Today in Racist Sexism

As Renee of Womanist Musings often points out, Black women in our society are in the double, (triple, I can't even figure out how many) bind of being constantly sexualized while also having the standard of beauty be explicitly based in Whiteness. They are accused of looking ugly and "masculine," but are assumed to be available at all times for sex (which feeds into rape culture). They are stereotyped as angry, but also expected to be "Mammy" figures who care for all around them.

This comes out in particularly horrifying ways when Black women athletes are reported on in the media. Caster Semenya comes to mind for me, and so does Venus Williams, and it is the treatment of Venus Williams in the linked article that I want to look at.

The title of this banal (but still incredibly offensive) "article" is "Venus Williams wears a racy dress..." and the actual website address calls her dress "see-through." Which is to say, that she designed (I've read elsewhere that she designs all her tenis outfits, correct me if I'm wrong) a dress where she has black lace overlaying brown cloth where the brown of the cloth shows through. The brown of the cloth is matched exceedingly well to her skin tone (given how off "skin tone" things usually are, regardless of the pigmentation of the wearer, I feel this is no small feat, just think of those ice skating outfits where the "skin tone" bits are just an entirely different color, even with White skaters). So of course, the first major error of this short (5 sentence) article is in the website address, and it is that the dress is "see-through". It is no more "see through" than my pants I am wearing right now.
(I also remember that a while ago, a similarly ridiculous article was written about another outfit that she wore where she again matched her skin tone and the cloth color in order to not show her underwear (I believe). Again they described this as "shocking" or "scandalous.")

Another error of the article is referring to the outfit as a "can-can" outfit, given that it does not share the key requirement of can-can outfits in that it doesn't have a long flouncy skirt (with frills underneath) for the high kicking necessary to rate her activity as the can-can.

The next bit of offensiveness is in the first sentence, where they state that Venus Williams could "find work" at the Moulin Rouge. They then clarify that they mean the historical Moulin Rouge in the third sentence when they reference her "auditioning for a spot at a 19th century cabaret."
For context, the wikipedia article on the Moulin Rouge euphemistically refers to the original dancers at the Moulin Rouge as "courtesans." Of course, it also describes them as the originators of the striptease, and states that the can-can as developed by the courtesans was "an attempt to seduce potential clients" (ummm, what type of clients could they possibly be referencing?) and that in the course of the dance, the revealing of genitals sometimes happened (because that happens all the time at the ballet!). To really hit home what the Moulin Rouge was (and what the dancers were considered to be), even though the article doesn't *explicitly* state that it was a whore-house, it nevertheless refers to when the Moulin Rouge suddenly became a "legitimate nightclub" and that it had a "reputation as a 'high-class brothel'" (which would hardly be necessary to state if it was truly a nightclub in the beginning). So let's just acknowledge it for what it was at the time: a strip club where the workers probably often had sex with the clients.

So, back to the article (sorry for the digression), they are explicitly referring to the historical Moulin Rouge and saying that she could "find some work" there. So they are saying that a strong Black woman athlete is equivalent to a prostitute (or at "best" a stripper).

I want to state for the record that I do not view sex work as an immoral thing/profession. I do not believe that individuals who engage in non-coercive sex work (so, leaving out pimps for instance) are immoral for doing so. However, in our society it is extremely stigmatized to be a sex worker of any stripe, and the most stigmatized group are prostitutes.

And this article compared Venus Williams to a sex worker/prostitute in an effort to shame her.


ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.

That is all in: Today in Racist Sexism.

Crime Dramas

I really like crime dramas. A quick list of shows that I watch include: various Law & Orders, Criminal Minds, 2 of the CSIs, Numbers, NCIS, The Mentalist, Bones, and Lie to Me. Please keep in mind that this is a QUICK list.

It's always so fun to see trans characters on these shows! Right?

Yeah. Not so much.

Seriously, how many times is a trans character just a tangential character? I can't think of very many times at all. Often trans characters are victims. Similarly often they are the twist-surprise-ending of a killer ("OMG, she killed him because she was trans!" is a pretty dumbed down, but common way that these episodes end). Same with sex workers. Or gays and lesbians. Or poly people. Or kinksters. Really, how often are any of these characters a friend of the victim? If we are in a story, it is because the story will at some point be ABOUT us.* I've definitely seen episodes where the victim was of an ethnic group, and the story seemed at first to be about their race/ethnicity/religion (some Law and Orders come to mind) but in the end, it is found that this was a RED HERRING. And I would hazard that no episode where the victim was a trans person, is the reason they were killed, that they were secretly on the wrong side of the mob. Nope. We die/kill because we are deviants. Clearly. Just look at the choices we make (saracasm added for those with irony detecting deficit).


So, how can I reconcile the ways that crime dramas treat characters who are "deviant", with my own identity?

Fuck if I know.

Sometimes I rationalize that the cop characters are ignorant fucks, because in real life, lots of cops are ignorant fucks. And that's true.
Sometimes I find hope when a sympathetic cisgendered, non-kinky, monogamous, straight, crime-fighter works towards educating hir peers. I mean, it's almost like the show is educating the watching public. Almost.
Sometimes I hope/think that the reason we're portrayed as the victims is because in real life, WE ARE VICTIMS. Quite frequently in fact. But that really doesn't do a good job of explaining why our characters are also so disproportionately a secret killer.

But what frustrates me, and always has, isn't just how the characters treat the (insert deviant identity here) victim/killer. It's that the shows are written solely for the purpose of sensationalizing our lives.

When I see a particularly egregious episode, I often try to tell myself I just won't watch that show anymore. But that rarely happens. See, like many people, I enjoy watching how these characters figure stuff out. I DO! It's absolutely true. Sometimes I think about writing a letter to the people who made the show, complaining about it. But usually I'm watching this episode months or even years after it was written. And even if I weren't, I'm cynic enough to not think that it'll do anything positive (maybe I should try to be more positive). Mostly I just keep watching, but am sure to tell all my friends, relatives, and random acquaintances about how pissed I am about the episode.

So, that's what I plan to do. For your viewing pleasure, everytime I see an episode of a crime drama where trans, kinky, poly, queer, sex working, people are portrayed (badly or well), I will write about it. For the low, low cost of $0 you can read my summary/rant about the way the episode objectified, sensationalized, or treated accurately a character. Maybe if you then notice these types of things too, I'll have one more person to kvetch with. And if you don't, there's always the next episode.


*I should note, I am not, nor have ever been a sex worker. While I have/have had friends who are/were sex workers, and have devoted some time to study of academic work surrounding it, I can't hope to speak for sex workers (wide category that "sex work" encompasses). However, depictions of sex workers are even more frequent in crime dramas, and equally (to my eyes) as offensive as any of the groups I do belong to.