incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

This is what happens when I am ridiculously busy: I have all these things I want to talk to you all about, and then when I have a little time, it all comes flooding out (I even wrote a booklog post!). Another post written on Amtrak: TV catchup.

I should say that I watch TV mostly with the Pip in the same room, so anything violent or scary is out--not that those are really to my taste anyway. (At this point in SteelyKid's life I'd ditched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but though the Pip is acquiring language right now, comprehension at that level is a long way away, I was too cautious before.) Mostly what I want is something with people I like that doesn't make me angry.

Leverage: I would have watched the hell out of the season six they were setting up, so I'm bummed it was canceled. ( spoiler )

Face Off: the SyFy reality show that's a makeup artist competition. I liked this season better than last because (1) no audience vote determining the winner and (2) it shifted the "win your way back on" to a web series for the next season. Also it made more sense logistically that they didn't bring back all the contestants for the finale, just enough for two helpers each.

Elementary: because the first episode opens with a murder, these episodes kept scrolling off the DVR until I picked it up with the episode with the safe, which turned out to be very low-violence indeed (and, with a couple notable exceptions, much more like the rest of the show). I've since seen all the subsequent episodes except "M.", plus the ones that CBS has re-run. This was probably a good place for me to pick it up, where Holmes and Watson are already more firmly into their friendship/partnership. I enjoy the two of them a lot, and I find it ridiculously refreshing to watch something that is actively opposed to the "Holmes as lone super-special genius" idea and (gasp!) cares about its female lead's agency and choices and life. I saved this past week's episode as a treat for myself because ( spoiler )

Edit: I meant to link to these two gen Joan-Sherlock friendship fics that I enjoyed:

The Art of Negotiation (6767 words) by language_escapes
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson (Elementary)
Additional Tags: Boundaries, Negotiations, Male-Female Friendship
Summary: For them, negotiation is less about boundary setting and more about upping the ante.

waltz across naïve wood floors. (4101 words) by paperclipbitch
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson, Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson (Elementary), Marcus Bell, Alfredo Llamosa, Clyde the Tortoise (Elementary)
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, My First Work in This Fandom, written at least partially during accidental medication withdrawal
Summary: "You're wearing my underwear again, aren't you," Joan says.

(There are, right now, five fics that list Clyde the Tortoise as a character. Sometimes I love fandom.)

Farscape. A few weeks ago I decided I was going to watch this to keep myself awake when the Pip woke up at night (as opposed to sitting down with him and waking up in the rocking chair three hours later with a stiff neck). I've only seen the first episode and half of the second at this point, but more SF shows should use puppets and non-CG effects for their aliens. I've already been warned about the fourth season, and I seem to have lost some momentum, but I really like Browder and Black from their SG-1 run and do intend to go back to it. (I almost immediately abandoned my vague plan to keep up with the AV Club's watch when I realized it was doing two episodes a week after the first episode, but those of you who've already seen the show, they usually do a pretty good job, though I don't know if the comments on this are the quality of those on--of all things--the Korra coverage.)

So it's International Blog Against Racism Week again. I'm not planning anything specific for it, but here's a reposted comment and some links, via ibarw:

Inspired by dhobikikutti's post and in response to this comment from John Rogers, creator of Leverage ('ware spoilers for S2 Episode 2, "The Tap Out Job"),

But listen: my hacker's a hip person of color, my sex symbol isn't an anorexic in her 20's, and my badass uber-thief is a blonde we put in a dress precisely once a season. Even I, on the vanguard of the socialist Hollywood liberal homosexualist agenda, can only punch so many holes on my liberal cred ticket per season.

I wrote,

Can I ask that you punch just one more, please?

Stop having Hardison play the race card.

The only time race gets mentioned in the show is when he falsely plays the race card.

Hardison is never actually the victim of racism. And so even though it's a joke, even though you have good intentions--I assure you that I notice and appreciate that the guest characters are a wide mix of races and ethnicities--the result is that it reinforces the false belief that people of color benefit when they make accusations of racism, and moreover that racism doesn't actually exist because the only time it's alleged is to get ahead.

And because you all seem generally clueful, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that as a person of color, this is just wrong, that racism is real and that calling something out as racist is opening yourself up for a huge shitstorm and, often, much more trouble than benefit.

So can you please ditch that joke? Or perhaps you've already ditched it this season, the same way that Sophie got two whole shows in a row where she wasn't being a seductress.

(And yes, I expect a shitstorm here, from people who will go right past the parts where I say that you have good intentions and are generally clueful and say "OMG SHE'S CALLING THEM KKK MEMBERS!!eleventy-one!" I still think it was important to say.)

No shitstorm yet, to my surprise. I don't really expect a response, as I think from reading the blog for a while that he responds to comments in the post-episode question posts and not others, but at least I've said it, and saw an LJ acquaintance in the comments too. *waves to asim*

And now, for other people's writings:

Three links not specifically written for IBARW but relevant:

• …My heart’s in Accra » Jonathan Lyons on the Islamic resolution of science and monotheism
• The Republic of T. » Sotomayor & The Vulcan Standard, Pt. 2 :: Long essay on American assimilation & "becoming white."
• Tolerance.org: Parenting

And some IBARW posts that I found powerful:

• marny_h96: IBARW 4: Genocide? What Genocide? :: The Herero and Namaqua Genocide: "It seems that three decades before WW II and the Holocaust, people were killed in German South-West Africa (now Namibia). Enough people to call it a genocide."
• glass_icarus: IBARW: people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. :: "even though I didn't agree with China's decisions with respect to their women's gymnastics team and the Opening Ceremonies voice-over, I was and am extremely offended by the way the western (US/European) media handled these topics."
• evilprodigy: [IBARW] Yellow Fever: It's Not Just A Man Thing :: "The systematic undermining of Asian masculinity is an old pastime, and by doing this you are partaking in it. Stop it. Stop it all. Shut down everything. East Asia does not exist to mass-produce your China dolls. East Asia does not exist to mass-produce your bishonen."
• rawles: now that we've got that clear, and you know that i'm not here... :: An illuminating perspection on Uhura in the new _Star Trek_ movie (which I haven't seen, but have heard a lot about). "Simply put: Nyota Uhura is not a white girl. // While women of color are not necessarily embroiled in an entirely different feminist struggle than white women, they sure as fuck are not in the same place."
• karnythia: Internalized racism (the silent face of bigotry)
• evilprodigy: [IBARW] It's Not The Same Thing (Or, Leave Your Irish Ancestors In Their Graves) :: "So I think I speak from a position of layman's authority when I say that I've noticed that the United States of America, when it comes to discussions of race, is plagued by a damned unfortunate disease -- and that disease happens to be white Americans of Irish descent who feel the ceaseless urge to chip in to any discussion of racism with, "my great-great-grandfather was persecuted by the English!" Or "The Irish didn't used to be white!" Or, shudderingly, "It used to be worse to be Irish than to be black!" Irish, Irish, Irish. Irish Irish Irish. // From one American of Irish descent to other Americans of Irish descent, let me say this loud and clear: _shut up. It's not the same thing._"

And now, back to WorldCon race-panel prep.