I’ll do a proper post about the 50 Voices event tomorrow. For now I want to talk a bit about why I was so pleased to be able to take part.
An event put on by Ujima Radio in memory of Malcolm X is pretty obviously primarily about civil rights for people of color. That’s not something that I have much of a place speaking about. What I can do is sympathize somewhat. I’ll never be able to know what it is like to be a person of color, but I do know what it is like to part of a marginalized social group. It is a different experience for me, but there are some commonalities.
As an illustration, take a look at this excellent article by Indigenous Australian writer, Ambelin Kwaymullina. I know even less about being an Indigenous Australian than I do about being of African descent, but two points in the article resonated strongly with me. Firstly Ambelin talks about the dangers of a single narrative, which is very much the point that Emma Hutson was making about trans people in her paper at the conference on Friday.
Secondly Ambelin says this about the fact that work by Indigenous writers will be mainly published (or not), read and reviewed by non-Indigenous people:
This doesn’t mean that non-Indigenous peoples cannot understand or appreciate Indigenous work. In fact, I’d suggest the very thing books are for is to challenge and bewilder and inspire us by opening windows into worlds other than our own. But it does mean that people outside the culture from which a book comes may well find it harder to understand, and may even feel uncomfortable or confronted by the extent to which a text does not conform to their pre-existing ideas of what it is to be Indigenous.
Exactly the same is true for stories about trans people. They are mainly published, read and reviewed by people who are not trans, who may well not understand the trans characters, and who may even be repulsed by the presence of trans characters in the work (not looking at any Puppies in particular).
Now, here are a couple of tweets about Sense8 by someone who ought to know better:
https://twitter.com/GWillowWilson/status/609583083956736001
https://twitter.com/GWillowWilson/status/609583155922604033
Why else would you watch a Wachowski production? Because they are the only people in Hollywood I trust to do a good story about trans people.
And I’m not the only one. Check out this extract from Janet Mock’s TV show, So Popular, in which she interviews Jamie Clayton about the series.
Ms. Wilson, of course, is famous for writing a superhero comic about a Muslim girl living in New York. Personally I can absolutely see the value in that.
I don’t know whether Wilson has watched Sense8 and hated it, or whether she just dismisses everything that the Wachowskis do out of hand, but I can assure her that Sense8 is important to trans people for many of the same reasons that Ms Marvel is important to Muslims.
Intersectionality is all about understanding each other’s experience of oppression, and respecting that experience. It is about helping each other, rather than trying to lever ourselves up on the backs of people even more marginalized than we are. The folks at Ujima gave me space at their event to read a ranty poem about trans rights. I am enormously grateful to them for doing so.
Hmm, I don’t get the sense from those tweets that Wilson hates or is critiquing Sense8. The Wachowskis are known for their philosophical themes, so it seems more like she’s responding to someone else’s criticism of the show by pointing out that the quality the reviewer dislikes is a quality that is inherent in much of what the Wachowskis do, and if you don’t like that then really, what were you expecting? I don’t think she was saying that there was nothing [else] of value in the show, other than philosophical maunderings.
As per your previous comments, I’m enjoying Sense8 primarily for the character of Nomi and also for the way it plays with embodiment – watching characters have physical experiences that belong to other members of their cluster who are quite different from them in all sorts of ways, including gender and sexuality. Male characters experiencing periods and pregnancy, straight characters experiencing the physical sensations of gay sex, etc. But there are other aspects of the show that are falling a little short for me, and I wish it came together as a better whole.
You may be right about Wilson. 140 characters is very limiting. But she’s by no means the only cis person to say they see nothing of value in Sense8. In fact that appears to be the majority response. That’s in stark contrast to the reception it is getting from trans people.
You are spot on about the sharing experiences thing. The scene where Lito experiences Sun’s period is hilarious. And there’s a speech by Jonas in #10 which makes it clear that the ability to emphasize with others is a key advantage of the sensates over humans. It is all very Hippy, and I suspect that lots of younger people will hate it because of that, but it works well for me. I am, after all, from the same generation as Amanita’s mother.