Looks like Issa Rae read the open letter from the CFC
“Respectfully, “Awkward Black Girl” was never meant to be politically correct. We poke fun at ignorance. Response letter coming soon.”
This does not look promising :(
oh wow.
fuck you issa rae. unless your plan is to poke fun at yourself for being transphobic and anti-asian.
oh no…
Nope. I fall on the side of the creator with this one. I’ve written characters that have said some careless, ignorant shit but it is not a reflection of my personal views or beliefs. A flawless character is not a character. Fictional characters will not always be someone that you 100% agree with. Just because you identify with them in one aspect is no guarantee that you’ll identify with them in another. Even when the character is the heroine/protagonist/lead.
And I take firm exception to attempting to regulate the script of the show by stating “we hope that by raising this concern you will respond accordingly by not using such language in future episodes.”
Who’s writing this thing anyway?
However, to anyone that has concluded based on dialog that the creator is irresponsible or multi-phobic go ahead and boycott. Withdraw your support. We all know that’s what’s coming next. Backlash has increasingly become the foundation of Internet discourse.
One minute they love you….
People don’t have to support shows that demean & objectify them or their friends. I get that ABG is supposed to be the show of shows or whatever. But, some of those black women she’s trying to reach? They are black trans women. And just like I turn off shows for being too racist, I don’t expect anyone to keep watching something that trades on trans misogynistic slurs if that makes their experience less enjoyable. Saying that it’s the character, not the writer is such a copout. The writer puts the words in the character’s mouth & the writer decides if the character will suffer any repercussions for those words. And yes, flawed characters are necessary, but the way a writer handles those flaws says a lot about the writer. I don’t want my identity used as an insult, & the expectation that transgender people should just accept the casual use of slurs that can get them hurt or killed as a joke? I can’t with this shit. I hope Issa is going somewhere else with this response, but if she’s not and there is backlash? She deserves that backlash. No one owes her a damned thing. Least of all their time & support while she insults their identity.
I get the impulse to support an independent show created and run by a black woman. That’s so rare and so hard to sustain. I do get it. But Issa Rae should know better. Her whole rationale behind creating the show was to create entertainment that doesn’t objectify or erase black women, and she’s going to pull this “politically correct” bullshit because it’s trans or queer or disabled people? Wow.
This hurts. It really, really hurts.
(Source: urbanafrofuturism)
