There's a land to burn out everything that you've learned

[sovay]

Internet! I am looking for a good database and/or personal recommendations of science fiction media foregrounding characters of color. My father was expressing his disappointment in the latest season of Doctor Who tonight and he is quite right (among other complaints) that reverse-fridging a male character reads much less cleverly and much more sketchily when the male character is black. I should like to be able to recommend him some antidotes.¹ More than one person of color in the cast preferred—who are not the canaries in the coal mine or the sacrifices on behalf of the white characters, if there are any white characters; there don't need to be. Bonus points from my perspective if there are women with agency and queer characters. (I should just hand him Janelle Monáe's back catalogue, right?) He is a hard sell on animation and does not play games, but enjoys things that are not in English. I can do this a lot more easily with books.

1. It is not like my father has never seen science fiction with protagonists of color; he followed Eureka for a while just because it contained Joe Morton. I just know there's always room for more. A lot of room.

Comments

[sovay]

The lawyer arc in S3 of POI was really upsetting, but I haven't quite figured out if it was terrible because of writers who were too cowardly to really go into the political ramifications of what they were writing (or at least, what I was reading in the subtext) or if it was terrible because of unexamined racism.

So is there a point with Person of Interest past which I should not watch/recommend other people watch, like, try the first two seasons and then just don't bother hurting myself with the lawyer arc and the disappearance of a major female character of color? Or do the later seasons have redeeming features that are worth gritting my teeth against those plot developments for, and warning my father the same?

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

I mean, I thought S3 was worth watching, if only because Jim Caviezel and Sarah Shahi are both really beautiful people, and also, it provoked a bunch of interesting conversations debates conversations with M. It really depends on what you want to get out of your tv watching, and how attached you are to show after the first two seasons. I'm not at all caught up on S4 right now, so I can't say if it gets better after the profoundly stupid lawyer arc.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I still watch Person of Interest and enjoy it quite a bit. Yes, I miss Taraji Henson, but there's also Sarah Shahi and Amy Acker, as characters who are (respectively) a neuroatypical, kick-ass WOC and a potentially neuroatypical, brilliant, completely morally complex woman, both of whom are pretty damn queer for each other. (I don't think it's shipteasing anymore if one person literally says, at a moment when they think they're likely to die, "If I don't come back, tell Shaw...", to which Harold Finch says: "I think she knows.")

As for the whole "written out and replaced with a light/passing actress" thing, well--Sam Shaw is literally SamEEN Shaw, identified as such several times, so sorry, I don't think they're denying Shahi's background so much as actually working it into the character. Do I think there could be more women? Hells yes. More POC? HELLS YES. But let's not misrepresent the people who are there, please.

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

I didn't say she was white. I said she is light and passes. Both light skinned privilege and passing privilege are real things.