#radiodoll

Alastor died in the 1920s, post Reconstruction Era, the Jazz Age of New Orleans.

He is a creole man, living in the space between white and black, and his intimate relationship with so many cultures, which was his birthright, gave his radio hosting a universal appeal and intrigue that the white ‘yuppy’ producers wanted.

Being ‘coloured’, he was at their mercy; they could talk to him like an animal, they could cut off his hair and use it as plush inside their cushions, they could fuck over his money, they could burn down his home, they could lynch him, they could eat him. All these things really did happen. It’s why black southern gothic stories, like Sinners and AMC’s Interview With the Vampire are set during this time, if anything in this world is vampirism, this was it.

He doesn’t want to be white man’s prey, and so goes on his killing spree. He fucking eats them as he fears they would’ve done to him. And he LOVES it.

He looks to black spirituality, to summon the power these white men feared so much they demonised it, felt the need to steal children, beat and massacre it out of population after population. 

But it’s not for righteous reasons. He knows where he’s headed, and he has become addicted to subjecting others to the fears he had, he’d do it even beyond the white man’s world.

He dies and ends up in hell, exactly as he feared he was in life: a deer. Prey.

Enter Vincent Whittman

Vox died in the 1950s, coming from a WASPy, suburban background.

He’s willing to kill and take on the identity of someone with more potential to keep rising, because he was a weather man, it was passive, routine content. The weather is this ambient thing that humans don’t control and just accept unthinkingly. It’s the topic of the smallest talk. Reporting on it is not interesting, not sparking conversations. He wants to have the life-altering impact of the news; he wants to be the talk show host that introduces the world to its next favourite person; he wants to be the producer behind the scenes deciding what society cares about.

But when he gets his shot, he has nothing really to say. He got where he got by copying his victims, through appropriation. 

So all he really has is cheap shock value, he’s just gonna let fucked up shit happen on air. But that was never his goal; he wanted to make culture. He has the killer instinct and WASPy goodwill it takes for people to support him holding the gun, but he needs others to provide him the ammo. 

The 1950s was a time of Rock’n’Roll, before Civil Rights. 

So many suburban white Americans were literally raised from birth by black women, ‘the help’. Those white people talked, walked and used the mf bathroom only because a black woman taught them how. And those women went completely disregarded, not even seen as human beings, and experiencing constant violence and disdain, while those white suburban kids grew up to be beloved, respectable pillars of their community.

People like Elvis Presley could be kings of pop culture by singing the art of black musicians, while they were not even regarded as fully human, and they were given no credit. Though there were some talents so undeniable, like Etta James, the Ronettes, the Supremes, that regardless of the climate, black women cannot be ignored.

A white man of the time, Vox has been taught to fill any gap within him by exploiting others for their ideas, their essence, by claiming he will be “their voice”, their Vox. So that’s why he needs his ‘cult’.

So when he and Alastor meet, the inevitable happens. 

Vox is genuinely in awe of Alastor, because he is the real fucking McCoy. He is opinionated, he knows who he is, he speaks French, and he is so so cultured. If Vox could’ve been like that in life, he probably never would have even killed that first news anchor.

But Alastor sees just another white man, who is obssessed with the power that his blackness, his black spirituality, gave him. He’s not just some sick traumatised freak, he’s completely accurate in sniffing out that Vox is a vampire, and he refuses to let him in the house. 

It’s unfortunate that Vox wasn’t intending to exploit Alastor, but his pitch is quite literally for Alastor to lend him his power so he can do as he did in life, and become someone important off the back of someone else. 

So, of course it’s a no. 

For those who have watched Sinners, Alastor sees himself as Sammy, Vox is Remmick.

Alastor, having identified Vox as a predator, a shark, now has the mind to punish him, as predators do to deer. He knows that his lack of culture is devastating to Vox, so he presses deep about how he relies on the other Vees to psychologically torture him, because in a way, it is true. While Vox has more influence than Alastor, even by himself, due to his focus on a modern medium, he is limited.

And while the average sinner may not realise it, while Alastor may posture like it’s not the case, every overlord is well aware that Alastor is limited too, even the minor ones.

Alastor, being a cannibal, is a hypocrite. His power in hell also relies on others. In the show that’s Rosie, Charlie, Niffty and Husk. 

Alastor is a creole man, Husk is a black man. 

Husk died in the 1970s, when America began the ‘war on drugs’, a time where alcohol was the legal high, where, even after Civil Rights, redlining and White Flight see low-income black neighbourhoods lack opportunity, but filled with churches and liquor stores. Meritocracy is a lie, and the lack of opportunity pushes people to cling to praying for luck. To gamble.

Husk is… a cat demon. We don’t know what his sin was or what did as an overlord yet, but it was certainly not good. And even if not the biggest, he is a predator.

Alastor preyed on him at a vulnerable time, when he was desperate for a bit of power, as society would’ve pushed him to be in life. And he is giddy to yank the chain, to talk down to Husk and belittle him like a pet as Rosie does to him.

He is descended from enslaved Africans, just as Husk is. Like the many creole plantation owners of Alastor’s day, he has no qualms in treating a black man as a slaver would. He is a cannibal. 

Valentino also died in the 1970s. 

He’s from fucking Florida, as he says, a Miami Cuban, like the many other middle and upper class Cubans that fled the revolution. 

Miami, being in the south, and near the Caribbean, also had a significant black population. The environment shows in Val, who, maybe not black, still dresses with the flair of Black dandyism. Just like Alastor, “the strawberry pimp”

Miami in the 70s was a jumping time, the arts were up, politics were up, crime was up, bombs were literally blowing up.

Val may be a pimp, but as was the time, he’s also artsy. From the era when there was pornos on the big screen, at the fucking movie theatre, he knows the perfect way to merge work with his passions. If he wants to be a movie director, he can. He’ll do sleazy pornos, and make quicker cash that way.

In 1970, the president told people to stop trying to restrict porn, anyway. So it’s off to the races.

With everything going on, Miami was always in the news. Even for the dark parts, it was interesting. It sparked cultural conversations.

And with Val embodying his hometown, being such a heavyweight with his pornos (in Hell especially), how could Vox resist? Valentino is everything he wanted to be, even more than Alastor. He’s creative, he’s capitalistic, and rather than his heritage being a steady culmination of America’s colonial history, he’s a 2nd gen Latino Caribbean – he’s completely new. And that’s exciting, that’s what we want on TV.

And unlike Alastor, although in America he’s ‘Latino’, Val does not identify much with enslaved ancestors. His family had enough money in Cuba, and didn’t experience racism. So what is there not to trust about Vox? He’s a fellow American, accepting of the diversity that makes the country so great.

Maybe too accepting. The Vox cultural appropriation scenes with Valentino there aren’t just shits and gigs – it’s who he is. Not coming from a diverse town, Vox experienced the world through TV. He understands different cultures through what it taught him: stereotypes. And he loves them. He finds them so exciting, and he wishes he could bust out in a salsa outfit and a sombrero and be as cool as all those exotic characters. 

It’s fucking embarassing, annoying, and sometimes it gets REAL racist. But he died before Civil Rights, so it could be worse. Val, not coming from a background where racism would be as sore a spot as it is for Alastor, just accepts it and moves on.

And he is a moth, attracted to the glow of a TV. Even if he’s a jerk, he cannot resist the glitz and glam partnership with Vox promises.

In the 80s, TV gets a second wind with cable TV, 24 hour news and music videos, VCR to catch up on shows, video rental stores popping off. People are watching TV all the time.

Music videos are short films shown on TV, the perfect culmination of Val and Vox’s efforts.

Video Killed The Radio Star is the first to be shown on MTV. While radio is still a thing, it’s not the thing anymore. Alastor can suck it.

Together, the original Vees have more money, which means the productions get bigger.

Sitcoms, soaps and music videos are the Vees’ bread and butter.

And now more than ever, Vox sees that, no matter how racist people can be, the world wants black culture. They want the Cosby Show, they want Michael Jackson, they want Whitney Houston. And so does Vox.

In the 90s, Hip-Hop and R&B are popping off, rising in popularity that in the coming years will see them take over as the new “Pop” genre.

As Valentino would have it, Hip-Hop calls for sexy video vixens, and players rapping about money and sex. And Pop musicians are wanting to sell sex. He loves 2 Live Crew (fellow Miami natives), he loves Snoop Dogg, he loves Sir Mix-A-Lot. And he loves talented yet vulnerable kids like Britney Spears who are willing to bare it all for a little more glory.

As Vox would have it, the line between R&B and Pop is basically non-existent, R&B is just industry code for ‘Pop not performed by white people’. But it sounds the same. Almost. The black singers came up in the churches that filled their working-class neighbourhoods; they are powerhouses, and eager to sign a shitty deal to the men in suits to rise their star.

Then here comes Velvette, our Y2K babe, straight out of London.

She’s Black British, a descendant of Windrush generation Jamaicans. It’s a tiny island, with an entire nation’s population that’s not even a fraction of California or New York’s, yet it’s surprisingly visible around the world. It was Jamaicans that brought the sound systems to New York City that got Hip-Hop going. Velvette is Jamaican like Biggie Smalls, like Aaliyah.

And, as he’ll soon come to understand, like Naomi Campbell. 

In the 2000s, channels like MTV are pumping out Reality TV, and it’s taking the entire world by storm. Which is great for Vox because it’s cheap and low effort.

But it’s not just competitions, gameshows and teen moms; the world has an apetitite to see rich, hot, fashionable women working glamorous jobs or having catfights. People want Kardashians, they want Housewives, they want Flavor of Love. 80s legend Whitney Houston had a show with her husband, Bobby Brown. Vox knows people want to see this. 

And Velvette is from a time of girl groups, Spice Girls, TLC, Destiny's Child. She is the Scariest Spice. He's excited by her, like he was by the black girl groups that managed to break through in his time.

Unlike the pop musicians though, the only talent these ladies of reality tv need is pretty faces, capitalist sensibility, explosive character and killer fashion sense.

The internet is starting to get more ubiquitous. Google Images was created because people wanted to see JLo in a stylish Versace dress.

And people are using forums to spend their days fanning out and talking trash about celebrities. Everyone wants to be one, they’ll upload pictures of themselves to MySpace and hope people think they’re just as cool.

In the 90s and early 2000s, the UK was cool. ‘Cool Britannia’. MGA, ‘urban’ competitor to Mattel’s blonde all-American Barbie, releases a Bratz movie and line of dolls, ‘Rock Angelz’, because diverse, sassy fashionistas in London appeals to little girls all around the world. Feeling the burn, Mattel even create MyScene to compete, a diverse, attitude-filled departure from Barbie's blonde American sweetheart branding.

Velvette is ahead of the curve with social media, and she is exactly the boss bitch fashionista that the internet will bow down to, and buy any product with her name on. She’s a bad gyal like Rihanna, a queen bee like Beyoncé. She becomes the social media overlord.

Where the more classical overlords see her as rude and inexperienced, Vox and Valentino know how much influence Velvette is going to have. It’s exactly her abrasive attitude, the one that so many people stereotype black women as, deride but secretly envy, that will see the cash flowing in.

But the stereotype of being a tough bitch, a sapphire, means when she breaks, nobody expects it, and she has to put herself back together, limb by limb. She is condemned to embody the misogynoir she weaponises for profit and status. She's the backbone of the Vees.

Velvette is not just a doll but a black cat. A predator, associated with superstition. She is an alchemist (VoxTek LOVES women in STEM hahahha), a witch of the dark arts. And she is a black woman. I think Alastor lingering around her is not a cute thing, but sinister, considering his relationship with the other cat in his life. In reality, TV has waned in influence, film is still just about hanging on, and radio is TOAST. But social media is king. If Alastor called upon Rosie's power in life, I can only imagine what he's thinking about Velvette.