Whatâs interesting to me, regularly, is two-part: First, fandom refuses to acknowledge how thereâs racial bias in how stories are written - aka comics Elektra is white and MCU Elektra is not - and WOC Elektra is literally written with ugly racial tropes about dragging a good white boy down. White comics Elektra and comics Matt/Elektra doesnât have this happen. Her origins are story are completely rewritten when sheâs a WOC. Funny, that! Second, all of Mattâs relationships are toxic. Heâs toxic for Foggy and Karen. But thereâs always hope that that can change or fandom just ignores that fact all together. Elektra, and Elektra/Matt however, is just hopeless. Again, funny that.
The only relationship this white centric fandom will consistently come for however is the one where Matt prioritizes a woc. This isnât even the first time. Every time thereâs a WOC that the white protagonist heavily prioritizes, this occurs.Â
Itâs easy with Claire because the protagonist and the show literally ignored her romantically after S1. She was no threat. The issues with her relationship with Matt is how the show framed her as being emotional support and emotional labor working for Matt. And nothing else that would benefit Claire herself. That itself plays into racialized tropes for Afro-Latinx women.
Is Matt/Elektra healthy? No. Absolutely not. But idc. White ships thrive despite that. And yet, this is the time weâre going to play performative concern? Are WOC not allowed to be in ships that arenât coffee shop AUs? Are WOC not allowed to be in ships where they are the first priority? I mean, thatâs the basis for so many popular white ships after all. Do we always have do emotional labor for a white man for it to be a healthy ship?
https://mattelektras.tumblr.com/post/164419248397/people-are-so-threatened-by-how-elektra-a-woc-is
https://zisas.tumblr.com/post/183350421186/i-love-how-matt-has-tons-of-chemistry-with-two
http://candyumbrella.tumblr.com/post/143236443166/some-thoughts-on-mattelektra-and-mattkaren
âLike itâs not even IMO itâs based on the entirety of shipping history for all fandoms ever I know for a fact that fandom preference would be for Matt->Elektra in a landslide. Itâs a separate question entirely from whether the ship dynamic is âhealthyâ or whether itâs actually something aspirational for womenâregardless of whether or not itâs something actually desirable, itâs naive to ignore the fact that itâs generally what the vast majority of fandom WANTS, and that this want is telling us something important. The trope of a ship that borders on âunhealthyâ because the man is ostensibly âhelplessâ in the face of his compulsive pull towards the woman is the basis for many of the most iconic and sought-after white woman/white man ships of all time.
Like, Matt/Elektra is the kind of ship that fandom would eat up with a spoon if Elektra were white. Of course, there are some character archetypes that are damaging when applied to Asian women in particular. But Elektra isnât a stereotype? Sheâs not a typical Dragon Lady at all, IMOâsheâs given depth and emotional POV and backstory, both with and outside of Matt.
And like I said above, one of the most crucial points is that her hold over Matt isnât supernatural or artificial, itâs emotionalâand thatâs one of the most universally popular shipping tropes there is. In fact, Elektraâs a character type from which WoC have been excluded until now, a type that has been reserved almost entirely for white women, by virtue of their PRIVILEGE OVER USâthe humanized femme fatale with a soft spot for the lead guy who in turn has a soft spot for her, like Selina Kyle in the Batman franchise. She falls into an archetype that is widely considered to be desirable for women, one in which WoC have largely been barred from enjoying and seeing themselves represented in previous years on TV, the way white women have been able to doâ
https://candyumbrella.tumblr.com/post/157862946356/ive-been-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-broach-this
ââŚfor me the same argument appliesâthese ships are also the kinds of ships that, until very recently, almost exclusively featured white women. Matt/Elektra is a classic setup with the femme fatale being an Achilles Heel for the male leadânot only that, sheâs his First Love, his Forever Love, his âI canât shake youâ love, his âI will run away with youâ love, and so obviously his clear #1 romantic choice. Bamon is a White Bad Boy ship that combines many of fandomâs favorite shippy tropes. And theyâre both argued against on the basis of the ships being âunhealthyâ or âbad forâ the WoC in the ship (either bad for her within the story itself or bad representation.) And whether or not thereâs a case to be made there (Iâd argue that the issue is more complicated than itâs often made out to be in fandom conversationsâstill, putting that aside for now), my point is that WoC are only rarely in such ships for a reason, and that reason isnât because we have it so much better than white women. So itâs one thing for WoC to choose to embrace or reject these ships on their own initiative, but itâs quite another for white women in the audience to dictate on moral grounds that we SHOULD all collectively reject them, when theyâre speaking from a place of having had that CHOICE, and being able to make it based on a lifetime of experience being represented in such ships, which has thus far been denied to us.â
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