Reply-Reply to Sheabuttertwistout: Waxing Moon
sheabuttertwistout replied to your post: Deities, Death, and Devotion
shadow sees laura as a god how white feminist of you
I didn’t really mean that in the sense of worshiping or him seeing her as “greater than” in someway, but more in the context of what Gods are in AG. Johnny Appleseed is a God. Paul Bunyan, which the book mistakenly presents as a creation of marketing without any basis in actual folktales(or maybe it was just presenting Appleseed as thinking that out of bitterness), is a God. Later in the book you see Car Gods and Train Gods and TV Gods. Does anyone see these as worthy of worship in the conventional sense, or as “greater than”, more “real”, than people? Any person(post-mortem, it seems; I don’t think they present any living people as gods), or thing, or concept infused with sufficient belief, devotion and attention, or love, becomes a divine being/a daimon/a god in the American Gods universe. There’s a line in the Nunyunnini bit which says, “gods come from the heart, and to the heart they return”; who or what do humans hold in their hearts more powerfully than the people they’ve lost, Good and Bad? That, for the most part, is what I meant by the “something like a God” comment; Shadow remembers and is devoted to his wife, even after her betrayals, even after the pain she’s caused him. He loves her, and he doesn’t stop loving her, even if that love becomes more painful and complicated after her death, and what she did, forces him to see her more clearly.
But I also mean it in a different way. Shadow’s concept of Laura, the Laura that Shadow “believes in” most strongly, isn’t the real Laura at all, but rather a sort of “image of faith” he has constructed out of the meaning he has invested her with. The show is very clear about this in ways the book never is, both because it’s mostly from Shadow’s perspective and he never really questions his devotion to Laura, and because it never really takes the time to be interested in her as a character. The first time we see her in the series she is literally laying, cruciform, on their conjugal bed, in their home, floating in a sea of pure white light which is pouring through a hole in Shadow’s cell wall. Like, the religious imagery in that scene, and thus in Shadow’s concept of Laura(along with his concept of the outside world and domesticity and freedom) is obvious. Equally obvious is how unrealistic it is, and that unreality only grows the more we learn about Laura. But this isn’t a one-sided thing; neither of them sees the other accurately.
Laura -misanthropic, thrill-seeking, selfish, manipulative, very likely deeply depressed, deceitful Laura- saw Shadow as a dangerous, muscular, stupid, exciting thief; strikes him when he refuses to play that role sexually, comes to resent him for loving her and being happy in a boring domestic life and seeking to better himself, hates herself for “bringing a thief(him) home” and sees nothing emotionally fulfilling in how he’s turned his life around with her, blames him for a lack of happiness that definitely plagued her before she ever even met him and which she’s never, seemingly, even considered doing anything about.
Shadow -lonely, love-starved, grief-stricken(before Laura the death of his mother), big-hearted, quiet and invisible Shadow- saw Laura as a way out; as a redeeming love and attention, a lifeline in high seas, a safe harbor from, since the death of his mother, an aimless, self-destructive, and empty life of risk and physical danger. He takes for himself all the blame of his decisions, even the “bad luck” of getting caught, but gives himself zero credit for becoming a better person and making a better life for himself; he credits Laura with that when how he has changed is something she not only doesn’t appreciate, but deeply resents. Like Polunochnaya says he “keeps giving his life away”. Shadow invests too much meaning and loyalty in others, and not enough in himself. He is looking to be part of something; to give himself to something or someone. I don’t think this is racial. I think this has to do with his background, his childhood, and the death of his mother, which I hope they’ll go more into later in the series, and I think it ties into how he chooses to see the people he aligns with and particularly his romantic partners.
That the show goes to such lengths to establish this, far beyond what the book does, suggests to me that this connection between relationships and faith, this metaphor of love-as-religion, as both sustaining and inaccurate, is something the showrunners intend to dwell on, and to use to characterize Shadow and Laura. And race is definitely a part of that.
It’s pretty clear how Laura interprets Shadows blackness; her ease with hitting him, her immediate decision that he was dangerous and “rough”, her resentment at his domesticity, the dehumanizing and patronizing nature of calling him “Puppy” and, as Aubrey says, seeing him as a pet. Frankly I think they make Laura’s racism, how unexamined it is by her, and its role in their relationship rather clear.
What isn’t as clear at the moment, I think, is how Shadow thinks of race. We’ve seen some of it. He worries over racial violence in prison. He physically restrains himself in the face of white racism a handful of times, glosses over being lynched to a doctor to keep cops out of the situation, and we’ve seen his anger, frustration, and fear at being lynched expressed to Wednesday. Aside from this confrontation, though, Shadow doesn’t talk about these things; they’ve been expressed through Whittle’s body-language and the cinematography. I think it can safely be said he is comfortable being black at the same time that he is constantly aware of the ever-present danger racism presents to a black man in America. He is very careful about how he moves and holds himself, and what he does and how he speaks -about making sudden moves, being intimidating, saying or doing anything that could be conceived of as threatening, violent, or loud- because he knows how that gets over-interpreted and where that leads. He is always prepared for racism from white people(his reaction to Wednesday talking about Jesus), and really likes not encountering it(his interactions with Low Key and the Zorya sisters as opposed to how on-edge and closed off he is around Sweeney and Chernobog). He works hard to present himself as non-threatening(the coin and card tricks, how calm and soft and soothing his normal speaking voice is), really doesn’t like being put in situations where he has to be threatening or “tough”, and cultivates patience and a cool head. In this respect Whittle’s performance has been great; I think the critics who’ve said otherwise just can’t see what he’s doing physically. I don’t think Shadow is self-hating by any means. How his concept of whiteness influenced his relationship with Laura is still unclear at this point, I think. I think, perhaps, Shadow’s the sort of person who blinds themselves to the flaws and difficult qualities of the people they love.
No question, how Shadow see’s Laura(and vice versa) is screwy and how Laura repeatedly takes advantage(or attempts to as in Lemon Scented You) of his rose-toned image of her is worse, and no question race is a part of this, but I think this is intentional characterization on the part of the showrunners, and I don’t think they’re done with it yet.
