First, I’d like to congratulate you on your album, called I believe The Brooklyn. It’s really hard to break into and build success in any creative industry and I’m sure you worked very hard to get there, so kudos to you! I read about your rise from a busker playing the ukelele on the subway platforms to a music star. Very inspirational stuff, and I am glad for your success. However, I have recently watched your first single called Brooklyn Girls and I’m a little perplexed as to what borough you might believe you are representing in both your lyrics and your video.
You see, Catey, I grew up in Brooklyn. I’ve been here thirty-one years of my life. And in those thirty one years, I have seen a great bit of this amazing borough I call home. So when I watched your video, I was excited to have a song dedicated to representing the diverse, beautiful, historic borough that I call home. Specifically, I was hoping to see a myriad of different Brooklyn women represented from all of the different cultures that call Brooklyn their home. (And Catey, yes, I know the song is called Brooklyn Girls, but I have an issue with calling full-grown women girls. It’s a little infantilizing, don’t you think?)
Unfortunately, Catey, instead of a video celebrating the capable, creative, brilliant women of Brooklyn, it seems you may have only decided to shoot your video in a Bushwick block party and left it at that. That’s cool, of course. That’s your privilege. As a musician and a creative person, you get the choice and the opportunity to put anything you want into your music and your videos. Freedom of creation, freedom of speech, of course. However if I might offer a suggestion, there is a lot of Brooklyn you seemingly forgot to include in your song in a rush to represent women of the whole borough.
Welcome to Brooklyn – not just the trendy parts.
See, Catey, having grown up here I’m aware of the different parts of Brooklyn, aware enough to know that I haven’t even scratched the surface in exploring the nuanced, complicated place I call home. But my neighborhood of Midwood alone represents dozens of groups of people from all over the world. I grew up in an apartment building where you could hear people talking in ten different languages, cooking foods from everywhere. In my neighborhood alone you could get takeout from four different continents. The buildings in your video, unfortunately, seemed to a lack that diversity that helps make Brooklyn the multicultural center it is. And if I might say so, Catey, your video was a little whitewashed too. But hey, that’s cool, if that’s the neighborhood you live in when you migrated to Brooklyn from Virginia Beach, that’s cool.
But it’s not Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is a wide place, Catey, and much bigger than the newly gentrified Bushwick and Williamsburg. Those areas, newly ‘cleaned up’ with their microbreweries (delicious as they are) and adorable cafes, are only a small part of the Brooklyn I know. Those areas, in fact, are what I like to call the most sanitized parts of Brooklyn, long since decimated of the organic neighborhoods that once grew there in favor of making room for younger transplants from out of town who are willing to pay any rent (even the most exorbitant) to be near the Big Apple. But they are your home, so that’s cool. You are representing your Brooklyn experience, and that’s awesome.
But it’s not my Brooklyn.
At least it’s not Fuggedaboutit
My Brooklyn is Coney Island to Downtown, Bushwick to Greenpoint to Bay Ridge. Perhaps a nostalgic point of view, but my Brooklyn is an inclusive one, with even room for those overpriced, upscaled, rent-inflated areas that are considered hip and trendy. It’s got room for your view of the city, Catey. It’s just pretty sad that your video doesn’t have room for mine.
So once your album is out and you’re done touring, Catey, I encourage you to skip the L train into Manhattan for a little while, and explore the rest of the borough your song title says you represent. And meet some of the other Brooklyn Girls (Women) out there, in their neighborhoods. I’m sure they’ve got more to talk about then all those times they hung out on the top of brownstones, or the times they got it on in the bathroom stalls. I’m sure you can then explain to them how tough and gritty you are, and you can explain why you think all the fly girls reside in your very select view of Brooklyn. You’ll have a great time, Catey, I’m sure.
So thanks for listening, Catey, from one Brooklyn Woman to a Brooklyn Girl.
Comic book fans have been eagerly awaiting news about the upcoming Constantine television series, aimed to premiere this fall on NBC. But this week David Cerone, executive producer of the show, came out to disclose that they have no intention of showing the lead character, John Constantine, as bisexual on the show. His sexuality, along with his healthy appetite for carnal pleasures and his addiction to cigarettes, are all being whitewashed away in favor of a slightly safer version, suited for network television.
John Constantine, one of the longest running characters in his Vertigo comic Hellblaizeras well as in such titles as Justice League Dark, Books of Magic, and now DC Comics Constantine, is a pretty rough character. He is a magician, a former punk rocker, a former mental patient, and generally a right bastard about a lot of things. He smokes, he drinks, he cusses, and he sleeps with whoever he pleases. Along the way he saves the world and folks from demons and other nasties, and not always by doing what is right. In other words, Constantine has been the DC universe’s own magician anti-hero since his debut in 1985. Even in the Keanu Reeves film of the same name, Constantine walked the line between being a good guy and a real bastard. That’s just the character. That’s just John Constantine.
Yet of all the things that immediately get pushed out of the character is Constantine’s sexuality. Entertainment Weekly points out that though network television hosts a serial killer that carves off people’s faces on Hannibal, it seems like the idea of a bisexual, chain-smoking hero just can’t be possible. Let’s think that over for a second. The network would rather allow for a character to rip off people’s skin and show dead bodies left and right in various states of decay and destruction then allow for a show to have a bisexual character who smokes too many cigarettes and likes to get laid. This is taking the whole ‘American culture has more of a problem with sex than violence’ thing a little too far. But hey, that’s our ‘broadcast standards’ (and hypocrisy) for you.
Cerone also noted in his remarks that Constantine’s relationships in the twenty-plus years of comics have mostly been with women, and that his being bisexual isn’t that relevant to the character.
“Within this tome of three decades [of comics] there might have been one or two issues where he’s seen getting out of bed with a man. So [maybe] 20 years from now? But there are no immediate plans.”
I’m intrigued as to how Cerone sees bisexuality as something that doesn’t need to be present until twenty years from now. Is he implying that twenty years from now is when people might feel comfortable seeing a bisexual person on network television? That might not be what he intended by the comment but that seems to be the ugly reality of the fate of bisexual representation on network television. Constantine’s sexuality is part of the character, as much as his trench coat or need for a serious shave. Though it may not have been revealed until later on in the comics, the fact that he is bisexual is a known part of the character’s arch and the fact that it is being ignored by creators in favor of a slightly more palatable character is just another example of how most media ignores the fact that bisexuals exist.
Network television has slowly embraced gay characters on their shows, creating space for narratives that once would have been completely taboo. So why is it that bisexuality is still anathema to so many? This cleaned up version of Constantine seems like nothing more than the typical Hollywood demographic pandering at work. Execs want a hero who guys will admire and either emote into or consider the kind of guy you’d want to go out on adventures with. They also want a character women will go all fluttery about, the kind of hero in a comic book television series that will launch a million fanfics. They do not, however, want to confuse the issue by throwing bisexuality into the mix. That could alienate male viewers who are uncomfortable with the idea of seeing their hero kissing a dude.
Look, I’ve been an avid Constantine fan for years. I own every graphic novel, found every issue that I can to read. I’ve even read the ones that were so gorey they made me queazy. That being said, I wonder how familiar the network is with the subject material they’ve gotten into and how much they’ll be whitewashing away besides Constantine’s bisexuality. They do know they’re telling the story of a guy who consorts with demons on a regular basis right? Where’s the pearl-clutching about that? Who’s going to say ‘won’t somebody think of the children’ the first time Constantine has a conversation with Nergal? Or Satan? The broadcast standards guys might not be too pleased with his other activities, so how much of Constantine is really going to survive? Certainly not a part of his identity, like his sexuality.
And so Constantine will go on television just a little more squeaky clean than before. And once again, the narrative of a bisexual character is cleaned up, and bisexuals find themselves once more invisible on network television.
But at least the face cutting cannibal serial killer demographic has been met, right?
I read an article today about a performance of The Mikado in Seattle recently that had people (rightly so) up in arms. The play was dominated by white actors putting on yellowface (that would be dressing up to appear stereotypically Asian) and being downright offensive in their portrayal of the play’s characters. Sharon Pian Chan, a columnist for the Seattle Times, called out the play publicly while the director called the comedy “fun.” One could not have a more perfect example land on their desk the day I wanted to write about appropriation, outrage, and the terror of being wrong in today’s internet.
By the way, seriously, who thought this was a good idea? Photo from the performance of The Mikado.
The last few years the internet has become a wonderful and terrifying forum for discussions about social justice, appropriation, feminism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and any number of other issues. Mediums from Facebook to Tumblr and Twitter are filled with pages where people of all walks of life have come together to discuss, deconstruct, and often decry portrayals of identities or content in the world that is problematic. Song lyrics to movie content, books to television, there is scrutiny aimed at those putting out content, from politician to producer. And thanks to these forums, and the quick response time the internet has, we can share our opinions instantly and even reach those whose content we want to comment on to share with them our feedback.
So let’s talk about feedback for a second. Let’s talk about discourse, conversation, and the sharing of ideas. And let’s talk about fear.
As a creator in today’s environment, nobody wants to be seen as getting anything about equality wrong. There exists a standing terror by many who create today of being seen as in any way being against equality. They scrutinize their work, consider carefully each portrayal, and wonder before they comment online or put out a press statement about their product just how it will appear to the public. Is the portrayal of their lead lady character sexist? If a writer was aiming for a strong woman character, has it fallen into the trope of the ‘Strong Female Protagonist’ which is aimed to appear strong but instead falls back into safe stereotypical tropes, only under a different mask? Is the art in a gaming book inclusive and are any of the fantasy races bad allegories for already existing minority groups? Is the piece of art coming from a place of privilege and has that privilege been checked?
All of these questions and more have become part of the creation process for many making art. And that, in my eyes, is a wonderful, amazing thing. Within my lifetime, these kinds of questions about content in media would never have even been considered. I watch movies from my childhood in the 80’s and wince when I see big-name actors making clearly offensive gay jokes that today would launch a thousand blog posts. (Want to check out one that still makes me wince every time, check out how Mr. Green as a professed gay man in the movie Clue is treated. Comedy or no, that’s painful to watch). We have come in such a short amount of time to a place where inclusivity and equality, not just political correctness, is not only the baseline when people are reviewing a work, but it has become the baseline for many creators when they are making their product. And though we have miles to go in many arenas and conversations must still continue to bring better representation and equal inclusion for many groups, we have come a long way in a short time.
That’s why a recent trend has set my hackles on end. That trend is what I call communication by outrage.
Here’s an example: A creator puts together a piece of work – let’s use a game for example – and discusses said work on the internet. That creator has included in their game a culture to which that game designer does not belong. When discussing the game in public, the creator is asked about the issue of cultural appropriation by the internet audience, and whether the creator considers appropriation an issue. What did the creator do to mitigate appropriation issues? The creator is given a chance to respond, and the conversation continues.
This is communication, a back and forth dialogue in open and honest faith that both sides want to hear the other’s opinions and converse to reach a better understanding of the other’s opinion. This is what I thought the internet was all about, along with being the land of fanfiction and cat videos.
But this is not what I’ve seen a hell of a lot of lately. Instead, many times I’ve noticed this happening:
Creator: I came up with this game called Stories Of The Conquered: World War II. In it, we’ll get to explore the cultures that were damaged by the Nazis, such as those of the Jews in Eastern Europe.
Some Responses: You might want to think about how that might come across. It sounds like you’ll be touching some communities that faced serious tragedy during the Holocaust. Do you have designers on your team who have some experience with this subject matter first hand from their own culture? Or have you considered-
Outrage Responses: THIS IS APPROPRIATING AND I AM OFFENDED.
Creator: Okay, well, I didn’t think it was offensive-
Outrage Response: IT IS OFFENSIVE! YOU SHOULD STOP BECAUSE IT IS BAD NO MATTER WHAT AND YOU ARE BAD FOR DOING IT.
Creator: OKAY GEEZ I’M SORRY FOR BREATHING DAMN SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS ARE SO ANNOYING!
First Response: Um, still an issue to discuss here?
Creator: I’M DONE WITH THIS CRAP I’M SORRY OKAY!
Outrage Response: YOU STILL SUCK.
See what’s happening there? Overdramatic as my example is, both sides of the conversation emphasized by me mashing my caps lock are entrenched in their positions after one side feels attacked by the other.
This also occurs when people who are speaking up for issues become attacked as well. We’ve all heard horrific stories of people harassed by trolls, harangued on social media for standing up for issues. This same dialogue of outrage is going on here.
Speaker: This piece of work is riddled with problems when dealing with female representation.
Creator: HOLY COW YOU TAKE THINGS SO SERIOUSLY THERE’S ONE WOMAN IN THERE!
Speaker: That’s part of the problem. Let’s talk about how that woman appears and how this flunks the Bechtel test-
Creator: OMG YOU ARE OPPRESSING ME AND MY FREEDOM.
Creator’s Supporters: YEAH FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION! YOU FEMINISTS SUCK, SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS RUINING OUR FUN!
Speaker: ………..
Again, a dramatization but my point stands. In no way is it considered all right for folks to troll and harass someone for standing up for what they believe in as an advocate for social change. We hear stories about this kind of trolling and we decry the folks who would harass activists and supports of equality. So when did it become okay to use similar shouting rhetorics to pressure people into silence? Isn’t the purpose of activism to cause change? If so, the pressure of shame and mob mentality less causes change than it does fear.
It’s not a matter of what a person or a creator believes anymore, or even what they actually put into their products or their art, but the perception of what others infer by their work. A creator must not only consider how issues of representation and appropriation are handled in their art (as they should) but now must consider the kind of backlash they might receive should they include anything considered hot button or problematic. Even the best intentioned work is scrutinized and may incur furious responses, without allowance for nuanced conversation. Where once the inclusion of questionable content might have started dialogues, a lot of those dialogues now have become shouting matches between entrenched viewpoints. One side is the offended party, shouting the parlance of internet discussion until the words become nothing but buzzwords without meaning any longer. When terms like social justice warrior is flung at anyone who is trying to bring up relevant points but are lumped in with loud voices meant to silence and shame. These days, you can’t actually use the term check your privilege without someone getting furious and indignant, sure they’re about to incur the wrath of someone uninterested in their ideas.
Worse yet, a good number of these conversations are no longer about the issues, but now aim at the individual.
Creator: I’m running a World War II game where players can choose to play Nazis.
First Response: Wow, I’m a little uncomfortable with that. Here’s why.
Outrage Response: YOU LET NAZIS IN YOUR GAME! OMG THAT IS AWFUL! I AM OFFENDED BY YOU! YOU ARE AN ASSHAT AND A HORRIBLE PERSON AND I NEVER WANT TO GO NEAR ANYTHING YOU DO EVER AGAIN BECAUSE THEN I WOULD SUPPORT A NAZI LOVER.
Note that it isn’t ‘offended by your choice’ but offended by YOU. While actions and choices can be used to judge and identify a person’s ideas and ideals, personal attacks don’t actually engage any kind of communication. They just work to further drive a wedge between those two entrenched sides until any conversation is impossible. Then we are left with the two shouting groups, offended and hurt, with no hope of an understanding or actual exchange. This is why the term communication by outrage is meant ironically. Outrage can be felt, but the bellowing at one another from across the gulf that has become all too common doesn’t actually facilitate communication. It doesn’t foster growth. It fosters fear.
Too many good people, thoughtful people who are interested in learning more about inclusivity, equality, and so many issues that face our communities are terrified these days to speak or act. They’re afraid to be in the crosshairs of shouting voices calling into question every word, picking apart and scrutinizing every syllable. They’re afraid to be seen as other than they are, misconstrued and called racist or bigot or misogynist. They’re afraid to be wrong. The same goes for those involved in the discourse of activism. Not only are people afraid to speak up because they can incur the wrath of the angry hoards of trolls to harass them, but they’re afraid to end up on the wrong side of an issue and be labeled all the things they hate by the angry masses.
In other words, conversations have gone from this:
“Hey, dude. Enough with the pitchfork crap over how I look. It’s wrong. Put down the fire and let’s talk about this.”
….to this:
“YOU ARE TERRIBLE AND YOUR IDEAS ARE TERRIBLE AND I CAN’T HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYING BECAUSE I’M SHOUTING MY OWN IDEAS SO LOUD!”
…at which point everyone else gets involved:
“WE ARE ALL OUTRAGED TOO! OUTRAGE FOR ALL! …What are we outraged about again?”
….which leads to a great deal of this:
“HOLY COW I WANT TO MOVE TO THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT AND BECOME A LUDITE!”
I want to emphasize one thing: this communication by outrage is by no means the only discussions going on out there. There are true social justice conversations, real exchanges of ideas, yielding understanding and growth within communities. They are dominated by folks who might be offended, outraged, angry, and frustrated but instead of falling back on personal attacks, instead extend ideas rather than entrenched rhetoric. They express themselves rather than personally attack folks. These conversations take place on the very social media where people are bellowing at each other, fostering progressive dialogues in environments where aggressing on another person is still considered, y’know, unacceptable. And there are websites, blogs, speakers and groups that are reaching out to point out problems, like the above website did calling out the performance of The Mikado that does so with anger and serious axes to grind that does not fall into the parlance of outrage.
This isn’t about tone policing. This is about the loss of nuance in conversations, the lack of acknowledging people as complex creatures that can both believe problematic things and still be human beings worthy of being treated as such. This is also about recognizing that people even with the best intentions can misstep or misspeak and that browbeating one another only produces fearful silence instead of discourse.
I’ve seen a lot of this lately, a lot of this shouting and a lot of this fear to speak for fear of getting ganged up on, mislabeled, misconstrued. And maybe I’m dating myself here, but I remember days when I would sit around with friends and talk about issues, either in person or online. We wouldn’t be afraid of misspeaking, but would be able to earnestly say what we felt and explain ourselves or apologize as needs be. Recently, I tried to have a conversation about serious issues only to have friends balk out of fear of ‘saying something wrong.’ Even in the most safe of spaces, the fear of being on the wrong side of a conversation has led to a growing culture of silence that only seeks to limit the sharing of ideas and the growth of our communities. So let’s think before we pick up the pitchforks and call people names for their choices, before we further turn the greatest tool of communication in history into a tool for destroying conversation and progressive thought.
((Warning: Included in this post are mild spoilers for Season Two of Orange Is The New Black. You have been warned!))
Okay, I’ll admit it: I never thought I was going to like Orange Is The New Black. I heard about it when it first went up on Netflix and thought to myself, “What do I care about the story of some entitled blond chick who goes to prison?” But I was won over by my better angels (aka all of my friends on Facebook and Twitter) and ended up marathon-watching Season One last year. And while I still had very little interest in the adventures of the ‘entitled blond chick’ (aka Piper the Eternal Narcissist), I was absolutely captivated by the rest of the show and it’s amazing characters.
More than anything, I was excited to see a show that was all about diversity in it’s cast and that tackled serious issues about women in prison with such a razor-sharp wit. I think I found my happiness with Orange is the New Black, however, in its body positivity. Because for once we have a show in which the cast isn’t what you’d call the Hollywood standard. It is body diverse and for that reason, absolutely gorgeous. The show gives the audience the stories of a plethora of types of women, from the very young to the elderly, from the absolutely beautiful to the not traditionally so. And instead of relegating those who aren’t your typical television beauty to the background, each of these women are given a place of distinction, their characters carefully crafted to be unique, interesting, heart-breaking and hilarious.
Three characters have appealed to me since the beginning of the series and represent that body positivity in spades. Kate Mulgrew, a particular favorite of mine since she played Captain Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, plays Red, the Russian cook who rules the prison kitchen with an iron fist and fabulous red hair. Mulgrew’s storyline on the show includes Red’s constant battle with getting older, including her serious back pain issues, her vanity over her hair going grey, and comments about her figure. Though she’s certainly no spring chicken, Mulgrew brings an incredible passion and power to Red that helps fire the show through the second season.
You don’t have to go much further than Danielle Brooks to talk about a body positive character on OITNB. Brooks plays Taystee, an inmate intent on preparing herself for a good job and a better life once she gets out of prison. Though Taystee is often on the receiving end of jokes about her weight on the show, she is proud about her body and gives back as good as she gets. One of my favorite scenes involves her telling a hilarious story about being naked and covered in food on top of a bulldozer. That kind of representation of a sex-positive larger woman on television is more of what I like to see: women joking around, not making jokes out of their weight to get a laugh. There’s plenty of serious conversation for Taystee too, like when she prepares for a job fair in Season Two and gets the receiving end of comments about being larger. The show doesn’t pull any punches about the reality of being a larger woman, and Brooks plays to that content and to the fantastic character she portrays so well.
I think for body positive stories, however, I can’t look any further than Dascha Polanco’s portrayal of Daya. While most fans go crazy for the love story of Piper and Alex on the show, I spend most of the episodes rooting for Daya and her totally forbidden love affair with Matt McGorry’s guard character John Bennett. Sure, theirs is the love that is totally a felony, but Daya is so earnest and Bennett is a super sweet character. It’s such a problematic situation and fraught with so many issues (can a woman give consent when she is in a position of no power? the law says she can’t!) but the storyline is evocative, heart-breaking, and so well done. A friend had told me about the relationship storyline before I started watching (rassum frassum spoilers) and so when I turned on the show, I honestly expected to see Daya played by some traditionally Hollywood body-typed actress. Those are the actresses which, typically, got great love story lines like these. Yet here was Dascha Polanco, a full figured woman, playing Daya and being called beautiful. And there’s no mistake, she absolutely is. Polanco plays Daya with an innocent, sweet radiance that lights up the screen, and makes her one of the prime reasons to watch Orange is the New Black.
It’s for the sake of actresses like Polanco, and Brooks, and Mulgrew that I watch the show. It is for Laverne Cox and her absolutely fantastic portrayal of Sophia, a trans woman in prison, who is breaking new ground for trans representation both on and off screen (check her out on the cover of Time magazine if you haven’t seen). Basically, I watch the show for them:
And one hundred percent not for her:
Yes, dear. Yes you are.
This leads me into the part about the show that I do not like, and that is the seeming inability of the show to utilize the word bisexual. For those uninitiated into the Piper Chapman drama-fest, Piper goes to prison and leaves behind her wet blanket of a fiancé Larry. In prison, she meets up once more with her ex-girlfriend Alex, with whom she used to traffic drugs and who Larry knew nothing about. No surprise, Piper ends up hooking up once more with her ex-girlfriend, played by the phenomenal Laura Prepon, and so begins the ‘will they-won’t they’ of the Piper/Larry/Alex fiasco.
A great deal of discussion goes into Piper’s sexuality on the show, which the writers seem to want to portray as complex and nuanced, as all sexuality truly is. However, in most of the show’s exploration of Piper’s sexual identity, they confine the discussion to the terms ‘straight’ or ‘lesbian’ or ‘gay’. Piper herself explains that she likes both men and women (see the above photo) but stops short of using bisexual as a term. In fact, there’s almost zero acknowledgement by many characters that bisexual is an actual choice and that one does not have to choose one way or the other.
One of the most brilliant exchanges in the show about Piper’s sexuality comes when she gets back together with Alex. Larry bemoans the situation to Cal, Piper’s weird but extremely cool and often wise brother.
Larry: So is she gay now?
Cal: I’m going to go ahead and guess that one of the issues here is your need to say that a person is exactly anything.
And with that statement, I think we get more of the showrunner’s feelings on the subject than anything else. The show battles the notion that people are able to be confined to labels, that relationships are more complicated than just one word, and that identity is not built upon a single classification. And in so many ways I applaud that idea, because the world is nuanced and not made up of check boxes on a form. Yet there is a serious issue in my eyes in the way they sweep Piper’s bisexuality under the rug. Her drunken statement above, or her often confused back and forth over whether or not she is gay, is the embodiment of the struggle that many bisexual people go through in this world. The struggle to stand up and not wince when people ask, “So you’re a lesbian?” (as her parents and friends did) or to deal with women who will say that she is a “straight girl” who is just confused (like Alex does at the end of Season One), these are constant issues that bisexual folks face. They are labeled as confused straight people or people who cannot get off the fence and ‘make a decision’ about their sexuality. They are identified as one or the other, straight and confused or a gay and in denial, all the time. These are labels bisexual folks have to deal with all the time. Piper is stuck with them on the show constantly. So if she must deal with those labels, and the writers have no problem dropping them constantly, then what’s the problem with the label of bisexual?
This mixed message of embracing the complexities of human sexuality while seeming almost ashamed of a term that accurately represents Piper’s situation seems curiously uncomfortable in a show that is so good at pushing boundaries. The often awkward conversations on the show between Piper and Larry about the Kinsey scale and being “turned gay” in prison are nothing next to the inability of the show to embrace an identity that is part of the LGBTQ spectrum, a title that is swept under the rug all the time and derided by many. If the show wants to be positive towards bisexuality, it would help if it didn’t seem to want to make the term disappear.
One must at least celebrate that Orange is the New Black is exploring this issue in the first place. For years, bisexual characters were relegated to innuendo or vague hand-waved relationship statuses on shows. I remember growing up realizing that Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5 was bisexual but being so disappointed at how behind-the-hand and indirect the show was about her attraction to the show’s resident telepath Talia Winters. I wanted to see more relationships with women explored by Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and crowed when I started seeing more representation on the shows I loved. Now we have Delphine Cormier and her newly discovered attraction to Cosima on Orphan Black, the fantastic Captain Jack Harkness on Torchwood, Doctor Remy Hadley on House, Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones and Bo the succubus on Lost Girl. Orange is the New Black is joining a long line of shows who are now including bisexual characters. It would however be nice to see, for all its exploration, a level of comfort with bisexuality as an identity label than what we’ve seen so far.
Maybe the idea of Orange is the New Black is to tell us to throw off labels, to ignore classifications, and to embrace the nuanced nature of each person we meet. Yet when bisexuality and the term has been much maligned, white washed, hidden and ignored in the media for years, I’d get behind the show a little more solidly if it didn’t seem so concerned with labeling Piper anything but. Because right now, for all its positive and progressive representation, I will say I’m feeling a serious lack of actual representation here.
(Though I’ll be very honest: I don’t even think if they fixed this that I’d ever like Piper. That would take a miracle.)
Postscript: Included below is a gallery of some of those characters I mentioned above that have explored bisexuality as part of their character portrayal on their shows. This is in no way a complete list of bisexual characters on television, just a few of my favorites. A lot of them, you might notice are from scifi/fantasy shows. That’s because that’s a lot of what I watch. Feel free to comment on some of your favorite representations as well, I’m always interested in hearing about others.
There’s not a day that goes by that my blog doesn’t get a ping for my article on being fat and cosplaying. I am so grateful that people have responded to that article, as it is probably one of the essays I’m the most proud of on this blog. The issue of body shaming in the geek community is very near and dear to my heart, and something I want to see spoken about more. So to that effect, I wanted to update where I’m at in my cosplay odyssey.
The answer, unfortunately, is nowhere. My cosplay adventure got stalled out pretty quickly because of two serious issues: time and finances! First, my graduate school life took over pretty much everything except my freelance writing during the past year, and along with health issues kept me from doing anything else as a hobby. Still, I was busy preparing by picking up little costume pieces that I’d find along the way. I managed to collect a few costume pieces for outfits I wanted to do, and then promptly lost income. Those pieces are sitting and waiting for me to complete them, but they’re just bits along the way. What costumes? Well, let’s take a look at the things I was interested in doing.
Ellie from Borderlands 2
Would you believe the hardest part of this costume has been finding the dang overalls? I have a friend I am going to commission to make the giant wrench (and make it boffer safe too so it can be used in LARP combat too!), and I found a great toolbelt I wanted. But the thing that stopped me cold was finding overalls that would work. Apparently, overalls for someone my body type is very difficult. And finding them in New York is even harder. I really want this to be my first major cosplay, but it’s taking a little bit of time. In the meantime, I actually have more pieces for…
Generic Agent of SHIELD
I’m styling my costume off of Agent May’s and some of Skye’s outfits from Season 1, but I’m not trying to be either of those characters (one because Agent May is too awesome and second cuz I loathe Skye’s outfits). I’ve got this amazing black jacket that reminded me of this black and blue leather one from Agent May, plus a pair of black, well-fitting slacks. I even got an old bluetooth headset that I’m mocking up to look a little like a SHIELD earpiece. I’ve got the authentic replica badge. I’ve got the SHIELD patches and collar pins. I’ve got a pair of kickass boots to go with it. And now, the last piece: I want to make a Night-Night Gun.
Or at least find someone who can help me make one. I know crafty people! I’m still wondering however what’s the intelligence of trying to go out and cosplay with something that looks like, well, a pistol. In today’s day and age, in New York especially, that’ll get me some serious trouble. I’m debating. Point is, add some aviator shades and this might be my serious cosplay debut. I want to have it by NYCC of this year.
Peggy Carter
Speaking of the original Agent of SHIELD herself, when I heard that Peggy Carter was getting her own TV show, I got the idea in my head that she’d make a great cosplay. So sue me, I’m a stickler for that military uniform thing. I love the WW2 hair and how singularly badass she is. I’m sure that I’ll pull a great deal of BS for being heavy and trying to cosplay the rather svelte Carter, but it’s something I’m considering. The uniform would be the hardest part, because I have not seen a single one in a larger size. It’d have to be custom made, and that would be pretty difficult considering my novice skills as a seamstress. (Bless my departed grandmother for teaching me to use a sewing machine!) Still, it’s something I think could be a lot of fun to put together and I could pull off the Carter attitude well.
Those are the only three I have active pieces for just yet. However. HOWEVER. Here are a couple of costumes I desperately want to make in the order of importance to me.
Grey Warden and Female Qunari: Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition
Oh. OH Qunari. Why are you my favorite fantasy race ever? Could it be because you brought an inexplicable sense of gravity, presence and depth to a dude in a cage in the first Dragon Age game, and never stopped impressing after that? From the moment you meet Sten in Dragon Age: Origins, I felt as though the qunari were one of the best fleshed out, well-built fantasy civilizations and races ever. They are utterly foreign to the Fereldens and ‘monstrous’, yet when you start to learn more about their culture you start to understand that they aren’t just two-dimensional creatures. There is an entire civilization going on that the humans have no idea how to understand, and unlike elves they aren’t easily understood by tropes from other fantasy literature. It’s that mystery that brings me to want to cosplay a qunari. That’s why when it was announced that qunari would be playable in Dragon Age: Inquisition, I kinda went out and pre-ordered the premiere edition (with the pretty ‘dragonscale box’ and everything). Because this, right here, is one of my fandoms.
It should be no surprise then that I want to make me some Dragon Age cosplay. My first inclination was going to be to do a Grey Warden from Origins, but I have yet to graduate to making armor for cosplay. That is some ‘I have no idea how to do that yet’ next level stuff. So instead (because this is going to be so much easier) I’m going to try a female qunari.
This is the character I’m basing it off of from one of the Dragon Age comics that I adored. Now, I’m not entirely okay with the whole ‘bandages over my breasts as a shirt’ thing so that’s going to get adjusted. But I’m not trying to be THAT qunari exactly, just a female qunari of my own. That said, its’ going to be an ambitious project. The horns alone, getting a good wig, figuring out a good way to keep them both from being a problem. Then the makeup. Oh the makeup. And the various pieces. This is going to be a complicated cosplay, but if done correctly would be very worth it.
This cosplay, should I get it down, would I believe prepare me for the bigger challenge of taking on armor characters. I really want to try out making a Grey Warden. But my real dream? Is this:
Brienne of Tarth. Probably one of my favorite characters of all time in books or television. Now this costume not only has a million little details, it would require some serious custom armor pieces. I’d need to consult with some folks I know who are more familiar with armor before I took this on, but… it’s a hell of a cosplay. This is sort of my white whale, my dream should I ever be able to figure it out and get the cash and time. Those are the main stopping points keeping me from cosplaying right now.
Well no. One more thing. I’d also have to figure out: where the hell do I PUT all of this…?
For now, we’re sticking to Ellie and the SHIELD agent, and we’ll go from there.
So that’s my cosplay update. As soon as the cash flow gets better, we’re going to tackle these head on. One way or the other, I’m going to have something to cosplay when I get to NYCC this year. Because, to paraphrase a movie I like: Cosplaying and Body Proud.
The modern world in a lot of ways is a screwed up place. There’s levels of war, disease, famine, pestilence, inequity and terror that go on today that are fueled by the innovations of modern technology that make me crazy sad for our future. And then there are miracles of modern science that make me amazed at how far we’ve come from wee huts and caves.
Take, for example, brain surgery. Mine, for example.
I will be explaining a little bit about my brain surgery without getting too graphic. To do so, I will be using one of my favorite outlets: memes. Why? Because it’s fun and I’m not allowed to get out of bed yet too much, so I’m going to enjoy a little bit of meme related fun here.
Sunday evening, I was having a bit of a panic. I was scheduled to go into surgery to have my brain tumor, which had been nicknamed Larry after the annoying neighbor from Three’s Company, removed. As you can imagine, this very idea was making me quite panicked.
I posted about my tumor and how I was optimistic about getting the dang thing taken out, but the closer one gets to a surgery, the more panic can set in. So I went from ‘chin up, everything’s going to be fine’, to something like this:
One doesn’t have an option with this kind of thing, however. When the doctors say it’s time to take out the jelly bean sized thing inside your head that isn’t supposed to be there? You go for it. But before I did that, I sat back and had a good, nice long think about life. Why? You don’t go into something like this without thinking about what you’ve been doing with your time, and what you want to do going forward. Morbid, sure, but health issues really give you a priority-straightening whether you want one or not.
So I started to think about life. And fear. And what fear can do to you.
I stayed up most of the night before the surgery thinking about how fear can shape our lives. How it can drive away our greatest impulses and make us reach for safer ground. I remember when I was growing up, I wanted to be something or someone who would help people. I wanted to be a good person. I modeled myself after the super heroes I read in comic books, and the novels I read about heroines who were kind and gentle and still fierce and powerful. I wanted to be all these things. I wanted to be so much. Now, looking back, I wondered how I measured up against all those old standards and whether I was happy with that standard. I thought about fear, and how it can drive you away from those ideals to make compromises. I thought about all the things I’d done in my life and wondered if perhaps in too many ways I had compromised. If I’d let the fear win. How many days of my life were spent like this?
Worse, I thought about all the times that I had taken a risk and it had bitten me badly. You know what’s the worst part about taking risks? Sometimes they do go bad. And then, cynicism can set in. Bitterness too. And worst of all, you can turtle up like mad. So looking back, I realized a good deal of my time in the last few years had been spent doing this:
And was I happy with that, going into this potentially scary brain surgery? Nope. Not at all.
So let’s just say I made a few promises to myself. And then I headed into the hospital.
The actual surgery went really well. I went to sleep, I woke up, and Larry the tumor was Evicted. I Tweeted #LarryEvicted about my recovery, slept a lot, and met a young woman who ended up my roommate who had been through this surgery not once, but three times! After I heard her story, I promptly stopped complaining, drank my water, dealt with the pain in my head, and learned to be thankful. I am grateful that I had one of the best surgeons around, a specialist in Cushing’s disease, who operated on me. From the indications from the doctor’s findings, they’re pretty sure the tumor is benign, it is Cushing’s disease, and it might be at the root of a lot of my medical issues.
That said, I want to address one thing: remember what I was saying about technology? I want to sing it’s praises for one second. A doctor figured out that I had this disease by shooting radiation into my brain through an MRI machine. They took a picture, then looked at the picture. Then another doctor went into my brain through my nose and pulled out said tumor. And did so without me getting cut up or badly ill. I effectively feel, two days later, like I have a flu with a serious migraine attached. That, these days, is what happens when you take out a tiny tumor. From a brain.
Technology and the universe looking after you, right? Holycow.
So here I am now, recovering. This isn’t the best blog post Iv’e ever written, I’m sure, because I’m still a little out of it. Hence the memes. Because right now, I feel like this:
But secretly, down deep? I’m still in that ‘OMGWHATTHEHECK?!’ stage. It’s hard to process the idea that I just went through finding out I had a tumor, graduating grad school, going to Los Angeles, and having the tumor removed in a two week period. Now, on the other side of it, I’m still processing how scary all of this has been and how this has given me perspective on what I want my life to look like going forward. I’ve got a lot of changes I want to see in my life, and thanks to this doctor and the support of amazing folk, I have that chance. Oh yes, and thanks to Obamacare. Anyone wants to say nasty things about ObamaCare around me will be in the verbal battle of a lifetime, because without it I would never have been able to have a brain tumor removed. Controversial topic? Sure. But when I don’t stroke out or die over comorbidity issues associated with the side effects of Larry the tumor, I’ll be thanking ObamaCare.
So what now? I don’t know. For the next week I have to avoid coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose, standing up too fast, lifting things, and generally doing much of anything. I have books to read, episodes of Night Vale to listen to, television to watch (Orange is the New Black is out after all) and after that I have writing to do when I feel better. But for now, I’m going to settle for processing my inner freak out over having a doctor cut into my brain. And once that processes through and I’m feeling better, I’m going to go right into this:
May the rest of the summer be all about the party. And may I remember the lessons I’ve picked up from this prioritization session. Much love to everyone who supported me in this, and to Doctor Post and Doctor Geer, who are amazing.
Growing up, my mom always called me Briar Rose whenever I’d watch Sleeping Beauty. My name, Shoshana, means Rose and so she’d always say I was her little Briar Rose. But even at a young age, I didn’t associate with the frolicking, soft-spoken blond in the woods. (Except in that singing voice, I always wanted to be able to sing like her). No, when I watched Sleeping Beauty – and it was one of my favorites – I watched it because I adored the villainess.
That’s right, I was a Maleficent girl.
“Listen well! All of you! Your king is an idiot.”
While lots of little girls liked the princesses, I rooted for Maleficent. Why? Because even at a young age, after reading loads on medieval society, I knew that in the movie King Stephan and his ‘fair queen’ were kind of dicks to Maleficent on Aurora’s christening day. Anyone who has read up on medieval folklore knows that not inviting someone who is considered a peer of the realm to the crown princess’s coronation is tantamount to the gravest insult. (And the Queen identifies Maleficent as a peer when she calls her ‘Your Excellency’). So imagine being the only one in town not invited, showing up to face down the King and Queen for their grievous oversight, getting insulted by three tiny fairies, and then losing your temper. You know, I can see it. It’s understandable. Does Maleficent go overboard in cursing a child to die for the whole thing? Okay, sure. But her anger made sense. She had been left out, cast aside, insulted, and insulted again.
I think I responded so much to Maleficent because she was allowed her rage. In a world that often tells women to be silent in their anger, I saw Maleficent as a powerful, vengeful woman who made a choice and followed it through to the end. And she did it with poise, grace, power, fury, eloquence, and intelligence. She didn’t rant and rave. Maleficent commanded. Sure, she could have used a better brand of henchmen, but she was regal without a crown. Like the Morgan La Fey of Arthurian Myth, she was a power unto herself. She made her choice and she followed it through, faced the hero and died in the course of her actions.
And you know, I think I like that far more than Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent.
Being Evil and looking fabulous WITHOUT being toothless.
Recently, Disney has been on a kick of trying to humanize it’s villains. From Regina and Gold on Once Upon A Time to the rockstar status of Frozen, Disney is trying to show that villains, while doing bad things, are people too. They are creatures with their own inner worlds, and more often than not lately the villain is redeemed through the course of the story. Love triumphs over vengeance and pain, and the villain is healed to become good at the end. This is the new story of what it is to be evil. Evil is a choice. It is the acts you take and not the person you are. You can turn back and join with the good side of society again and have what you have done wiped away. This is true redemption and you know what? I love this idea.
Just… not the way it’s presented in Maleficent.
The live action Maleficent is not so much a retelling so much as a complete rewrite. Maleficent goes from a sorceress to a fairy girl, whose happy-go-lucky world turns to pain when the human boy she trusts turns against her in a bid to get the crown for himself. In a scene that was painfully reminiscent to me of being roofied, Maleficent is drugged and her precious and beautiful wings are cut off for the boy Stephen to present to the king who wanted her dead. Stephen then becomes king, goes and knocks up the old king’s beautiful daughter, and out comes baby Aurora. Maleficent, meanwhile, wakes up in a field with her wings cut off, betrayed and physically violated by the boy she thought loved her, and turns a little angry. Okay, very angry. And so she goes to the christening, and the scene plays out pretty much the same as it did in the animated classic.
Except with one major difference. In the animated classic, Maleficent confronts the royals over not receiving an invitation and this is the exchange:
Maleficent: “I admit to being quite distressed at not receiving an invitation.”
Merriweather the Fairy: “You weren’t wanted.”
Maleficent: “Not want- Oh dear. And here I had thought it must have been some oversight. In that case, I should just be on my way.”
The Queen: “Then you aren’t offended, Your Excellency?”
Maleficent: “Why no, your Majesty. And to show that I bear no ill will, I too shall bestow a gift on the child.”
In this version, it is Merriweather the fairy that exacerbates the situation. King Stephen and his Queen had no relationship of direct aggression on Maleficent that we know about, just their obvious dislike and the snub they gave her. It’s the fairy that makes things harder. The Queen in fact tries to back things down, tries to check to see if Maleficent is angry. And she is. Oh most definitely.
Still, in the live action version, it is King Stephen, Maleficent’s former childhood sweetheart and betrayer who now looks her in the face and says instead, “You aren’t welcome here.”
Let’s back up for a second. King Stephen is the former orphan boy, saved by Maleficent when he tried to steal from the faeries as a child. She then befriends him, gives him her heart, shows him the beauty of the faery world. And he then comes to her under the pretext of ‘saving her from the King’ and cuts off her wings to gain the throne. And when she, in her anger, shows herself in the kingdom, he looks her right in the face and says that she isn’t welcome. I don’t know about you, but watching that scene I thought he was LUCKY all she did was curse his child. Maleficent throughout the film is shown as having power over nature itself on a basic level. Yet she’s presented as cursing this child to go into a death-like sleep after sixteen years on this earth. She doesn’t bring down the castle. She doesn’t kill the King for his betrayal. She gives him a puzzle with an out. She is the one who says that true love’s kiss can break the spell, not one of the other faeries.
Because in this version, no matter what she’s doing, Maleficent is kind.
A softer, cuddlier Maleficent.
This rewritten Maleficent is kind, deep beneath her betrayed anger. She loves woodland creatures, trees, and magical things. She saves little boys and protects her homeland from invaders. And, as we see, she can’t kill. This isn’t the same Maleficent that landed in all her glory in a ball of fire in front of Prince Phillip and declared: “Now you must deal with me, oh Prince, and all the powers of HELL!” This is a kinder, gentler Maleficent, who spends the rest of the film spying on the baby Aurora growing up and, gradually, comes to love the little princess as her own.
That’s right. There is no sixteen year search for the princess by goblin soldiers and one very overworked raven. Maleficent knows from day one where Aurora is and watches over her. Then, gradually, the baby Aurora wins her over. Maleficent even picks her up at one point and holds her while the tiny infant grabs adorably at her horns. “I don’t like children!” the sorceress complains, all the while giving the baby goo goo eyes. It’s obvious from moment one that the true love of this film will not be between Aurora and Prince Phillip as is so classically expected, but much like Frozen, the love that will save Aurora will also redeem and save our villainess from herself. In the end, Aurora is Maleficent’s surrogate daughter, and Maleficent the ‘fairy godmother’ that teaches her to be good to the magical creatures, unlike her selfish father. And, because it’s Disney, they even rewrite the ending so that they all live happily ever after.
(Though they did leave in the dragon part. At least a little).
This is a wonderful story of vengeance healed through love, of a woman finding her way back from grief and betrayal to heal.
Jolie looks the part. But cannot walk the dragon walk.
The problem is: this is not Maleficent.
This character, rewritten as she is, is a shadow of her former glory. Angelina Jolie shows beautiful poise and gives much to the savage beauty and grace of Maleficent, but her performance is so sunk in the tragic vulnerability and pain of Maleficent that her rage is gone. Instead, she spends so much time trying to make Maleficent seem redeemable that she defangs perhaps Disney’s greatest villainess.
The worst part of the sanitization of Maleficent is the ways in which she is brought into this vengeance/healing storyline and the way she is ‘saved’. No longer is Maleficent just insulted by the royalty and decides to act on that insult. No, the story had to change so that Maleficent has been betrayed and mutilated by the man she loved to justify her rage at the little baby Aurora. Ahem, I have a question: why does everything have to have a damn love story? And to be fair, this wasn’t even a very GOOD love story. This was a rushed, half-narrated, shlock of a love story to justify Maleficent’s anger. Because a woman cannot be angry or insulted if she’s not being betrayed by a man she loved.
“Go away. I hate children! Well, except for you. And not just because you’re being played by my daughter.”
And finally, there is Maleficent’s journey to healing, also known as the bond she creates with Princess Aurora. This storyline, while precious and beautiful in a nurturing, female bonding kind of way, left a bad taste in my mouth. Where once Maleficent was an independent woman, operating on her own agenda and feelings, here Jolie’s Maleficent is sublimated back into the traditional mother-nurturer archetype. It follows the typical fairy tale trope. Now that Maleficent isn’t the villainess, per say, her happy ending must come through finding true love. Since we’ve already sat through one annoying false love story in this, are we presented with another for Maleficent? No, there’s no he-dragon to win her hand. Is it love for herself, or even for her adorable and fabulous hench-bird (who was my favorite part of this whole movie) that saves her, then? No. Maleficent must become a surrogate mother, for only in the power of nurturing a child can she truly reclaim her heart. Because, as we know, the only way to find fulfillment as a woman if you aren’t the transgressive villainess is as a lover, a wife, or a mother. That is fairy tale archetypes 101.
I want my dragon back.
This is not Maleficent. This is not the dragon who chained Prince Phillip in a dungeon and cackled as a spell overtook the castle with thorns. This is the transgressive woman neutered back into a typical, well-understood form. The mysterious sorceress is now just a girl whose boyfriend betrayed her, hurt her, and she, the jilted lover, comes to wreck his happy new home. We feel for her, of course, and applaud and love her for her journey to reclaim her heart by embracing the innocent child of her insane ex. In the end, her goodness makes her powerful again as she battles for Aurora, her own freedom, and that of her people. Stephen is rightfully vanquished, and Maleficent regains her glory to become again the fairy that she once was, beautiful and good. All she had to do was become a recognizable trope to get there.
The new Maleficent film is a beautiful fairy tale about the healing power of one woman nurturing another into adulthood. And I can get behind that, one hundred percept. But don’t slap the name Maleficent on there and expect that there won’t be some not-so-flattering side by side comparison. Jolie’s Maleficent strains against few gender stereotypes, and in fact reenforces many of them, all the while parading as a modern retelling of an old classic. In fact, it is a demystifying of the villainess, the transgressive woman archetype, to force her into a more palatable box. And it’s a square peg-round hole situation that does nobody any favors.
Next time, Disney, if you want to make a happy, ‘mommyhood can save you from your anguish’ story, go ahead and do that. But let’s not call it Maleficent.
Time for another video from earlier this year! This one is from a short talk I did at IndieCade East 2014 at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York. The talk is all about what indie video game design and LARP have in common and what we can learn from one another. This is a topic I’m hoping to expand into a longer essay this summer, but for now here’s the short version.
I’m excited to announce that the video of my short TED-talk like Nordic Larp Talk in Gothenburg 2014 has gone up. The topic is “Ethical Content Creation and The Freedom to Create” which was based on my research for my article on ethical content creation in the WyrdCon Companion Book for 2013. I’m really proud to have been included in this brilliant event, and encourage folks to check out the other Nordic Larp Talks for this and year’s past.
It’s summer. The windows in my room are open so I can smell the delicious aroma of Brooklyn in the warm sun. Outside, the neighbor’s dog is snarling his little hell beast head off at what I can only assume is some kind of wildlife. I sit in my room and realize that one week ago, I graduated from the NYU Game Center with my MFA in game design. Same day I flew out to WyrdCon and ran a very successful Dresden Lives game with my cohort Josh. I came home to prep more game material for the upcoming DexCon convention in July, and I’ve got a full schedule of freelancing ahead. I’m also waiting to hear about an application to a PhD program I’m very excited about. Plus, I’ve been writing blog posts that apparently have been hitting some serious notes with people, which I’m proud of.
But I haven’t been able to think about any of that. I’ve been distracted.
Ten days ago, I found out I’ve got a brain tumor. And it’s freaking me the hell out.
For the last year or so, I’ve been chasing down what is at the heart of all these medical problems I’ve been having. Most docs I saw simply said that my symptoms were related to my weight and told me to ‘go lose weight and things will be better.’ And while that is undoubtedly the case, as my weight has caused a strain on my system, there were some puzzling medical issues coming up for me. So instead of listening to those docs who decided that my only problem was weight, I went to see an endocrinologist. She took a look at my symptoms and ordered a battery of tests. I was poked, prodded, MRIed, CAT scanned, and gave more vials of blood than I could count – all the while going to class and trying to graduate school. I was racing the clock, trying to get results before I graduated and lost access to the student medical center and the wonderful doctor who was helping me there.
In the last week of school, just before graduation, the doctor sat me down and gave me the news. I’ve got something called Cushings disease. What that means is I have a small tumor in my pituitary gland. That tumor produces a hormone, ACTH, which tells my body to produce too much cortisol aka “the stress hormone.” Wonder why I’m always such a stress ball? Hey now, look, an answer! This diagnosis is also linked to a number of other major issues I’ve been facing, including my weight gain. That’s right, Cushings has a lot to do with the body building up fat. My guess is this has been going on for about two years, getting worse as time goes on, but we have no way of knowing. All I know is, there’s a tumor in my brain and the doctor says it’s got to come out.
When the doctor told me this news, I think I missed the next ten or so minutes of my life. I got out of the appointment, sat down in the waiting room, and couldn’t think straight. I realized I was going to have to talk to someone quick or I was going to panic. A brain tumor? I remember the doctor said that Cushings tumors are usually benign, so that was good. But this was a brain tumor. She had referred me to a neurosurgeon. That meant brain surgery. Some doctor was going to go into my head after they knocked me out with anesthetic.
I panicked just a little. I wanted to scream.
Then I went on social media and I Tweeted and Facebooked about it.
My folks don’t understand how I’ve been so open about having a health issue like this. When they talk about what’s coming up and the surgery I will be having, they whisper. My dad wouldn’t say the word ‘brain tumor’ but drops his voice and mouths the words instead. I asked him point blank: “What are you so afraid of? It’s a brain tumor. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He couldn’t understand how I was going to be open about the situation. “It’s nobody else’s business,” he said.
I don’t get that. People are always telling me that in life, you should reach out and talk about what you need. And in that moment, sitting in the waiting room outside the doctor’s office, I needed to talk about what was happening. I needed to feel less alone in my skin facing this terrifying prospect. I went on social media and I said the words: “I found out I’ve got a brain tumor.” And in doing so, I discovered the beauty of the internet again.
We spend a lot of time awash in the crap that can come out of the internet. We (especially women) get hit with the trolls, the threats, the inane crap and the unintelligent garbage. We wander through a mass of online noise, looking for the beauty. At least that’s how I feel a great deal of the time. Yet in between cat videos and Upworthy click bait headlines, Pinterest boards and Amazon shopping, the internet is a place where community exists. And with a few words, I found that people respond in the most amazing ways. I reached out to folks and said, “I’ve got a brain tumor and I’ll need surgery to get it out” and the internet responded with well wishes. I received phone calls, texts, ect. I got immediate support from my professional colleagues and from friends I hadn’t heard from in a long time.
It’s the worst kept secret among people I know that I often find it difficult to ask for help. Yet in this moment, when I reached out, people were there. I feel like I could have survived all right on my own, dealing with my feelings. But instead of doing that, I put out a hand and the amazing people I know reached back. And I was not alone. In one day, I rediscovered some trust in the human race that cynical New Yorker me had set aside a long time ago. Heart two sizes bigger and all that, in one day.
So what happens now? What does this all mean? I’m going in for brain surgery, for one. That’s mighty scary to me. I went to see my neurosurgeon the other day and I’m confident in him and his team. They’re experts on this particular disease. The good thing is, this tumor is not cancer, that’s almost for sure. And should the surgery go well, there’s a quick recovery time. AND it means a good chance that a lot of my other medical issues will see an improvement should everything go the way the doctor said. There is a danger to consider in anesthesia for someone my weight, and that’s the scary part. And there’s the danger that comes from any brain surgery. But the doctor’s done over 3000 of these procedures already, so I have high hopes.
In the meantime, I admit to being in kind of a fog. I’ve tried to go on with my day, work as usual, do my writing. I came home from the convention and recovered from that and said ‘back to work.’ But there’s a gong inside my head over and over, saying quietly: in less than two weeks, you are going into the hospital. And I’ll admit it: I’m pretty scared.
So why talk about this? Because emotional honesty is important to me. And why talk about it in public? Because moments like these are something of a jarring juxtaposition to me to the talk about issues I do online a lot. This isn’t an issue that is a social justice worry, or a pop culture critique. This is personal and strange and I’m trying to be honest about it online so that my brain doesn’t just repress how crazy nervous I am. Instead of saying “I’m fine” I’m working to admit: I’m not fine. I will be. But right now, I’m dealing with it slowly. It doesn’t make me fragile, or in need of coddling, and I don’t need to be handled with care. But talking about this here is helping me to admit to myself the impact this event is having on my life.
I’m having brain surgery that could change my life. We have a date scheduled. And provided my insurance doesn’t crap out, I will come back with a chance to relieve a lot of health risks. And maybe, give me a whole new lease on life to feel better.
One can only hope. For now, I’m just going to spend the time prepping for the surgery. I have writing to do before the hospital stay, emails to answer, convention prep to handle. Life and work doesn’t stop because you found a kidney-bean sized thing inside your head that’s not supposed to be there. And I’m going to continue being honest about my feelings up until that point. But if I seem a little off the next few weeks, this is why.
John Adamus, my friend and editor, named the tumor Larry after the annoying neighbor from Three’s Company. So in ten days, Larry is getting evicted. Larry is going extinct. (And no, John, they won’t let me keep Larry afterwards in a jar, I already asked for you).
Until then, life goes on. And Larry and me gotta keep company, if only for a little while longer.
Meanwhile, to everyone who has supported me in this: thank you. When I reached out, you heard me. And that means more than I can ever say.
