"No, I love the Irish. When they're not trying to kill me."
The top part of this post has sort of spiralled into an unpacking your privilege post. The bottom part remains about 
dark_agenda's racebending challenge. Leverage is a theme throughout. Cuts are in operation.
I now have only three episodes left of Leverage S2. It's still one of very few shows which genuinely just makes me laugh, properly laugh, alone in my flat in the middle of the night. I love (all of) the characters and I want more fic. S2 does, however, feature an episode with an Irish gang. As Nate is Boston Irish Catholic, and given the plots of the show, it wasn't entirely out of the blue. It still pissed me off (the episode hit other things I don't like anyway but I can't detach the Irish part from the other parts).
The episode talked about Belfast (I think pronounced in the way that people who don't know how to say it, say it) but used 'Ireland'. Now, that could have been a commentary on the fact that probably the gang in question would have used Ireland, because of their demographics, but frankly I don't think the show was being that smart. Belfast is in Northern Ireland. It's my capital, and Ireland is a different country. Even if you're coming from a Nationalist background, Ireland is a different country in terms of your experiences. The vast majority of the Irish people don't care about reunification because it's a ridiculous expense for no benefit. The UK doesn't really want us either, but they did the screwing-up, so they have to pay for the upkeep.
It was the usual vast oversimplification/treating the IRA like just another gang. It is, I will grant, more true now that the terrorists on both sides (Real/Provisional/New whatever they're calling themselves today IRA, UVF, UDA) operate in ways more familiar to gangs - drugs, weapons, protection - than for any political aims. But the IRA were not just a gang, they were engaged in a protracted campaign of terrorism and I get to say that because my people were the ones being fucking terrorised. I suppose I should be grateful that they didn't have the noble freedom fighters cliche instead.
We had government opression and discrimination, government violent abuse of power. Fights over national language, over calling a city Derry or Londonderry. Flags, National anthems. Gerrymandering, non-jury trials, detention without trial. After 9/11 there were all the news stories from English channels about the changes in security laws and new powers. And back home we were watching this all going: 'wait, your police don't carry guns? You don't see soldiers in riot gear on your streets on a regular basis? You don't hear police helicopters all the time? You don't hear a bang and think bomb before anything else? You don't get the bomb squad in because some kid forgot their clarinet on the bus?' Equally we're not a wasteland. There's an emerging music scene, a rise in integrated education, the promotion of Belfast as a short-break destination. I remember the signing of the Good Friday agreement and I know I grew up in a very different country than the one my parents came through.
But, you see, I know all this because this is where I grew up. I don't know how many Americans were watching that episode and cringing. Heroes featured Irish characters and someone at some point thought they were doing it right. I haven't seen a sensible portrayal of my country anywhere. I barely see any sensible portrayals of England coming out of the US either.
Which brings me, tangentially, to my current concern. Northern Ireland is, according to the last census, 99.15% white. Oxford is apparently 83.9% white. It seemed to me, moving here as a student, as a haven of diversity. I do realise that my perspective may have been slightly skewed! (I also doubt that number a little. I don't think 8 in 10 people I pass are white. Then the number probably doesn't count students, and people work in Oxford but don't live there). My workplace is all white. We have a show this week with a British Asian company, and the audiences have been much less than our usual because our core audience is middle-class white (and clearly racist, as one staff-member announced today) and we don't have much of an Asian audience coming to our particular theatre, probably partially because we have no real history of diverse programming. I'm aware, when I'm writing, of how narrow my experiences are.
I'm now somewhat concerned that this sounds like oh, poor me, I couldn't help my privileged background! I mean, I can pass as English until I speak. (And then get remarks like the subject line/the general assumption that I'm thick/my accent is wrong). I'm a foreigner in England but I'm still white in a majority white city. I can pass as straight because I'm only bi if people ask, and I present as fairly traditionally female. I'm not complaining about this. What I'm thinking about is what I'm screwing up and not realising it. Like those US TV producers who think Irish is a plot-point and not a history. They do not, presumably, believe themselves to be acting in ignorance. Good intentions aren't enough but working on that is my own thing to sort out.
So I'm pretty sure I'm going to write Leverage for the racebending challenge. What I want to do is use an African American Nate and tackle, in some way 'the race card'. Hardison has used this as a technique to get out of trouble at least three times in canon, and I want to do something with that, because the show is very optimistic about how often it would actually work. And I'm fighting with wondering whether this is this about: would Nate do things differently, if he wasn't white, or is it: would people react to Nate differently, if he were doing the same things, but he wasn't white. Which is a complicated mess of factors playing in different directions. I need to show that his charge in and bluff your way through wouldn't always work, but I can't play it that no one would believe a black guy pretending he's in authority. Because that's equally ridiculous. And then I'm wondering about his history, because Nate's dad and his upbringing aren't going to be the same.
So I'm going to need a beta, and not to chicken out. I have to believe being scared of messing up won't hurt my chances of getting it more right? And I do feel for the poor mods ♥
This entry was originally posted at http://blackeyedgirl.dreamwidth.org/135619.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
dark_agenda's racebending challenge. Leverage is a theme throughout. Cuts are in operation.
I now have only three episodes left of Leverage S2. It's still one of very few shows which genuinely just makes me laugh, properly laugh, alone in my flat in the middle of the night. I love (all of) the characters and I want more fic. S2 does, however, feature an episode with an Irish gang. As Nate is Boston Irish Catholic, and given the plots of the show, it wasn't entirely out of the blue. It still pissed me off (the episode hit other things I don't like anyway but I can't detach the Irish part from the other parts).
The episode talked about Belfast (I think pronounced in the way that people who don't know how to say it, say it) but used 'Ireland'. Now, that could have been a commentary on the fact that probably the gang in question would have used Ireland, because of their demographics, but frankly I don't think the show was being that smart. Belfast is in Northern Ireland. It's my capital, and Ireland is a different country. Even if you're coming from a Nationalist background, Ireland is a different country in terms of your experiences. The vast majority of the Irish people don't care about reunification because it's a ridiculous expense for no benefit. The UK doesn't really want us either, but they did the screwing-up, so they have to pay for the upkeep.
It was the usual vast oversimplification/treating the IRA like just another gang. It is, I will grant, more true now that the terrorists on both sides (Real/Provisional/New whatever they're calling themselves today IRA, UVF, UDA) operate in ways more familiar to gangs - drugs, weapons, protection - than for any political aims. But the IRA were not just a gang, they were engaged in a protracted campaign of terrorism and I get to say that because my people were the ones being fucking terrorised. I suppose I should be grateful that they didn't have the noble freedom fighters cliche instead.
We had government opression and discrimination, government violent abuse of power. Fights over national language, over calling a city Derry or Londonderry. Flags, National anthems. Gerrymandering, non-jury trials, detention without trial. After 9/11 there were all the news stories from English channels about the changes in security laws and new powers. And back home we were watching this all going: 'wait, your police don't carry guns? You don't see soldiers in riot gear on your streets on a regular basis? You don't hear police helicopters all the time? You don't hear a bang and think bomb before anything else? You don't get the bomb squad in because some kid forgot their clarinet on the bus?' Equally we're not a wasteland. There's an emerging music scene, a rise in integrated education, the promotion of Belfast as a short-break destination. I remember the signing of the Good Friday agreement and I know I grew up in a very different country than the one my parents came through.
But, you see, I know all this because this is where I grew up. I don't know how many Americans were watching that episode and cringing. Heroes featured Irish characters and someone at some point thought they were doing it right. I haven't seen a sensible portrayal of my country anywhere. I barely see any sensible portrayals of England coming out of the US either.
Which brings me, tangentially, to my current concern. Northern Ireland is, according to the last census, 99.15% white. Oxford is apparently 83.9% white. It seemed to me, moving here as a student, as a haven of diversity. I do realise that my perspective may have been slightly skewed! (I also doubt that number a little. I don't think 8 in 10 people I pass are white. Then the number probably doesn't count students, and people work in Oxford but don't live there). My workplace is all white. We have a show this week with a British Asian company, and the audiences have been much less than our usual because our core audience is middle-class white (and clearly racist, as one staff-member announced today) and we don't have much of an Asian audience coming to our particular theatre, probably partially because we have no real history of diverse programming. I'm aware, when I'm writing, of how narrow my experiences are.
I'm now somewhat concerned that this sounds like oh, poor me, I couldn't help my privileged background! I mean, I can pass as English until I speak. (And then get remarks like the subject line/the general assumption that I'm thick/my accent is wrong). I'm a foreigner in England but I'm still white in a majority white city. I can pass as straight because I'm only bi if people ask, and I present as fairly traditionally female. I'm not complaining about this. What I'm thinking about is what I'm screwing up and not realising it. Like those US TV producers who think Irish is a plot-point and not a history. They do not, presumably, believe themselves to be acting in ignorance. Good intentions aren't enough but working on that is my own thing to sort out.
So I'm pretty sure I'm going to write Leverage for the racebending challenge. What I want to do is use an African American Nate and tackle, in some way 'the race card'. Hardison has used this as a technique to get out of trouble at least three times in canon, and I want to do something with that, because the show is very optimistic about how often it would actually work. And I'm fighting with wondering whether this is this about: would Nate do things differently, if he wasn't white, or is it: would people react to Nate differently, if he were doing the same things, but he wasn't white. Which is a complicated mess of factors playing in different directions. I need to show that his charge in and bluff your way through wouldn't always work, but I can't play it that no one would believe a black guy pretending he's in authority. Because that's equally ridiculous. And then I'm wondering about his history, because Nate's dad and his upbringing aren't going to be the same.
So I'm going to need a beta, and not to chicken out. I have to believe being scared of messing up won't hurt my chances of getting it more right? And I do feel for the poor mods ♥
This entry was originally posted at http://blackeyedgirl.dreamwidth.org/135619.html. Please comment there using OpenID.