Hi, I have a fiddly question and I was pointed your direction. (Blame Punchy). When someone says - this is re: black panther - that a thing "does not belong to (x kind of person)"...what does that mean? I. I've never felt ownership of a piece of media in my life, and I don't understand what I'm not supposed to be doing here.
i think there’s often a sense in fandom of, like… “because this is my private hobby, it is just for me.” which is true! you can do fandom any way you like. the trouble is, some people then jump to “because it is my private personal playtime fun, it doesn’t affect other people and they don’t get to have any say in how i do it,” which is not true.
the war between these two notions– the first being that fandom is a hobby and i can do what i want, the second being community members have a right to safety in their community– is how you get things like reylos vs antis, arguments over whether and how people should post explicit fanart if it’s for children’s shows like steven universe, and fights over what counts as censorship when it comes to tagging and trigger warnings
tumblr is a place where people who like diverse media types, regardless of to whom it was marketed or intended, can talk about the thing. but every property has an intended audience, every property has fans for whom the stakes are biggest, the investment most passionate and in some cases dire
steven universe belongs to children. it should be safe for them to be in SU fandom without having to look at gem boobs or being told that, uh, if they don’t support violent revolution they are part of the problem
likewise– black panther belongs to black folks. they’ve waited long enough. there is no other thing out there that can do for this audience what black panther will do for them. and so it’s important for us as white fans to think about… volume. that it’s possible to shout for joy without drowning out others who have waited longer to be heard.
we talk a lot about the “secure your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you” analogy when discussing mental health and self care. but when it’s an inter-community issue, a representation issue, i think we have to come at it a different way. the “let people with babies or mobility issues have the seat on the subway” approach. which is to say: some people should be given more access to a comfortable environment based on circumstance. in this instance, black folks in fandom shouldn’t have to be on the defense when they’re interacting with all things black panther.
let the movie stand on its own. don’t bring your white faves into it, or focus only on the white people in it. don’t appropriate AAVE when discussing black panther to try to fit in– there are plenty of people who can say with authority that wakanda is lit, they do not need you to say it. and uh, if you’re tempted to somehow say something like “actually black panther is racist,” maybe don’t.
the fact that you’re so baffled about what this sense of entitlement would look like is an encouraging sign that you’re not a participant in it, but in general, when trying to parse a sentence like “this thing does not belong to x kind of person,” ask yourself if you’ve ever seen anything like the thing before– if you got to grow up seeing images like that thing. if the answer is no, let the people who needed it most be loudest.
ETA: also, the source and content creator matters! the fact that black panther has a black director is a huge deal– it means that black panther literally was not created for the white gaze, that inherent to its creation was an implicit understanding of what it’s like to be seen and be black, of black bodies in motion, of black voices. we’ve seen this from queer content creators and from women content creators, and we’ve respected it then, and felt it. this is no different
