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@phantomofthebasement
notice to my followers
due to recent developments, i will be stepping away from the phandom altogether. you may have noticed i post very sporadically anyway, and i wanted to let everyone know that i won’t be posting at all on here until further notice.
Have another fake preview…
You guys are just encouraging me with these notes. 👀
For those of you in the Phantom of the Opera fandom (a number which is steadily dwindling as I clean up my dash), I’d like to make an observation. I am not the first to make it, but those who are are shut down, condescendingly and brutally.
I am talking, of course, about the antiblackness in the Phantom of the Opera fandom.
Make no mistake, it’s full of other racism as well, such as the fetishization and whitewashing of the Persian, but when I (a nonblack person of color) call that out, I get lots of reblogs. I’ve never once gotten an angry or threatening or patronizing anon. Even if people don’t actually fix the errors of their ways, they make an effort to pretend, because they see me as a human whose perspective carries some inherent value.
But when a black person, @phandombigotryarchive, calls out the rampant antiblackness in the very same fandom, suddenly she’s being unreasonable and toxic. Y’all don’t see her as a human at all. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see anything unreasonable about condemning fanfiction that treats slavery as a backdrop for white angst and fetishizes black pain (looking at you, @madamefaust). I don’t see anything unreasonable about pointing out the ways in which racebending is used to reinforce stereotypes (looking at you, anyone who makes cartoonishly brutal black Phantoms or horrifically brutalized black Christines). I don’t see anything unreasonable I don’t see anything unreasonable about expecting widespread accountability for any of those actions.
Yet @phandombigotryarchive has done all of those things, and been faced with constant harassment. And when it isn’t sending her aggressive messages or stalking her AO3, phandom is full of vagueposts about “cancel culture” and “fandom drama” because it prioritizes its own comfort over the actual oppression of actual people. If the Phantom of the Opera fandom is safe for antiblack racists, it will not be safe for black people.
This isn’t abstract discourse. This is the lived reality of my friend, and that of her ancestors. The slavery of black French people getting treated as a fanfiction trope traumatized millions of human beings and traumatizes millions more today.
You don’t get to deny being racist because it hurts your fragile white feelings. If you don’t want to be racist, prove it. You can start by listening to black people and apologizing to @phandombigotryarchive for belittling her. It shouldn’t be her job to carry the weight of cleaning up the phandom alone.
If you want to start learning how to do that, I do encourage visiting her blog and the resources on it. Again, it’s @phandombigotryarchive. But stay the fuck out of her inbox unless you want to thank her for everything she’s done.
a hot take
There are literally hundreds of photographs from the Naseri era, many freely available. How are phan artists still so Orientalist??
I may have already blocked everyone to whom this pertains lmao, but I have noticed that a lot of people in the Phantom of the Opera fandom don’t really understand how The Monkey Jokes are harmful.
We’ve all seen a fan-drawn cartoon of the Daroga lamenting the fact that the only nod to his existence in the ALW musical is the monkey-shaped music box in traditional Persian clothing that the Phantom owns for…reasons.
Yes, the music box was a strange choice on ALW’s part, but not random; the practice of comparing people of color to monkeys is an old one, rooted in eugenicists’ “theories” of evolution and justifications for slavery and imperialism. I don’t feel like sharing nineteenth and twentieth century racist propaganda images here, but I promise that a Google search will turn some up very quickly.
But most of the fandom is aware of that. I think the real problem lies in the fact that they have a hard time distinguishing between laughing at racists and laughing at racism. I’ve seen it argued that The Monkey Jokes are actually progressive because they are calling out ALW’s whitewashing. When I was brand new to the phandom, I wasn’t immune to that line of thinking. But if you give it a moment’s reflection, that doesn’t hold up.
Because think about it: what exactly are you laughing at? The punchline isn’t that racism is bad, it’s that racism exists and that a person of color is upset by it. ALW isn’t the butt of the joke; the Daroga is.
We laugh at his annoyance, at the angry things he yells or the face he pulls when he sees the monkey for the first time or at the fact that look! the monkey is wearing the Daroga’s outfit! or at the haha random fact that this particular main character didn’t make the adaptational cut again and again. Sometimes his ire is directed at Erik, a (white) character whose hapless oops is shown as just as justified as the Daroga’s hurt, and it’s definitely an interesting choice to frame an in-world character as the perpetrator instead of a creator who imposed his real-world bigotry onto his work. It’s also an interesting choice to frame the Middle Eastern character who was so unflappably calm in the book as cartoonishly angry in fanart so often.
So please, reconsider how you engage with the Daroga. There is so much interesting stuff there, and there are so many thoughtful and genuinely funny ways to put humor into your portrayals of him. And if you don’t want to do that, leave him the fuck alone.
and if you think it is, you’re a racist.
Ayo @madamefaust ? You gonna tell me why you're writing about the white ass french De Chagny's being involved in the SLAVE TRADE?
Playing into the tragic mulatto trope by making Raoul half Black for some diversity points? (See the word bastard when referred to Raoul's Blackness.) All for some fucking fanfiction?
Do you even know the implications of naming a Black/White biracial child a bastard and flat out stating that their white side was involved in the slave trade? It means that child's mother was possibly r*ped. You are implying that Raoul's mother was a victim of slavery and sexual trauma. You are playing into the tragic mulatto trope. You are anti-Black.
You decide to write Raoul as Black. Then you state that his family is involved in the slave trade in the description AND ON TOP OF THAT YOU MAKE HIM A TRAGIC MULATTO. How do you even sound? 💀 FUNNY how you only care about writing Black characters when it's to exploit and fetishize Black trauma for this lily white ass fandom. Much less, for a pharoga fic! (I know most of you pharoga shippers/writers are white. Yes that's a bad thing!)
Is you even BLACK too, madamefaust ? 🤔 And don't give me that "oh I did my research" I DO NOT CARE. IT IS NOT IN A NON-BLACK'S INTERESTS TO BE WRITING BOUT US. You don't speak for us. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO SLAVERY LMFAOOOOO
Let me not forget the fact that she based Raoul's story off the Dumas family. Alexandere Dumas was a biracial Black and White man who wrote the Three Musketeers. His Father, Thomas Alexandre Dumas was a born into slavery in Haiti but was freed and fought in the French army under Napoleon. Do you know how disrespectful it is to base a fictional white aristocratic family off a Black family traumatized by slavery and anti-Blackness for your fanfic? Did you know that many of these BLACK PEOPLE in Haiti suffered brutal conditions under slavery by the French? That many of them died in the Haitian Revolution obtaining their freedom. How could you be so disrespectful as to base off A FICTIONAL WHITE MAN OFF A REAL LIFE BLACK ENSLAVED FAMILY?? MUCH LESS FROM HAITI OF ALL PLACES??????
Do you think slavery is a fun joke? Do you think that me and many other members of my diaspora not knowing where we come from as a result of COLONIALISM and ENSLAVEMENT is something to use as a fanfic trope? Do you think this is a fucking game to you? That making an aristocratic white french family being aligned on the slave trade cute to you?
FUCK YOU.
This is everyone who left a kudos and bookmarked. Fuck all y'all. Notice any familiar faces? 🤔
I don't expect nothing from this fandom about blocking and accountability cause y'all stay being weirdly racist + colorist with the Daroga, interacting with transphobes and all other types of heinous shit.
So I just want you all to know that hell is a hot place if you keep interacting with this person. And madamefaust? Stay the fuck away from Black people and don't forget to donate to Black Trans Women if you even have a slight bit of remorse. I know you be interacting with them transphobes around here (we can see who you reblog from. I know you've seen the call out posts).
That includes the rest of y'all in this fandom too. Since we're on the topic of anti-Blackness, non-Black people in this fandom love to make and share fanart of Black Christine, yet they call and paint Erik as abusive while they draw their Black Christine fanart. What does that tell you, when you have a Black woman in a relationship or friendship with a white man, who you view as abusive? This implies that you want Black women to be abused. You people claim to love Norm Lewis' Phantom and interact with non-white adaptations of the characters yet you paint Erik abusive and depraved. So why do you like Norm's Erik so much, huh? What does that tell you about how you see a Black Erik? You people profit off the pain and consumption of Black people under the guise of your false representation. You are anti Black and cover it under the guise of, "we welcome everyone."
You don't.
You don't make Black fans safe with interacting with @filthybonnet an anti-Black terf as well as madamefaust who thinks she's so high and mighty as to exploit Black trauma under the guise of "historical accuracy". You don't make Irani, darkskinned and Muslim fans feel safe when you fetishize the Daroga or call him slurs under the guise of calling out racism. The monkey "jokes" aren't funny. You are colorists. You make make mentally ill fans unsafe when you demonize Erik's trauma. You make fans with facial differences unsafe when you demonize Erik's face. You consistently make trans women unsafe by refusing to stop interacting with terfs. We can go on forever.
And if you just scroll past this post, knowing what goes on in this bullshit ass fandom, you're part of the problem. I bet y'all don't even care anyways.
Anyways Happy Black History month and fuck the ph*ndom.
I do not like y'all.
I better not see not one of y'all ever interact with my fics. I'll see all y'all in hell ♥️ and I do hope all y'all block me too. That's what you're good for anyways LMFAOOOOO
Better not see y'all bum asses talmbout ooh "I love Norm Lewis' Phantom. Ooh, I love Derrick Davis Phantom 🥰" while y'all support this anti-Black racist white woman. You only love Black people when they're suffering or when they're performing for you. You consume our pain and trauma and expect us to hold hands with you while you view us as subhuman. Similar to how y'all treat Erik.
Must be why you like Black Phantoms so much. Anyways.
Oh look what we have here! madamefaust putting out some performative ass shit about how she "loves" Norm Lewis whilst writing the tragic mulatto trope ft slavery on Raoul De Chagny 🤔
(I won't delete this btw, it's people like you that make this fandom impossible to navigate as a non-white person. You are a grown ass woman. I'm sure you can handle the pressure if you can write a slavery AU. I ain't listening to your non-Black crocodile tears too, so don't come into my inbox playing kumbaya cause it's not gonna work on my ass. Go read a book on anti-Blackness if you're such a librarian or better yet? Stay away from Black people all together. I know you be liking and reblogging posts featuring and from Black people too. I'm not accepting no apology neither. Go take that up with my ancestors.)
P.S: A colonized person venting out their oppression via the medium they enjoy is different from a privileged person weaponizing oppression for their own consumption and enjoyment. The historical traumatizing brutalization of Black PEOPLE is not your little plaything.
"YOUR CHAINS ARE STILL MINE, YOU WILL SING FOR ME!"
Me when Erik sings that ^
“Get a job, son” “Just not in theatre, we’ve seen your oeuvre.”
Saturday, March 6, 2021 • 9 p.m. EST: Hugh Panaro, Lisa Vroman & John Cudia (Broadway 2003)
It’s been a while since we watched Hugh, and who doesn’t want more Vroman and Cudia? I don’t really remember this one, so I’ll be just as entertained and/or surprised as the rest of you!
As always, stream will be on cy.tube and shy anons are welcome. Link and password will be posted here at 8:45.
Announcing the first guest for Phantoms for Leroux! The legendary Ethan Freeman!!
On April the 4th at 20.PM Theatreland radio will host Phantoms for Leroux, a two hour event on all things Phantom of the Opera. The event, raising money for La Cave De Gaston Leroux will feature much loved Phantoms past and present discussing their role and the original classic novel, music from well known and not so well known adaptations and much, much more!
Saturday, March 6, 2021 • 9 p.m. EST: Hugh Panaro, Lisa Vroman & John Cudia (Broadway 2003)
It’s been a while since we watched Hugh, and who doesn’t want more Vroman and Cudia? I don’t really remember this one, so I’ll be just as entertained and/or surprised as the rest of you!
As always, stream will be on cy.tube and shy anons are welcome. Link and password will be posted here at 8:45.
There was a server challenge to draw two or more different phantoms together and tbh I just wanted an excuse to interpret the book version in a sort of landsknecht outfit. May not be the most accurate but it was fun to draw
When you thought your crush was into you but you saw her singing on the roof of the opera house with some random guy and now they’re engaged
The mask toss is perfect. XD
My favorite part of Notes I is watching Raoul walk back and forth with the Phantom’s letters like
as if he’s gonna figure something out by comparing them and reading them over and over. He’s getting nowhere but at least he’s trying. 💫
Phantom & Christine from Phantom of the Opera
Elisabeth & Der Tod from Elisabeth
