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]

I'm going to guess that perhaps you have recced him Pacific Rim already.

He and my mother saw it in theaters after I came back shouting incoherent things like BIG SMART SUMMER MOVIE and IDRIS ELBA and WHERE HAS BURN GORMAN BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I had been aware of the glory that is Idris Elba before I saw PR, but I had never heard of Burn Gorman or Charlie Day in my life. Of the whole lot, Rinko and Idris were the only ones I recognized! I was like, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHY DO I NOT KNOW MORE OF THEM?

[sovay]

Of the whole lot, Rinko and Idris were the only ones I recognized! I was like, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHY DO I NOT KNOW MORE OF THEM?

I knew Idris Elba only from Thor and photosets of Luther that handful_ofdust reblogged; I had just seen Rinko Kikuchi for the first time in The Brothers Bloom. Possibly I had seen Charlie Day in a clip from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but he hadn't registered. I knew Ron Perlman and that was it. It was like watching a movie cast with character actors. They were all amazing.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

Oh, Ron Perlman, yes: I did know of him, mostly from the Hellboy films (which I enjoyed). I've seen only one episode of It's Always Sunny, and, while I found it amusing, it has not been one of those shows that has tempted me to sit down and marathon it. For somebody who grew up in PA, my experience of Philly is pretty limited.