Inclusivity

Deb Haaland has been sworn in as Secretary of the Interior! This is a historic moment for all Native Americans, and a first step to finally getting some justice for all the land grabs and broken treaties over the centuries. It'll be good to have her working for climate change and green energy too. Also, I've read about an upcoming show on Peacock called Rutherford Falls, which features indigenous people both onscreen and behind the scenes. Sounds great, and I'd love it to be better than that Stumptown show which had some complex Native characters that were unfortunately overshadowed by the P.I.'s soap opera life. (Meanwhile the stupid Washington Football Team continues to not have a new name, after nixing its old slur months ago. Lazy cowards.)

The horrific murders in Atlanta highlight how much Asian women have been oversexualized, such that people assume that massage workers are sex workers. (Not that it's wrong to be a sex worker, if it's a voluntary career choice. We need to stop criminal exploitation/slavery though.) It's the same stereotype of Japanese geisha as prostitutes, with white men fetishizing them for being petite and submissive. Plus, since the pandemic, there's been a rise in hate crimes against all Asian people in general.

Representation can help combat stereotypes and othering. I hear that this year's Oscar nominations are good for Blacks and Asians, though we'll have to see if that translates into any actual wins, or if some votes will be split, such as the two Judas actors both nominated as supporting actors. (Were they trying to avoid competing with Chadwick Boseman in the lead category?) There's also a chance that the Academy will vote for Mank, the movie about Hollywood, because Hollywood are so freaking in love with themselves and their history.

On TV, the CW's Kung Fu reboot rights a wrong, by actually casting Asian people as leads instead of white people in yellow face. I'm excited for it, especially with Tzi Ma in it as the father. I hope it will be good. Still glad that the Asian girl is the lead on Netflix's new Irregulars too.

On Black Lightning, Grace Choi finally came out of her coma, though it's still frustrating that her wife Anissa took so long to confess the marriage to her family. I did like the creative way that the show recast Jen through her ionosphere explosion. It seems that Tobias Whale also has a new Asian henchwoman Val, whom he even refers to as a "friend" with ALS. We'll have to see how that goes, or if she becomes expendable. Meanwhile, Lala got encased in cement and displayed on a wall like Han Solo in carbonite. It also reminded a little of the tragic story of Quynh from The Old Guard, where she was trapped in an Iron Maiden and dumped into the ocean to die and revive over and over in a loop. Creepy. I hope that that movie gets a sequel, so we can see how Quynh escaped that trap.