it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive

>taste it

i. the monster's body is a cultural body

ii. the monster always escapes

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire

these are all direct quotes from jeffrey jerome cohen's "monster culture (seven theses)" (full pdf linked) i highly encourage you to read it yourself!

that said, while i think cohen's writing is evocative, it can be a little dense, so while i'm here, here's my capsule summary (you can also hear me talk about this in the first episode of my podcast) (listen to @ghostswerepeopletoo)

i. the monster's body is a cultural body - The monster is a work of fiction to be analyzed through tools of literary and sociological theory.

ii. the monster always escapes - As long as the cultural fear from which the monster stems persists, the monster will reappear in retellings, reimaginings, and sequels.

iii. the monster is the harbinger of category crisis - Monsters defy binaries and challenge easy comprehension or categorization.

iv. the monster dwells at the gates of difference - The monster represents the Other.

v. the monster polices the borders of the possible - Tales of the monster exist to discourage unacceptable or taboo behaviors.

vi. fear of the monster is really a kind of desire - Subjects can vicariously participate in the disruption of the social order through the monster.

I saw ur Black Ryland Grace headcanons and art on my dash again and I am Excitedly Observing. It adds so much depth to him 🤌 is there any additional detail or fun fact or tangent abt ur headcanon that u would like to share?

absolutely!! the best thing abt the Afrophage tag is it gives me the chance to talk abt the rest of the cast. rest in knowing i will get all of them with my melanin beam eventually. today we’re talking about Eva Stratt!

because the world’s scapegoat couldn’t be anyone but a woman. this much is obvious and it’s critical to her character that she is. but ☝🏾what if she was also a Black woman? the world on a Black woman’s shoulders, because everyone knows when you’re in trouble you find a Black woman to fix it. doesn’t matter how it impacts her or what she has to lose.

and she has so much more to lose. she faces the world’s abuse. she makes the decisions no one else could. she fixes it, and when it’s all over, she’ll bear the punishment and the blame. and it would be so easy to villainize the Black woman the world put up to bear their sins. it happens every day, all over the world.

but Stratt does it anyway, she steps up because she’s a historian. she knows what will happen, knows how the world will turn on itself, she knows who will be the most expendable and the first to die. (she knows what will happen to her in the end.)

“but she’s Dutch and/or German,” i anticipate someone saying. because lord knows they love to.

i’m a big fan of @sharonz-arty-corner03 ’s Aruban Stratt headcanon for this very reason! she very easily could be both Black and her canon nationality.

and i think this would add a whole lot to her relationship with Afrophage!Grace, especially if Stratt is dark-skinned. because unlike her, he’s not going to face the world’s torment. he’s not going to be held responsible. he gets to be the presentable, palatable face of the project and she has to be the hardass and the bitch who’s going to actually get things done. and no matter what, in the end it’s supposed to kill them both. Stratt is supposed to go to prison forever, Grace is supposed to die in space. there’s no real way to game the system, no real way to be Black well enough to dodge the oppression. you can only break out and find your own path forward.

Another reason I saw her as Black was…well…the extra layer of maternal stereotyping certain areas of the world get with their Black women. Latina and West African Black women, I have noticed, have the Mother Earth stereotype placed upon them. Because they are somehow intrinsically connected to the problems of their land, they need to care about the Earth and food and kindness on behalf of the Global They. They must be collectivist, and collectively ready to take on white people’s apologies for the environment. If you can find a Black woman to fix your personal problems, you will definitely find a Black woman to fix the world for you.

Next, Stratt’s villainization has always rubbed me very wrong. I think the movie does a horrendous job of explaining Stratt’s motivations. She’s clearly an erudite, extremely pragmatic, and yet she gives Ryland three hours to decide, or rather, realize that he’s been positioned into being humanity’s biggest choice. I’m also going to spoil the book for all of you again and explain that Stratt was actually the very first to check for the coma resistance gene when Thailand gave her the sleeper ship idea. This woman stays throwing herself in front of the tracks for the trolley problem—a sacrifice that weighs far more for a woman who knows there is nothing about her personal life that can save her, as Cal said.

“Stratt does it anyway, she steps up because she’s a historian.”

I am a Black historian. I’ve only seen two other people like me, interested in the same areas. There are Black sociologists and Black cultural consultants that I listen to, of course, but there are very few people interested in the white world with a Black angle (my area of study). In the book, Stratt makes a summary that most wars have been over food, and at the time I was reading Project Hail Mary, I was also reading The Anglo-Saxons by Marc Morris. Early on in Chapter 2, he points out that, yeah, the origin of the word “lord” is hlafweard (loaf ward). In other words, Stratt knows exactly how low humans are willing to go in the social stability ranking just to eat. Remember what I said in my post about immutable Project Hail Mary thoughts for the white fandom: Andy Weir actually wrote a really dark book and is pretending he didn’t.

Post can be found here

Thank you for mentioning me, Calvin. I made her Aruban almost immediately because I wanted to see the look on racists’ faces when I pulled up my elite “I know who colonized what” Caribbean information. She is still Dutch by nationality, but she’s also Caribbean. (I made her Caribbean specifically because she’s portrayed as less emotional in the book and the movie, and not everyone knows what to do when a Black person is not as endearing or bubbly as they expect).


Before I answer the next part—here she is, actually!

I made Stratt dark skinned because of that quote-on-quote “joke” Weir made where Ryland was shocked that Stratt was probably pleasing the woke mob because she put a dark-skinned Black man in charge of science.

“Unlike her, he’s not going to face the world’s torment. He’s not going to be held responsible. he gets to be the presentable, palatable face of the project and she has to be the hardass and the bitch who’s going to actually get things done. And no matter what, in the end it’s supposed to kill them both.”

I need everybody to sit with this one for a second. If she was white it wouldn’t really make sense for the world to pre-emptively dislike her. If she was white, why would she be in calm terror even after she had permission from the president of the United States to commit any crime? If she was white, why would she be holding on to dear paperwork, dear procedure, dear recorded information? If she was white, she’d get off quite easily as long as she provided solid evidence that everything, including Ryland Grace’s nonconsensual recruitment and therefore murder, was necessary.