Imagine being a kid in school. Your teacher comes up with an idea for class picture. Every student will draw pictures of their friends.
Everyone starts drawing enthusiasticly, and canât wait to see what they look like in the drawings. When pictures are ready you notice that popular students have more pictures than rest, but nobody has done a drawing of you. The teacher notices that too, and asks if someone would do your picture. To your horror the class clown takes the job, and comes up with a caricature of you. Others are laughing, but youâre not. You feel awful. The teacher notices that. and asks again someone to do a drawing of you. One of the âgood studentsâ starts drawing, but the result is forced. Itâs just a drawing of a generic child wearing a shirt of same color as you a wearing. Thereâs no spirit, no soul in it. You start sensing that the class is geting frustrated with you. They want to be done with this. You ask quietly the teacher if you could do a drawing yourself.
After school your classmates confront you. Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it? The first picture was funny. The second picture was just fine! The drawing you did yourself wasnât right, do you think you are that good-looking? There were other kids who got only one or two pictures of themselves. Who are you to demand special treatment? Maybe there would have been a picture of you if you werenât such annoying baby, nobody likes you anyway, and nobodyâs going to if you keep on being like that, you donât deserve a drawing!
This could be story of bullying, but itâs also about how I see portraying LGBTQ+-people and PoC in mainstream entertainment.
Thanks to Fandoms and Feminism for inspiration!