places, but I'm overjoyed to hear that I'd get punished by Western audiences if I were to write about it. I'd be nothing without your erasure.

The scene where Claudia finally gave Louis a piece of her mind could've been a wonderful opportunity for the fandom to talk about how racism is a structural context that marginalized people cannot separate themselves from or how traumatized people can and do weaponize each others' internalized racism against each other.

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to discuss how Claudia was misrepresented because of Louis' guilt and love for her or how female characters, black women in particular, are rarely allowed to show their ugly sides in media, especially when the narrative is told through a male lens. A male lens that's been well established as someone who puts himself and the people he loves on pedestals and continues to view her through rose-colored glasses to this day.

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to talk about the myth of the perfect victim or how her being trapped in a young girl's body means people have "no idea of her strength."

It could've been a wonderful opportunity to discuss how much of that scene was Claudia finally being honest and letting out all that pent up resentment she never got to share with Louis while losing him was at stake (but now she has nothing to lose) or how much was cruel lies motivated by the pain of being ripped from her resting place, seeing Louis and Lestat there together (Louis choosing Lestat over her AGAIN) while she's stuck having to exist without Madeleine.

Some people did speak about that which is awesome. Thank you for existing.

But mostly, it became all about "My morals have been violated" (fine, don't watch it then) and "what Claudia said was inexcusable, how dare she" (you're policing a traumatized black female character, EXCUSE YOU) and "the writers are such racist and sexist meanies for no longer portraying Claudia as Louis' most special manic pixie throw pillow" (??? make it make sense ???). It mostly boiled down to the fact that Claudia was cruel to Louis out of anger.

"This isn't Claudia."

There's literally an episode titled "The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding". Describing Claudia. From Louis' perspective. The person who has an admittedly rosy view of her.

She's ruthless. She's bloodthirsty. She's cruel.

She's every bit as ruthless as Lestat, whose blood flows through her veins. She's every bit as bloodthirsty as the coven that took her out. That's why they had to team up in order to do it. And she's every bit as cruel as Louis, who we've seen do this type of thing to multiple characters at multiple times. Lestat taught her how to hunt, but if there's one thing Claudia would have learned from Louis, it would be being cruel to people out of anger.

Racism is one of Louis' core wounds and triggers. We see it throughout season 1. Lestat uses the racially neutral term "fledgling" to address him, and he assigns racial meaning onto it, after which Lestat never uses the term again. Claudia uses "slaves" as a buzzword to manipulate him. Daniel uses racial terminology to get him to open up in the interviews. His favorite human meal is Jim Crow racists. Every time he acts on impulse, it's triggered by someone else's racism or perceived racism. It's a core wound so it's the best way to be cruel to Louis. Claudia is a predator and she went straight for the jugular.

Did you expect her not to?

Claudia was summoned to once again assuage the guilt of the two people who were complicit in both her deaths. She was immediately confronted with the image of the two of them together again after decades of searching for and not finding her companion, Madeleine.

Before she died she literally called them out for the self-absorbed bastards that they were, the fact that they constantly used her as a pawn in their drama and the fact that her being made a vampire was never about her, but about them.

She died because Louis refused to listen to her warnings about Armand. And then Louis still stayed with Armand for years after that, the very years she was stuck in purgatory without Madeleine, showed her private diaries to everyone, because her words were published in a fucking international bestseller, read out her most vulnerable thoughts about getting assaulted to her abuser to fuel his own sanctimonious hero complex and then paid a sex worker to act like her.

Of course, she's harder on Louis and easier on Lestat. Louis was supposed to be better than this. As unfair as it is, she always held him to a higher standard. Lestat was always the scumbag she detested (and father she loved in secret) and she never let him forget that. Louis was the father she was open about loving (and scumbag she detested in secret, because she could not afford to push him away when he always had one foot out the door anyways). Louis was the person she had the most faith in and trusted not to fail and betray her. And then he went and did all that. Lestat was just acting like Lestat, but Louis broke her heart.

She is allowed to be pissed and to say whatever the fuck she wants to in order to get that message across. She is allowed to say things that she knows will hurt them, Louis in particular, whether or not those things are true. She's allowed to be in enough anguish to lash out about it where it'll hurt most. Because they'll always have each other anyways.

this list is not in any order, and i am not familiar with most of these artists, so an inclusion on this is not an endorsement of anything! if ive made a mistake anywhere, just let me know!

schmekel - transmasc jewish folk band (they seem to have deleted the majority of their music off most platforms, unsure why? but this link is to a playlist of re-uploads)

exiliahu - very vocally pro-palestine jewish trans man

noah finnce - british trans man, pop rock

ellyotto - canadian trans man, hyperpop

jesswar - fijian-austrailian trans man, hip hop

2am ricky - Black american trans man, hip hop/soul/jazz/house

rahim redcar - french trans man, indie/alt-pop

elio mei - american trans man, indie folk

anjimile - Black american trans man, indie folk

the oozes - queer punk band w/ a trans man lead singer

sushi soucy - transmasc, folk rock

dopamine - band of scottish transmascs

boy jr - transmasc, indie/alt rock

great grandpa - queer indie rock band w/ trans man lead singer

riotnine - transmasc punk band

the muslims - transmasc poc anti-fascist punk band

TR sun - Black american trans man, hip hop

billy tipton - american trans man, 1940s jazz star

mal blum - american trans man, indie rock/folk punk

dayflower - british transmasc "dreamcore" indie pop band

ryan cassata - american trans man, folk punk

ezra butler - british trans man, indie pop

bells larson - canadian nonbinary trans man, indie pop

sasha allen - american trans man, indie pop

boy bowser - american trans man, energetic hip hop

mikah amani - Black american trans man, folk music

jake edwards - british trans man, pop music

jakey bake - trans man, super indie/underground

king aiden - Black american trans man, indie pop

addison grace - american transmasc, indie pop

dylan and the moon - british trans man, indie folk

searows - american trans man, indie folk/bedroom pop

elio kennedy yoon - Asian-american trans man, indie pop

beverly glenn copland - Black canadian trans man, art/folk pop

REVENGEOFPARIS - nonbinary transmasc rapper

V3CTORGRAPH1CS - nonbinary transmasc, hyperpop

Um Jennifer? - american indie rock duo ; one is transmasc, the other is transfem

jigsawllie - transmasc, indie "weirdcore" vocaloid music

I'm gonna be talking, of course, of grammatical gender, because of this viral image:

I'm sure you've seen an image like this floating around and people crying about how having non-binary be translated with a feminine and masculine form depending on usage defeats the purpose of the term.

But it doesn't!!!

Spanish is not like English, it has ✨grammatical gender✨ which has nothing to do with gender identity whatsoever. It's not that we believe chairs are female and stools are male, our grammar is just like this. Every word has a grammatical gender and there must be grammatical gender concordance. Thus, non-binary must have both a feminine and masculine form to use depending with which word you're pairing it.

Let's say you want to talk about a "non-binary person". 'Person' in Spanish is 'persona' a grammatically feminine word (despite its usage being gender neutral and encompassing people of any gender, as I said, grammatical gender ≠ gender identity). Because 'persona' is a grammatically feminine word, you have to apply grammatical concordance accordingly, and so to say "non-binary person" you would say "persona no binaria".

Now let's say you want to talk about "non-binary gender". 'Gender' in Spanish is 'género' a grammatically masculine word, and because of that to say "non-binary gender" you would say "género no binario".

See? It's not about grammatically imposed misgendering, it's about how this language is built.

But Shine, I hear you say, that's all nice and good, but how do I refer to my non-binary friend? And well, dear reader, you're in luck because I'm not only Spaniard but also non-binary myself.

In Spanish 'friend' (like a whole lot of words) has a feminine and masculine form. When those words are used to refer to people, grammatical gender does match gender identity. For the most part. And broadly speaking, feminine words are associated with the vowel -a, and masculine with the vowel -o (this is not universal, there are exceptions to this, I'm trying to paint the broad picture to give you a general idea).

So what about gender neutral? Well, officially we don't have one. The Real Academia Española doesn't recognize it... But the RAE isn't word of god, it compiles usage, so the more a term is used, the more chances it will be officially recognized. Not using a term because it's not officially recognized is actively detrimental to the goal you want to achieve.

Okay, not an official gender neutral, but what have we come up with? Well, at least in Spain, it's associating gender neutral to the vowel -e. So you have the femenine ella/la/-a, the masculine él/lo/-o, and the gender neutral elle/le/-e.

Now time for practical examples!

"My friend, David, is a boy." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigo, David, es un chico."

"My friend, Liz, is a girl." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amiga, Liz, es una chica."

"My friend, Alex, is non-binary." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigue, Alex, es no binarie."

And that's how you do it!! At least in queer friendly spaces in Spain, can't speak for other places. I have seen the 'x' thrown around to make gender neutral in Spanish, but -e is way more intuitive for spoken language, so I like it better.