i had to come back to put together a few things i keep thinking about:
they already associated armand with islam via him praying as fake rashid
they conflated armand with assad, a british bangladeshi muslim (as far as i know), by referring to him as a french bengali in the show when that had nothing to do with what we previously knew about the character
armand is assisted in torturing louis by fareed, presumably supposed to be muslim
louis is beheaded and armand is using livestreaming - reminiscent of videos used of hostages beheaded by terrorist groups in west asia
armand is wearing a metal bangle reminiscent of the one sikhs wear
armand is wearing a vaguely military-looking shirt even though this is very unlike his normal taste
all this is saying to me that theyre just jumbling together anything that says to them brown person terrorist muslim torturer insane fanatic
then theres the big boss song
lyrics about armand perpetrating executions (never mind he got taught that in rome - if hes doing eugenics they are in fact catholic tinged eugenics) and stating its his decision alone who dies (ignoring the involvement of white characters)
big SS on the cd cover blatantly associating him with nazis
daniel calls him dr mengele - a nazi who tortured ppl by experimenting on them
armand and fareed desecrate a kosher space by spilling human blood in the butchers shop
so its not exactly a coherent framing but i think its still a framing
then theres the fact that his csa history, after being the subject of mockery, is now brought up seriously, at long last, in this context! what is that telling us? especially since so much focus has been given to lestat over an abuse story they made up from whole cloth.
but lestat was abused by a woman. armand, we are constantly told, was a catamite. hes a twink bottom. he was a limp, passive ragdoll for sale. his daddy groomed him into a little bitch. hes emasculated, a beige pillow, his sexual performance is so-so, hes desperate and needy, hes a pussy and a betaboi. in short, hes too gay, not lestats ideal of a masculine bisexual man. like this is some kind of corruption of character, being the receptive partner in anal sex
what the fuck are they doing here. hes a nazi, and also a brown terrorist, and also a 'passive' homosexual. what the actual fuck are they doing. they chose his indian background for him and have done nothing with it except racism.
anyway im off again. as soon as the conversations started being more about 'how dare armand be cruel to louis' instead of 'how dare the writers do this to the characters and the viewers' it felt like we slipped off the track you know?
this show, once, seemed like it wanted to be conscious of race and sexuality and the intersections of different identities and now look at what its doing. jesus fucking christ. its antiblackness and islamophobia, anti asian and queerphobic and homophobic sentiment all rolled together, like it was designed to pit different segments of the audience against each other. a known far right tactic against the left! the only question is whether anyone drove this deliberately or whether they fell into it through prejudice and ignorance of their own blind spots. one thing is clearly deliberate though - they knew in the past theyd told us armand perpetrated the trial out of fear and insecurity, and people still hated him. in tvl they told us he wasnt just willing but having a good time. they made the brown abuse survivor a happy, gleeful torturer of black people.
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