Til His Stupid Ass Raised Truck Is Rockin’-ephi

from here

So, this thing is absolutely not trying to be a brainless fun teehee girliepop movie. It is indeed a deeply stupid film, but not on purpose. You can tell there's a genuine effort there to be artsy and meaningful! They're trying to use color symbolism and to make commentary about arousal and sex and abuse and offer some perspectives on gender and classism! This thing wants to be deep so badly that it's actively got a shovel in one arm and a fire hose in the other.

And that's what I've sort of found with most of this white woman made media with underlying racism and/or major insensitivity, which is that it's not that it's all supposed to be I guess "brain smoothing" good times.

It's that for a lot of it the lowkey racism isn't incidental, but rather a vital component of the fantasy they're trying to sell. They don't want you to point it out because that is a load bearing bit of bigotry that actually appeals to them.

White supremacy often gets sold to white women on the idea that they are desirable. Yes, ladies, you might be a second class citizen, but you're a beloved second class citizen who will be cherished and protected by your strong husband, who will keep you from being stolen away by savages who want to rape you. And isn't the idea of being so desired that there are savages who would risk dying to steal you away kind of exciting too? It's akin to the poor white men getting sold on the idea that they at least get to be part of the same group as the rich white men, that they are allowed to be above other men, even if they're still getting fucked over by classism.

White women on the whole are usually well aware that the second class citizen thing is at least kind of bullshit-y, but, it's harder to pry some of them away from the appeal of being the object of irrational desire. Heck, in some ways embracing the appealing aspects help with embracing the idea that it's also a bogus deal, since a component of it is that white women are beautiful victims and martyrs whose suffering is an aspect of their appeal. Which on the one hand is like, yeah sure y'know that makes sense, a lot of people want to be desired and to be told that their suffering is real. The trouble is that this comes as a package deal with the white supremacy baggage, it's not just being desired, it's being the desirable white, it's the dangerous exotic savages, the victim of the covetous gaze of said savages and also of masculine aggression in general, it's the only truly finding your match with a white guy, it's being innately and universally more desirable, and etc etc. It's a whole specific romantic fantasy that you can't really leave intact and pry away from the racism.

I would be reluctant to use fridging in this exact context, because this isn't some imaginary scenario to generate manpain for a white hero, this is a much more common experience of Native American and First Nation people, having their wives and daughters and sisters (in particular, but not exclusively) go missing. And never getting answers, never learning what happened, and not being believed that there's a problem in the first place.

This is like how being rescued from a tower by a prince is not particularly empowering or affirming to cis physically able straight thin perisex white women and girls, but can be for basically anybody else. Particularly black girls and women, who do not get a lot of cultural messages that treat them as people who are so valuable and precious, who may not have the strength to save themselves, or may wish that they didn't fucking have to save themselves (and everyone else) all the time.

White men have this story so often happen that we have a trope name specific to one specific and particularly egregious version of this, but you don't often see men who look like Robbie dealing with this type of story in fictional settings, even though it happens for men like Robbie in real life with horrifying frequency.