#misimagination

The white writer’s misimagination of Black characters in science fiction

 by Inigo Laguda 

This essay contains spoilers for Another Life (2019) and Annihilation (2018)

For a writer, I read astonishingly little. I chalk my aversion up to over-inundating myself with books as a boy and filling all my curious voids with grand words and fantastical tales. It’s almost like I nauseatingly engorged myself on literature and now can’t take another bite. I like to spin it as…

This wasn’t how the book ended, but I liked this particular revision in the movie. “That’s her story to tell.” Because so much of The Myth of Margo Roth Spiegelman originates from and is cultivated by other people’s false ways of seeing her:

“That doesn’t sound like my Margo,” Lacey said, and I thought of my Margo, and Lacey’s Margo, and Mrs. Spiegelman’s Margo, and all of us looking at her reflection in different fun house mirrors.

Telling other people’s stories isn’t our job because there is always something we get wrong. Because we listen selectively. Because we romanticize. Because we twist people into the image that is most palatable and pleasing to us. In the end, nothing of the real person remains and the story changes:

There are so many people. It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined. And I am thinking about the way you can and cannot see [them].

/Tell me that you need me ‘cause I love you so much. Say you’ll never leave me ‘cause I need you so much./

You’re so sweet I must be dreaming Of this season, free from demons in my head, Sleep so peacefully, finally, next to you ‘re wearing my favorite peach dress And we’re lying beneath my favorite peach tree And this whole afternoon is simply magic. Yeah, right. I mean… Can you imagine?

A place where the sun is shining, humbly, When you’re right here in my arms Head down, snuggling And I think I could see down your tank If I wanted to, but I don’t. Because I’m content with being happy- Ness has never been in fashion, But you and I, we’re just hoodlums, huh. Yeah, right. I mean… Can you imagine?

Cayucas’ on the turntable, Spinning lazily at 33 rotations per minute, We’re slow-dancing in my bedroom with the windows open And you whisper warmly in my ear “You’re so dreamy, E. Don’t wake me up,” Walking hand in hands clasped so tight, Really ready for something, anything We can destroy together beautifully. We run everywhere, smiling ignorantly And our lungs are filled with reckless abandon. Yeah, right. I mean… /Can you imagine?/

You’ll never discard me, I’m more than that and I’ll never have to see your back turned to me, I want to be you’re everything you want me to be, And it’s really a shame then, all this is fiction. But it didn’t have to be this way. So, please tell me, What the fuck happened?

Quote from Bring Me The Horizon’s “Don’t Go (feat. LIGHTS).”