I genuinely can not stand when there’s a black character in a TV show, especially if it’s a black woman character and she’s shipped with a well-known (male) character that’s beloved by the fandom, but the fandom treats her horribly.
I’ve seen this with every fandom I have been in, and each time it aggressively gets worse. For example, Damon and Bonnie from The Vampire Diaries. I have not read the books, but I have been told they did get together in them, and if I am not mistaken, I believe Ian was at least interested in the idea of Bonnie and Damon being together. When watching the show, you can see the chemistry; it just rubs off on each other. Yes, everyone knows Damon is a problematic character, but when he cares, he cares hard, and that especially goes for Bonnie. I wish the writers (Julie Plec) weren’t cowards and allowed us as an audience to see that side of their relationship blossom.
Then, with Mel and Jay from Arcane, the disgusting things I have seen this fandom do, the lengths that they go to treat Mel as an abuser in the relationship? To treat Mel as trash and not a character with complex qualities, just like everyone else in the show. Which is why I will forever side-eye any and every JayVik shipper. I do not care if you’re not the one perpetuating the stereotypes on Mel, but you being a shipper and seeing fellow shippers be distasteful; the least you can do is call them out on their behavior and make sure you’re not a safe space for them. Some fanfic writers have the nerve to write her as some aggressive black woman, and even Jay as aggressive sometimes, and Victor as the docile, could never hurt a fly character. Which is wrong, it’s disturbing, and it is racism.
Many fandom spaces are full of misogynoir and people who do not care to unpack their ignorance, even pick up a book and see why that is. Two authors I could easily recommend to people would be Bell Hooks and Toni Morrison. You have to do the work on unlearning racist and misogynistic behaviors because it is so deeply rooted in fandoms and other communities.
Whenever a black person decides to ship a black character and a non-black character together, I have seen many non-black people try to correct them, saying, “Oh, they’re just friends, he/she wouldn’t date them.” Are you the writer of the show? No, so what makes it right for you to police that person?
This goes with The Bear fandom and how people treat sydcarmy shippers. Why is it so shocking to you that people ship those two characters together? I personally haven't seen the show fully, but from the many clips I've seen of those two, I can see why people ship them, and even if I couldn’t, it's still not my place to police a person if it’s not doing any harm to anyone, or even the characters.
A lot of people love to humble black shippers and characters and force us into a box of some sort. While their counterparts get a safe space to be themselves.
With the Bridgerton fandom and their mistreatment of Michaela Stirling. It’s not just lesbianphobia, it’s racism, it’s misogyny. I see a lot of white lesbians and non-black lesbians in general forget to mention that racism plays a big role in why people want Michael Stirling and not Michaela Stirling. There are people in this fandom who will use AI and turn Michaela back into a man, but only a white man. As if the Kilmartin and Stirling families aren’t full of black people. I’m not interested in excuses either because more racism will go dismissed.
A lot of people don’t care to realize that if these problems do not get called out in fandoms, then we’ll have a situation like the Percy Jackson fandom and The Flash. As someone who grew up with both of those things, I am extremely tired of seeing the mistreatment of the actors and their characters. You don’t care about black women, you don’t even care about the character, you just want to insert yourself in these situations because of another character you love. A lot of white people have that problem, and we see it a lot in BookTok. I have seen it all my life.
