So let’s talk about something...
Hi guys, I wanted to get on and talk about something that has always bothered me but has just been getting on my last nerve as of late.
So Superman & Lois aired a new episode recently titled “Holding the Wrench”. Within this episode, there is a scene between Lois and her son Johnathan where Lois yells at him (Clip attached further into the post). Said son almost lost his life in tonight’s episode and Lois had every right to be upset with him for putting himself in that type of position, especially because he is the only child without superpowers. What was not right was what she said to him while she “reprimanded” him, and if you watch the clip Lois calls her son “stupid” and yells at him to “Get out of [her] face”. I did not like this one bit, especially because it was too reminiscent of how my own mother used to and still occasionally speaks to me. I had self-esteem issues because of comments my mother made in the heat of the moment that she, later on, forgot. Those words, however, stayed with me and stay with me to this day. I understand that she was upset and a one-off thing doesn’t automatically make her a bad mom. I can forgive and try to understand her character in this instance. Her son put his life in danger, she was scared, upset, and angry, so she said things in a way that no parent should be saying things to their kids. That I get, but what I don’t get is how she is receiving praise for it? I have seen people on Twitter saying things along the lines of; #MomGoals, commending her great parenting skills, said the conversation was so realistic, they love how she wears the pants in her marriage. I don’t think it should have to be said but that scene is NOT #MomGoals. That scene should not be what we consider normal and realistic, because yes it was realistic, but its realism comes from a type of parenting that has left my parents and I’s relationship not fully healed. IT SHOULD NOT BE RECOGNIZED AS THE NORM. (Please calm down before you engage with your child about a serious matter, things like this stick with them and you hurt yourself and them when you let it play out like this.)
Here’s the clip:
The main issue I’m having lies in the fact that Lois is receiving praise for this behavior whereas if we were to see a character such as Iris West-Allen (The Flash, 2014-) from the same network act remotely like this with one of her kids she would be labeled as a #BadMom, they would condemn her parenting skills, say her reaction is over the top and not real at all, speak out on why she insists on acting like she wears the pants in her and Barry’s marriage, etc. If Lois was receiving a portion of the backlash that Iris would receive I would not have a problem, because I would say regardless of who it was backlash should come. The way that parent handled the situation was wrong and that should be called out, but that’s not what’s happening. Lois is being PRAISED! And it raises the question of why? If this is very clearly not okay, why is Lois being praised where Iris would be condemned? The answer is very simple. Female characters of color are not given the same luxury to be flawed in comparison to their Non-Women of color counterparts. This is what has been truly bothering me for the past couple of days. I have had to sit and watch as fandom after fandom villainizes black women for the same things their Non-Women of color counterparts also do, yet the fandom routinely, without fail gives a pass to the NWoC.
*The Flash season 5 spoilers ahead*
In season 5 of The Flash, Nora West-Allen future daughter of Barry Allen and Iris West-Allen comes back from the future(2045) to visit her parents in 2019. We later find out that in Nora’s future timeline, her father Barry Allen disappears in the year 2024 when she’s about four years old, thus she has no recollection of him and grows up not knowing that her father was the Flash. Her mother Iris West-Allen keeps Nora’s speedster heritage a secret and implants her with a power-dampening chip in order to hide Nora’s powers from her. As you know, Nora finds out, gets upset with her mother for lying to her, and time-travels to visit her parents in the past (2019). For the choice of dampening Nora’s powers Iris, all-season was labeled as a #BadMom even though Iris(2019 version) in our timeline, couldn’t imagine doing that to Nora in the future. Do I think dampening Nora’s powers was great parenting? It’s debatable. Should Iris(2045 version) have told Nora once Nora reached her late 20’s? Probably, but can we truly not understand why she kept it a secret? Iris in 2024 had JUST lost her husband and didn’t know if he’d ever make it back to her and their child (In that timeline as far as we know he never made it back to them). She became the sole caretaker of a meta-human child when she herself was not a meta-human. How was she really supposed to be expected to keep up with a kid who has super-speed when that was what Barry would do, because he actually had the super-speed to match, but now he’s gone? Iris West-Allen has had to watch Barry Allen almost die multiple times, suffer immensely, and then actually disappear leaving her a single mother and people can’t understand why she hid all that from her child? We all saw how reckless Nora was as an adult! Could you imagine her in her adolescence? If heroism runs in the family and it was what cost you your husband’s life, would you allow your daughter to have the chance to follow in his footsteps? I’m still not saying that I think she did everything right and we honestly don’t know the details of how future Iris handled it, but my point is even though these are two completely different circumstances one thing remains the same. These moms both messed up in one way or another, but it’s clear they love their kids and as an audience, we should be able to both sympathize and empathize with what they were going through at the time, BUT it is a blatant problem when one mother receives praise and understanding, where another mother is villainized and people refuse to try and understand where she’s coming from. One must ask themselves why is the reaction so different? Why does one receive understanding and another harsh criticism?
The answer is privilege.
I know most people don’t want to hear it, but it is the truth. The reason these two characters who share similar characteristics are treated so differently is that of privilege. Because Lois Lane is a character who is a Non-Women of color she acquires the privilege of being given the benefit of the doubt. She is given the privilege to have her wrongs swept under the rug of her previous good deeds, to have them not turned into egregious stains that sully her moral fiber, to have them not constantly be brought back up in order to jeopardize any development her character has made. THIS is a privilege not granted to Iris West-Allen for one reason and one reason alone, it is the same reason that the sentence “We are the Flash” which stood for Barry and Iris’ superpower as a couple being their emotional support for each other through all the trauma being (and being involved with) the Flash brings as well as their unity as a newlywedded couple, was turned into a weapon to mock and ridicule Iris’s character because the fandom refused to search for the meaning/message behind the words that the main character, Barry Allen himself, drew strength from. I would not be as upset if it was just her character that experiences events like this, but it also happens to a multitude of black characters within fandom circles! They are consistently misunderstood and villainized due to “fans” not caring enough to give them the dignity of compassion! This further shows that it is the fault of none other than internalized racism and misogynoir (Especially in male dominated fandoms).
What is Misogynoir?
Definition: misogyny directed towards black women where race and gender both play roles in bias.
What is Internalized Racism?
Definition: Internalized racism is the personal conscious or subconscious acceptance of the dominant society’s racist views, stereotypes, and biases of one’s ethnic group. It gives rise to patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that result in discriminating, minimizing, criticizing, finding fault, invalidating, and hating oneself while simultaneously valuing the dominant culture.
Notice how within the definition I emphasized the word subconscious because most people believe that to be racist you must actively and openly say the N-word or discriminate against People of color, but that is just the loudest version of racism. Many Black and other PoC scholars have spoken out about how internalized and systematic racism is just as much an issue as blatant racism. Many people hide their racism by saying “Oh, I like the actress/actor just not the character.” and to that statement, I ask do you really? Or are you really saying, “The reason I don’t dislike this character can’t be because they’re black if I claim to like the actress/actor!” (For some people the first sentence truly is the case and that’s fine, but most people say the first sentence, however what they truly mean is the latter.) What I’m getting at is that people need to realize they are more readily understanding and forgiving of characters who are Non-Women of Color over Women of Color and that that is internalized racism. We were raised with it, we all struggle with its effects, and we all need to acknowledge its existence in order to enact change. I could go on for days and speak on how Women of Color, specifically Black women are forced to grow up faster than their NWoC counterparts, or how specifically Black women are over-sexualized and seen a less innocent at a younger age than their NWoC counterparts, or how even at the doctor’s office Black women specifically DIE at higher rates because DOCTORS (Some not all, and due to internalized racism) REFUSE TO LISTEN TO AND SYMPATHIZE WITH THESE WOMEN. Are you seeing a trend in how we treat Black women in real life and how that translates to how we treat Black female characters in fandom? I spoke on Women of Color today and more specifically Black women, but this also includes all Males of Color such as John Boyega, and what him and his character face within that fandom.
My point is if you condemn and refuse to understand or sympathize with a Character of Color over one thing, and then give that courtesy you refused them to a Non-Character of Color over the same issue, then you are part of the problem.
(I have attached articles below to encourage further reading on matters such as these. Just because something doesn’t directly affect you doesn’t mean it’s not worth caring or learning about. Racism and all it’s forms are not just something you unlearn, it is a constant restructuring of the mind. We all have things to unlearn that society has wrongfully taught us, but it’s our job to stay on top of it and hold ourselves accountable for our view points.)
Find Articles on Internalized Racism here:
https://www.racialequitytools.org/resources/fundamentals/core-concepts/internalized-racism
Articles on Sexualization and Adultification of young Black girls:
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-inequality-center/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2017/08/girlhood-interrupted.pdf
https://www.newyorkminutemag.com/black-girls-forced-to-grow-up-too-soon/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/parenting/adultification-black-girls.html
Articles on The struggles of Black female patients:
https://www.oprah.com/health_wellness/the-article-that-could-help-save-black-womens-lives#ixzz5VRnkBHiz
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00367-6/fulltext
